The Buddha said: "Silence can give rise to wisdom, and wisdom can give rise to intelligence."
"Jing" and "Jin" are homophones, so her parents named their daughter "Jin Baihui" in the hope that she would have infinite wisdom and make great achievements - Jin Baihui firmly believed in this. From childhood to adulthood, she was used to her parents' pressure on her, and also used to accepting insults and punishments.
Her father often said: "A good son is born under the stick. Fortunately you are a girl, if you were a boy, I would hang you up and beat you."
Jin Baihui's father is an editor of a magazine and her mother is a bus conductor. Both her parents go out early and come back late every day. They have a meager salary, but they both know the importance of studying.
The parents lived frugally and did not buy new clothes or shoes for many years, just to save money for Jin Baihui. They were willing to hire a math Olympiad teacher at a high salary during their daughter's primary school years and send her to the "Cambridge Children's English Training Class". They spent countless efforts on her. Logically, they should be the best parents.
However, her parents would also punish her severely.
For example, if Jin Baihui didn’t get first place in the class, but only second place, she would definitely not have food to eat that night. Her parents would probably slap her in the face, and her father would read her name while scolding her for her incompetence, saying something like: “Jin Baihui, the money your parents spent on enrolling you in tutoring classes has all gone down the drain? Tell me, did it go down the drain?”
Jin Baihui sometimes admitted it and sometimes denied it, but no matter what, she could not escape a beating.
There is no pattern to follow here.
In some cases, the punishment was relatively mild, and her mother would let her go to the bathroom to reflect. Their bathroom had no windows, and the light switch was placed next to the door. After closing the door and turning off the lights, Jin Baihui's world would fall into a cold darkness, with only the cold water drops from the shower head responding to the various sounds in her heart. She cried until she choked, cried until she sobbed, cried until she was out of breath, and suddenly she would not cry anymore.
After that, she never cried again.
In the second grade of elementary school, when Jin Baihui was eight years old, she once revealed her parents' education methods to her deskmate. Her deskmate was horrified and said, "Your parents are bad! Bad people!"
She was even angrier than her classmates: "What do you know? You don't understand!"
Yes, they don’t understand.
Jin Baihui grew up in an unchanging family environment until she was twelve years old. That year was the year when her opportunity came, but also the abyss from which she could not escape.
She first participated in the provincial No. 1 Middle School competition and won first place without a doubt. No other primary school student deserved the title of "No. 1 Provincial Middle School Competition Class". She had already learned high school mathematics in advance and was studying university mathematics textbooks such as "Graph Theory", "Linear Algebra", "Complex Variable Functions and Integral Transformation", and "Advanced Mathematics".
Jin Baihui's tutor commented on her: "She is talented and hardworking."
She thought this was the limit of what a good student could do.
Until she went to Beijing.
It was the summer of 2004, when Beijing was still welcoming the Olympic Games and the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube were under construction. Jin Baihui's father took her on a bus and traveled around Beijing twice. The father and daughter saw all the majestic imperial cities, magnificent palaces, and grand buildings.
Dad pointed to the sky and said, "You, work hard, get into the Beijing Children's Talent Program, graduate with a bachelor's degree at the age of 20, and get a Fields degree at the age of 30. You like mathematics, and the world's problems are waiting for you to solve. Do you have time to waste?"
"No," Jin Baihui repeated again and again, "I don't have time to waste."
Dad bought a bottle of green Jianlibao, which cost 5 yuan, but he didn't drink it. He gave it to Jin Baihui, saying that the name of the drink was festive, representing "strong, powerful, and treasure", which indicated that Jin Baihui would shine in the Beijing Children's Talent Program and dig out the treasures of mathematics with her strong power!
At that time, Jin Baihui believed it to be true.
She did pass the entrance exam for the gifted class.
The gifted classes offer full exemption of tuition and miscellaneous fees, with the aim of nurturing true geniuses.
Jin Baihui's food, clothing, housing and transportation were all confined to the school, and she was briefly out of the control and discipline of her parents - but she still demanded strictness of herself and even developed a habit of "self-punishment".
When she felt that she had not completed her learning tasks satisfactorily on a certain 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.
From then on, she was willing but unable to do anything.
Jin Baihui persevered for more than half a year, struggling in the sea of Chinese and English questions, and her spirit was extremely tense. She completely gave up sleep, turned on a small desk lamp in the dormitory, and read the review materials of various subjects all night long - this almost crazy study state attracted the attention of the class teacher.
Not long after, Jin Baihui was taken to the school's infirmary, where she was assigned two professional psychologists.
The psychologist was calm and gentle, saying, "Jin Baihui, you are an excellent student. We invite you to take a small test. You don't need to think about it. Just tell us the answer from your intuition."
"Are you studying intuition?" Jin Baihui asked.
The psychiatrist did not answer. They asked Jin Baihui to sit down in front of the computer screen.
Jin Baihui patiently answered more than 40 questions - all of which were about color selection, scene selection, or personal questions related to living habits. Jin Baihui always chose the brightest red, the most obvious color contrast, and the bleakest real scene.
After the test, the psychologist chatted with her for a while based on her answers.
From then on, Jin Baihui had to report to the infirmary every Friday afternoon.
The psychologist's treatment lasted for a whole month, and Jin Baihui's sleep quality improved significantly. However, her class teacher suddenly suggested that she take a leave of absence. Jin Baihui's test scores were ranked in the middle and lower ranks in the gifted class. Her condition was very unstable. The children's gifted class was called "talented" but actually meant "genius" and had a reasonable training system. However, Jin Baihui could no longer maintain her excellent performance in this system.
And so, at the age of thirteen, Jin Baihui unfortunately dropped out of school in Beijing.
She remembered that it happened to be a rainy day when she left.
She left the dormitory building carrying her luggage bag, and no classmate leaned on the railing to look at her.
The continuous rain wet her hair, soaked her face, and also chilled her heart.
After dropping out of 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 teacher of the competition class of the Provincial No. 1 Middle School, and tried every means to beg the competition class of the Provincial No. 1 Middle School to accept Jin Baihui and count her as a freshman of the junior high school class of 2005.
After all, she was the top student in the provincial No. 1 High School last year, and she will continue to hold the position of "top student in the junior high school" this year. The provincial No. 1 High School is not a Beijing Children's Elite Class, and it does not gather a group of high-IQ children from all over the world. However, the words of the competition class director surprised Jin Baihui's father.
The dean of studies said earnestly, "We also recruited very smart children this year. They are very smart and not necessarily worse than Jin Baihui. Jin Baihui, if you transfer your enrollment back to the Provincial No. 1 Middle School, the teachers will welcome you with open arms. But let's get this out of the way first. You must adjust your mentality. The Provincial No. 1 Middle School's competition class also has very strong opponents. She may surpass you. Don't put too much pressure on yourself, okay? You are already very good."
After saying this, the dean also said to Jin Baihui's parents: "If he can be admitted to the Beijing Children's Elite Program, he must be a child prodigy, right? What's more, the child is older, 13 or 14 years old, and the habits have been formed. As parents, we should not always force our children. I am especially referring to good children like Jin Baihui who are very self-conscious. Just now when I was talking to you, Jin Baihui was writing math problems next to you. She is very fast and has a flexible mind. She is really a good seedling..."
Before the dean of studies finished speaking, Jin Baihui's father interrupted him and said, "Hey, dean, what's the name of the very smart child you just mentioned who was recruited this year? Can I have a chance to talk to her parents about their experience in educating children?"
The dean politely declined. He said, "When school starts, the kids will know each other and can learn from each other's study methods, right?"
Jin Baihui's parents echoed.
That night, Jin Baihui's parents repeatedly told her, "You have good grades and are an excellent person. You just came back from Beijing and have finished studying the basic mathematics textbooks for university science and engineering. Who else can be the top student in the junior high school department of the Provincial No. 1 Middle School? What do you think?"
In fact, without her parents' reminder, Jin Baihui also understood the value of "first place". She dropped out of school and returned to the provincial capital, urgently needing to be recognized by the new school to prove her qualifications and diligence, and to prove that she was still suitable for bravely pursuing mathematics on the road 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, her eyes were lively and bright, her skin was white and smooth, and there was no sign of staying up late or reading by lamplight.
Lin Zhixia is in the Grade 17 class. Her deskmate and best friend is Jiang Yubai. Their seats are near the window. Jin Baihui has passed by that position countless times to spy on their entertainment during class breaks. According to her observation, Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai often play drawing games and crossword puzzles, and sometimes they play different roles in history books, such as Tian Ji and Sun Bin in the Spring and Autumn Period, Han Feizi and Qin King Ying Zheng in the Warring States Period... Jiang Yubai is the history class representative of Class 17. Lin Zhixia explains to him the paradox of "Bamboo Annals" and "Records of the Grand Historian" in a very logical way, as if she wants to replace Jiang Yubai as the history class representative.
In short, Jin Baihui doesn't quite understand Lin Zhixia's behavior.
Lin Zhixia likes to tutor Jiang Yubai and teach him how to solve difficult problems step by step.
When students from Class 17 came to ask Lin Zhixia questions, she always spoke without reservation. She didn't know how precious time was. Her time was broken into countless pieces, drifting into a bunch of meaningless little things - Jin Baihui thought.
The so-called opponent is nothing more than this.
However, the first major exam of the first semester of the first year of junior high school was beyond Jin Baihui's expectations.
Lin Zhixia ranked first in the school, fourteen points higher than Jin Baihui's total score, and Jin Baihui ranked second in the grade. She took the test paper home, looked over her mistakes over and over again, and wrote a three-thousand-word self-criticism.
That night, Jin Baihui's father drank too much and the house was filled with a strong smell of liquor. Dad sat down in front of Jin Baihui's desk and asked her to find the Chinese paper for the midterm exam so that he could correct the questions for her.
At that time, Jin Baihui was doing her homework.
She said: "You don't understand the question, I figured it out myself. I'm busy right now, don't talk to me..."
Before she finished speaking, her father slapped her loudly in the face.
She felt a sharp pain in her cheek.
"You've become capable, right?" her father asked her drunkenly, "You think your dad is incompetent, right? Our magazine is going to go bankrupt, and your mother's monthly salary of 1,200 yuan can't support you. You don't even show your test papers to your parents? You're really arrogant. I think you're really arrogant! Jin Baihui! You got second in the grade, and you're so proud! You're so proud! Did the first in the grade say anything? How much higher is the first in the grade than you? I have a question for you! Jin Baihui!"
Dad slammed the table.
His highly myopic glasses fell off, and perhaps he did not see the things on the table clearly, and his fist just happened to hit Jin Baihui's right hand - from childhood to adulthood, her parents would never hit her right hand no matter how angry they were.
A strange thought suddenly occurred to Jin Baihui: "If I get beaten and one of my hands is disabled, will my parents blame themselves?"
Jin Baihui sometimes becomes interested in difficult problems other than mathematics.
In order to get the answer, Jin Baihui deliberately provoked her, "The top student in the grade is 14 points higher than me. 14 points! No matter how hard I try, I can never catch up with her. She has already mastered all the knowledge I have learned. I am tired and will not take the college entrance examination. I will go to Guangdong to work after graduating from junior high school."
As expected, her father's fists repeatedly smashed down on her right hand like the meteor hammers described in "Water Margin". The strange and dull sound attracted Jin Baihui's mother, who shouted and pushed her father: "You hit the child's right hand? How can she hold the pen for the exam? The magazine went bankrupt and you took out your anger on the child's writing hand? Why don't you get drunk and die on the street?!"
The father slapped the mother in the face and said, "Who cares about how I educate my children?"
Mom and Dad started fighting in this bedroom. They fought more and more fiercely, smashing picture frames, vases, and TVs. Neighbors upstairs and downstairs came to knock on the door. In the noisy night mixed with crying, knocking, quarreling, and broken glass, Jin Baihui put down her swollen and painful right hand and concentrated on writing on the test paper with her left hand.
The sounds from the outside world could not disturb her at all.
She is a Zen master in mathematics, an old monk in the sea of questions, and a crusader on the "problem of the century". Her firm belief has never wavered, but her human body has bound her. Only the pearls on the crown of mathematics can help her transform herself and be reborn. Therefore, she does not need to care about her parents' fights, classmates' gossips, and teachers' earnest advice.
The famous mathematician Chen Jingrun used tons of draft paper. How far has Jin Baihui come? She is still far from it.
She writes very fast with her left hand.
In the living room, my mother cried heartbreakingly.
After a while, her mother rushed into Jin Baihui's room and snatched away the pen she was writing with: "Jin Baihui, you are still able to study and still write papers. It's already this time, don't you care about your parents' lives? What's the point of your mother raising you? What's the point!"
Jin Baihui was a little confused.
Her right hand was numb from the pain, and many parts of her heart had long been numb, which caused her ability to withstand emotions, or in other words, the so-called "love", to become more dull than that of ordinary people.
This is not a bad thing.
A highly sensitive and delicate mind is a double-edged sword that will eventually hurt yourself, so there is a saying in the West: "Empathy is a curse."
In just 13 years of her life, Jin Baihui completely escaped from this curse and removed the double-edged sword. She consciously trained her thinking to be infinitely rational, which was also the result her parents expected.
However, today, her mother suddenly asked her, "Jin Baihui, what's the point of me raising you? What's the point?"
She raised her head and said calmly: "I am a world-class mathematician, and you are the mother of a mathematician. We can both be included in textbooks."
My mother suddenly wiped away her tears and said, "You don't play well, you don't study well, and you can't make friends no matter how long you stay in school. Is this what your parents taught you?"
Warm tears fell on the test paper, leaving wet marks on the thin white paper. Jin Baihui tore off a small roll of toilet paper and gently wiped her test paper: "Mom, my tears are in vain. I don't need friends. Even if I have friends, if my friends don't work hard, I will scold them every day, just like you treated me when I was a child. I'm really tired and can't care about others."
Mom didn't say anything else.
Jin Baihui knew that her mother was also tired.
The first semester of the first year of junior high school passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was the cold winter. During the "winter training for the competition class", the Provincial No. 1 Middle School arranged a baseline test - there would be no ranking in this test. The teacher would give scores to each student and then hand the test papers to the students personally, trying to protect everyone's score privacy as much as possible.
Jin Baihui does not approve of this approach.
She believes that exams are a game of "survival of the fittest" and not publishing the scores of the weak will undoubtedly weaken the happiness of the strong.
For this purpose, she specially found Teacher Zhai, the person in charge of the training camp.
Teacher Zhai told her: "No one is perfect. You should be tolerant of others and yourself, Jin Baihui."
The last piece of advice is really powerful.
Jin Baihui recalled Teacher Zhai's words in the examination room, and her speed of solving the questions became slower and slower. She didn't know what she was doing, but for a while, it was difficult for her to concentrate on the math questions on the test paper.
So, in the last exam before the Spring Festival, Jin Baihui failed miserably.
She only scored 72 out of a full score of 100.
With such a test paper, her parents would not allow her to step into the house.
On the night of New Year's Eve, Jin Baihui was punished to stand in the corridor.
Jin Baihui was standing in the cold corridor with a heavy schoolbag on her back. She leaned against the front door of her house, her schoolbag slid down, her feet stretched slightly forward, and thought to herself: Jin Baihui, the door and the ground form a right triangle. Given that Jin Baihui is 1.62 meters tall, what is the range of the solution to the triangle
She looked out the window while doing mental arithmetic.
In the distance, a park was setting off New Year's fireworks, lighting up the dark night sky with colorful and brilliant fireworks. At around nine o'clock in the evening, a few dark clouds suddenly floated over, and a heavy rain fell, and the fireworks disappeared without a trace.
Jin Baihui was watching this scene with an exceptionally calm mood, just like encountering a small flower during an autumn outing or seeing white clouds in the sky while going to school. She showed adaptability that was most inappropriate for her age.
For a moment, a question flashed through her mind—what was Lin Zhixia doing at this moment
At this moment, Lin Zhixia collapsed on her small bed because she ate too much at the New Year's Eve dinner. Her mother sat at the head of the bed, touching her hair and asking, "Xia Xia, are you still feeling uncomfortable? Mom will give you some stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting tablets?"
Lin Zhixia shook her head: "No, I have to digest it myself... I ate too many shrimp dumplings and fish balls."
"So you know you eat a lot," Lin Zeqiu sneered as he stood aside, "You're just like a pig tonight."
Lin Zhixia did not fight back, but just pulled her mother's sleeve: "Mom..."
The mother criticized the brother: "Qiuqiu, talk to your sister nicely, don't be so prickly all day long, like a little hedgehog."
Lin Zhixia burst into laughter.
After her mother and brother left her room, she picked up the bedside telephone and called Jiang Yubai to wish her a happy new year. Jiang Yubai wished her over the phone: "Happy new year, everything goes well, and academic success."
Lin Zhixia commented: "Jiang Jiang Jiang Jiang Yubai, you are so serious."
Jiang Yubai was about to ask "When was I not serious?", but felt that this question went beyond the boundaries of friendship. He said instead: "The New Year is coming, you can also be serious, Linlinlinlin Zhixia."
"The day I remember you being the most serious was that day..." Lin Zhixia imitated his tone of voice perfectly, "Thank you for the crown you gave me, Lin Zhixia, I will keep it properly."
Jiang Yubai was reminded by Lin Zhixia, and he remembered the ceremony where she crowned him with a small crown. His left ear, which was facing the phone, turned slightly red. Lin Zhixia yawned again: "I'm so full and I'm sleepy now. I want to go to bed. Let's talk tomorrow."
Jiang Yubai said goodbye to her: "Good night, go to bed early."
"Yeah, you too!" Lin Zhixia responded to him enthusiastically as always.
After hanging up the phone, Lin Zhixia happily lay down. She stretched out her legs, covered herself with the quilt, and fell asleep in just a few minutes. Suddenly, the landline phone on the bedside table rang loudly again.
She reached out and grabbed the microphone, and asked dazedly, "Hello, hello, who is this?"
Jiang Yubai knew that she was going to sleep and would never call again. She guessed that the person on the other end of the phone must be calling her for the first time, because the person didn't speak the whole time, was very mysterious, and his breathing was very light.
Lin Zhixia was getting sleepy, and she said incoherently: "Happy New Year, no matter who you are, I wish you all the best, academic success, and a peaceful and stable life every day..."
Jin Baihui hung up the phone as quickly as a telecom fraudster. She had just entered the house and had not even had a bite of hot food when she dialed the phone numbers of several classmates in the Grade 17 class based on a few strings of numbers she remembered.
Jin Baihui didn't want to chat with the people in Class 17. She was just testing her memory for numbers.
A few minutes ago, she called Shen Fuxuan first. The first thing Shen Fuxuan said was his own imitation of the operator's customer service: "Sorry, the number you dialed is invalid. Please check before redialing."
Afterwards, Jin Baihui called Tang Tingting again.
Tang Tingting said impatiently: "Who are you? I'm asking you, why are you disturbing my sleep so late at night? Do you have any sense of public morality? Aren't you afraid that I will call the police? Are you a man or a woman?"
Jin Baihui had nothing to say to her.
Jin Baihui's last phone call was to Lin Zhixia, and it was only Lin Zhixia who told Jin Baihui the first New Year's blessing she received this year. She decided to keep this secret in her heart forever - during the Spring Festival of 2006, she was blessed by the people she hated the most. She actually hoped that the good news could be fed back to the group of people she hated.
Life will go on, Jin Baihui will still compete with Lin Zhixia, but somewhere in her heart she is calling for a halt. She lies on the bed, the sound of rain outside the window is endless, she closes her eyes and silently says: "I will succeed in my studies and spend every day in peace and stability."
Lin Zhixia's blessing is very suitable for Jin Baihui.
Jin Baihui particularly likes the four words "academic success".
After all, apart from "study", Jin Baihui has nothing.
The author has something to say: The current extra chapters all belong to the "Preface", and the next chapter will be the last extra chapter of the Preface!