My IQ Increases Year by Year

The office was quiet.

The water cooler occasionally made a soft heating sound as bubbles tumbled in the jug before settling again.

"A few days ago, at the internet cafe, I already replied and declined."

Chen Zhuo’s voice was soft.

Alchemist sat behind his desk, maintaining a slight forward lean.

He watched Chen Zhuo opposite him, his gaze lingering on the young man’s calm face for a long time.

Standing off to the side, Fang Yuanming leaned against a file cabinet. He had subconsciously thrust his hands into his coat pockets, and his fingers fidgeted inside.

Alchemist slowly sat up straight.

He reached out, picked up the two sheets of A4 paper with the Princeton letterhead, read them over once more, and then gently set them aside.

"Declined."

Alchemist repeated the word.

"Yes."

Chen Zhuo picked up the paper cup from the coffee table and took a sip of warm water.

Alchemist leaned back in his chair, took off the glasses perched on his nose, and pulled a cloth from a drawer to wipe the lenses.

"The Princeton Institute for Advanced Study."

Alchemist began to speak as he cleaned his glasses, his voice even.

"Professor Delian didn’t just send a formal invitation. He also mentioned in the email that if you’re willing to go, they will cover everything—the visa, airfare, and your room and board over there."

Alchemist put his glasses back on and looked at Chen Zhuo.

"And your reason?"

Chen Zhuo set down his paper cup.

"Well... it’s too far."

Chen Zhuo said.

He sat in his chair, his hands resting naturally on his legs.

"Going to New Jersey involves several connecting flights, and I’d have to deal with jet lag."

Chen Zhuo’s tone made it sound as if he was being completely serious.

"Besides, I probably wouldn’t get used to the food there. Even the food in our own cafeteria gets to be a bit much for me sometimes."

Fang Yuanming, standing in the corner, turned his head to look out the window at the bare branches of the plane trees, pressing his lips together tightly.

Alchemist’s fingers tapped twice on the desktop.

"Just because it’s far and you’re worried about the food?"

"And the paperwork."

Chen Zhuo added after a moment of thought.

"The procedures for international exchanges are too complicated. Getting a passport, securing a visa, and then having to fill out a pile of forms all in English... It’s just too much trouble."

"Anything else?" Alchemist watched him.

​Chen Zhuo thought for a moment.

​"Mainly, it just isn’t necessary."

Chen Zhuo looked at Alchemist, his tone frank.

"Even if I went, I wouldn’t be of much help."

​Alchemist paused.

​He picked up the dark gray thermos by his side, twisted off the cap, and took a drink of water.

The steam fogged his lenses for a moment before quickly dissipating.

"Chen Zhuo."

Alchemist set down the thermos, his tone growing more formal.

"Setting aside these personal reasons, let’s talk about the content of this email."

Alchemist gestured with his finger toward the two sheets of A4 paper.

"Delian’s team has been stuck on the problem of the physical Singularity’s boundary for over half a year. They’ve been using the most cutting-edge continuous manifold tools available."

Alchemist looked into Chen Zhuo’s eyes.

"As a first-year undergraduate, you read their preprint here at the university. How did you think to just abandon their original approach and apply discrete algebra to the model?"

Chen Zhuo looked at the two pages on the table.

He didn’t answer immediately, taking a moment to organize his thoughts.

"Because the calculations wouldn’t go any further," Chen Zhuo said.

Alchemist raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Elaborate."

"Last fall, I happened to be reading the Russian edition of *Basic Algebraic Topology*."

Chen Zhuo’s voice was calm and unhurried, as if he were answering a routine question in class.

"At the time, I was looking up materials on the subject online and happened to come across the preprint that Princeton had posted."

Chen Zhuo made a small gesture in the air with his finger.

"Professor Delian’s team’s method starts from the spacetime continuity of general relativity, using calculus to derive the gravitational state near a Singularity."

Alchemist nodded. That was the consensus and conventional path in the world of physics.

"But if you follow continuous calculus down the line, when you reach the position of the Singularity, the denominator inevitably approaches zero," Chen Zhuo said, looking at Alchemist. "When the denominator approaches zero, the value explodes and diverges to infinity."

"To prevent the equation from collapsing, they introduced renormalization in their preprint."

Chen Zhuo paused for a moment.

"From a mathematical perspective, that solution isn’t clean enough."

Alchemist watched him, not interrupting.

"They were using continuous tools to cut a node that was fundamentally discontinuous."

Chen Zhuo frowned slightly, as if the algorithm itself made him uncomfortable.

"Forcing a truncation, taking an approximation just to get a result... in the logic of pure mathematics, that kind of patched-up equation is ugly."

"So you just smashed continuous spacetime to pieces?" Alchemist asked.

"Since the continuous path was a dead end—the denominator would become zero—I just stopped using a continuous approach."

Chen Zhuo’s tone was natural, as if he had encountered a puddle and simply decided it made sense to walk around it.

"I also just happened to have the tools of discrete algebra on hand at the time, so I tried building a lattice model out of convenience."

Chen Zhuo lowered his hand.

"Replace the infinitely approaching continuous variables with discrete algebraic nodes. In a discrete matrix, there’s no concept of ’approaching zero,’ only definite algebraic mappings. That way, the problem of divergence disappears."

Chen Zhuo looked at Alchemist and offered his conclusion.

"As long as you switch the framework to a discrete one, the equation naturally flattens out."

The office fell silent.

Fang Yuanming leaned against the file cabinet, listening quietly to this explanation.

He worked in admissions, so his academic expertise wasn’t on par with Alchemist’s, but he could still understand the meaning behind Chen Zhuo’s words.