A Buddhist saying goes: “Stillness gives birth to wisdom, wisdom gives birth to intelligence.”

“Stillness” and “Jin” happen to be homophones, so when her parents named their daughter “Jin Baihui,” they were hoping she would possess boundless wisdom and accomplish great things—Jin Baihui firmly believed this. From a young age, she had grown accustomed to the pressure from her parents, as well as accepting insults and punishments.

Her father often said, “Spare the rod, spoil the child. You’re lucky you’re a girl. If you were a boy, I’d hang you up to beat you.”

Jin Baihui’s father was an editor at a magazine, while her mother was a bus ticket seller. Her parents left early and returned late every day, earning meager salaries, but they both knew the importance of education.

Her parents lived frugally, not buying new clothes or shoes for years, just to save money for Jin Baihui. They were willing to hire expensive Olympic Math teachers during her elementary school years, send her to “Cambridge Children’s English Training Classes,” and spend countless efforts on her. By all accounts, they should have been the best parents.

But her parents would also punish her severely.

For instance, if Jin Baihui didn’t get first place in her class, but only second place, she would certainly have no dinner that night—both parents might slap her face. Her father would recite her name while harshly rebuking her incompetence, saying something like: “Jin Baihui, did your parents’ money for your tutoring classes go down the drain? Tell me, did it go down the drain or not?”

Jin Baihui would sometimes admit it, sometimes deny it, but either way, she couldn’t escape a beating.

There was no pattern to follow.

In some cases, the punishment was relatively mild. Her mother would make her reflect in the bathroom. Their bathroom had no windows, and the light switch was placed by the door. After the door closed and the light went out, Jin Baihui’s world would plunge into cold darkness, with only the cold water droplets falling from the shower head responding to the various sounds from her heart. She cried until she choked, cried until she sobbed, cried until she couldn’t catch her breath, and then suddenly she couldn’t cry anymore.

After that, she never cried again.

In second grade, when Jin Baihui was eight years old, she once revealed her parents’ educational methods to her deskmate. Her desk mate looked terrified: “Your parents are bad! Bad people!”

She was angrier than her classmate: “What do you know? You don’t understand!”

Yes, none of them understood.

Jin Baihui grew up in an unchanging family environment until she was twelve. That year was both her opportunity and an inescapable abyss.

She first participated in the selection competition for Provincial No. 1 High School’s competition class and undoubtedly won first place—apart from her, no elementary school student deserved the title of “First Place in Provincial No. 1 High School’s Competition Class.” She had already studied high school mathematics in advance and was researching university mathematics textbooks such as “Graph Theory,” “Linear Algebra,” “Complex Variables and Integral Transforms,” and “Advanced Mathematics.”

Jin Baihui’s tutor evaluated her: “Good natural talent, diligent and hardworking.”

She thought this was the upper limit of what a good student could achieve.

Until she went to Beijing.

It was the summer of 2004, and Beijing was still welcoming the Olympics. The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube were under construction. Jin Baihui’s father took her on a bus, circling Beijing’s urban area twice. The father and daughter saw all the magnificent palaces, splendid halls, and grand buildings.

Her father pointed to the sky and said, “You should work hard, get into Beijing’s Gifted Children’s Class, graduate from university at 20, and win the Fields Medal at 30. You like mathematics, world-class problems are waiting for you to solve them. Do you have time to waste?”

“No,” Jin Baihui repeated, “I have no time to waste.”

Her father bought a bottle of green Jianlibao—this drink had a retail price of 5 yuan, but her father didn’t drink it. He gave the Jianlibao to Jin Baihui, saying the name of this drink was auspicious, representing “strength, power, and treasure,” indicating that Jin Baihui would shine brightly in Beijing’s Gifted Children’s Class, using her powerful strength to unearth the treasures of the mathematical world!

At that time, Jin Baihui believed it was true.

She did pass the entrance exam for the Gifted Class.

The Gifted Class fully waived tuition and miscellaneous fees, aiming to cultivate true geniuses.

Jin Baihui’s food, clothing, shelter, and transportation were all limited to the school’s little world, temporarily freeing her from her parents’ control and discipline—but she still demanded strict standards of herself, even developing a habit of “self-punishment.”

When she felt she hadn’t perfectly completed her study tasks for a day, she would fast, pinch her thighs, reduce her sleep time… Through this series of measures, she kept up with the course progress in the first two months of school.

Later on, her spirit was willing, but her flesh was weak.

Jin Baihui struggled for most of the year, fighting through mountains of Chinese and English problems, mentally highly strung. She completely gave up on sleep, turning on a small desk lamp in the dormitory, reviewing materials from various subjects overnight—this nearly maniacal study state caught the attention of her homeroom teacher.

Soon after, Jin Baihui was taken to the school’s medical office, where the school arranged for two professional psychologists.

The psychologists chatted with ease and spoke kindly: “Student Jin Baihui, you are an excellent student. We invite you to do a small test. Don’t think too much, just tell us the answers from your intuition.”

“You’re researching intuition?” Jin Baihui questioned.

The psychologists didn’t answer. They asked Jin Baihui to sit in front of a computer screen.

Jin Baihui patiently answered more than forty questions, all about color choices, scene selections, or personal questions related to living habits. Jin Baihui always chose the brightest red, the most obvious color contrasts, and the dimmest real-life scenes.

After the test, the psychologists chatted with her based on her answers.

From then on, every Friday afternoon, Jin Baihui had to report to the medical office.

The psychologists’ treatment continued for an entire month. Jin Baihui’s sleep quality improved significantly, but the homeroom teacher suddenly suggested she take a leave of absence. Jin Baihui’s test scores ranked in the lower-middle of the Gifted Class. Her state was very unstable. The Gifted Children’s Class was called “gifted” but was actually for “geniuses,” with a reasonable cultivation system. Jin Baihui could no longer maintain excellent performance within this system.

So, at the age of thirteen, Jin Baihui unfortunately withdrew from school in Beijing.

She remembered it was raining the day she left.

She carried her luggage and left the dormitory building. Not a single classmate leaned against the railing to look at her.

The continuous rain dampened her hair, moistened her face, and also cooled her heart.

*

After withdrawing from school in Beijing, Jin Baihui returned to the provincial capital.

It was April at that time. Jin Baihui’s parents dragged her to visit the competition class teacher at Provincial No. 1 High School, trying every means to beg Provincial No. 1 High School’s competition class to accept Jin Baihui as a new junior high school student in the 2005 grade.

After all, she had been the first-place winner in Provincial No. 1 High School’s exam last year and could continue to secure the position of “First Place in Junior High” this year. Provincial No. 1 High School was not Beijing’s Gifted Children’s Class; it did not gather a group of highly intelligent children from all over the country. However, the competition class director’s words surprised Jin Baihui’s father.

The director earnestly said: “This year we’ve also recruited very smart children, very smart indeed. Compared to Jin Baihui, they may not be inferior. Jin Baihui, if you transfer your student status back to Provincial No. 1 High School, the teachers will welcome you with open arms. But let’s be clear first, you must adjust your mentality. Provincial No. 1 High School’s competition class also has strong opponents who might surpass you. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, okay? You’re already excellent.”

After saying this, the director also told Jin Baihui’s parents: “Being able to get into Beijing’s Gifted Children’s Class means she’s a little prodigy, right? Moreover, the child is older now, thirteen or fourteen, and habits have already formed. As parents, we shouldn’t always pressure our children. I’m specifically referring to good children like Jin Baihui with particularly strong self-discipline—just now, while I was talking to you, Jin Baihui was solving math problems on the side, very quickly, with flexible thinking, truly a promising talent…”

Before the director finished, Jin Baihui’s father interrupted: “Director, that very smart child you just mentioned, recruited this year, what’s their name? Could I have a chance to exchange… educational experiences with their parents?”

The director politely declined. He said, “When school starts and the children all know each other, they can learn from each other’s study methods, right?”

Jin Baihui’s parents repeatedly agreed.

That night, her parents repeatedly told Jin Baihui, “You have good grades and are excellent. You just came back from Beijing and have completed college-level mathematics foundation textbooks for science and engineering. Who else but you could be the first in Provincial No. 1 High School’s junior high division? Tell me?”

Actually, without her parents’ reminder, Jin Baihui understood the value of being “first place.” She had withdrawn from school and returned to the provincial capital, urgently needing recognition from the new school, proving her aptitude and diligence, proving she was still suitable to bravely pursue mathematics on the path of scientific research.

*

On the first day of junior high school, Jin Baihui noticed Lin Zhixia.

Lin Zhixia was completely different from what she had imagined—Lin Zhixia didn’t wear glasses, had excellent eyesight, with lively and bright eyes, snow-white and smooth skin, showing no traces of staying up late or burning the midnight oil.

Lin Zhixia was in Class 1(17). Her deskmate and good friend was Jiang Yubai. Their seats were near the window. Jin Baihui passed by that spot countless times, peeking at their between-class entertainment—from her observation, Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai often played drawing games, word games, and sometimes pretended to be different historical characters, such as Tian Ji and Sun Bin from the Spring and Autumn Period, or Han Feizi and King Ying Zheng of Qin from the Warring States Period… Jiang Yubai was the history representative for Class 17, while Lin Zhixia eloquently explained to him the paradoxes between “Bamboo Annals” and “Records of the Grand Historian,” seemingly wanting to replace Jiang Yubai’s position as history representative.

In short, Jin Baihui didn’t quite understand Lin Zhixia’s various behaviors.

Lin Zhixia enjoyed tutoring Jiang Yubai, teaching him how to solve difficult problems step by step.

When classmates from Class 17 came to Lin Zhixia with questions, she always spoke freely and thoroughly. She didn’t know how precious time was. Her time was scattered into countless fragments, drifting onto a pile of meaningless little things—Jin Baihui thought.

So-called opponents were nothing more than this.

However, the first major exam of the first semester of junior high school was beyond Jin Baihui’s expectations.

Lin Zhixia ranked first in the entire school, scoring fourteen points higher than Jin Baihui’s total, relegating Jin Baihui to second place in the grade—she took her test papers home, checking back and forth for her mistakes, writing a self-criticism report of three thousand words.

That night, Jin Baihui’s father had drunk too much alcohol, and the house was filled with a strong smell of baijiu. Her father sat at Jin Baihui’s desk and asked her to find her mid-term Chinese exam paper so he could help her correct the problems.

At that time, Jin Baihui was solving problems.

She said: “You won’t understand the questions, I’ve already figured them out myself. I’m busy right now, don’t talk to me…”

Before the word “talk” had fully left her lips, her father delivered a resounding slap to her face.

Her cheek hurt terribly.

“Getting cocky, are you?” her father asked, reeking of alcohol. “Think your old man is useless now? Our magazine is about to close down, your mother’s monthly salary of 1,200 yuan can’t support you, and now you won’t even show your test papers to your parents? So arrogant, I think you’re very arrogant! Jin Baihui! Getting second place in the grade, and your tail is up in the air! Getting carried away! Has the first-place student in the grade said anything? How much higher did the first-place student score than you? I’m asking you! Jin Baihui!”

Her father slammed the table hard.

His high myopia glasses fell off, and perhaps he couldn’t see clearly what was on the table, his fist happened to strike Jin Baihui’s right hand—from childhood to now, no matter how angry her parents were, they never hit her right hand.

Jin Baihui suddenly had a strange thought: “If I had one hand crippled, would my parents feel remorse?”

Sometimes Jin Baihui would also become interested in difficult problems beyond mathematics.

To get an answer, Jin Baihui deliberately provoked: “The first in the grade is fourteen points higher than me, fourteen points! No matter how hard I try, I can’t catch up to her. The knowledge points I’ve studied, she’s already chewed through. I’m tired, I won’t go to university, I’ll go work in Guangdong after finishing junior high.”

Sure enough, her father’s fists fell on her right hand like the meteor hammers described in “Water Margin,” one after another. That strange and dull sound attracted Jin Baihui’s mother, who shouted as she pushed her father: “You’re hitting the child’s right hand? What will she use to hold a pen for exams? The magazine is closing down, and you’re taking out your anger on the child’s writing hand? Why didn’t you die drunk on the street outside?!”

Her father slapped her mother’s face with a backhand: “Who are you to interfere with how I discipline my child?”

Her mother and father started fighting in the bedroom. They fought more and more fiercely, breaking picture frames, vases, and the television. Neighbors from upstairs and downstairs came to knock on the door. In this chaotic night mixed with crying, knocking, arguing, and glass-breaking sounds, Jin Baihui put down her swollen and painful right hand and calmly used her left hand to write on the test paper.

The outside noises couldn’t disturb her in the slightest.

She was a Zen master in the mathematics world, an old monk in the sea of problems, a crusader marching east toward “century-old difficult problems.” Her firm beliefs had never wavered; only the human shell restricted her. Only the pearls on the crown of mathematics could help her transform and be reborn from the ashes. Therefore, she didn’t need to care about her parents’ fighting disputes, her classmates’ rumors, or her teachers’ heartfelt advice.

Famous mathematician Chen Jingrun used tons of draft paper. Where was Jin Baihui in her journey? She was still far behind.

Her left hand wrote at flying speed.

In the living room, her mother was crying heartbrokenly.

Soon after, her mother rushed into Jin Baihui’s room and grabbed her writing pen: “Jin Baihui, you can still study, still writing on test papers, what time is it now, don’t you care about your parents’ lives anymore? What’s the use of Mom raising you? What use!”

Jin Baihui was somewhat bewildered.

Her right hand was numb with pain, and many places in her heart had long been numb. This caused her ability to bear emotions, or rather, to bear so-called “love,” to become duller than ordinary people.

This wasn’t a bad thing.

Highly sensitive and highly delicate thoughts are a double-edged sword, eventually cutting oneself, so there’s a Western saying—”Empathy is a curse.”

In Jin Baihui’s short thirteen years of life, she had completely escaped this curse, putting down that double-edged sword. She consciously trained her thinking to approach rationality infinitely, which was also the result her parents had hoped for.

However, today, her mother suddenly asked her: “Jin Baihui, what’s the use of raising you? What use?”

She looked up and said calmly: “If I become a world-class mathematician, you’ll be a mathematician’s mother, and we’ll both be written into textbooks.”

Her mother suddenly wiped her tears: “You didn’t play well, didn’t study well, stayed in school for so long without making any friends, is this what Dad and Mom taught you?”

Warm tears fell on the test paper, burning wet imprints one after another on the thin white paper. Jin Baihui tore off a small roll of toilet paper and gently wiped her paper: “Mom, your tears are wasted. I don’t need friends. Even if I had friends, if they didn’t work hard, I would scold them every day, just like how you treated me when I was little. I’m really tired, I can’t manage others.”

Her mother didn’t speak again.

Jin Baihui knew her mother was also tired.

*

The first semester of junior high passed quickly, and soon it was the cold winter months. During the “Competition Class Winter Vacation Training,” Provincial No. 1 High School arranged a baseline test—this test didn’t rank students. Teachers would grade each student’s paper and personally hand the papers back to the students, protecting everyone’s grade privacy as much as possible.

Jin Baihui didn’t approve of this approach.

She believed that exams were about “survival of the fittest,” and not publishing the weak students’ grades undoubtedly diminished the joy of the strong ones.

For this reason, she specifically found Teacher Zhai, the person in charge of the training camp.

But Teacher Zhai told her, “No one is infallible. You should be tolerant of others and tolerant of yourself, Jin Baihui.”

The last piece of advice was especially resonant.

Jin Baihui recalled Teacher Zhai’s words during the exam, and her problem-solving speed became slower and slower. She didn’t know what she was doing; there was just a period when it was difficult to concentrate on the math problems on the paper.

So, for the last exam before the Spring Festival, Jin Baihui failed miserably.

Out of a perfect score of one hundred, she only got seventy-two.

With such a test paper, her parents wouldn’t allow her to enter the house.

On New Year’s Eve, Jin Baihui was punished by having to stand in the corridor.

Jin Baihui, carrying her heavy schoolbag, stood in the cold passageway. She leaned against her home’s front door, her backpack sliding down, her feet slightly extended forward, thinking to herself: Jin Baihui, the door, and the floor form three straight lines constituting a right triangle. Given that Jin Baihui’s height is 1.62 meters, what is the range of solutions for the triangle?

She calculated mentally while looking outside.

Fireworks for the New Year were being set off in the distant park, illuminating the pitch-black night sky with colorful, brilliant fireworks. Around nine o’clock at night, a few dark clouds suddenly drifted over, bringing a sudden rain, and the fireworks disappeared without a trace.

Jin Baihui observed this scene with an exceptionally calm mood, like seeing a small flower during an autumn tour or white clouds at the edge of the sky on the way to school. She showed an adaptability most inappropriate for her age.

For a moment, a question flashed through her mind—what was Lin Zhixia doing right now?

*

At this moment, Lin Zhixia had collapsed on her small bed because she had eaten too much New Year’s Eve dinner. Her mother sat at the bedside, stroking her hair while asking: “Is Xiaxia still uncomfortable? Should Mom get you some digestive tablets?”

Lin Zhixia shook her head: “No, I want to digest it myself… I ate too many shrimp dumplings and fish balls.”

“So you know you ate too much,” Lin Zeqiu stood nearby with sarcasm, “you’re no different from a little pig tonight.”

Lin Zhixia didn’t fight back but just tugged at her mother’s sleeve: “Mom…”

Her mother then criticized her brother: “Qiuqiu, speak nicely to your sister, don’t always be so prickly, like a little hedgehog.”

Lin Zhixia burst into laughter.

After her mother and brother left her room, she picked up the landline phone by her bed and called Jiang Yubai to wish him a Happy New Year. Jiang Yubai blessed her over the phone: “Happy New Year, may everything go smoothly, and may you succeed in your studies.”

Lin Zhixia commented: “Jiang Jiang Jiang Jiang Yubai, you’re so formal.”

Jiang Yubai was about to ask, “When am I not formal?” but felt this question crossed the boundary of friendship. He said instead: “The New Year has come, you can be a bit more formal too, Lin Lin Lin Lin Zhixia.”

“The most formal I remember you were was that day…” Lin Zhixia imitated his speaking tone perfectly, “Thank you for the crown you gave me, Lin Zhixia, I will keep it properly.”

Reminded by Lin Zhixia, Jiang Yubai remembered the ceremony where she crowned him with a small crown. As his left ear was slightly reddening against the phone, Lin Zhixia yawned: “I’m so full, now I’m sleepy. I want to go to sleep. We can talk more tomorrow.”

Jiang Yubai said goodbye to her: “Goodnight, go to sleep early.”

“Mmm, you too!” Lin Zhixia responded enthusiastically as always.

After hanging up, Lin Zhixia happily lay flat. She stretched out her legs, covered herself with the blanket, and entered dreamland within a few short minutes. The landline placed at her bedside suddenly erupted with ringing.

She reached for the receiver and asked sleepily: “Hello, who is this?”

Jiang Yubai knew she was going to sleep and would not call her again. She guessed the person on the other end must be calling her for the first time because they kept silent, very mysterious, with very light breathing.

Lin Zhixia grew increasingly drowsy and said indistinctly: “Happy New Year, whoever you are, may everything go smoothly, may you succeed in your studies, and may you pass each day peacefully and steadily…”

Jin Baihui quickly hung up the phone like a telecom scammer. She had just entered her home not long ago and hadn’t even eaten a bite of hot food when she dialed the phone numbers of several classmates from Class 1(17) from memory.

Jin Baihui didn’t want to chat with people from Class 17. She was just testing her memory of numbers.

A few minutes ago, she had first called Shen Fuxuan. Shen Fuxuan’s first sentence was his imitation of a carrier customer service: “Sorry, the number you dialed is not in service, please verify and redial.”

Then, Jin Baihui called Tang Tingting.

Tang Tingting impatiently said, “Who are you? I’m asking you, disturbing my sleep late at night? Do you have any public morals? Aren’t you afraid I’ll call the police? Are you male or female?”

Jin Baihui had nothing to say to her.

Jin Baihui’s last call was to Lin Zhixia, and only Lin Zhixia gave Jin Baihui the first New Year’s blessing she had received this year. She decided to keep this secret buried in her heart forever. During the 2006 Spring Festival, she was blessed by the person she disliked the most. She hoped the blessing would be returned to those she disliked.

Life would continue, and Jin Baihui would still compete with Lin Zhixia, but somewhere in her heart was calling for a stop. She lay in bed as the rain outside continued endlessly. She closed her eyes and silently recited: “I will succeed in my studies and pass each day peacefully and steadily.”

Lin Zhixia’s blessing was very suitable for Jin Baihui.

Jin Baihui especially liked the four words “succeed in studies.”

After all, apart from “studies,” Jin Baihui had nothing.