Cold Soul (Please Vote!)

Cold Soul (Please Vote!)

Bedroom.

"Do you really believe in the multiverse theory?"

"Wholeheartedly. It is the most elegant interpretation of quantum mechanics."

"So, you really think there are infinitely many parallel universes?"

"Stephen Hawking believes it, so I believe it too."

"If there really are infinitely many parallel universes, then I think this theory is equally stupid in every single one of them."

As they played chess, Paige steered Little Sheldon into conversation. Seeing her words leave him speechless as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, she smiled slightly and changed the subject.

"It's so fun playing with you. At school, I can't talk about these things with the other children. What about you?"

Little Sheldon held himself back, then nodded. "Can't."

Juno: ...

Adam: (╰_╯)#

"Have you ever wished you were like everyone else?"

Paige asked.

Little Sheldon looked up and thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Not at all."

"Hehe, me neither."

Paige smiled again, her gaze sweeping past Adam and Juno. "I really enjoy feeling smarter than everyone else."

Little Sheldon stared blankly at Paige. Suddenly, he found himself liking her. Compared with Adam and the others, Paige was the same kind of person as him. He nodded. "Me too."

Most of his earlier hostility faded away, and an unconscious smile appeared on his face as he returned Paige's radiant smile. Until...

"Checkmate!"

Paige burst out laughing. "You lost! Hahaha! Looks like I'm the smartest one after all, huh?"

Little Sheldon was stunned.

This was different from their verbal sparring when they first met in the university classroom. Back then, although Paige had left him speechless, it was mainly because he attended a public high school while Paige attended a private one. Their resources were unequal, and there was a lot of knowledge he had no access to yet.

The United States placed great emphasis on intellectual property protection. Books were very expensive, and specialized books often cost hundreds of dollars, a true illustration of the saying that knowledge was wealth.

How could a public high school library's collection compare to that of a private high school?

So although that had temporarily put him at a disadvantage, he could grudgingly accept it despite his displeasure.

But chess, in his eyes, was purely a contest of intelligence. Paige, who was his age—or even a month younger—had defeated him head-on at it, then smugly declared that she was the smartest one.

How could Little Sheldon possibly accept that? He completely exploded and flipped the chessboard over.

Paige was somewhat surprised too, but then she shrugged and smiled. "Another game?"

Little Sheldon glared at her furiously and gritted out, "Fine."

He refused to believe it. He was a super genius with an IQ of 187. Among people his age throughout history, he was supposed to be the smartest.

Although IQ kept rising with social development, and younger geniuses would indeed break the various records he set in the future, he believed that would only happen at least a century later, with brains that were half-machine, half-human. Purely human brains would absolutely never surpass his.

In the second game, he lost again.

There was no third game. Little Sheldon was practically shutting down.

"That's amazing."

Adam finally suppressed the negative emotions in his heart. Remembering the purpose of this visit, he cut in with theatrical exaggeration, "Paige, you really are a genius."

"I know."

Paige grinned at Adam, then turned to tease Little Sheldon, who was trembling with anger. "Hey, Sheldon, what else do you usually play?"

"..."

Adam's mouth twitched, and he could barely keep up his theatrical smile. What was going on? Had ordinary, unremarkable him been completely ignored by Paige?

Even as they said goodbye and left, Adam was still somewhat dazed.

"What an interesting little girl."

Juno looked at the dejected Adam with an ambiguous smile. "Are you still thinking about how she completely ignored you?"

"Yeah. That's not reasonable."

Adam muttered.

"What's unreasonable about it?"

Juno smiled. "She's actually the same kind of person as Sheldon. A true genius."

"I know that."

Adam retorted, "But Sheldon isn't like that, is he?"

Little Sheldon was so difficult to deal with, yet when Adam had first approached him, the system had given him a prompt that increasing intelligence had succeeded. Could Paige really be even harder to deal with than Sheldon?

"The world in a genius's eyes is different from that of ordinary people. It isn't that they don't understand social conventions. They just only care about things that interest them. They simply don't want to waste energy on anything else, like your attempt to be friendly."

Juno hit the nail on the head. "Isn't Sheldon the same? Even though he became friends with us, have you ever seen him truly integrate with us?"

"Hasn't he?"

Adam began to doubt himself. Thinking about it, Little Sheldon did often look at them with contempt. It was just that Adam had been too familiar with this kind of Sheldon in his previous life. He thought that was simply Sheldon and never gave it much thought.

"No, we're his friends."

Remembering the system's assessment, Adam rejected his own doubts.

"That's because Mrs. Cooper wanted him to be friends with us."

Juno shook her head. "Sheldon was only obeying his mother."

"..."

Adam opened his mouth but had no words. At last, he understood.

Among the friend group in The Big Bang Theory, who had truly entered Sheldon's heart?

Leonard, Penny, and Amy.

Leonard had been passively trained by the mother of "Sheldon's female companion" from birth, for more than twenty years. On top of that, he had an IQ of 173, and his interests and hobbies were exactly the same as Sheldon's. Only then had he been able to pass Sheldon's bizarre roommate interview, get close to him, endure him for years, and finally earn Sheldon's true acceptance.

Penny was the embodiment of Sheldon's mother. The nickname Mama Penny had not come from nowhere.

Amy was a combination of woman and science. She spent five or six whole years pestering—coveting—Sheldon before finally getting him.

Adam did not have Leonard's IQ, did not share Sheldon's interests, could not be as much of a suck-up as Leonard, was not a doting mother, and had only spent a little over a year with Little Sheldon. Yet because of a system prompt, he had thought he and Sheldon had become true friends?

He had to admit, he was still far too naive.

The only reason he had successfully become a "system-recognized friend" of Sheldon's was one sentence from Sheldon's Mom. Because Sheldon's Mom wanted it that way, mama's boy Sheldon had reluctantly accepted Adam.

Just as Little Sheldon did not believe in God at all, yet was willing to go to church for his mother's sake, and even attend outreach classes promoting the Bible.

Stuart, who often tried to make his presence felt in the future The Big Bang Theory friend group, had also known Sheldon for over a decade and shared an interest in comics with him, yet Sheldon still bluntly dismissed him: "His aura is different from ours."

When Adam had watched it before, he had found it hilarious. But thinking about it now, the coldness within those words had definitely come from the depths of Sheldon's soul.

Just as Juno had said, geniuses were all proud and aloof. Paige's behavior was Sheldon's true nature.