122: Growing pains and the trials of the "mentor"

The cosmic mysteries revealed by the "one-way mirror" project concerning the star map and ores—the startling discovery of "constant ripple" hidden deep within the data—were like a depth charge detonated beneath the calm surface of "Homeland." Although the shockwave was strictly controlled within a small range, its impact profoundly changed Excellence's positioning and future development direction here.

Wang Jianguo held several closed-door meetings with the Supreme Scientific Advisory Group, with Excellence at the core of the agenda. During the meetings, experts argued heatedly. Conservatives believed Excellence's uniqueness and dangerous association with mysterious items meant isolation and protection must be maintained or even strengthened; any increase in his access privileges would be an irresponsible gamble. However, more rational voices pointed out that Excellence was no longer the fragile youth who needed to be completely isolated from the truth. His mind was recovering, his thirst for knowledge was strong, and more importantly, the irreplaceable, intuitive connection between him and those mysterious items had become a key node—perhaps even the sole "decoder"—linking current research to that grand puzzle.

After repeated weighing and risk assessments, a cautious but groundbreaking decision was made: under the premise of maintaining the highest safety standards and setting up multiple redundant protections, Excellence's privileges and involvement would be moderately and progressively increased. This decision was based on two core considerations:

Promoting mental growth: Forcibly suppressing Excellence's strong thirst for knowledge was not only inhumane but could also lead to hindered cognitive development or psychological issues. Guiding him into a more structured and rational environment for exploration, satisfying his curiosity while cultivating his scientific thinking, was the best way to promote his overall growth.

Utilizing unique resources: Excellence's "intuition" and "inspiration" that transcended logic had proven to be of startling value multiple times in the past. When cracking puzzles like "constant ripple" that transcend conventional scientific paradigms, perhaps this unconventional mode of thinking was exactly what was needed as a breakthrough point. His participation might bring unexpected perspectives and insights.

Thus, a new appointment was handed down. Excellence received a new identity that left him both excited and somewhat bewildered—"Special Research Assistant." This meant he would be allowed to regularly attend internal discussion meetings hosted by Evelyn regarding the data analysis of "constant ripple" (naturally, the content would be strictly simplified, de-sensitized, and visualized to ensure he could understand core concepts without being troubled by complex details) and was encouraged to propose his own observations, questions, and even... "conjectures" at the meetings.

When he first received the official meeting notice, Excellence's reaction was like a child receiving a long-awaited gift. He pulled Su Mu aside, repeatedly confirming the meeting time and dress code. "Class Monitor, do I need to dress very formally for the meeting? Like the scientists on TV?" In his Perception, attending a meeting was an extremely serious and sacred matter.

Seeing his serious look, Su Mu found it both amusing and touching. She specifically found a well-fitting white shirt and a pair of khaki pants to help him dress neatly. On the day of the meeting, Excellence was so nervous he didn't even eat breakfast well. He sat in his designated seat in the conference room early, back ramrod straight, hands placed properly on his knees, his eyes filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

The meeting began. As the main speaker, Evelyn stood before the projection screen, introducing the latest data analysis progress in language as simple as possible. However, even after simplification, the meeting was still filled with terminology that was like gibberish to Excellence: "nonlinear mapping," "information entropy under high-dimensional projection," "power spectrum confidence intervals after Fourier transform," "Monte Carlo simulation verification"... The experts rigorously discussed the statistical significance and physical possibilities behind the data with rapid speech and tight logic.

At first, Excellence tried hard to keep his eyes wide open and listen, attempting to keep up with the rhythm, but soon his eyes began to glaze over, and his thoughts seemed to drift out the window. Those abstract terms and complex charts far exceeded his current knowledge base, giving him an unprecedented sense of frustration and... boredom. He began to unconsciously draw little rockets and stars in the notebook given to him, like an elementary school student spacing out in a serious classroom.

The atmosphere of the meeting was somewhat dull for a while until Evelyn showed a tentative result—she had technical staff take a segment of the main frequency data of the "constant ripple," and after appropriate proportional scaling, converted it into sound wave frequencies audible to the human ear, generating a short simulated audio clip.

When that monotonous, low, yet indescribably ancient rhythmic audio—as if from the primordial era of the universe—rang out in the conference room, almost all the experts merely frowned, discussing the rationality and information loss of such a conversion from a pure data perspective. However, Excellence, who had been in a wandering state, suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes lighting up instantly as if he had heard the most moving music in the world!

"That sound!" He almost involuntarily raised his hand, interrupting the technical argument between two experts about filtering algorithms, his voice sounding somewhat abrupt due to urgency. "It... it seems wrong! In the middle... there's a little bit of something missing here! There should be a... um... like the light and fast 'chirp' of a glissando that a bird makes when it suddenly turns in the air! Right now, it's flat here, like a step with a missing corner!"

The conference room suddenly fell silent. Several senior experts looked at each other with expressions of being caught between laughter and tears. Data is objective, recorded by instruments; how could it be "missing a segment" based on a feeling? This child's imagination was too rich, treating a scientific discussion like a music class.

But Evelyn's reaction was completely different. Her heart skipped a beat, and she immediately remembered Excellence's precise "intuition" regarding missing stars on the star map. Without any hesitation, she immediately turned to the technician controlling the computer and said urgently, "Immediately trace back the raw data stream! Check the vicinity of the time point he just pointed out, all raw sensor records, especially the channels with the highest sampling rates! Focus on checking for any instantaneous data packet loss or abnormal interruptions!"

Although the technician felt it was a bit of a fuss, they quickly executed the command. A few minutes later, the results came out, leaving all the experts present stunned! At the precise millisecond time point Excellence had pointed out by feeling, due to an extremely brief microsecond-level overflow in the data buffer of a high-frequency vibration sensor, there was a data loss lasting less than one-hundredth of a second! Although this loss was completely negligible for macro data analysis and wouldn't even affect any statistical results, Excellence had actually "felt" this tiny technical dissonance just by listening to a simplified simulated audio!

This small "interlude" was like a stone thrown into a calm pond, stirring up ripples in the hearts of the attending experts. They began to look at this young man—who sat in the corner and seemed out of place in deep discussions—with new eyes, filled with a hint of surprise and scrutiny. His "nonsense" didn't seem to be without basis.

After this meeting, Excellence's enthusiasm for participating in discussions increased significantly. Although he still didn't understand most technical details, he began to boldly propose his own "conjectures." These conjectures were often whimsical, full of childlike wonder and metaphors, and completely out of place with rigorous scientific language.

For example, when experts were struggling with a complex wave pattern, he would say, "This diagram looks like... like how a seed slowly extends its roots in the soil in spring, probing here first, then tunneling there, not straight."

Or, facing another periodic signal, he would describe it: "I think it's more like... like a rainy day, with a layer of colored oil film floating on the surface of a puddle. When the light hits it, those colors go around in circles, swaying back and forth. It looks messy, but it seems to have its own rules."

At first, these metaphors sounded absurd and even somewhat laughable to the experts. But gradually, some open-minded scientists discovered that if they temporarily set aside the strict mathematical framework and tried to re-examine the data from these visualized and mimetic perspectives provided by Excellence, they could sometimes gain an inspiration that jumped out of inherent mindsets. He linked abstract data with visible natural phenomena; although imprecise, it might touch upon some deeper intuitive understanding of "patterns" and "changes."

However, Excellence himself truly felt the growing pains. He found that he knew far too little, like a child holding a treasure map but unable to read the words. Many concepts the adults discussed, he could only vaguely perceive the outlines of with his Perception, but could not understand their inner meaning. This "knowledge gap" made him feel frustrated, and he even became anxious in some discussions because he couldn't accurately express his thoughts.

This sense of frustration instead stimulated a stronger thirst for knowledge within him. He was no longer satisfied with merely relying on flashes of intuition and scattered "hand-crafted" experiments; he began to actively request to learn more systematic and solid knowledge.

"Sister Evelyn, can you teach me calculus? They keep talking about derivatives and integrals, and I don't understand."

"Class Monitor, what are electromagnetic waves? Why is light also a wave? How does a wave 'shake'?"

He even began trying to derive some simple physical formulas himself on the whiteboard in the studio. Although the process was often full of errors, that spirit of active exploration made Su Mu and Evelyn feel incredibly gratified.

Faced with Excellence's burgeoning thirst for knowledge, Su Mu and Evelyn naturally became his best "mentors," the two of them forming a perfect complement.

Su Mu played the role of the "down-to-earth mentor." She didn't have a deep scientific background, but she possessed infinite patience and a vivid imagination. She would use the most everyday metaphors to explain abstract concepts: "Look, integration is like us adding water to a pool, bit by bit, to see how the water level (the total amount) slowly rises; as for derivatives, it's like watching how much the faucet is turned, whether the water level rises fast or slow (the rate of change)." She would use rubber bands, water cups, and even chocolate beans to conduct simple experiments so Excellence could intuitively understand the principles. She focused more on protecting Excellence's interest in learning, giving him warm encouragement when he encountered difficulties, making him feel that learning was not a burden but an interesting exploration.

Evelyn was the "elevating mentor." She was responsible for organizing a clear knowledge framework for Excellence, systematically explaining the core concepts and logical chains of mathematics and physics. She would patiently answer Excellence's various "whys," guiding him to think deeply step by step instead of directly giving answers. She emphasized the rigor and accuracy of thinking, requiring Excellence to clearly express his reasoning process.

The two worked in perfect harmony, one responsible for igniting interest and dissolving the fear of difficulty, the other for building the system and cultivating scientific literacy. Under their joint guidance, Excellence's learning process, though full of challenges, moved forward steadily.

The road to growth was not always smooth. Once, Excellence became interested in a simple periodic formula in the "one-way mirror" data and determined to derive its mathematical expression on his own. He locked himself in the studio and calculated tirelessly for three full days, the used scratch paper piling up like a small mountain. However, due to a misunderstanding of a fundamental concept, his derivations repeatedly led into dead ends, and the results were always far from the correct formula.

On the evening of the third day, Excellence looked at the floor covered in waste paper, feeling so frustrated he almost cried, feeling incredibly clumsy. He sat there discouraged, his eyes dim.

At that moment, Evelyn walked in. She didn't immediately point out his mistake or give the answer; instead, she sat calmly beside him, picked up his scratch paper from the first few steps, and said softly, "Let's look together at where you started to go astray. Your initial line of thought was very good. Can you tell me why you chose to start from this angle?" She guided Excellence step by step to review his own thinking process, like a detective looking for break points in the logical chain.

Meanwhile, Su Mu brought over hot milk and snacks, patted his shoulder, and said in a light tone, "Hey, this is nothing! I heard Sister Evelyn say that when those great scientists do research, failing hundreds or thousands of times is considered few! We've only been at it for three days, far from Edison inventing the light bulb! Failure is the mother of success; find a few more 'mothers,' and the 'son' will be out soon!" Her words made Excellence laugh, and the atmosphere of frustration immediately lightened.

Under Evelyn's rational guidance and Su Mu's emotional support, Excellence pulled himself together. He calmed down, carefully checked every step of the derivation, and finally discovered that key conceptual error. When he finally relied on his own efforts to successfully derive that concise and elegant formula, an ecstasy mixed with extreme exhaustion, immense pride, and sudden enlightenment instantly overwhelmed him! Holding the paper covered in the correct derivation process, he rushed out of the studio, excitedly found Su Mu and Evelyn, the light blooming on his face more brilliant than any "hand-crafted" success.

Seeing his heartfelt joy, Su Mu and Evelyn looked at each other and smiled, filled with indescribable relief and a sense of accomplishment. They knew that this once-dusty, trauma-scarred seed, under the joint nourishment of sunlight (Su Mu's warmth) and dew (Evelyn's guidance), had not only broken through the soil but had begun to truly and solidly take root downward and grow upward, gradually showing the potential to become a tree capable of independent thinking and weathering storms. His future, though still full of unknowns, had a path that was now clearer and more solid.