When I Arrived, I Saw Them Arguing

Li Qin had to work overtime over the weekend to take inventory, so she did not come home that evening.

Li Dong sat at his desk, flipping through the copy of New Lectures on Mathematical Analysis on his phone.

This textbook, written by Zhang Zhusheng, was renowned in mathematics departments for its accessible language and rigorous logic.

But for a high school student who had yet to cross the threshold of the college entrance exam, it was still far too obscure.

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Yet Li Dong read it with great relish.

That was not to say he had mutated overnight into a genius capable of instantly crushing the Fields Medal.

Rather, it was because the attribute boosts from [Focus: 0.1] and [Memory: 0.1] gave him a special ability to retrieve information.

He treated the book like a massive treasure map.

Whenever he encountered a concept he did not understand, such as bounds or neighborhoods, he would use the internet to search for the prerequisite knowledge.

Then, his 0.1 focus allowed him to quickly grasp the core logic behind those concepts.

And his 0.1 memory firmly retained that new knowledge.

Before he knew it, it was already nine o'clock at night.

"Grrr..."

His stomach protested, and only then did Li Dong rub his slightly swollen temples and head to the kitchen to cook himself a bowl of plain noodle soup.

As he ate, Li Dong mentally reviewed his learning process from earlier.

"The value of this 0.1 is seriously insane..."

He now understood that the system panel's statement, [The average level of ordinary people is 0], did not mean ordinary people were idiots. It meant that, in the dimensions of "absolute focus" and "absolute memory," ordinary people's abilities were practically negligible.

After all, who could guarantee that not a single distracting thought would cross their mind while reading?

But Li Dong could now.

"I was born with 0.1 memory. No wonder my memory is so good."

He still remembered how, when he was five, Erpang, the girl next door, had insisted on dragging him to the sandpit to compete in pissing, to see who could pee farther.

Li Dong had assumed victory was assured due to his anatomical advantage, but nerves caused him to perform poorly, and he ultimately lost by a narrow margin.

Most people would have long forgotten something so trivial.

But Li Dong remembered it for a full twelve years!

Until his second year of high school, when Erpang returned to her hometown to visit relatives and happened to use his family's bathroom.

The moment she came out, Li Dong rushed in, stared at his watch, and forcibly held in a stream of urine for two whole minutes before silently declaring that he had finally won one back.

"I used to waste this memory on such stupid stuff..."

Li Dong laughed at himself and drained the last mouthful of noodle soup.

Full and satisfied, he had planned to continue studying.

But the moment he picked up his phone, a wave of dizziness hit him, and his head began to ache as though pricked by needles.

"Hiss..."

He sucked in a breath.

"Looks like intensive mental work has side effects too..."

Li Dong did not dare push himself. After washing up, he fell straight into bed.

He slept exceptionally well.

In his dream, he became a fish.

He swam freely through an ocean made up of countless integral signs, "∫."

With a butterfly stroke, he surged over a massive wave called Taylor Expansion.

Then, with a dive, he dodged the reefs of nowhere-differentiability laid by the Weierstrass Function.

Just as he was about to challenge the undersea volcano known as the Riemann Hypothesis...

"Bzz, bzz..."

The vibration of the phone beneath his pillow woke him up.

Li Dong groggily opened his eyes. It was already bright outside.

"Who is it this early in the morning..."

Yawning, Li Dong opened WeChat and saw that the upper-right corner of "Azure Dragon Study Group" had directly reached 99+.

That woke him up a little. He was just thinking about how to keep fleecing the group members.

At that moment, Newton was passionately arguing with someone.

[Isaac Newton]: Absurd! Utterly absurd! How could time and space possibly be curved? Time is God's river. It is absolute. No matter where you are, one second is one second. That is the foundation of the universe!

The group member arguing with him had an avatar of an elderly man with white curly hair and a slightly mischievous glint in his eyes.

His ID was [Albert Einstein].

[Albert Einstein]: Hey, dear Isaac, you're a knight. Don't get so worked up.

Your river may flow steadily across a plain, but when it encounters an uneven riverbed, it has to bend too.

And imagine this: if you put an iron ball on a trampoline, wouldn't the surface sink?

[Isaac Newton]: Put away that damned trampoline theory of yours! I only believe in mathematics and calculations!

My laws can calculate the return date of Halley's Comet down to the second! What can your theory do besides draw diagrams on paper?

[Albert Einstein]: Oh, since you brought that up, I have to give you some bad news. We have already measured the discrepancy in Mercury's perihelion precession.

It is off by 43 arcseconds every century. Your equations seem to be somewhat... inadequate?

[Isaac Newton]: Then there must be something wrong with your measuring instruments! Or there are other interference factors you haven't discovered!

[Albert Einstein]: Dear Sir, you need to face the facts. It has nothing to do with measuring instruments. Spacetime is curved!

Watching the two titans of physics argue in the group like elementary school students, Li Dong felt as if he were watching Classical Mechanics and Relativity go head-to-head.

To be honest, he could understand Newton's anger.

The grand edifice built by Classical Mechanics from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries had been practically unshakable. People at the time believed it was the truth that explained the universe!

And now someone suddenly jumped out and said, hey, Newton, your foundation is crooked. Who wouldn't panic?

As the two argued more and more fiercely, even [Gauss] and [Faraday], who had been lurking all along, came out and sent a string of popcorn-eating memes.

Li Dong felt that his chance to fleece them had arrived.

He carefully organized his wording.

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: Gentlemen, may I say something?

Newton and Einstein, who had been arguing moments ago, both stopped.

After all, Li Dong's current persona was that of an expert who had "pointed out the essence of thermodynamics."

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: I think neither of your theories is actually wrong. They simply apply to different situations.

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: Sir Newton's laws remain absolute truth in the macroscopic, low-speed realm.

[Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems]: Mr. Einstein's theory, meanwhile, completes the laws of physics under near-light-speed conditions and strong gravitational fields.

When we analyze problems, we should consider the specific circumstances.

[Albert Einstein]: Ha! Consider the specific circumstances! Your words are excellent, Lord Senior Year! Would you like to have a drink with me?

Li Dong's face darkened. Where am I supposed to drink with you? Do you have any idea how long you've been dead?

[Albert Einstein]: Isaac, did you hear that?

Einstein was clearly being gracious and gladly took the off-ramp.

But how could someone as proud to the bone as Newton be persuaded so easily?

[Isaac Newton]: @Currently Grinding Senior-Year Problems, do you mean my theory is incomplete?

I do not even know whether what he says about Mercury is true. He is saying it all with nothing but his mouth. Without data, how could I believe such nonsense as spacetime being curved?

No data?

Li Dong smiled. Big shot Newton, aren't you practically rushing to hand me a red packet?