Punishment

If things could get so easily, Napoleon would truly have to go back and sincerely thank God. But there's no such thing as a free lunch. Sure enough, Joseph spoke again:

"Napoleon, you spent a lot of your family's money to get those guys' support, didn't you?"

Upon hearing this, Napoleon knew things were going badly. Joseph was rarely agreeable when money was involved.

"Joseph, I..."

"Those guys at the École Normale Supérieure probably just want to get you a position as a queen of the École Normale Supérieure system; they won't directly ask you for money. But Mr. Lavoisier, hehe, I know him very well. Given your relationship with him, is it possible to get him to help you like this without money? Besides, Mr. Lavoisier has made quite a fortune over the years, and his standards are much higher than before. Hehe, it didn't cost much to bribe him before, but now it certainly won't be cheap, right? Tell me, how much did you give him?"

Napoleon knew that his elder brother managed the family finances, and these matters couldn't be hidden from him; if he investigated, he would surely find out. Therefore, Napoleon never intended to keep this from Joseph. Now that Joseph had questioned him, Napoleon had no choice but to honestly confess. Although Napoleon understood the principle of leniency for those who confess, and life imprisonment for those who remain behind bars.

"What?! You spendthrift! You actually gave him so many benefits? That old bastard, so greedy now, he should be on the guillotine. Hmm, Napoleon, and you too, you're outrageous, you're infuriating! How can you be so stupid, can't you even bargain? If it were me, I could have at least cut the price by half, and if it were an India, I could have cut it by another half! Good heavens, you really can't bargain, even Lucien would be better than you!"

"Lucien refuses to participate; he's worried..." Napoleon said.

"Lucien, failing to report something makes you an accomplice! You've been in the Ministry of Truth for so many years, don't you even understand this most basic principle? You either told me immediately when you discovered this conspiracy, or you did your best to help Napoleon. Either choice is better than this indecisiveness! You're a complete idiot!" Joseph cursed.

Lucien looked at his eldest brother, then at his second brother, and didn't dare to say anything.

"Lucien, you need to write a self-criticism, five thousand words, something that touches your soul, and hand it in to me tomorrow!" Joseph said.

"Oh," Lucien readily agreed. He'd already prepared plenty of templates for self-criticisms; what was this?

"Napoleon, you have caused enormous financial losses to the family, so you must be punished. From today onwards, half of your dividends will be deducted as a fine until this loss is made up."

After considering the matter in his mind, Napoleon felt that although the amount of the usual dividends was considerable, it would not significantly affect his standard of living, so he quickly expressed his willingness to accept the penalty.

"A problem that can be solved with money isn't a problem," Napoleon silently told himself.

"Furthermore, Napoleon, now that you are a member of the French Academy of Sciences, you can't just take the Academy of Sciences's stipend for nothing. So you should also participate in some of the Academy of Sciences's work," Joseph added.

"No problem, no problem," Napoleon quickly replied.

"According to the rules, you should still be in your probationary period. But you broke the rules and made you a full academician directly—I was a probationary myself!" Joseph said, somewhat dissatisfied. "I don't care if you're a full academician now or not, you still have to do the things that probationary academicians are supposed to do!"

One important task of "probationary academicians" is reviewing papers. Every year, a considerable number of papers are submitted to various journals affiliated with the Academy of Sciences. Reviewing these papers is a demanding and challenging task. Therefore, most of the full academicians are unwilling to do this kind of work. Of course, considering that there are quite a few probationary academicians in the Academy of Sciences, and that Napoleon could use the people from the École Normale Supérieure as substitutes if he was too busy, Napoleon felt that this was something he could handle.

"That's no problem. Serving the Academy of Sciences is something I've always longed for," Napoleon quickly replied.

"Alright, I'll assign you to review papers for the journal Mathematics," Joseph said.

Napoleon was quite satisfied with the outcome that evening. He felt that although Joseph could be annoying at times, he was still his brother. Today's result was a classic case of giving high a slap on the wrist, a three-drink penalty, and a warning not to repeat it.

Joseph acted quickly; just two days later, Napoleon received a large stack of papers awaiting review.

Since Napoleon had nothing else to do at the moment, he decided to treat this as another form of relaxation. So Napoleon began to seriously read the paper.

Upon seeing this, Napoleon understood why none of the full academicians were willing to do this work; only the "probationary academicians" would take on such tasks. And even the "probationary academicians," if not for the desire to quickly gain formal membership, certainly wouldn't want to do this job. Because, frankly speaking, the quality of these papers was mostly quite poor. Many of these so-called "papers" were so riddled with flaws that Napoleon felt they should be submitted to the joke section of the * the Sun.

"This is utterly amateurish!" Napoleon slammed a paper on the table, then picked up a pen and began writing comments.

"This 'paper' has the problem of using other equivalent propositions as axioms in the first paragraph. There are obvious logical loopholes in the following paragraphs marked 1, 5, 7, etc., and there are even obvious calculation errors in the paragraphs marked 3 and 6."

Review result: Not approved.

Suggestion: The author should retake elementary school math.

Having finished the first paper, Napoleon picked up the second one. After reading it for a while, he began writing his comments:

"The reasoning process is sound, though somewhat verbose and tedious, but at least it's error-free. It addresses a crucial issue, and the conclusion is entirely correct. However, is it meaningful to reinvent the wheel? Was it necessary to spend so much space proving a theorem that the ancient Greece proved in a fifth of the text?"

Review result: Not approved.

Recommendation: The author should continue his studies after completing compulsory education.

Basically, most papers are like this. Napoleon spent the whole day reading them and didn't find anything worthwhile, but he did laugh until his stomach hurt.

Napoleon casually tossed aside another amateur scientific paper and then saw a very thick paper next to it, titled "A Rigorous Proof of the Principles of Geometry and the Parallel Lines Theorem." The author was an obscure man named Lucien Evans.