My IQ has been increasing year by year.

The office was quiet.

The water dispenser occasionally emitted a soft heating sound, and the water bubbles tumbled in the bucket before settling back down.

"I already replied and refused a few days ago at the internet cafe."

Chen Zhuo's voice was soft, and his tone was the same as when he usually discussed what to eat in the cafeteria at night in the dormitory, without any fluctuations.

The Taoist priest sat behind his desk, maintaining a slightly forward-leaning posture.

He looked at Chen Zhuo across from him, his gaze lingering on that calm face for a long time.

Fang Yuanming, standing to the side and slightly behind, leaned against the filing cabinet, his hands unconsciously slipping into his coat pockets, his fingers twitching slightly inside. Fang Shi slowly sat up straight.

He reached out and picked up the two A4 sheets of paper with Princeton's portrait printed on them, looked at them again, and then gently placed them aside. "Rejected."

The sorcerer repeated the three words.

"Um."

Chen Zhuo picked up the paper cup on the coffee table and took a sip of warm water.

The Taoist priest leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, took out a cleaning cloth from the drawer, and wiped the lenses.

"Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton".

The sorcerer spoke while wiping his glasses, his voice calm and even.

"Professor Derian not only sent a formal invitation, but he also mentioned in the email that as long as you are willing to go, they will take care of all the expenses, including the visa, airfare, and accommodation there." Fang Shi put his glasses back on and looked at Chen Zhuo.

"What's the reason?"

Chen Zhuo put down the paper cup.

"...It's too far."

Chen Zhuo said.

He sat in the chair, his hands resting naturally on his lap.

"To get to New Jersey, you have to change planes several times and deal with jet lag."

Chen Zhuo sounded very serious.

"Besides, I don't think I'll be used to the food there. I even find the food in our own cafeteria a bit greasy sometimes."

Fang Yuanming stood in the corner, turned his head to look out the window, looked at the bare branches of the sycamore tree, and pursed his lips hard.

The sorcerer tapped his finger twice on the table.

"Just because it's far away, and you're worried you won't like the food?"

"There are still procedures to complete."

Chen Zhuo thought for a moment and then added.

"The procedures for cross-border exchanges are too complicated. You have to get a passport, a visa, and fill out a bunch of forms in English. It's too much trouble."

"Anything else?" the sorcerer asked, looking at him.

Chen Zhuo thought for a moment.

"It's mainly unnecessary."

Chen Zhuo looked at the alchemist with a calm tone.

"Going there wouldn't be of much help."

The sorcerer paused for a moment.

He picked up the dark gray thermos beside him, unscrewed the lid, and took a sip of water.

The heat fogged up the lenses with a thin layer of mist, which quickly dissipated.

"Chen Zhuo".

The Taoist priest put down his thermos and his tone became more formal.

"Leaving aside these personal reasons, let's talk about the contents of this email."

The Taoist priest pointed to the two A4 sheets of paper.

"Drian's team has been stuck on the problem of physical singularity boundaries for more than half a year. They are using the most advanced continuous manifold tools available today." Fang Shi looked into Chen Zhuo's eyes.

"You're a freshman, and you saw their preprints at school. How did you come up with the idea of ​​abandoning their original approach and applying discrete algebra to this model?" Chen Zhuo looked at the two sheets of paper on the table.

He didn't answer immediately, but instead gathered his thoughts for a moment.

"Because I can't keep calculating it," Chen Zhuo said.

The Taoist priest raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Tell me more about it."

"I happened to be reading the Russian version of 'Foundations of Algebraic Topology' last fall."

Chen Zhuo's voice was calm and unhurried, as if he were answering a regular question in class.

"When I was looking up information on this topic online, I happened to come across the preprint that Princeton had published online."

Chen Zhuo gestured lightly in the air with his finger.

"Professor Derian and his colleagues used a method that starts from the spacetime continuity of general relativity and uses calculus to derive the gravitational state near the singularity." Fang Shi nodded; this was the consensus and conventional approach in the physics community.

"But if we continue down the line of continuous calculus, when we reach the singularity, the denominator will inevitably approach zero." Chen Zhuo looked at Fang Shi. "When the denominator approaches zero, the value will explode and diverge into infinity." "In order to prevent the formula from collapsing, they introduced renormalization in the preprint."

Chen Zhuo paused for a moment.

"From a mathematical point of view, that's not a clean enough process."

The sorcerer looked at him but did not interrupt.

"They are using continuous tools to cut a node that was not originally continuous."

Chen Zhuo frowned slightly, seemingly feeling somewhat awkward about the algorithm itself.

"To force a result, you truncate it and take an approximation. In the logic of pure mathematics, this patched-up formula looks very ugly." "So you smashed continuous spacetime?" the sorcerer asked.

"Since continuous paths are blocked and the denominator will become zero, we should not take continuous paths."

Chen Zhuo's tone was very natural, as if he had encountered a puddle and naturally chose to go around it.

"I just happened to have some discrete algebra tools on hand at the time, so I casually tried to build a mesh model."

Chen Zhuo lowered his hand.

"Replace the infinitely approaching continuous variables with discrete algebraic nodes. In a discrete matrix, there is no concept of approaching zero, only definite algebraic mappings. In this way, the problem of divergence no longer exists," Chen Zhuo said, looking at Fang Shi.

"If you just change the framework to discrete, the equations will naturally flatten."

The office was quiet.

Fang Yuanming leaned against the filing cabinet, listening quietly to these words.

He was in charge of student recruitment; his academic level was not as high as Fang Shi's, but he could understand the meaning behind Chen Zhuo's words.

This wasn't some miraculous flash of inspiration, but rather the work of someone with exceptional mathematical intuition who, upon seeing a dead end, casually grabbed a suitable wrench from their toolbox and pried open the stone blocking the way. The sorcerer remained silent for a long time.

He looked at the ten-year-old boy in front of him and felt a mix of emotions.

A problem that physicists had been struggling with for half a year was easily bypassed by this child simply because his equation was considered "unelegant" and the denominator would become zero. "Do you know why physicists are so obsessed with continuous calculus?" Fang Shi asked, his voice low.

Chen Zhuo nodded.

"Know."

Chen Zhuo picked up the paper cup and took another small sip of water.

"Because in human intuition, and in Einstein's theory, spacetime is inherently smooth and continuous. Physics needs to describe the real universe, and the universe appears seamless on a macroscopic level." Chen Zhuo put down his cup, looked at the Taoist priest, and his gaze was very sincere.

"Therefore, my discrete model has a fatal weakness."

The sorcerer's eyes lit up.

"you say."

"It has no physical meaning."

Chen Zhuo answered very decisively.

He sat in the chair, leaning slightly forward.

"On the paper of pure mathematics, I cut spacetime into discrete grids, bypassing the zero denominator, making the logic impeccable." Chen Zhuo looked at the two emails on the table.

"But what does discontinuous spacetime actually represent in the real universe?"

Chen Zhuo spread his hands, his tone revealing no pretense or pride, only a self-awareness in the face of the unknown.

"Are you saying that the bottom layer of the universe is like a grid of pixels? What physical entity does this discrete state manifest in the collapsing singularity? How can we observe it in the laboratory?" Chen Zhuo shook his head.

"I have absolutely no idea."

He looked at the sorcerer, his tone softening.

"Dean Fang, I haven't even fully grasped the current physics, and there are still many courses I haven't watched. You're asking me to explain the practical significance of this discrete model in physics; I'm completely clueless." Chen Zhuo leaned back in his chair.

"I simply solved a math problem and built a framework without contradictions. As for what kind of physical laws are contained within this framework, that's a headache for Professor Derian and his colleagues." Fang Shi looked at Chen Zhuo quietly.

Chen Zhuo spoke very frankly.

This child knows where his strengths lie, and is also extremely aware of his blind spots.

He didn't see himself as the savior of physics by solving the problem; he even refused to assign any physical meaning to his mathematical model that he couldn't comprehend. This extreme rationality and self-awareness, appearing in an eleven-year-old child, inexplicably shocked the sorcerer. "Since you don't know the physical meaning..."

The Taoist priest picked up his teacup and gently blew on the surface of the water.

"Then go to New Jersey and have a face-to-face discussion with those top physicists like Drian. Listen to how they apply your mathematical model to physical entities. Isn't that the best learning opportunity?" Fang Shi looked at Chen Zhuo with a hint of an elder's smile.

"Many people want to audit a class at Princeton but can't find a way in."

Chen Zhuo smiled after hearing this.

His smile was gentle, without the awkwardness of someone being interrogated.

"Dean Fang, the Princeton team is tackling a century-old problem and is aiming for the Nobel Prize."

Chen Zhuo spoke in a relaxed tone, as if he were chatting with an acquaintance.

"I haven't even finished all the basic courses at USTC yet, and you want me to go to New Jersey now?"

Chen Zhuo extended a finger and gently tapped the table.

"If I were to actually sit at the conference table at Princeton, all I could do was derive a few lines of pure mathematical formulas for discrete algebra. I wouldn't be able to say a word about the rest of the physics applications." Chen Zhuo tilted his head slightly, his tone carrying just the right amount of helplessness.

"When the time comes, a group of top international physicists will be looking at me, and I will be looking at them. We'll all be staring at each other, which will not only delay their research progress, but also make me feel quite awkward." Standing in the corner, Fang Yuanming couldn't help but turn his head and chuckle briefly.

The Taoist priest, holding his teacup, shook his head helplessly.

"Can't I go for a few months of exchange to broaden my horizons?" the Taoist priest asked.

"Cross-border exchanges are too exhausting," Chen Zhuo said. "Instead of spending that time adjusting to the time difference and Western food, I'd rather spend it in our old library and finish reading the remaining basic physics and Russian textbooks." Chen Zhuo picked up the paper cup and drank the remaining warm water in one gulp.

"After all, it's the final exam time, and Professor Derian can't possibly fly over to do my papers."

A burst of hearty laughter rang out in the office.

The Taoist priest placed the teacup on the table and shook his head with a smile.

The last vestiges of doubt and obsession in his heart vanished in Chen Zhuo's few gentle, dry jokes.

Someone who can weigh the Princeton offer and the final exam on the same scale, and ultimately choose the final exam, doesn't need anyone to worry about them. "Okay."

The sorcerer suppressed his smile and sat up straight.

He picked up the two A4 sheets of paper from the table, neatly folded them, and put them back into the file folder.

Holding the white cotton thread, wrap it tightly around the opening, round and round.

"I understand your attitude. You feel that your physics foundation is weak and you don't want to just sit around staring at each other. You want to stay and prepare for the final exam." Fang Shi put the file folder into the drawer next to him and pushed it closed.

"Then let's leave it at that."

Fang Shi raised his head, looked at Chen Zhuo, and his tone returned to the solemnity of the dean.

"If Princeton sends any further emails, or if other overseas institutions have any communication that goes beyond their direct line of communication, USTC will officially take over and handle it." Chen Zhuo's eyes lit up.

"The official response was very simple."

The Taoist priest placed his hands, crossed, on the table.

"This student is young and is currently in the foundational stage of undergraduate general education. His studies are demanding, so he is not suitable for international academic visits at the moment," Fang Shi said, looking at Chen Zhuo.

"They want your discrete model, no problem, you can keep it in academia and study it slowly. But you need to stay at USTC to study. Do you think this response is acceptable?" "That's a good reason." Chen Zhuo nodded. "Thank you, Dean Fang."

The matter is settled.

The atmosphere in the office completely relaxed.

Fang Yuanming walked over, picked up the empty paper cup in front of Chen Zhuo, and threw it into the trash can by the door.

"Basic courses still need to be emphasized."

The Taoist priest looked at Chen Zhuo as if he were instructing an ordinary undergraduate student.

"You have a good mathematical intuition, but your physical intuition needs to be cultivated gradually. Don't rush it, just observe slowly."

"I know," Chen Zhuo replied.

"This semester has just started," Fang Shi asked casually. "Besides studying, do you have any other plans? Or, do you need any assistance from the college in terms of daily life?" Chen Zhuo sat in the chair and thought about it seriously.

He doesn't need the access to the large laboratory for the time being, and he doesn't need research funding right now.

He remembered the broken computer case that Wang Dayong was dismantling before he left.

"Dean Fang, if it's convenient for the department," Chen Zhuo said to Fang Shi earnestly, "I hope you can say hello to the dormitory supervisor in our building." Fang Shi was stunned.

He was prepared to hear Chen Zhuo ask for some rare foreign language materials, or for a private study room.

"The dormitory supervisor?" Fang Shi was a little confused.

"Mm." Chen Zhuo nodded.

He touched his nose, his expression somewhat honest.

"I built my own computer in my dorm room. I usually use it to run some code and data for Chu Ge. The power supply for that machine is a bit too powerful," Chen Zhuo said, looking at Fang Shi.

"Before the holiday, the dormitory tripped the power twice because of the full load of computing. When the dormitory aunt checked the rooms, she looked not very nice and warned us that if the power tripped again, she would confiscate the high-power appliances." Chen Zhuo's tone was very gentle, with a hint of the demands of an ordinary student.

"My computer was a terrible paper reader, so I bought a laser printer."

"I hope the college can talk to the dorm supervisor and turn a blind eye to my computer and printer during future room checks, as long as they don't unplug them and confiscate them." Quiet.

A brief silence fell over the office.

Fang Yuanming stood by the trash can, looking at the ceiling, and took a deep breath.

The Taoist priest looked at Chen Zhuo sitting opposite him, his mouth slightly open, unsure of what to say.

A genius who can easily shatter physical singularities using discrete algebra.

A young man who didn't even blink when invited by the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

Now, sitting in the office of the vice dean of the School of Physics at the University of Science and Technology of China, Fang Shi solemnly requested the school leaders to intervene and prevent the dormitory supervisor from confiscating his self-built computer. A strong sense of unreality washed over him.

He glanced at Chen Zhuo, then turned to look at Fang Yuanming standing in the distance.

Fang Yuanming shrugged helplessly at him.

"That's it?"

The sorcerer withdrew his gaze, a strange glint in his voice.

"This is it."

Chen Zhuo nodded, answering with certainty.

The Taoist priest leaned back in his chair and raised his hand to rub his temples.

He suddenly felt that all the long speeches he had prepared about academic prospects and the future of physics seemed somewhat superfluous in front of this child. Chen Zhuo's world seemed very pure, so pure that it could only accommodate logically rigorous mathematical formulas and the computer in the dormitory that was always powered on.

"OK."

The Taoist priest sighed and put down his hand that was rubbing his temples.

He looked at Fang Yuanming.

"Yuanming, later you should talk to the logistics department and tell the dormitory building manager that the electricity quota for dormitory 215 will be allocated separately, and don't check their high-power appliances." "Okay, Dean." Fang Yuanming agreed.

"Thank you, Dean Fang. Thank you, Professor Fang."

Chen Zhuo stood up, pushed the chair back, and returned to his seat.

"Let's go back."

The Taoist priest waved his hand, picked up the pen on the table, and reopened the document he had only read halfway through.

"You can attend classes this semester if you want, or spend your time in the library if you don't. You can manage your own pace. If you have any questions or don't understand anything, you can come to me directly. I do have some basic knowledge of physics."

"Okay, goodbye Dean Fang."

Chen Zhuo bent slightly, turned around, and walked towards the office door.

Fang Yuanming went over and opened the door for him.

Chen Zhuo walked out of the office.

The heating in the corridor was still very strong, and there was no wind.

He walked down the stairs, his steps lighter than when he came up.

The problem with Professor Derian has been resolved.

The dormitory's electricity problem has also been solved, so running data will no longer require anxiously watching the switch box in the corridor.

This trip to the old library was well worth it.

Not only did I save two cents in late fees, but I also accomplished two important things.

Chen Zhuo walked out of the glass doors of the physics building.

The cold wind blowing against my face instantly invigorated me.

The sky was even more gloomy than before, with low-hanging gray-white clouds.

Chen Zhuo put his hands into the pockets of his down jacket and quickened his pace.

I need to get back to the dorm quickly.

Chu Ge said he'd be paying the final installments for the winter break outsourcing jobs today. Da Yong went to fix the computer case; I don't know if he's fixed it yet.

The braised beef and smoked fish Mom brought should still be on the table. In this cold weather, a couple of minutes in the microwave at the cafeteria would be perfect with freshly cooked rice. I'm planning to buy some skewers later, and ask Chu Ge to order a couple more kidney skewers. Lu Jia probably stayed up really late this winter break; her eyes are all dark circles. She needs some nourishment. Chen Zhuo walked along the path, his figure gradually disappearing into the cold campus wind.