Lin Chaoxi went upstairs with Manager Zhang. She carried a cardboard box and was taken into an independent office.

She was very nervous the whole way. She had never been to Lao Lin's office during his working period, and she had just heard some spoilers from the front desk lady, so she was afraid of seeing unexpected situations.

But when she stood at the door, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Lao Lin's office is a bit messy, with a lot of draft papers placed on the windowsill and the desk. But overall it is not exaggerated, and the office still looks very clean and tidy.

"The main reason we asked you to come up here is because of Lao Lin's situation. We're worried that he may have forgotten to take something important with him," said Manager Zhang.

"What are his important things?" Lin Zhaoxi put down the box at the door, "First is me, second..."

"And the second one?"

"His talent." Lin Zhaoxi smiled, "So I should take it all away."

Manager Zhang was amazed: "Xiao Lin has a boyfriend? I have a good-for-nothing son..."

Lin Chaoxi knew he was joking, shook his head, and continued to visit Lao Lin's office.

There is a large bookcase in the office, next to which is a single sofa and a small coffee table.

There was a half-drunk cup of tea on the tea table, and the tea soup had gone cold. Manager Zhang sat down on the sofa, took off his glasses and wiped them. From his angle, he could just see the green trees and the bustling streets outside the windows of the business.

"I've never sat in one before." Manager Zhang said, putting down his glasses, leaning back in his chair, and letting out a very comfortable "ah". "Comrade Lao Lin is good in every way, except that he can't get rid of the petty-bourgeois hedonistic consciousness.

Lin Chaoxi was casually flipping through the draft paper that Old Lin had placed on the table.

Some of the drafts were work-related, some were casual proofs, and some were even junior high school math Olympiad problems. Lao Lin wrote down the questions and answered them carefully.

Lin Chaoxi's first reaction was that Old Lin would not have traveled back in time with her, right? Otherwise, why would he suddenly want to do elementary school math problems...

She picked up the stack of draft papers a little nervously, wanting to see if there were any clues.

The math problem Lao Lin was working on was a variation of a travel problem. She glanced at it and her eyes fell on the content after the word "answer".

——Long-term memory is not damaged and the formulas are still remembered clearly, but there is difficulty in using them.

That is Lao Lin’s handwriting.

Lin Chaoxi's heart tightened, and he looked at the solution process again.

Lao Lin used the answering method that only children would use, first writing the formula and then solving the problem step by step.

There were obvious corrections in the answer. Lao Lin seemed a little impatient and crossed out a few lines, then started over again.

Even so, he still did it very carefully, even using arrows to remind himself of some number substitutions, and completed the entire problem with such difficulty.

Finally, there is the self-criticism.

Lin Zhaoxi realized that this was a self-test of an Alzheimer's patient and mathematician about the ability he was most proud of.

He probably knew very well that he was no longer competent for the job, so he resigned calmly.

Manager Zhang spoke slowly: "I was just thinking about what you said. You are right. Lao Lin is indeed talented."

Lin Chaoxi held Lao Lin's draft paper and turned to the next page.

"I've been in this business for a long time, and I've met people who are very sensitive to numbers, or who are extremely capable and can clean up any account for you, but Lao Lin is different." Manager Zhang squinted his eyes, as if he felt that the sun outside the window was too strong. "When we first met, it was the year you moved to Yongchuan, right?"

"Yeah, four years ago."

"Old Lin was older at that time and had no experience working in a big firm. He only had a high school diploma. I remember clearly that he was an accountant in a shopping mall in Anning?"

"He actually did a lot of jobs, but because he was lazy, he just wrote one on his resume."

Manager Zhang was stunned again. After a while, he shook his head and said, "That's something Old Lin would do."

He licked his lips, stood up with familiarity, opened the door under the bookcase, took out a glass and a teapot, and went to the water dispenser to make himself a cup of tea.

"I don't know why the HR that year chose me for the interview, and in the end I somehow passed the interview." Manager Zhang sat down with a cup of tea. The tea was very hot, so he probably made some tea just for the sake of his own good intentions.

Manager Zhang: "Anyway, that's how he got in. I remember it very clearly. On his first day of internship, we received an audit assignment. The leader said that a listed company had commissioned us to audit a company they wanted to acquire. We took four college interns and your father to the office and saw that more than a dozen sacks of account books filled the entire room."

Manager Zhang said in a rhythmic voice, "Uncle really didn't lie to you. There was no place to stay. College students were screaming, 'What era is this?' 'Why are there still companies that record accounts manually?'"

"And then?"

"Then we assigned tasks. Although Lao Lin is older, he is also an intern, so we sent him to draw the vouchers."

"ah?"

"It means sampling the registration documents for accounting, such as wages, bank receipts, invoices, etc. The total amount is huge and the number is staggering, so we usually use the random inspection method." Manager Zhang paused, "My expression is not too strict, you should understand it roughly."

Lin Zhaoxi nodded.

"In short, this is a basic job in the auditing industry. College interns can do it. What do you think?"

“It should be simple, but it’s not simple.”

"We were also the teachers of the interns, so we had to check their work every day. At that time, the audit was for exactly five years, and there were five interns in total, including Lao Lin, and each was responsible for one year. My position was not as high as theirs at the time, so I was assigned to guide them." Manager Zhang picked up the teacup, "That evening when I entered the office, your father was the only one there, and he was standing almost where you are now, flipping through a 12-year certificate that was not under his charge."

"Did you scold him?" Lin Chaoxi turned over a page of draft paper and chatted with Manager Zhang.

"Ahem," Manager Zhang said, "I wanted to point out some issues with his lack of understanding of his job responsibilities, but he saw me and said something like -"

"Mr. Zhang, is there a problem with the account?"

Manager Zhang shook his head and said in a very evasive manner: "He asked me, 'Do you have the qualification to be a forensic expert?'"

"Forensic review?"

"This is a major financial fraud case," Manager Zhang said seriously. "Every account book is fake. The company itself is a Pang family scam. It has been going on like this for five years."

"How is this possible?" Lin Zhaoxi found it unbelievable. "How did he know that?"

"Is this the talent you mentioned?"

Lin Chaoxi still shook his head: "I don't understand."

"Here's the problem. This is a commission for judicial audit and appraisal, but my firm, including myself, has no judicial appraisal qualifications. We all thought it was commissioned by another company." Manager Zhang tapped his tea and emphasized, "If we look at the accounts for a few days, we will definitely find all the problems. But once the "Audit Report" we issued goes to court, it cannot be used as documentary evidence, but only as an appraisal opinion, which can be easily refuted."

"Lose the case?"

“We can’t rule out this possibility.”

Manager Zhang's words were very vague, but Lin Chaoxi suddenly understood. This was a deliberately arranged audit activity that might lead to a lawsuit. The purpose was to allow the criminals who presided over the Pang family scam to escape the law. It was difficult to say which specific link had gone wrong.

"Because of this sentence." Manager Zhang looked at the ceiling, "I sat in the office above, and your father sat in this office."

Lin Zhaoxi slowly put down the draft paper in his hand: "I don't know anything about this."

"I don't know if it's normal, but it's quite dangerous." Manager Zhang blew the tea leaves. "I later learned that Lao Lin used one day to go through all those dozens of sacks of accounts by himself. Do you think this is a human brain or a computer?"

Lin Zhaoxi thought for a moment and replied, "Computers were also invented by the human brain."

Manager Zhang looked at her and said, "Xiao Lin, you don't have a boyfriend, right? I do have a son, he's 18 this year, and he's in his third year of high school."

Lin Zhaoxi: “…”

Manager Zhang took a sip of tea and almost cried out because of the scalding. He put down the cup, picked up the half cup of cold tea on the tea table that Lao Lin had left over, and exchanged it for it, without any intention of rejecting it.

Lin Chaoxi laughed. Old Lin's good friend seemed to be as interesting as he was. She was about to speak, but at this moment, Manager Zhang asked casually in a leisurely tone, "So, for someone like Old Lin to have such a disease, is it considered as God's envy of talent?"

There was a faint sound of running water in the air.

Manager Zhang put down his cup and sat on the sofa.

Lin Chaoxi looked at him and spoke slowly: "The day he was diagnosed, we went to eat noodles together." She put down the elementary school math problems that Lao Lin was doing, "He told me that everything in the world can happen to anyone, and it's no big deal."

Manager Zhang was stunned for a moment, then said, "Old Lin is really courageous."

"I heard that you pronounced the word 'po' as 'pa'."

“I’m actually quite sad.”

"I see."

"From that day on, I knew that Lao Lin was different from me. But after we've been together for so many years, he seems to be no different from me."

"You mean like everyone else?"

"You young people are still educated."

The steam from the cup of green tea on the tea table had become so faint that it was almost invisible, and the streets were sparsely populated in the afternoon.

Lin Chaoxi looked at Manager Zhang. He must be really regretful, which is why he was so emotional.

Although Mr. Lin always said "it's no big deal", Lin Chaoxi thought that this was the only thing she could not accept.

Manager Zhang only saw the old Lin who could turn over all the accounts in one day, but she saw the old Lin who might be able to change the world.

But over the years, in order to take good care of her, Lao Lin did too many things that had nothing to do with mathematics itself, wasting his best years as a mathematician.

And when she finally had the chance to look through Lao Lin's past, she saw almost the same helpless things - academic plagiarism and expulsion.

She knew there must be something behind this, and it might even be related to the highly respected Professor Feng. But now that Lao Lin has Alzheimer's disease, there is probably no room for maneuver.

Just as he clearly knew, he would slowly forget everything and eventually die.

Lin Chaoxi turned the draft paper on the table back to the first page, looked at Old Lin's self-judgment, and asked Manager Zhang: "Can I take this stack of draft paper with me?"

"Of course."

"Thank you." Lin Chaoxi squatted down, opened the cardboard box, and wanted to put the stack of draft papers in and carry them away together.

Sure enough, the cardboard box was filled with draft papers that Lao Lin took away from the office. No wonder it was so heavy. Apart from that, there was nothing else.

Lin Chaoxi sorted out the Olympiad math problems that Lao Lin had done, then she lowered her eyes and saw the top piece of paper in the pile in the box.