“He has finished high school already? But I believe all the college courses for the undergraduate degree are available online as well.”
“Forgive me, Chen Zumu. I was imprecise. He has finished his undergraduate schooling.”
“At age fourteen? In what field of study?”
“Mathematics, Chen Zumu.”
JuPing used her heads-up display to perform a search. Other people had completed the undergraduate degree in mathematics at age fourteen, back on Earth, but they were very rare. True prodigies. FangYan was right. JieMin needed to be here, in Arcadia City. Even then, it would be difficult to challenge him.
“I agree with you FangYan. He should be here, where he can study further at the University of Arcadia downtown.”
“Thank you, Chen Zumu.”
“But that raises other questions. Will he be happy away from his family? Do you all wish to move here, so that you remain together? Or can he live with some relatives who are here?”
“My husband’s brother is here, Chen Zumu. He is Chen JuanTao. We have spoken to him, and his family will look after JieMin. But we wanted your sponsorship, so JieMin’s path can be smoother.”
JuPing nodded.
“Very well, grandchild. I will make inquiries at the university. And we will arrange something here for him. Perhaps his own rooms, so he can do his work in solitude, but close to JuanTao’s family, so he has family support. He would have no other assignments.”
“Thank you, Chen Zumu. You are most kind.”
“A gift of that kind must be nurtured, so it does not wither and die. Such potential must be given room to grow.”
JuPing looked out over the gardens and sipped her tea as she considered her possible actions. Then she nodded.
“Thank you for bringing this to me, grandchild. It was the proper thing to do.”
JuPing put in a call request to the president of the University of Arcadia. She would call in a favor if need be. The Chen family were big supporters of the university. Then again, it may simply be a matter of pointing out Chen JieMin’s age.
The call request came in as ‘Chen JuPing,’ but Anders Connor knew Chen JuPing was also Chen Zumu, the wife of Chen Zufu. He had seen her last at the dedication of the new building, the Chen Hall of Science. He dropped what he was doing and signaled acceptance.
“Chen Zumu,” Connor said, bowing.
“Good afternoon, President Connor. I want to bring something to your attention.”
“Of course, Chen Zumu.”
“I have a family member who I understand has just completed his undergraduate studies. His name is Chen JieMin.”
Connor brought up JieMin’s academic record in the lower half of his heads-up display, JuPing being in the upper half.
“Completed the degree in mathematics in just over two years, with high honors. That is most impressive, Chen Zumu.”
“Yes. Now please pull up his personal information, President Connor. I believe that is on a different screen.”
Indeed it was. Someone who needed one did not necessarily need the other, and the university was jealous of its students’ privacy. Connor pulled up the personal information screen.
“I have it, Chen Zumu.”
“Observe his age, President Connor.”
“Fourteen years old? Is that a data error, Chen Zumu?”
“No, President Connor. I remember this boy as a baby. That is his accurate age. I think some special arrangement should be made to challenge him, to reap the best benefits for the colony.”
“I agree, Chen Zumu. If he had been in residence, such arrangements would already be in place. As a remote learner, though, no one put two and two together.”
“That was my suspicion, President Connor. But I have called him here from Chagu. He will be resident here, in Arcadia City. Surely there is some arrangement that could be made for his further studies.”
“I will take care of it personally, Chen Zumu. When he arrives in Arcadia City, have him call on me directly.”
“Thank you, President Connor. I will do just that.”
The subject of these conversations was unaware of them. Chen JieMin sat on the hillside above Chagu looking out over the valley. drawing in his heads-up display with his finger.
The family currently had to pump water to some parts of the valley, while shielding other parts from the occasional flash floods that swept down out of the mountains. JieMin had asked one of the village elders why they didn’t simply channel the waters properly, and avoid all that work.
“You know how to do that, JieMin?”
“Yes, Zhanglao. I can see it in my head when I look out at the fields. It is part of the shape. The shape of the valley.”
The elder – zhanglao in Chinese – knew of JieMin’s remarkable gift. Rather than scoff or consider the boy strange, he had given the boy the task of drawing what he saw, how to divert the waters to avoid both the pumping and the floods.
It was not hard for JieMin. He had always seen things differently. As he had grown up, he could never understand why other people did not see as he did, but he came to understand they did not. He had been very excited to find mathematics when he was ten. To find there was a way to say what he saw, in formal terms. It was important to him, too, to know that others had seen as he did, to come up with such a way to explain what they saw.
Looking out at the valley, JieMin could see the best water flow through the valley, in the shape of the valley itself. Its hills and curvature. He knew now the formalisms for those shapes. The derivative operator. The gradient operator. The divergence operator. It was all so simple.
But JieMin did not need that formalism for this task. He saw where the stream entered and where it exited. How to block the stream to a certain
