When the night watchman struck the fourth watch gong, Yun Ye was pushed awake from sleep by Li Tai. Extremely reluctant, he threw on his clothes and tiptoed to the area outside the academy walls.

Li Gang and the other old masters also sat in spacious chairs, their eyes gleaming as they stared intently at a white circle drawn with lime outside the wall. Their usually stern and serious faces were full of childlike curiosity.

Zhao Yanling was quietly conversing with Li Ke, not knowing what they were discussing, both with eager expressions.

All the academy’s students were here. Everyone was very alert, eyes wide open staring at the ground, as if gold ingots would pop up from beneath.

A banner hung on the wall, inscribed: Yushan Academy Li Tai Mathematics Exchange Meeting.

Looking at Li Tai beside him with his calm expression, Yun Ye asked: “Whose arrogant idea was this? Actually stealing my creative concept—what’s the meaning of this?”

“Nothing special—just the kind affection of fellow students. Li Tai humbly accepts.” After speaking, he made a bow in all four directions, drawing a wave of low exclamations.

Li Gang waved his hand very dissatisfied, signaling for silence.

A waning moon shed silver light. Dimly visible were dark mountain peaks. From time to time, owl cries came from the mountains, occasionally mixed with one or two fierce wolf howls. The academy people all hid in the shadows below the wall. Only a dozen guards led by Liu Xian had bows strung, blades unsheathed, carefully on alert, adding several degrees of tense atmosphere to the eerie and gloomy environment.

Pushing Li Tai: “How confident are you?”

“Hmph, just a tomb robber. I’m ninety percent certain he’ll escape during this watch. I asked Liu Xian. Any thief with a bit of common sense always thinks the fourth watch is the best time to escape. Yesterday near dawn, when he dug to within one chi of the surface, he stopped digging and returned to the cell to conserve his energy. He even secretly hid some food, thinking the guards didn’t notice. Truly self-deception! Wanting to escape from this prince’s grasp—dream on!” His tone held powerful confidence. He even made a fist-clenching gesture indicating everything was under control, very imposing.

Yun Ye discovered that unknowingly, Li Tai had undergone a new change—intense self-confidence.

This discovery made him somewhat dejected. He hoped he hadn’t created the most powerful obstacle for Li Chengqian becoming emperor.

He was about to ask a few more questions when Liu Xian stopped him, pointing at the lime circle.

They saw the soil in the circle bulge into a mound. A dark hand penetrated the soil and extended above ground, opening and closing in the air ceaselessly, like a vengeful ghost’s life-stealing hand from beneath the earth. Such an abrupt change caused everyone to draw a sharp breath. If there weren’t many companions nearby, quite a few would probably turn and flee.

Liu Xian chuckled, stopping everyone’s commotion. He raised the hard bow in his hand, and everyone immediately quieted down.

This fellow’s archery—saying he could pierce a willow leaf at a hundred paces would underestimate him. When idle, he would shoot at incense heads at night. According to him, his best achievement was extinguishing three incense sticks with one arrow. With him present, even if there were really ghosts, he would dismember them again.

The hand retracted again. From time to time, clumps of earth were thrown out from the hole. The opening gradually changed from bowl-sized to basin-sized. Suddenly, a cloth-wrapped head drilled out from the hole. A long gasping sound came, like a drowning person extending their head above water.

Before the breathing evened out, low laughter emerged from the mud-filled mouth, intermittent with heavy breathing.

The wild joy of an evil spirit escaping from hell was Huang Shu’s current state of mind. But encountering Li Tai, this royal prodigy, any action was superfluous. Even the highly respected, evil-hating Teacher Li Gang showed compassion in his eyes.

After laughing, Huang Shu emitted a low, hoarse crying sound. To him, the academy was a true mortal hell. He wasn’t afraid of beheading—from the first day of becoming a tomb-raiding captain, he knew sooner or later he’d be beheaded. He also wasn’t afraid of torture—after many years of dealings with authorities, he’d experienced torture before. But the academy experience made him feel fear from his very bones. Blood slowly flowing from his body, his body gradually becoming cold, death gradually spreading from his toes throughout his entire body. Wanting to shout but unable to make a sound, wanting to cry but unable to shed tears. Most terrifying was that no one watched him die. At that time, only he was in the cell—only the crisp sound of blood dripping into the copper basin.

So dying alone was the most terrifying thing in the world. He must marry the woman who sold fermented rice wine. That way, when dying, someone would be by the bedside, so he wouldn’t become a lonely ghost wandering the cold underworld. Hope gave him strength. He quickened his movements, not bothering to care about his hands with flesh torn and curled from digging earth.

Naked, Huang Shu drilled out from underground, a cloth bundle tied to his ankle. When he turned to untie the bundle from his ankle, he froze. His heart kept sinking. He saw nearly a hundred pairs of eyes watching his naked body with great interest.

Strength instantly drained from his body. He collapsed limply on the ground, no longer caring about being completely naked, closing his eyes and resigning himself to fate.

Lanterns and torches were lit. The black night curtain was instantly torn open.

No one paid attention to Huang Shu lying on the ground. Li Tai walked to a blackboard hanging on the outer wall and drew a diagram of Huang Shu’s escape.

“From this escape diagram, we can see Huang Shu’s sensitivity to direction and his accuracy. He almost followed a thirty-five-degree diagonal line and accurately reached his destination. This is astonishing. You must know he hadn’t studied any mathematics knowledge and knew nothing about geometry. He only relied on his own eyes and thumb to complete three-point positioning, and with amazing accuracy.”

“Everyone look—this white circle is the approximate location I determined through rigorous calculation. And Huang Shu drilled out from within this circle, with almost no deviation. This involves trigonometric calculations, application of elementary physics, and expansion of density concepts.”

Yun Ye stood in the shadows, holding his head while squatting on the ground, completely ignoring Teacher Yuanzhang’s comfort. Wave after wave of strange thoughts—impossible to say whether they were pain, embarrassment, or even a trace of pride—impacted his brain. He completely didn’t know what attitude to adopt toward everything before him.

“Is what the teacher taught meant to be applied this way? What Li Tai said makes great sense. The theorems used are very accurate. The analytical approach is correct, link by link, reason by reason, connected throughout. The entire report meeting is almost impeccable. But something just feels wrong. Where is it wrong?”

Li Gang came over and kicked Yun Ye’s bottom hard, finally rescuing Yun Ye from his bitter thoughts. He looked at Li Gang blankly.

“You’ve taught a prodigy, a prodigy who only has the changes of things in his eyes but no humanity. The tunnel Huang Shu spent a month painstakingly excavating almost with bare hands is, in his eyes, merely a thirty-five-degree diagonal line. Presumably, in the future, everything in the mortal world will become piles of dry, cold numbers in his eyes. He has learned to view the world through the lens of mathematics. His distinction between you and me is only height, weight, age, and strength—no longer will there be concepts of teacher, friend, or family. From now on, he will only walk paths that achieve objectives, not choose correct paths. He will be immersed in an ocean of numbers, unable to extricate himself. Is this the goal you wanted to achieve?”