When she left the classroom, she still felt quite relieved.
She hadn’t devoted herself to mathematics, thus it was understandable that she couldn’t solved Pei Zhi’s question.
But on the way home there were too many people on the bus, after being squeezed the whole way, she lost her composure after she got down from the bus.
The sky had turned completely dark.
Although she stood in front of the familiar store, her entire mind was filled with Pei Zhi’s leaving silhouette; she was also uncomfortably starved, so she sent Mr. Lin a WeChat* to ask if he wanted to come down for dinner. (Chinese Messenger)
Mr. Lin quickly replied – [Great].
Holding her phone at the gate waiting, she chose what they usually ate. But when the food was almost done, there was no sight of Mr. Lin arriving. Looking at the dark and sole gate, Lin Zhao Xi suddenly felt off.
When she called Mr. Lin, her hands were shaking.
Her surroundings were full of human noises, but all she could hear was the sound of the cellphone “Beep… Beep…”
Her heart felt, what was even on her head, asking her dad to go out for BBQ!
After her first phone call wasn’t received, she decisively stopped calling. She explained to the store owner, and quickly headed to her house.
When they were texting, Mr. Lin was still at home, if he didn’t leave by the back door, it is most possible that he was still at home…
But why didn’t he receive her call?
In her few-minute-length run, a number of possibilities flashed through Lin Zhao Xi’s head.
Lin Zhao Xi ran as fast as she could, at a sudden, she saw a lazing figure under the tree.
Old man’s T-shirt, plastic slippers, one hand arbitrarily played with the passing wild cat.
In a blink of an eye…
Air started to fill her lungs, Lin Zhao Xi’s legs gave out, she almost kneeled down.
After having stabilized her feelings, she ran to Mr. Lin.
Mr. Lin raised his head and asked in a surprised tone: “Why did you run? Are you working out?”
Lin Zhao Xi had a bad premonition, Mr. Lin seemed to have completely forgotten their BBQ date.
“Why are you here?” She hesitantly asked.
“I went out to throw the trash, but I forgot to bring the keys, so I waited for my dear daughter’s return to rescue me. In the meantime, I was feeding myself to the mosquitoes.”
“Where was your cellphone? Why didn’t you receive my call?”
“Who brings their cellphone out when they throw the trash?”
Mr. Lin said straightforwardly as if it was a normal thing. Her heart felt again, Mr. Lin really didn’t remember.
To forget recent events, to feel it hard to make new plans in the future, these were completely normal for Alzheimer’s patients.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t faced similar occurrences.
But at this moment, standing under this tree, facing her father’s incredulous face, she just felt utterly helpless.
Humans were so weak compared to diseases, there were absolutely no solutions.
Looking at her father, Lin Zhao Xi forced a beam smile, acted as if nothing had happened.
“Mr. Lin, did you make our dinner? I’m starved to death.”
“Did I forget something again?” This old man was too observant.
“Yes, guess what you had forgotten?”
Lin Zhao Xi pulled him to the gate and pushed him into their home.
Even until he reached the gate, Mr. Lin still stayed silent.
But as soon as he entered the house, he cursed and rushed to the kitchen.
In the air was the burning scent, Lin Zhao Xi let him deal with it.
She looked around the room and saw her father’s cellphone on top of the shoe shelf. She quietly got over, unlocked the phone, on WeChat display were her invitation and Mr. Lin’s reply.
“Ah, I had put out the fire, it’s true that I got dementia isn’t it?” Mr. Lin breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at her father’s merry and busy figure in the kitchen, Lin Zhao Xi determined to delete the entire conversation.
“What’s for dinner today?” She put down the cellphone and said.
…
She didn’t know what she was thinking then. Nonetheless her action of deleting their WeChat conversation was figured out by her dad after 58 minutes.
Mr. Lin was still doubtful of her words. After dinner she was washing the dishes, Mr. Lin directly headed to study room and opened WeChat on the computer.
She finished with the dishes and came out; Mr. Lin was sitting on the sofa in the living room. The light wasn’t on, his face was pale, he didn’t say a word.
The atmosphere was anything but good.
In her memory, the only time Mr. Lin acted like this was in her high school, when she chose social science instead of natural science.
Lin Zhao Xi’s first reaction was to run, and her second reaction was not to run. She had seen many documentaries relating to Alzheimer, unstable emotions were one of the problems caused by this disease.
She nervously turned around, clenched her apron, headed to the sofa, carefully asked: “Dad?”
No reply.
She glanced at the computer in study room and saw WeChat PC version, suddenly comprehended the situation.
She sat down and hastily apologized: “I’m sorry, I was just thinking, you wouldn’t be happy to saw it, so whether you saw or not wouldn’t matter…”
“Do you think I’m out of my mind?” Mr. Lin was cold.
“No no…”
“Then why do you think your dad will get angry because of his daughter’s good will?”
Lin Zhao Xi barely raised her head, sounded astonished: “Ah… Then why?”
“Did you go on a blind date?”
She was bewildered, at that moment she guessed numerous reasons, but she didn’t expect this one.
Mr. Lin still looked angry, haizz, the king’s mind was hard to decipher.
“How did you know?”
“Hah hah, to tell you the truth, the director at your university was my classmate. She learnt of my disease from my daughter, so she paid me a call. At the same time, she informed me, the family of your blind date was so generous they did not mind my disease, and they decided to continue bestowing you in the list of their son’s harem candidates, that is to say, i.e., demote you to one of the nominees, and encouraged us to continue trying.”
“…”
“What were you thinking?” Mr. Lin rarely sounded so strict.
“It’s just… I supposed I’ve reached the age that I should get a boyfriend.”
God knew why, but Lin Zhao Xi didn’t explain to Mr. Lin that before she entered the coffee shop, she didn’t know it was a blind date.
“Should…? What is the plan for your life?”
“To be a teacher?” Lin Zhao Xi answered.
“Oh? So that you came to a blind date because you genuinely wanted a boyfriend, you become a teacher because you genuinely like students?”
Lin Zhao Xi couldn’t answer straightforwardly, she said: “Mr. Mr. Lin, rather than anyone else, you should have realized that, in this world, it’s not like you can do something just because you genuinely like it.”
Like you loved mathematics, but you had to give up on studying it.
I liked Pei Zhi, but I couldn’t do anything.
Wasn’t that maturity to learn to compromise with this world?
After she said so, Mr. Lin didn’t say another word.
He just stared at her attentively.
When she gave up on studying Olympic Mathematics, she witnessed that stare; when she argued with Mr. Lin about choosing social or natural science, she also witnessed that stare.
He was disappointed with her decision, yet he refrained himself from interfering with her life.
One had to be responsible with their life, that was Mr. Lin’s life creed.
Lin Zhao Xi breathed in and started to stand up.
“Don’t you think…” However, Mr. Lin didn’t give up this time, he continued to say, “10 years, 20 years later, I would be lying on the bed dying; at that time, you were staying in front of my deathbed remembering today’s conversation, what would you want to say?”
“Dad, what was the password to our credit card?”
“215000.”
Mr. Lin answered, then he slammed the sofa, warned her: “Ms. Lin Zhao Xi, don’t try to change the subject!”
Lin Zhao Xi: “…”
“You think carefully again, at that time would you be regretful for not having pursued your dreams when you could have?”
Lin Zhao Xi stood in front of the sofa, there was no light in the room, the walls from afar were dark and obscure.
Dreams, what were her dreams?
Mr. Lin’s chicken soup for the soul was really tasty, she couldn’t help remembering Pei Zhi’s question, as well as the helpless feeling when she wanted to solve but was unable to.
That must have been helpless…
She looked at Mr. Lin, said: “There was a question.”
10 minutes later.
Mr. Lin put down his pencil, asked: “Is this Pei Zhi’s?”
“…”
Mr. Lin pitied: “That’s why you needn’t a blind date, there is an obviously outstanding boy there for you to court.”
Lin Zhao Xi: “I even like 法鲨呢 (I really don’t understand this part, French shark???),how can I make advances to him?”
Mr. Lin: “Who’s that?”
Lin Zhao Xi: “Magneto.”
Mr. Lin: “What a coincidence, I like him too.”
“…”
“So, does that mean Pei Zhi agree to be your boyfriend if you can solve this question?”
“Can you please think of other things than love, this is the entrance test to join MCM team.”
“I don’t think so.” Mr. Lin sounded too confident.
“I don’t understand.”
“This is testing the water.” Mr. Lin took off his glasses, his eyes were deep in thought. “What it tests isn’t MCM, but P/NP Problem.”
Lin Zhao Xi looked at the question again, then she finally recognized where this familiar feeling came from.
P/NP Problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems, 1 million USD prize, similar to Riemann hypothesis and Poincaré conjecture.
Pei Zhi was so…
“Ambitious.” Mr. Lin said, extremely happy: “Let me fix it, this might not be Pei Zhi who came up with the question, this must be his instructor’s idea. The professor in your university who studied Hamilton circuit, is he Pei Zhi’s instructor, was his name Professor Shen (沈) or Professor Zeng (曾)?”
Lin Zhao Xi was speechless: “You know a lot don’t you.”
“Not much I must say, I even know that, this question is far from the actual P/NP Problem; but solving it, rewriting human’s history, if there were people with this courage, they absolutely deserve respect.”
“Yes, exactly.” Lin Zhao Xi thought, courage wasn’t it, how admirable.
“Then do you want to try studying MSc in Mathematics at your university?” Mr. Lin asked.
Lin Zhao Xi dumbfoundedly looked at him, unable to understand how he mentioned this.
“If one can prove P=NP, it could greatly increase the speed of calculators solving maths, it could also greatly shorten the time to cure innumerable diseases, including Alzheimer’s…” Mr. Lin continued “For your dad, will you consider changing your major?”
Lin Zhao Xi pointed at herself, then she pointed at the question on the table: “Sir, I can’t even understand it, the gap between me and MSc entrance test was the entire 4 years of studying professional Mathematics!”
Mr. Lin smiled, his words were poignant: “You think you can’t catch up with Pei Zhi, but is the gap between you and him further than the gap between him and P/NP Problem?”
It was irrebuttable.
Lin Zhao Xi turned around and headed to her room.
Mr. Lin was still smiling; his low and hoarse laugh was behind her:
“Ms. Lin Zhao Xi, in your long and beautiful life, if you have found what you genuinely want to do, then whenever you decide to start doing it isn’t late.”
When she left the classroom, she still felt quite relieved.
She hadn’t devoted herself to mathematics, thus it was understandable that she couldn’t solved Pei Zhi’s question.
But on the way home there were too many people on the bus, after being squeezed the whole way, she lost her composure after she got down from the bus.
The sky had turned completely dark.
Although she stood in front of the familiar store, her entire mind was filled with Pei Zhi’s leaving silhouette; she was also uncomfortably starved, so she sent Mr. Lin a WeChat* to ask if he wanted to come down for dinner. (Chinese Messenger)
Mr. Lin quickly replied – [Great].
Holding her phone at the gate waiting, she chose what they usually ate. But when the food was almost done, there was no sight of Mr. Lin arriving. Looking at the dark and sole gate, Lin Zhao Xi suddenly felt off.
When she called Mr. Lin, her hands were shaking.
Her surroundings were full of human noises, but all she could hear was the sound of the cellphone “Beep… Beep…”
Her heart felt, what was even on her head, asking her dad to go out for BBQ!
After her first phone call wasn’t received, she decisively stopped calling. She explained to the store owner, and quickly headed to her house.
When they were texting, Mr. Lin was still at home, if he didn’t leave by the back door, it is most possible that he was still at home…
But why didn’t he receive her call?
In her few-minute-length run, a number of possibilities flashed through Lin Zhao Xi’s head.
Lin Zhao Xi ran as fast as she could, at a sudden, she saw a lazing figure under the tree.
Old man’s T-shirt, plastic slippers, one hand arbitrarily played with the passing wild cat.
In a blink of an eye…
Air started to fill her lungs, Lin Zhao Xi’s legs gave out, she almost kneeled down.
After having stabilized her feelings, she ran to Mr. Lin.
Mr. Lin raised his head and asked in a surprised tone: “Why did you run? Are you working out?”
Lin Zhao Xi had a bad premonition, Mr. Lin seemed to have completely forgotten their BBQ date.
“Why are you here?” She hesitantly asked.
“I went out to throw the trash, but I forgot to bring the keys, so I waited for my dear daughter’s return to rescue me. In the meantime, I was feeding myself to the mosquitoes.”
“Where was your cellphone? Why didn’t you receive my call?”
“Who brings their cellphone out when they throw the trash?”
Mr. Lin said straightforwardly as if it was a normal thing. Her heart felt again, Mr. Lin really didn’t remember.
To forget recent events, to feel it hard to make new plans in the future, these were completely normal for Alzheimer’s patients.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t faced similar occurrences.
But at this moment, standing under this tree, facing her father’s incredulous face, she just felt utterly helpless.
Humans were so weak compared to diseases, there were absolutely no solutions.
Looking at her father, Lin Zhao Xi forced a beam smile, acted as if nothing had happened.
“Mr. Lin, did you make our dinner? I’m starved to death.”
“Did I forget something again?” This old man was too observant.
“Yes, guess what you had forgotten?”
Lin Zhao Xi pulled him to the gate and pushed him into their home.
Even until he reached the gate, Mr. Lin still stayed silent.
But as soon as he entered the house, he cursed and rushed to the kitchen.
In the air was the burning scent, Lin Zhao Xi let him deal with it.
She looked around the room and saw her father’s cellphone on top of the shoe shelf. She quietly got over, unlocked the phone, on WeChat display were her invitation and Mr. Lin’s reply.
“Ah, I had put out the fire, it’s true that I got dementia isn’t it?” Mr. Lin breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at her father’s merry and busy figure in the kitchen, Lin Zhao Xi determined to delete the entire conversation.
“What’s for dinner today?” She put down the cellphone and said.
…
She didn’t know what she was thinking then. Nonetheless her action of deleting their WeChat conversation was figured out by her dad after 58 minutes.
Mr. Lin was still doubtful of her words. After dinner she was washing the dishes, Mr. Lin directly headed to study room and opened WeChat on the computer.
She finished with the dishes and came out; Mr. Lin was sitting on the sofa in the living room. The light wasn’t on, his face was pale, he didn’t say a word.
The atmosphere was anything but good.
In her memory, the only time Mr. Lin acted like this was in her high school, when she chose social science instead of natural science.
Lin Zhao Xi’s first reaction was to run, and her second reaction was not to run. She had seen many documentaries relating to Alzheimer, unstable emotions were one of the problems caused by this disease.
She nervously turned around, clenched her apron, headed to the sofa, carefully asked: “Dad?”
No reply.
She glanced at the computer in study room and saw WeChat PC version, suddenly comprehended the situation.
She sat down and hastily apologized: “I’m sorry, I was just thinking, you wouldn’t be happy to saw it, so whether you saw or not wouldn’t matter…”
“Do you think I’m out of my mind?” Mr. Lin was cold.
“No no…”
“Then why do you think your dad will get angry because of his daughter’s good will?”
Lin Zhao Xi barely raised her head, sounded astonished: “Ah… Then why?”
“Did you go on a blind date?”
She was bewildered, at that moment she guessed numerous reasons, but she didn’t expect this one.
Mr. Lin still looked angry, haizz, the king’s mind was hard to decipher.
“How did you know?”
“Hah hah, to tell you the truth, the director at your university was my classmate. She learnt of my disease from my daughter, so she paid me a call. At the same time, she informed me, the family of your blind date was so generous they did not mind my disease, and they decided to continue bestowing you in the list of their son’s harem candidates, that is to say, i.e., demote you to one of the nominees, and encouraged us to continue trying.”
“…”
“What were you thinking?” Mr. Lin rarely sounded so strict.
“It’s just… I supposed I’ve reached the age that I should get a boyfriend.”
God knew why, but Lin Zhao Xi didn’t explain to Mr. Lin that before she entered the coffee shop, she didn’t know it was a blind date.
“Should…? What is the plan for your life?”
“To be a teacher?” Lin Zhao Xi answered.
“Oh? So that you came to a blind date because you genuinely wanted a boyfriend, you become a teacher because you genuinely like students?”
Lin Zhao Xi couldn’t answer straightforwardly, she said: “Mr. Mr. Lin, rather than anyone else, you should have realized that, in this world, it’s not like you can do something just because you genuinely like it.”
Like you loved mathematics, but you had to give up on studying it.
I liked Pei Zhi, but I couldn’t do anything.
Wasn’t that maturity to learn to compromise with this world?
After she said so, Mr. Lin didn’t say another word.
He just stared at her attentively.
When she gave up on studying Olympic Mathematics, she witnessed that stare; when she argued with Mr. Lin about choosing social or natural science, she also witnessed that stare.
He was disappointed with her decision, yet he refrained himself from interfering with her life.
One had to be responsible with their life, that was Mr. Lin’s life creed.
Lin Zhao Xi breathed in and started to stand up.
“Don’t you think…” However, Mr. Lin didn’t give up this time, he continued to say, “10 years, 20 years later, I would be lying on the bed dying; at that time, you were staying in front of my deathbed remembering today’s conversation, what would you want to say?”
“Dad, what was the password to our credit card?”
“215000.”
Mr. Lin answered, then he slammed the sofa, warned her: “Ms. Lin Zhao Xi, don’t try to change the subject!”
Lin Zhao Xi: “…”
“You think carefully again, at that time would you be regretful for not having pursued your dreams when you could have?”
Lin Zhao Xi stood in front of the sofa, there was no light in the room, the walls from afar were dark and obscure.
Dreams, what were her dreams?
Mr. Lin’s chicken soup for the soul was really tasty, she couldn’t help remembering Pei Zhi’s question, as well as the helpless feeling when she wanted to solve but was unable to.
That must have been helpless…
She looked at Mr. Lin, said: “There was a question.”
10 minutes later.
Mr. Lin put down his pencil, asked: “Is this Pei Zhi’s?”
“…”
Mr. Lin pitied: “That’s why you needn’t a blind date, there is an obviously outstanding boy there for you to court.”
Lin Zhao Xi: “I even like 法鲨呢 (I really don’t understand this part, French shark???),how can I make advances to him?”
Mr. Lin: “Who’s that?”
Lin Zhao Xi: “Magneto.”
Mr. Lin: “What a coincidence, I like him too.”
“…”
“So, does that mean Pei Zhi agree to be your boyfriend if you can solve this question?”
“Can you please think of other things than love, this is the entrance test to join MCM team.”
“I don’t think so.” Mr. Lin sounded too confident.
“I don’t understand.”
“This is testing the water.” Mr. Lin took off his glasses, his eyes were deep in thought. “What it tests isn’t MCM, but P/NP Problem.”
Lin Zhao Xi looked at the question again, then she finally recognized where this familiar feeling came from.
P/NP Problem, one of the Millennium Prize Problems, 1 million USD prize, similar to Riemann hypothesis and Poincaré conjecture.
Pei Zhi was so…
“Ambitious.” Mr. Lin said, extremely happy: “Let me fix it, this might not be Pei Zhi who came up with the question, this must be his instructor’s idea. The professor in your university who studied Hamilton circuit, is he Pei Zhi’s instructor, was his name Professor Shen (沈) or Professor Zeng (曾)?”
Lin Zhao Xi was speechless: “You know a lot don’t you.”
“Not much I must say, I even know that, this question is far from the actual P/NP Problem; but solving it, rewriting human’s history, if there were people with this courage, they absolutely deserve respect.”
“Yes, exactly.” Lin Zhao Xi thought, courage wasn’t it, how admirable.
“Then do you want to try studying MSc in Mathematics at your university?” Mr. Lin asked.
Lin Zhao Xi dumbfoundedly looked at him, unable to understand how he mentioned this.
“If one can prove P=NP, it could greatly increase the speed of calculators solving maths, it could also greatly shorten the time to cure innumerable diseases, including Alzheimer’s…” Mr. Lin continued “For your dad, will you consider changing your major?”
Lin Zhao Xi pointed at herself, then she pointed at the question on the table: “Sir, I can’t even understand it, the gap between me and MSc entrance test was the entire 4 years of studying professional Mathematics!”
Mr. Lin smiled, his words were poignant: “You think you can’t catch up with Pei Zhi, but is the gap between you and him further than the gap between him and P/NP Problem?”
It was irrebuttable.
Lin Zhao Xi turned around and headed to her room.
Mr. Lin was still smiling; his low and hoarse laugh was behind her:
“Ms. Lin Zhao Xi, in your long and beautiful life, if you have found what you genuinely want to do, then whenever you decide to start doing it isn’t late.”
