Knock, knock!
“My lady, it is time to wake up!”
At the voice from beyond the door, Cecilia struggled to open her eyes.
It was a clear, sunny morning, quite unlike Oxford’s gloomy weather. Pulling the silk blanket all the way up over her head, she mumbled,
“Just a little longer.”
“I know you were researching until late last night, but you have a full schedule today.”
Cecilia kicked her legs under the blanket in a small act of rebellion.
But there was no mercy in Emma’s actions.
Swish.
She strode over and drew back the curtains.
Sharp sunlight poured into the bedroom. As if blinded, Cecilia screamed and burrowed deeper beneath the blanket.
“You must conquer the morning if you are to become a fine head of the family. Now, please get up.”
As though this had happened countless times before, Emma deftly pulled the blanket away. Cecilia’s delicate figure was revealed in full.
Emma took both her hands as if handling a precious doll and pulled her up into a sitting position. Cecilia flopped limply like a boneless mollusk and buried her face in Emma’s shoulder.
“You’ll feel better once you soak in the bath.”
With her eyes half closed, she nodded and let Emma lead her to the bathroom.
Only after soaking in a warm bath scented with rose bath salts did Cecilia barely regain the dignity befitting a countess. Having finished dressing with Emma’s meticulous help, she entered the dining room.
“Good morning, my lady.”
Morris greeted her, politely pulling out her chair.
On the table were eggs Benedict with smoked salmon and freshly baked chocolate brioche. Cecilia elegantly picked up her fork and knife and began her meal.
“Morris, Boston mornings are far too violent. In Oxford, even when the curtains were drawn, the light was never this strong.”
“How fortunate. Your beauty and intellect will be all the more apparent, my lady.”
Pour.
After pouring Darjeeling into her teacup, Morris took out his notebook.
“This morning, an urgent letter arrived from the Prime Minister’s Office. It is a request for the Ashley family to play a pivotal role in the newly launched ‘Pan-European Science Belt.’ In effect, it appears to be pressure to participate in the struggle for supremacy between Europe and America.”
Cecilia took a bite of brioche and let out a faint laugh.
“Everyone has lost their minds over the dream that the Riemann Hypothesis will be solved. To think even the British government would be taken in by Felix’s messy fraud. What they want is the symbolism our family possesses. The moment I join, that proof will gain even greater authority.”
“Marriage proposals have arrived from the Duke of Somerset’s family and the Marquess of Hastings’s family, respectively. It seems the elders of the family are concerned that your stay in Boston has grown prolonged.”
She set down her knife and accepted the envelopes with cold eyes.
A wealthy young countess, and one who bore the symbolism of being a direct descendant of Ada Lovelace—she must be a golden goose that Europe’s political and financial circles could not afford to miss.
.
“How tiresome. They still haven’t given up?”
The marriage proposals they offered were far from romantic. They were blatant business proposals seeking to merge the family’s assets and intellectual legacy.
It was also why she had left England and fled all the way here to Boston. She had not wanted to live in that suffocating atmosphere.
“They must truly have taken a liking to you, my lady.”
“How ridiculous. If they’re that sincere, tell them to hand over their entire families. Then I might consider it. Do you know what the best part about coming to America is? I don’t have to run into those faces on the street.”
Cecilia drained the rest of her tea in one gulp and rose from her seat.
“I’m going to the university.”
The Rolls-Royce smoothly left the mansion.
She gazed out the window, lost in thought.
She could not stand unintelligent men. The Ashley family had produced geniuses for generations.
“Does it run in the blood?”
Unless someone possessed a breathtakingly beautiful intellect, she simply could not feel attracted.
In that sense, Apex Lab was the perfect refuge. As a facility receiving international attention, it allowed her not only to escape their capture net but also to make wonderful friends.
Especially Seoha.
He did not so much as glance at her title or her immense fortune. The only thing he coveted was her brilliant intellect.
When she solved equations with him, she felt alive as a mathematician, not as a countess. Only after coming to Boston had she learned that intellectual resonance could be such a thrilling temptation.
“Hahaha!”
She clutched her stomach and laughed as though she could hardly stand how amusing it was. Morris looked at the rearview mirror with a puzzled expression.
If the British government intended to use her as a political tool, then she was more than willing to respond in the most Ashley-like way possible.
With the most perfect and beautiful proof, incomparable to that patchwork rag.
What kind of faces would they make then? Just thinking about it was exhilarating.
“Hm?”
In the distance, she saw a familiar silhouette.
Seoha was running through the fierce autumn wind. She had seen him riding his bicycle a few times before, but perhaps because the weather had grown cold today, he was running briskly with his hood pulled up.
“Morris, stop the car.”
“My lady, this is not a stopping zone.”
“I don’t care. Stop. Hurry!”
At Cecilia’s firm command, the car smoothly slowed and came to a stop beside Seoha.
Whirr—
The rear-seat window lowered. Cold air rushed into the car, but she paid it no mind and spoke with an elegant gesture.
“Oh my, Seoha? Fancy seeing you here.”
Apparently out of breath from running, Seoha stopped and steadied his breathing.
“Cecilia? You’re out earlier than usual today.”
“The Boston sunlight was so lovely that I woke up on my own at dawn. But where’s your bicycle?”
“The chain isn’t in good condition. I was running as exercise.”
“In this weather? What if you catch a cold? Get in.”
When Cecilia patted the seat beside her invitingly, Seoha climbed into the car with an expression that said he had no choice.
The soft leather seat and warm air enveloped Seoha’s body.
Whirrrrr—
The car began moving again.
“There seems to be some traffic. We will take a different route today.”
Morris asked for their understanding in a courteous tone.
“Is this what he calls traffic?”
Seoha tilted his head, but the car had already turned and entered the coastal road.
“Wow... What a view.”
The morning sun shattered over the water, sparkling like jewels. It was beautiful.
Morris slowed the car slightly.
Cecilia was looking out the window with her chin haughtily resting on her hand, but she could not hide the small smile at the corners of her mouth.
***
Morning on the MIT campus was always busy.
But once people passed Killian Court and approached the building where Apex Lab was located, everyone’s steps became cautious.
“Hey! Look at that! That’s it, right?”
One student jabbed his friend in the ribs.
A turquoise Rolls-Royce, gleaming without a speck of dust, glided to a stop on the campus road. Morris opened the door with disciplined movements, and from inside stepped a woman of such elegance she seemed to belong in a film.
“Holy crap. She really is a countess. I heard her family is one of the most prominent in England.”
And alongside her, a man got out in an awkward posture. Envy and jealousy mingled in the eyes of the students watching.
As if the gazes around her were of no concern, Cecilia reached out and straightened Seoha’s flipped hood.
“That’s Yu Seoha, right?”
“Yeah.”
He answered with a dazed expression.
The object of admiration for mathematics students in America—no, around the world. Sighing exclamations broke out among the students.
“Let’s study hard. My goal for now is to get one paper published in Science.”
“Forget it. I heard even getting an interview there is ridiculously hard. If you get in there, your life must change, right?”
Ben, on his way to work, glanced at them as he passed.
“It probably isn’t as beautiful a workplace as you think.”
Today was the day of the regular meeting.
People gathered one by one, and before long, the meeting began.
During that time, the team had drawn quite close to the Riemann Hypothesis. He did not quite understand it, but in Cecilia’s terms, it was now time for the Four Heavenly Kings to appear.
“It’s faster to understand the zeta function not as a formula, but as a line the universe folded in order to arrange the prime numbers.”
At Seoha’s explanation, Sujeong nodded.
“I’ve been thinking about it this whole time, and I think it would be good to expand the Selberg Trace Formula through noncommutative geometry.
When particles move across the surface of the manifold we’ve drawn, the quantum irreversibility that arises may be synchronized with the primes.”
Ben unwittingly held his breath.
Deep down, he had thought he would be unrivaled in this lab when it came to quantum physics theory. Among them, Sujeong was a classical number theorist, so he had believed he could easily surpass her once they moved into applications.
“She studied this already?”
She had certainly not known much about quantum theory. The same went for the other team members.
And yet, perhaps because of how intensely they studied, the development of each individual was visible in just a few months. For him, even keeping up with the meeting’s contents was by no means easy.
“Analytic continuity will be important. The zeta function is a dynamic flow with infinite power.”
Theo modified the Hardy-Littlewood approximate functional equation to fit a geometric framework and began filling the blackboard.
Seoha drew the blueprint, and the team members laid the bricks. And Theo was like an inspector testing whether the building could withstand the load.
“Then what... what am I?”
Once the direction became clear, the proof began to take shape.
Seoha and Cecilia were discussing models of the geometry. Sri would gather all of them, formulate them, and create a simulation model.
“I told you, it’s not such a comfortable workplace.”
If one’s abilities could not keep up, it was hell itself instead. Who could possibly understand this agony?
Ben quietly opened his notebook. Then he tore out the “Apex Lab Intelligence Ranking” he had written on his first day at the lab.
“Hm?”
When he looked up, everyone was looking at him.
“This is all thanks to Ben. Ever since Ben came, the lab’s efficiency seems to have doubled.”
At Seoha’s words, everyone nodded vigorously.
“He saved us. Now we can finally do research worthy of the name.”
“The lab environment has become more pleasant too.”
“That’s right. Thanks to the database Ben organized, the time we spend searching for references has been cut in half.”
Ben wore a bewildered expression.
The students outside who had envied him would never know. This was an absurd place. A group where the world’s greatest geniuses gathered to challenge a problem no one in history had ever overcome.
The person they trusted, relied on, and willingly entrusted their backs to.
“Is that me?”
“Ahem!”
The corners of Ben’s mouth lifted.
He placed his hands back on the keyboard. He was in the middle of writing macros when he suddenly sensed an unpleasant gaze.
Looking to the side, he saw Cecilia observing him. She rustled around in a drawer and took something out from inside.
“Eat this. If you ever feel hurt about anything, tell me anytime.”
It was a snack she had brought from the mansion, a luxurious chocolate decorated with gold leaf. She smiled in satisfaction, then waved and walked away.
Then came her low voice.
“We have to be careful. For porter classes, this is their passive skill. We have to treat him well and build up affection... If possible, it would be best to find a weakness in advance...”
She was still incomprehensible, but the moment he put the chocolate she had given him into his mouth, his eyes snapped open. The ultimate sweetness melting on the tip of his tongue and the subtle cacao aroma spreading through his mouth—its taste was on an entirely different level from the mass-produced ones he had bought at supermarkets until now.
Having finished the meeting, the team members were each gathering what they needed for their research.
As Seoha was tidying his desk, he picked up the trash can beside him.
Ben stopped eating the chocolate and sprang from his seat. He trudged over and snatched the bin from Seoha’s hand.
“I’ll take care of this.”
Even taking out the trash was no simple matter here.
“N-no, it’s fine. I’m the one who threw those things away!”
When Seoha reached out to take it back, Ben firmly shook his head.
“You guys just keep running forward. I’ll clean up all the annoying stuff.”
It was not giving up.
If he could become capable of pulling his own weight here, then, at that time.