My IQ Increases Year by Year

Keda University’s old library.

It was a ways from the academic buildings, an aged, gray structure with outer walls blanketed in ivy. Come autumn, the leaves turned a deep crimson.

Few people came here compared to the new, modern library.

The study rooms here lacked bright, floor-to-ceiling windows, having only tall, narrow ones with wooden lattices.

The wooden floors, long in disrepair, creaked softly underfoot. The air was filled with the distinct, musty smell of old paper.

A seat by the window, in the innermost part of the second floor.

Chen Zhuo sat here.

The table was an old-fashioned, long wooden one, its surface gleaming with the patina of age.

In front of Chen Zhuo lay a blank sheet of scratch paper.

To the left of the paper was a thick foreign book with no Chinese characters.

It was a dark green hardcover, with a line of Russian letters printed on the cover.

Volume One of the *Theoretical Physics Tutorial*, part of Landau’s ten-volume series.

To the right of the paper sat another book.

It was entirely in English, quite thin, with *Basic Topology* written on the cover.

This one wasn’t physics, but pure, foundational mathematics.

Chen Zhuo held a black fountain pen in his hand.

He first opened the Russian-language theoretical physics book.

Chen Zhuo wasn’t a particularly fast reader.

He gazed at the descriptions of complex physical models on the pages.

After a while, he paused, his brow furrowed slightly.

He was working through the book’s physical hypothesis on particle motion in his mind.

Halfway through, the physical logic hit a dead end.

In this multidimensional space model, traditional calculus tools were ineffective.

Conventional calculations would get stuck in an infinite loop.

Chen Zhuo closed the dark green Russian book and pushed it to the top-left corner of the table.

Then, he pulled the thin English copy of *Basic Topology* from his right toward him.

He opened it.

He skipped the lengthy theorem proofs and went straight to the pages on manifolds and spatial mapping.

Chen Zhuo looked at the mathematical definitions in English.

The fountain pen in his hand began to write on the scratch paper.

He drew abstract geometric and topological figures, writing line after line of pure algebraic symbols.

He was using mathematical methods to build a new framework for the physics problem that had stumped him.

The nib scratched against the paper, making a faint, rustling sound.

A little over ten minutes later.

An extremely concise mathematical conversion formula now lay on the scratch paper.

Chen Zhuo stopped writing.

He looked at the formula on the paper.

The chaos of the physical world had been perfectly partitioned by these few lines of mathematical symbols.

Chen Zhuo closed the math book and put it back on his right.

He pulled the Russian theoretical physics book back in front of him, turning to the page where he’d gotten stuck. Referencing the mathematical tool he had just derived, he examined the physical model once more.

Everything ran smoothly, falling logically into place.

The furrow in Chen Zhuo’s brow smoothed out.

He didn’t slam the table in excitement, nor did he feel he had accomplished some amazing feat of interdisciplinary fusion.

He simply flipped the scratch paper over.

He continued reading the dark green book.

At noon, he went downstairs for a few minutes, gnawed on a dry piece of bread, drank some cold water, and returned to his seat.

Time slipped by with the turning of pages.

The few blank sheets of scratch paper were now covered, front and back, with dense algebraic symbols and topological figures.

Quiet, tedious, and pure.

...

5:30 in the afternoon.

The afterglow of the setting sun stained the old library’s wooden floors an orange-red.

Chen Zhuo glanced at the wall clock hanging nearby.

’Time to get dinner.’

Chen Zhuo folded the scratch paper, tucked it into a book, and stood up.

He hadn’t finished the Russian theoretical physics book yet.

Carrying it, Chen Zhuo went to a nearby foreign language shelf and picked out an original edition on algebraic geometry.

The two tomes felt heavy in his hands.

He walked down the wooden staircase to the circulation desk on the first floor.

By this time, the library was mostly empty.

The circulation desk was a semicircular wooden counter.

An old, bulky computer with a CRT monitor sat on the counter.

Su Wei sat behind the computer.

She was wearing a dark, long-sleeved plaid shirt, the cuffs rolled up.

She wasn’t reading. In her hand was a stack of returned library cards, which she was sorting by number.

This was her work-study job.

It paid by the hour.

The sixty-yuan monthly subsidy was enough to cover her food expenses for half a month.

Chen Zhuo walked over and placed the two books on the counter.

Su Wei looked up at the sound.

She saw Chen Zhuo.

She showed no surprise at seeing a classmate, nor did she greet him first.

She simply put down the cards in her hand, reached out, and pulled the two books toward her.

She opened the back cover of the first book.

A small paper pocket was pasted to the inside back cover, holding a stiff paper checkout card.

Su Wei glanced at the cover.

*An Introduction to Algebraic Geometry*, English edition.

She pulled out the card, picked up the date stamp beside her, and pressed it onto a red ink pad.

She stamped the date into a blank square on the card.

Then she opened the second book.

A dark green cover.

Su Wei’s eyes lingered on the cover for less than half a second.

She recognized it.

Even though she couldn’t read a single word of the Russian on it.

But her brain, like a silent scanner, had stored everything: the book’s shape, color, thickness, and the number I on its spine.

She pulled out the checkout card and stamped it.

Both cards were stamped.

Su Wei inserted the cards into a small wooden box next to the computer, which was used for filing.

She pushed the two books back to Chen Zhuo with both hands.

"These are from the foreign literature collection."

Su Wei spoke.

Her voice was quiet, without any inflection.

"The loan period is fifteen days."

"Return them before November sixth. The overdue fine is twenty cents a day."

Chen Zhuo gathered the books in his arms.

"Got it. That’s enough time."

Chen Zhuo nodded.

"Thanks."

With that, he turned to leave.

Su Wei sat there, watching Chen Zhuo turn away.

Her brain was running automatically in the background.

The green Russian book had a I on its spine, indicating it was the first volume.

She processed hundreds, even thousands, of books at this desk every day.

Half a month ago, on her first day at this part-time job, she had handled some old books with missing call number labels while sorting returns.

A dormant piece of data was activated.

"Hey,"

Su Wei called out, stopping Chen Zhuo.

Chen Zhuo stopped and turned to look at her.

Su Wei didn’t stand up. She kept her eyes on the card sorting box in front of her, her hands never ceasing their motion.

"The second volume of that Russian series isn’t on the shelf by the window on the second floor."

Su Wei’s voice was flat, as if she were reading a tedious instruction manual.

Chen Zhuo was taken aback for a moment.

When he was looking for books on the second floor earlier, he had indeed glanced at the shelf. Only the first and third volumes were there, with a gap in between. He’d assumed someone else had checked it out.

Su Wei continued.

"The white call number label on its spine fell off. Last week, when I just started this job, the student who was sorting didn’t know where to shelve it. So they treated it as a problem book and casually set it on a pile of old newspapers, waiting for the cataloging librarian to relabel it."

She looked up, giving Chen Zhuo a glance.

"The book is now on the third floor, at the end of the hallway, in the storage corner on the left where they stack old copies of the *People’s Daily*."

She gave him extremely precise coordinates.

"It’s under the bottom layer of newspapers. Green cover. If you’re looking for it, you can get it there."

After reporting this string of data,

Su Wei lowered her head and resumed sorting the small cards in her hands.

She didn’t ask if Chen Zhuo could even understand the book, nor why he was looking for the series.

Chen Zhuo stood rooted to the spot.

After a moment of surprise, he couldn’t help but lower his head and let out a soft laugh.

"If Keda ever held a memory competition, no one else would even need to show up. A brain like yours is basically cheating."

Chen Zhuo shifted the books to his other arm and looked at Su Wei.

Su Wei hadn’t expected him to respond like that.

She was used to people looking at her as if she were a freak because of her memory, but Chen Zhuo’s gentle, teasing tone made her pause for a second.

She didn’t smile, just silently inserted another card into the wooden box.

"Left side. The bottom layer of newspapers."

Su Wei lowered her head, repeating the coordinates.

"Alright, I’ll go get it."

Chen Zhuo smiled and nodded.

He turned and headed up the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor was an abandoned old reading room that almost no one ever visited.

Chen Zhuo walked to the end of the hallway.

In the corner to his left, there was indeed a half-man-high stack of old newspapers, covered in a thick layer of dust.

Chen Zhuo crouched down and moved aside the top few bundles of string-tied newspapers.

He moved aside the bottom layer of newspapers.

A dark green hardcover was lying there quietly.

It had Russian text on the cover and a Roman numeral II on the spine.

It was in perfect condition.

Chen Zhuo picked up the book and patted the dust off it.

Carrying the book, he went back downstairs.

He returned to the first-floor circulation desk.

Chen Zhuo placed the second volume on the counter.

Su Wei glanced at it without a word.

She opened the back cover and pulled out the card.

She stamped it.

Then she pushed the book back.

"November sixth," Su Wei said.

Chen Zhuo walked out of the old library’s main doors carrying the three books.

The autumn evening breeze felt cool against his skin. The sun had completely set.

Chen Zhuo walked toward the dormitory along a tree-lined path as the streetlights flickered on one by one.

He arrived back at Building 4.

The hallway was filled with the aromas of various meals and the sounds of boys roughhousing.

Chen Zhuo went up to the second floor.

As he passed dorm room 216,

light seeped out from under the door.

From inside came the crisp tapping of a keyboard, mingled with Chu Ge’s cursing.

"This crappy internet... how am I supposed to run anything with a packet loss rate this high..."

This was followed by the muffled sound of someone turning over in bed, the bedframe letting out a CREAK.

Then came a suppressed sigh from Lu Jia.

Chen Zhuo reached dorm room 215 and pushed the door open.

Inside, Wang Dayong was sitting at his desk, holding a large stainless steel bowl and SLURPING down instant noodles.

"You’re back?"

Wang Dayong didn’t even look up, sucking up a large mouthful of noodles.

"The cafeteria didn’t have anything good today, so I’m just making do with some boiled water."

Chen Zhuo laid the three heavy foreign books flat on his desk.

He turned his head and looked at the absurdly large bowl in Wang Dayong’s hands. The noodle broth was about to overflow.

"You call this ’making do’?"

Chen Zhuo pulled out his chair and smiled at Wang Dayong.

"If you put any more noodles in that bowl, the broth would spill all the way to the floor."

"Heh, I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight. It’s a real problem."

Wang Dayong grinned, then lifted his bowl and took another big gulp of broth.

Chen Zhuo chuckled and shook his head as he sat down in his chair.

He opened the green second volume.