Li Qin had to work overtime on the weekend to take inventory, so she didn’t come home that night.
Li Dong sat at his desk, flipping through the e-book of *New Introduction to Mathematical Analysis* on his phone.
This textbook, written by Mr. Zhang Zhusheng, was renowned in mathematics departments for its accessible language and rigorous logic.
But for a high school student who hadn’t even passed his college entrance exams, it was still far too esoteric.
Yet Li Dong was reading it with great relish.
This wasn’t to say he had mutated overnight into a genius who could effortlessly snatch a Fields Medal.
It was because the stat bonuses of [Concentration: 0.1] and [Memory: 0.1] gave him a special kind of retrieval ability.
He treated the book like a giant treasure map.
Whenever he encountered a concept he didn’t understand, like a supremum or a neighborhood, he would use the internet to look up the prerequisite knowledge.
Then, his 0.1 Concentration allowed him to quickly grasp the core logic of these concepts.
And his 0.1 Memory would commit this new knowledge firmly to his mind.
Before he knew it, it was already nine at night.
"GRUMBLE..."
His stomach protested. Li Dong rubbed his throbbing temples and got up to make himself a bowl of plain noodle soup in the kitchen.
As he ate the noodles, Li Dong reviewed his recent study session in his mind.
’This 0.1 is absurdly valuable...’
He finally understood now. The note on the system panel, [Average Person’s Level: 0], didn’t mean ordinary people were idiots. It meant that in the dimensions of "absolute concentration" and "absolute memory," an average person’s ability was almost negligible.
After all, who could guarantee that a stray thought wouldn’t cross their mind while reading?
But the current Li Dong could.
’I was born with 0.1 Memory. No wonder my recall is so good.’
He even remembered when he was five, and Sister Er Pang from next door insisted on having a peeing contest with him in the sandbox to see who could pee farther.
Li Dong, assuming victory was in the bag due to his anatomical advantage, ended up underperforming due to nervousness and lost by a narrow margin.
Most people would have probably forgotten such a trivial thing long ago.
But Li Dong had remembered it for a full twelve years!
It wasn’t until his second year of high school, when Sister Er Pang came back to visit her hometown and happened to use his bathroom...
...that as soon as she came out, Li Dong immediately rushed in, watched his watch as he forced himself to take a two-minute-long piss, and then silently declared in his heart that he had finally won a round back.
’All this time, my memory has been wasted on useless crap like this...’
Li Dong laughed self-deprecatingly and drank the last of his noodle soup.
Full and satisfied, he was about to get back to it.
But as soon as he picked up his phone, a wave of dizziness hit him, and his head throbbed as if pricked by needles.
"HISS..."
He sucked in a sharp breath.
’Looks like intense mental exertion has its side effects...’
Li Dong didn’t dare to push himself. He quickly washed up and crashed into bed.
He slept exceptionally well.
In his dream, he became a fish.
He swam freely in an ocean made of countless integral symbols, "∫".
With a butterfly stroke, he leaped over a giant wave called a Taylor expansion.
With a dive, he dodged a reef of non-differentiable points laid by a Weierstrass function.
Just as he was about to challenge the underwater volcano that was the Riemann Hypothesis...
"BUZZ BUZZ..."
The vibration of his phone under the pillow woke him up.
Li Dong groggily opened his eyes. It was already bright outside.
’Who is it this early in the morning...’
Li Dong yawned and opened WeChat. The notification count for the "Cyan Dragon Study Group" was already 99+.
This woke him up a bit. He was just thinking about how he could fleece the group members again.
At that moment, Newton was in a heated argument with someone.
[Isaac Newton]: Absurd! Simply absurd! How can time and space be curved? Time is God’s river, it is absolute! No matter where you are, a second is a second. This is the cornerstone of the universe!
The group member he was arguing with had a profile picture of a little old man with curly white hair and a playful glint in his eyes.
His ID was [Albert Einstein].
[Albert Einstein]: Hey, my dear Isaac, you’re a knight. Don’t get so worked up.
Your river may flow steadily on a plain, but it will bend when it encounters an uneven riverbed, you know.
And imagine, if you place an iron ball on a trampoline, doesn’t the surface sink?
[Isaac Newton]: Enough with your damned trampoline theory! I only believe in mathematics and calculation!
My laws can calculate the return date of Halley’s Comet, down to the second! And your theory, what can it do besides draw pictures on paper?
[Albert Einstein]: Oh, since you bring that up, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. We’ve already measured the error in the precession of Mercury’s perihelion.
It’s off by 43 arcseconds per century, you know. Your formula seems a bit... inadequate?
[Isaac Newton]: Then there must be a problem with your measuring instruments! Or there are other interfering factors you haven’t discovered!
[Albert Einstein]: My dear Sir, you must face the facts. It has nothing to do with the instruments. Spacetime itself is warped!
Watching the two titans of the physics world bickering like elementary schoolers in the group, Li Dong felt like he was watching Classical Mechanics having a solo duel with Relativity.
To be honest, he could understand Newton’s anger.
The edifice built by Classical Mechanics in the 17th-19th centuries was nigh indestructible. People at the time believed it was the truth that explained the universe!
Now, someone suddenly pops up and says, "Hey, Newton, your foundation is crooked." Who wouldn’t be furious?
Seeing the two argue more and more fiercely, even the usually-lurking [Gauss] and [Faraday] emerged to post a string of popcorn-eating emojis.
Li Dong felt his chance to cash in had arrived.
He carefully composed his words.
[Cramming for Exams]: Gentlemen, may I say something?
Newton and Einstein, who had been arguing, both fell silent.
After all, Li Dong’s current persona was that of an expert who had "illuminated the essence of thermodynamics."
[Cramming for Exams]: I don’t think either of your theories are wrong, it’s just that they apply to different scenarios.
[Cramming for Exams]: Sir Newton’s laws remain the absolute truth in the macroscopic, low-velocity realm.
[Cramming for Exams]: Whereas Mr. Einstein’s theory completes the physical laws for near-light speeds and strong gravitational fields.
We should analyze problems based on their specific circumstances.
[Albert Einstein]: Ha! Analyze problems based on their specific circumstances! Well said, Mr. Cramming for Exams! Care to join me for a drink?
Li Dong’s face darkened. ’Where the hell am I supposed to go have a drink with you? Don’t you have any idea how long you’ve been dead?’
[Albert Einstein]: Isaac, did you hear that?
Einstein clearly gave him face and took the easy way out.
But how could someone as proud to the bone as Newton be so easily convinced?
[Isaac Newton]: @Cramming for Exams, are you implying that my theory is incomplete?
I don’t even know if this Mercury problem he’s talking about is real or not. It’s all just talk. Without data, how could I possibly believe such nonsense about spacetime being able to curve?
’No data?’
Li Dong smiled. ’Sir Newton, aren’t you just begging to hand me a gift?’

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