Li Jianming stared down at his cup.
He knew. Better than anyone.
In an era before the internet had reached every corner of the world.
Knowledge traveled slowly.
"And the financial aspect,"
Pierre added, extending a hand and gesturing out the window.
"A detached house with a garden in the Princeton faculty housing area."
"If his parents wish to accompany him, my personal foundation will cover their visas and all living expenses."
"I will provide him with an aristocratic level of academic patronage."
"He will never have to worry about money for the rest of his life."
The office fell silent.
The only sound was the crisp CLINK of Zhou Qiping’s Zisha teacup lid against the rim of his cup.
This wasn’t just a generous offer.
This was treating a child as if he were the sacred flame of human civilization, to be nurtured and protected.
Li Jianming remained silent.
He stared at the formulas on the whiteboard, then looked at Pierre.
"Professor Pierre."
Li Jianming finally spoke.
"I don’t doubt your sincerity, but I have to ask a question."
"Please, go ahead."
"Princeton is overflowing with geniuses. Why Chen Zhuo?"
Pierre was silent for a moment.
He turned to face the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the twilight descending upon the Keda campus.
The setting sun sank below the horizon, stretching the shadows long across the ground.
"I’ve been at Princeton for thirty years."
"I have seen countless monsters, their eyes burning red with ambition."
"They are brilliant, yes. They process logic like combine harvesters."
"But they are too impatient."
"They solve problems for the gold medals, for a corner on the front page of the New York Times, for the sake of crushing their rivals."
Pierre turned his head.
His expression was incredibly complex.
It was the reverent tranquility one feels after discovering a peerless treasure.
"But in Chen Zhuo, I see something that has nearly vanished in this era: an incredibly dignified logical intuition."
"He is not impatient."
"When he was working through the most difficult convergence point in the proof, his hands were steady."
"His breathing was even."
"He isn’t solving a problem."
"He is communing with truth itself."
"He’s only thirteen," Li Jianming said.
"Gauss proved the law of quadratic reciprocity at nineteen. Galois wrote his group theory at twenty."
Pierre stared at him.
"Mathematics does not respect age."
"The intuition in his mind right now is humanity’s most precious treasure."
"Letting him stay here, reading outdated textbooks, is a crime against mathematics."
"He isn’t a tool."
Li Jianming looked at him.
"He is a living, breathing person."
"Then all the more reason he needs to go to a place where he can be understood."
Pierre did not back down.
"Li, you’re a decent scholar."
"The fact that you could see the value in that partial manuscript proves you have good judgment."
"But you can no longer teach him."
"You’ve seen the formulas on the whiteboard. You know it in your heart."
Li Jianming leaned back against the sofa.
He stared at the ceiling, at the yellowing whitewash.
’I really can’t teach him anymore.’
He could understand the derivation on the whiteboard.
But if asked to write it himself, he couldn’t.
It wasn’t a matter of accumulated knowledge.
It was a difference in dimension.
The gap between a mortal and a genius.
But he couldn’t accept it.
Not for the sake of fame.
Not to parade a genius around as a trophy for his department.
He was afraid.
"Professor Pierre."
Li Jianming sat up straight, his hands clasped on his knees.
His expression was exceptionally grave, taking on a protective stance.
"I know a fair bit about the academic politics at Princeton."
"It’s a place of warring factions and ruthless infighting, far more brutal than outsiders imagine."
"You’re sixty-five this year."
"If Chen Zhuo goes with you now, he will be immediately branded as part of ’Pierre’s faction.’"
"If, and I’m just saying, what if..."
"Something happens to your health, or your rivals at the institute decide to make a move."
"How is that soft-spoken thirteen-year-old boy supposed to face those monsters who eat people alive and spit out the bones?"
Li Jianming’s gaze was like a knife, fixed on Pierre.
"Here with me, he can do whatever he wants every day."
"He can go to the little eatery by the campus gate and buy his favorite broad bean paste."
"When he’s tired, he can sit in the old library for an entire afternoon and watch the leaves fall."
"If all you can give him is mathematics and pressure,"
"He will wither."
"If you can’t protect the life he has outside of his pursuit of truth,"
"I can’t let him go."
Pierre was stunned.
He hadn’t expected it.
This Hua Country professor, who seemed so meek and wore such a cheap suit...
...had just displayed an aggressivity that bordered on a roar.
"Li."
Pierre shifted in his seat, his voice suddenly dropping to a low register.
"I am sixty-five years old."
Li Jianming froze for a second.
"I don’t need more papers, I don’t need more accolades. I didn’t come here to find a workhorse for the institute."
Pierre paused, enunciating each word with immense weight.
"I will not be taking any more students in my life. Chen Zhuo will be my last."
"My last, and my only."
PLINK.
Zhou Qiping’s hand trembled, and a few drops of tea sloshed out of the Zisha cup, landing on the back of his hand.
He didn’t wipe them away.
’A final disciple.’
This wasn’t just a title.
This meant Pierre intended to pour his entire life’s academic legacy—his status, his resources—into this boy.
Li Jianming’s fingers tightened abruptly on his knees.
All the lines of defense he had prepared—that the boy’s foundation was too weak, the training plans, the administrative procedures...
...were as thin as paper in the face of those two words: "final disciple."
The weight of it was immense.
This wasn’t an offer to study abroad; this was the direct right of succession to nearly half an academic empire.
If Chen Zhuo just nodded, he would immediately be placed at the very pinnacle of the world of mathematics.

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