Scary

Joseph hasn't had any major issues lately. He's basically finished climbing the easy tech trees, but the more difficult ones are still a long way off. For example, in medicine, antibiotics have been discovered in the lab. That's not difficult; all you need is some penicillin. But the purification and production of antibiotics... well, that's still a long way off. Another example is ammonia synthesis technology. It showed some promise in the lab initially, but when they tried to industrialize it, it caused a massive explosion. Over three hundred workers and more than fifty engineers died instantly in the explosion.

The deaths of over three hundred workers didn't cause much distress to the French; most were Germany, and their deaths were hardly a concern for anyone except their own families. As the saying goes, "Relatives may grieve, but others will sing." However, the deaths of over fifty engineers truly pained the France. Even the lowest-ranking trainee engineer among them was a graduate of the Paris Higher Technical School, considered highly skilled in France. Several senior engineers, and even the chief engineer, were also among the dead.

Therefore, the plan had to be postponed indefinitely. Napoleon was furious about this and severely criticized Joseph for forcing the war against objective conditions.

So, to be honest, Joseph doesn't have anything too important to do right now. The most important thing he's been doing lately is encouraging his assistant Gauss to throw out something he's already deduced, but which was so frightening that he'd secretly hidden it away, to scare people.

However, in mathematics, Europe countries were no longer a match for France. At this point, Joseph's encouragement of Gauss to release this theory was not primarily to intimidate foreigners, but to suppress the group at the École Normale Supérieure and, incidentally, to solidify his own academic dominance. Yes, Joseph was now an academic superstar, and not just in terms of exams, but as a ruler of the academic world.

Today, in physics and medicine, there is no force that can rival the Joseph school, but in mathematics, the École Normale Supérieure still possesses formidable strength. Therefore, Joseph set his sights on them. This clearly demonstrates the extent of intensified competition within the France scientific community under Joseph's leadership.

Joseph is currently working with Gauss on the final preparations for his groundbreaking, significant, and disruptive theory, intending to use it to set a trap and deliver a serious blow to the École Normale Supérieure.

However, Gauss was mainly in charge of this, while Joseph only managed the general direction, so he now had plenty of time to teach the children what was worthwhile to do in Italy.

The negotiations with the Italy side are basically complete. Joseph has also prepared a curated Italy tour itinerary for Mr. Lavoisier (actually, more for his daughter). First, a few days in Milan, then the University of Padua, then a few days in Venice, then the University of Siena, then the University of Bologna, then a week in Rome. Well, considering Alice is still young and needs more rest, let's extend the stay in Rome for a few more days, let's say two weeks, then...

Furthermore, for Joseph, showing off at universities in other countries was no longer of much need. However, sending his students and assistants there was still quite necessary...

The arrangements were quickly made, however, the day before departure, news suddenly arrived that Mr. Lavoisier had fallen ill.

Mr. Lavoisier was getting on in years, so it was perfectly normal for him to suddenly have a headache or fever. Nevertheless, Joseph hurried off to visit Mr. Lavoisier.

Joseph met Lavoisier at his home Lavoisier, where he was resting in bed. Mr. Lavoisier appeared to have a cold, lying there sneezing and having a runny nose. The doctor had already taken Lavoisier's temperature with the newly invented mercury thermometer; Mr. Lavoisier had a slight fever, but he did not have a cough, which meant that, at least for the time being, there was no danger of it developing into pneumonia.

"Mr. Lavoisier, how are you feeling?" Joseph asked.

"Ah, my head is so heavy, and my whole body aches—it's unbelievable, I was perfectly fine last night." Lavoisier lay in bed, a damp towel covering his forehead.

"You probably just have a cold, it's nothing serious," Joseph said.

"I know, the doctor said so too. The doctor said I should be better in a week. But I don't think I'll be fully recovered in less than two weeks—I'm not a young man anymore. Thankfully, your research has completely overturned the bloodletting therapy. Otherwise, if they had let them bleed me indiscriminately, I don't think I would have been better for a month."

"Ah, Mr. Lavoisier, I think you should be well soon. I can tell from how well you are speaking," Joseph said.

"Ah, Joseph, who will lead the delegation tomorrow?" Lavoisier asked.

"How about it, Gauss?" Joseph knew that Lavoisier was definitely not going to be able to lead the team.

"Gauss is still a bit young," Lavoisier said. "Besides, we promised them that someone of the dean's rank would lead the team, Gauss isn't high enough. Ah, Joseph, you shouldn't be too busy lately, right?"

"Nothing much, just reviewing one of Gauss's new papers," Joseph replied.

"Well, Gauss is going to Italy too. Why don't you lead the team? Anyway, you can talk to Gauss about any problems that arise," Lavoisier said. "Besides, you can also keep an eye on little Alice while you're at it."

Joseph thought about it and agreed that the suggestion was indeed quite good. He was now quite successful, and France didn't seem to be in any particular danger for the time being. Taking this opportunity to relax was actually a good idea. However, Mr. Lavoisier seemed a little too enthusiastic about Italy affairs—he was most likely being paid by the Italy.

"But Fanny ..." Joseph said.

"Does Fanny need your care?" Madame Lavoisier said. "She might be more relaxed now that you're out."

That wasn't entirely wrong, and Joseph himself thought so too. However, while he thought this to himself, he said aloud, "I can certainly help a lot with things at home. But since Mr. Lavoisier can't go, I'm really worried about having someone else take care of Alice. It seems this is the only way. I happen to have nothing else to do right now. Um, Mr. Lavoisier, would you like me to bring you back any souvenirs from Italy?"

"Ah..." Lavoisier thought for a moment, "What does Italy have? Ah, how about Joseph, could you bring me back a set of Rome- era coins..."

Back home, Joseph told Fanny about his decision to replace Lavoisier on a performance tour in Italy. Fanny did not object.

"It's good that you're going. Mr. Lavoisier is getting old after all. Fortunately, he fell ill in Paris. If he had fallen ill in Milan, Padua, or Siena, who would have taken care of Alice?"

So Joseph quickly prepared himself, and the next day, he set off for Italy with his daughter, a group of students, and assistants.

Today, there is a railway connecting Paris to the south of France, but there is no direct railway linking France to Italy. The border between France and Italy is made up of steep mountains. Building a railway through the Alps would be too difficult, so the usual way to travel is to board a ship in Marseille and then disembark in Italy.

Napoleon and Lucien personally went to the train station to see Joseph and his party off. They watched as Joseph and his entourage boarded the train and entered the special carriage. Then he waved to them, and the train slowly began to move.

Standing on the platform, watching the train slowly pull away, Napoleon couldn't help but wave excitedly to Lucien beside him, saying, "Alright, we're more than halfway there! Now, let's proceed to the next step according to plan."

"Don't rush. We can only really take action after Joseph arrives in Milan," Lucien said.

"Yes, yes, we mustn't rush, we mustn't rush." Napoleon rubbed his hands together, looking restless.

"Vanity!" Lucien couldn't help but shake his head.

In Joseph's private box, Joseph handed a folder to Gauss.

"Gauss, what do you think of my proof?" Joseph asked with a smug smile.

Gauss took the folder, opened it, and saw the following line: <An Explanation of Non-Euclidean Geometry>.

"Teacher, this is..." Gauss looked up at Joseph in surprise.

"Ah, it's a supplementary proof to your research. I proved your idea from the perspective of Differential Geometry, on a hyperboloid similar to a saddle. If my proof is correct, your new geometry and Euclidean Geometry are equivalent under certain conditions. Also, I think, I suspect, there might be another interesting way to prove it from the perspective of projection. However, I have a lot of things to do, so I'll leave the proof in this direction to you. Well, the contents of this must be kept secret, at least for now," Joseph said.

Gauss remained silent, simply beginning to peruse the paper page by page. Joseph then turned to little Alice beside him and said, "Alice, come here, Daddy will teach you how to play chess."

This is one of the games Joseph and Alice played most often. Alice loved playing this game with Joseph. Of course, the result of her liking this game with her father was that Joseph's chess skills plummeted, from easily beating Lucien to being easily beaten by Lucien.

"Okay!" Alice ran over. "But this time I don't want you to give me a chariot, a queen, and a knight. I think if you just give me a queen, I can win."

So Gauss sat down to read his paper, while Joseph and little Alice played chess nearby. Little Alice, caught off guard, was checkmated by Joseph's bishop. She wanted to move her king, but realized that doing so would mean losing a rook for nothing. Frustrated, she pouted and pressed her hand against Joseph's bishop, saying, "No, Father, your bishop won't let you move like that... he won't let you move like that!"

"Alright, Alice, I'll allow you to take back one move," Joseph said.

Little Alice examined the chessboard closely, then said, "I'll take back two moves..."

Then the two of them played for a while longer...

"No, I won't move like that, I want to take back my move..."

"I'll take this step..."

So, after spending more than an hour and taking back her moves many times, Alice finally defeated Joseph as she had hoped. The little girl jumped for joy.

By this time, Gauss had finished reading the short paper and even completed the relevant calculations. At least for now, he had not found any flaws.

He looked up from his desk and saw Joseph raising his hands in surrender to Alice. He said, "Teacher, I've finished reading this paper. It should be fine; at least I haven't found any problems. With this proof, my new geometry seems to really hold true. Hmm, you just said that we can consider it from the perspective of projection; perhaps there's another way to prove it?"

"What's wrong? What's on your mind?" Joseph asked.

"Professor, I had some ideas while reading this paper, but I haven't fully thought them out yet," Gauss said.

Gauss was a man of overly cautious nature. He would always hide anything he wasn't absolutely certain of, no matter how valuable it was, for fear of it being seen by others. For example, in the original history, after Lobachevsky derived Lobachevskian Geometry, he sent his paper to Gauss for review.

When Gauss saw it, he privately praised it highly. He told others that all wise mathematicians would have similar insights. Lobachevsky's research and much of my research have many similarities.

However, Gauss never commented on Lobachevskian Geometry in public. Although, according to the findings when his manuscripts were sorted out after his death, he had made even earlier progress in non-Euclidean Lobachevsky, and in many areas, he had gone further. But Gauss was too cautious and kept these things hidden away.

This time, however, Joseph wouldn't let Gauss keep these things at the bottom of the box.

"Well, then you can study it whenever you have time," Joseph nodded. "However, the results must be kept secret. Especially the research on these two proofs, that must be kept confidential. When we return from this trip to Italy, I will publish your new geometry directly in the journal of the French Academy of Sciences. Those guys at the École Normale Supérieure will definitely jump out to object. Let them perform first, and then we'll use these two proofs to give them a good beating..."