Chapter Two: Everyone Else Was Wrong

Three weeks later, Lin Yan entered the final hall of the Linchuan Youth Mathematics Selection. Old Harbor High had lent him a suit that did not fit. Its cuffs failed to hide his faded shirt, and his worn soles left a dotted trail of rain across the marble. Students from private academies passed him wearing badges, watches, and easy smiles that seemed like the code of another social class. “That’s the boy who called the police to steal a recommendation,” someone whispered. “How did someone like him make the final?” Two equations appeared at once. Lin Yan refused to solve them. He had learned to look through the symbols; otherwise, every day would become an interrogation without end.