A wind had picked up in the Princeton night.
It swept through the oak grove in the yard, striking the glass panes of the second-floor study with a dull thud.
Pierre sat behind a large walnut desk. The surface was a mess, littered with stacks of printed paper, an uncapped fountain pen, a common gel pen, and an empty teacup.
In the middle of the clutter sat a spotless orange soda can.
It was for a beverage unique to Hua Country, called Jianlibao.
A computer sat in front of Pierre, its screen casting a cold, white glow on his face.
He wasn’t writing equations.
He was staring at the email client on the screen.
It was the Listserv for the highest-level internal discussion group in the global field of topology and algebraic geometry.
Normally, this group wouldn’t see more than a few new emails a day.
The older professors preferred to debate deliberately over coffee face-to-face, or at seminars held every few months.
But tonight, the inbox on the screen was refreshing frantically.
Line after line of bold, black subjects popped up like bullets.
"Requesting Editorial Intervention: Regarding Logical Gaps in the Manuscript for Issue 211."
Sender: Gray.
"An Inquiry into the Identity of C. Zhuo and a Dispute of Academic Ethics."
Sender: Durand.
"Continuity Must Not Be Desecrated: On the Transgression of Algebraic Adjudication."
Sender: Schmidt.
Pierre gripped the mouse and scrolled the wheel.
He clicked them open one by one, reading line by line.
He wasn’t angry.
He just found it comical.
The study’s wooden door creaked softly. The hinges were old, and the sound was clear in the quiet night.
Mathilda walked in carrying a porcelain tray, on which sat two cups of freshly brewed black tea, still steaming.
She wore a dark gray woolen shawl, her hair pinned up, with fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
"You didn’t take your medicine tonight."
Mathilda placed the tray on a corner of the desk, clearing a small space.
"I don’t need medicine."
Pierre’s gaze never left the screen.
"My mind is clearer now than it has been on any day in the last five years."
Mathilda glanced at the screen.
She understood French and English, and more importantly, she recognized the names of the old acquaintances on the screen.
"Are they arguing?"
"They’re trembling."
Pierre picked up his teacup and took a sip.
"They’re watching as someone chisels a hole in the load-bearing wall of a house they’ve spent their entire lives building."
Mathilda pulled over a chair and sat down across the desk.
Her gaze fell on the orange soda can.
"From that distant East, you brought back a box of tea, a silk scarf for me, a pen, and this empty can."
Mathilda said softly.
"And this storm on the screen now."
Pierre smiled.
He leaned back in his chair and turned to look out the window.
"Mathilda, do you remember 1999?"
"I do."
Mathilda nodded.
"You sat in this study for three months and finished that paper on topological tearing. Then you told me you were planning to stop, because no one could catch what you were throwing."
"Yes."
Pierre’s voice grew somber.
"Back then, I found the world so boring. They were too slow, so slow that I lost the patience to explain."
He pointed a finger at the screen.
"Gray, Durand, Schmidt... they ganged up to boycott me back then. Said my mathematics had no beauty, that I was a butcher swinging an axe."
Pierre paused for a moment.
"But on this trip to Hua Country, I met someone."
Mathilda held her teacup and listened quietly.
"A thirteen-year-old boy."
There was a note of wonder in Pierre’s voice.
"The first time I saw him, it was in the doorway of a dilapidated library. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a stretched-out collar. He didn’t know who I was. He took me to a street vendor to eat something called soup dumplings."
Pierre held up his fingers, making a small gesture in the air.
"He didn’t give me chopsticks. He asked the owner for a spoon. He taught me how to bite a small hole in the dumpling skin to let the steam out, saying that if I ate it directly, I’d burn my throat."
Mathilda raised an eyebrow slightly.
"He sounds like a very considerate child."
"He is."
Pierre nodded.
"He’s gentle. He’d deliberately slow down to wait for me when we walked, and he’d stand on the side closer to traffic when we crossed the street. He seemed like the most ordinary, well-behaved boy next door."
Pierre’s gaze returned to the screen, to the attached paper that had triggered this tsunami.
"But in mathematics, he is an undeniable genius."
Pierre clicked open the paper’s PDF file, scrolling directly to the introduction on the first page.
"Look at these three sentences."
Mathilda leaned in a little closer.
"The first sentence, he overthrows the continuity of infinite-dimensional networks. The second, he replaces local rules with discrete paradoxes. The third, he declares the absolute dominion of algebra."
Pierre finished reading, enunciating every word.
"Mathilda, when I wrote my paper back then, I added two pages of background and context. I even tried to explain to them why I had to use this axe."
Pierre looked at his wife.
"But he didn’t. He didn’t write a single wasted word. He couldn’t even be bothered to refute the old theories. He just stepped right over them and welded the door shut behind him."
Mathilda set down her teacup.
She looked at her husband.
It had been a long time since she had seen such a light in the old man’s eyes.
"What are you going to do?" Mathilda asked.
"They’re preparing a joint letter right now to pressure the editorial board. They want to define this paper as academic fraud.
After all, for an unknown name to produce something like this, the easiest excuse they can find is that the author’s identity is questionable."
Pierre didn’t say anything.
He gripped the mouse.
He closed the page with the noisy discussion group.
He opened the official internal email system for the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
He composed a new email.
To: The Committee of the International Mathematical Union, the Editorial Board of the Mathematical Annals.
CC: Listserv Topology Core Discussion Group.
The sound of keyboard clicks echoed in the study.
Crisp and clean, without a hint of hesitation.
Mathilda didn’t make a sound. She stood up, walked behind Pierre, and watched the letters appear on the screen, line by line.
There were no polite greetings at the beginning.
[Statement Regarding the Manuscript for Issue 211, "Discrete Mapping and Singularity Convergence of Large-Scale Network Topological Structures."]
[This is Pierre.]
[I have seen your posts in the discussion group. I have seen your fear, and I have seen the arrogance you use to mask it.]
Pierre’s fingers tapped away at the keyboard.
[Five years ago, I left behind that set of discrete tools, and I said that no one in this world was worthy of using them.]
[Today, I take back those words.]
[Not because you’ve gotten any smarter in the last five years. You are all still floundering in those useless continuous manifolds.]
[I take back those words because I have found the one who was born holding this axe.]
Pierre paused.
He picked up the pen from his desk—the one Chen Zhuo had used in the old library that day—twirled it twice in his hand, and set it back down.
He resumed typing.
[The first author of this paper, C. Zhuo.]
[His Chinese name is Chen Zhuo.]
[He is thirteen years old.]
[Hereby, I officially announce to you all that Chen Zhuo is the last, and only, final disciple of my academic career.]
Seeing this, Mathilda gently placed a hand on Pierre’s shoulder.
"You’ve left no room for retreat," Mathilda said softly.
"You’re using your lifelong reputation as his shield."
"He doesn’t need a shield."
Pierre stared at the screen.
"I’m just warning those old fossils not to overreach."
Pierre continued to type.
[Some have questioned the brevity of his introduction, considering it an offense to academia.]
[I want to tell you that for someone who can see through the fog at a glance, explaining the shape of the sun to a blind man is a waste of a life.]
[Those three lines of his introduction are not a discussion with you. They are his final verdict.]
[Every derivation in this article, every step of discrete slicing, was completed independently by him on intuition alone. He has gone further than I did in 1999.]
[If you have any doubts about the logic of this paper, if there is anyone among you who thinks they can find even a single mathematical flaw in the Singularity convergence on page 12.]
[Then please, buy a plane ticket and come find me in Princeton.]
[If you cannot.]
[Please remain silent.]
[Signed: Pierre G.]
Pierre stopped his hands.
He glanced back at Mathilda.
"Help me press Enter," Pierre said.
Mathilda smiled, extended her index finger, and pressed down on the large Enter key.
The screen flickered for a moment.
Sent.
Pierre leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.
He picked up the now-tepid black tea and drank it all in one go.
"Gray will probably need sleeping pills tonight," Pierre said.
"You’re like a brutish father who’s afraid his kid will be bullied at school, so he rushes to the school gates to head them off."
Mathilda said teasingly as she tidied up the tea set on the desk.
"No."
Pierre shook his head.
"I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting what’s left of those old fossils’ pride. If they were to personally lead a siege against a thirteen-year-old boy, only to be logically crushed by him in the end... I imagine they’d go jump into the Seine River."
Outside, the wind died down.
The night was deep.
「Cambridge University, Trinity College.」
In Professor Gray’s office.
After hanging up the phone, he had been sitting at his desk, staring at the unfinished draft of the joint letter before him.
The door was pushed open.
Miller strode in, holding a few freshly printed sheets of paper.
Miller’s face was pale, as if he were recovering from a serious illness.
"Gray."
Miller placed the papers in his hand on the desk.
"You don’t have to write it anymore."
Gray looked up.
"Did the editorial board reply?"
"Not the editorial board."
Miller’s voice was faint.
"It’s Pierre."
Gray’s gaze fell on the papers.
Black text on a white background.
The official IAS letterhead.
He saw the name: C. Zhuo.
He saw the phrase: "only, final disciple."
He saw the sentence: "If you cannot, please remain silent."
Gray sat in his chair.
The light from the screen illuminated his face, highlighting the web of wrinkles.
He didn’t speak.
He stared at the line, "explaining the shape of the sun to a blind man."
He slowly loosened his grip.
The fountain pen in his hand fell onto the solid wood desk with a crisp CLATTER, then rolled to the floor.
He didn’t pick it up.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
The fireplace in the lounge was still burning, but Gray felt a deep chill.
It was a cold that shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
Not only had a sharper axe arrived, but also a tyrant of absolute power who was protecting it.
In the face of absolute academic authority and absolute logical dominance, all resistance became a pathetic struggle.
「Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris.」
Durand stared at his computer screen.
His hand was still resting on the keyboard. He had been in the middle of replying to an email about the details of the joint letter.
Now, the half-written email sat unfinished.
His eyes were glued to the latest network-wide announcement that had just popped up.
Sender: Pierre.
Durand read the entire message.
He stared at the screen for a long time.
Then, he reached out and pressed the power button.
The screen went black.
He stood up, took the overcoat draped over the back of his chair, and walked out of the office.
The hallway was quiet.
He spoke to no one, walking straight out of the academic building and into the deserted streets of Paris.
「Moscow.」
Volkov looked at the announcement on his screen.
He picked up a bottle of vodka and poured himself a full glass.
He raised the glass and toasted the empty air.
"Well done, you old lunatic."
He downed it in one gulp.
The strong liquor made his eyes burn red.
He turned his head and watched the snow falling heavier and heavier outside the window.
The old era was coming to an end.
A new one had just had its door kicked wide open in the most brazen way imaginable.

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