The morning sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, sizzling the oil in the pan. Chen Hao flipped an egg; the yolk hadn't broken, and he nodded in satisfaction.
Carl sat at the dining table, a slice of toast in his hand, his eyes fixed on the wall clock. With each tick of the second hand, his eyelid twitched.
"You think staring at this will get you into a top university?" Chen Hao brought over the plate. "Eat yours."
“I’m calculating time accuracy,” Carl said. “The error rate of clocks on Earth is 3.7 percent higher than that of the spacecraft system.”
“Then go fix it.” Chen Hao sat down. “But first you have to learn how to write the character ‘时’ (shi), otherwise they won’t let you into the school.”
Carl took a bite of his toast, chewing slowly. "Susan was able to go out yesterday, so can I go out and check things out today too?"
"What are you looking at? The farmers' market?"
"I want to know how people learn."
Chen Hao froze for two seconds, his chopsticks hanging in mid-air.
“You always ask ‘why’ questions, like ‘Why do we put up red paper during Chinese New Year?’ ‘Why are children afraid of ghosts?’ These are things that schools teach.”
Carl put down his toast. "Can the school... answer all the questions?"
"No," Chen Hao grinned, "but I can tell you how to find the answers yourself. Besides, the teacher explains it more clearly than I do, so I don't have to make up lies anymore."
Carl looked at him.
"What? You don't believe me? Even though I got the lowest score, I still attended classes!" Chen Hao slammed his fist on the table. "Come on! Today I'll show you what compulsory education is all about!"
Half an hour later, the two stood outside a middle school building. Students were running around on campus, some carrying balls, others hopping along with their schoolbags.
Carl walked straight with his shoulders taut, as if ready to respond to an alarm at any moment.
"Relax," Chen Hao tugged at his sleeve. "Nobody's checking if you're carrying a weapon."
“I’m just not used to so many people moving around at the same time,” Carl said in a low voice. “There are no unified instructions either.”
“This is life on Earth,” Chen Hao shrugged. “Chaotic, but alive.”
They entered the school building and found an empty classroom. The social studies class was about to begin. The teacher was a middle-aged man, wearing a wrinkled shirt, and holding a pen that was almost out of ink.
"Today we're talking about the Agricultural Revolution." The teacher tapped the blackboard. "Humans transitioned from hunting to farming because—?"
The students raised their hands.
"Because animals are getting harder to catch?" one boy answered.
"Because it's getting cold!" another shouted.
The teacher nodded. "That makes sense. But the most crucial thing is a stable food source. Plant once, harvest once, and you won't have to chase wild boars every day."
Carl frowned and wrote in his notebook: **Sowing → Harvesting = Increased Efficiency?**
He looked up at a barren field outside the window, where nothing was planted.
"Then why not just keep harvesting?" he suddenly asked. "Harvesting doesn't require waiting or tending to crops. Logically, it's more efficient."
The whole class fell silent for a moment.
The teacher turned around. "Is this student new?"
Chen Hao quickly raised his hand: "My brother, he's here to listen in!"
The teacher smiled. "It's a good idea. But in reality, gathering is limited by the seasons, and food is unpredictable. If there's a drought or a harsh winter, people will starve. Agriculture, on the other hand, allows humans to store food, build villages, and develop civilization."
Carl looked down and wrote: "Storage = Survival Redundancy".
Math class continued. The teacher gave a problem: **24 x 16 = ?**
The students began mental arithmetic.
"Break it down into 20 and 4," the teacher instructed. "First calculate 20 x 16, then calculate 4 x 16, and finally add them together."
Carl simply wrote down 384.
The girl next to him glanced at him and asked, "Why don't you calculate the steps?"
"As long as the result is correct," Carl said. "The intermediate steps are a waste of time."
The girl chuckled softly, "This sounds like you're cheating on a test."
The people around him laughed too.
Karl twitched his fingers, touched behind his ear, and gently scratched it.
When the bell rang, he didn't say a word, but stood up and walked out.
Chen Hao followed and stopped him at the top of the stairs.
"Do you think they're stupid?" Chen Hao asked.
“I think they’re taking a roundabout route,” Carl said, his voice a little muffled. “Why break it down into several steps when the answer could be found directly?”
Chen Hao didn't say anything, but bent down and picked up a leaf from the edge of the flower bed. He tore it in half with his hand and handed one half to Karl.
"How many pieces are there now?"
Two pieces.
“It was originally one piece. I broke it apart to see the veins in each piece.” Chen Hao pointed to the veins in the leaf. “Look, this side is thick, and that side is thin. The water flows through here. It’s the same with ‘decomposing’ in mathematics—not to calculate slowly, but to understand how numbers grow.”
Karl stared at the half-leaf in his hand.
"So...they didn't just learn the answers, they learned a way of seeing the world?"
“Yes.” Chen Hao smiled. “You’re smart, but you have to allow yourself to not understand at first.”
Carl took a deep breath, opened his notebook, and pointed to a line of text: "Do the spring and autumn equinoxes really affect farming?"
“Of course.” Chen Hao took out his phone. “Look, I’ve brought up the map. The sun shines directly on the equator on these two days every year, so day and night are the same length. Farmers use this to determine their planting time.”
He swiped the screen to show an animation of the changing sunlight.
"The sun doesn't move at a constant speed?" Karl squinted. "Does it lean north in summer and south in winter?"
“That’s right.” Chen Hao nodded. “Just like an air conditioner remote, Earth also has an ‘automatic adjustment mode’.”
Carl suddenly grinned, "So the sun's 'eccentricity' is governed by a pattern!"
"You've finally figured it out." Chen Hao patted him on the shoulder.
Physics class is in the afternoon. The teacher is doing a buoyancy experiment by putting a wooden block into a basin of water.
"Why can wood float?" the teacher asked.
"Because it's light!" the student replied.
Karl raised his hand: "It's because the density is less than that of a liquid, which creates an upward buoyant force."
The whole class was silent for two seconds.
Then everyone burst into laughter.
The teacher smiled and said, "This student is absolutely right. But we'll start with 'lightness and heaviness' first, and then we'll learn the formulas once you understand the feeling."
Carl sat back down and rubbed his fingers behind his ear again.
This time, Chen Hao didn't try to take him away.
When get out of class ended, Karl closed his notebook and asked, "Can you come again tomorrow?"
"You can stay as long as you want," Chen Hao said, "but don't wear this uniform next time, it's too conspicuous."
"Then what should I wear?"
“Wear your school uniform,” Chen Hao laughed. “Or a t-shirt and sweatpants, preferably with ‘Class 3-2 Macho Man’ printed on the back.”
Is it necessary to print the words?
"Yes." Chen Hao nodded seriously. "This is the first step in integrating."
As they walked out of the school gate, the sky was already beginning to turn yellow. People were pushing bicycles home on the street, and the aroma of food wafted from the windows of their homes.
Carl walked ahead, his steps much steadyer than in the morning.
"Chen Hao." He suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?"
“You say the eighth day of the week doesn’t exist because there are only seven days in a week,” Carl said, turning back. “But what if someone defines a week as eight days?”
“Then he’ll have to schedule his own shifts,” Chen Hao said, shrugging. “Others won’t get time off because of him.”
"So the rules are decided by the majority?"
“Yes.” Chen Hao nodded. “Most people think seven days is appropriate, so it’s settled. It’s like using chopsticks to eat. You’ve seen knives and forks, but the mainstream here is to use chopsticks to pick up food.”
Carl seemed thoughtful. "What if I want to change the rules?"
“Sure,” Chen Hao kicked a pebble away, “but you have to understand why it’s set up that way first. Otherwise, you’re not changing the rules, you’re making a joke.”
Carl didn't say anything more, but the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
They turned into the alley. The old locust tree in front of their house was still there, and the old man under the tree was still playing chess, without even looking up.
Chen Hao pushed open the door, and the sound of stir-frying came from inside.
"Mom! We're back!"
"Wash your hands as soon as you get back!" Chen Hao's mother called from the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready soon!"
Carl stood in the doorway, straightening his shoes very quietly.
"What did you learn today?" Chen Hao asked as he changed his shoes.
“I now understand why I can’t just give you the answer,” Carl said. “And I also understand that the sun can be ‘biased’.”
"That's good," Chen Hao smiled. "Let's continue tomorrow."
"I have another question for the teacher."
"What?"
"If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
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