Chapter 31
The long-awaited lecture day was finally here!
Mom and I went to a famous, ridiculously expensive makeup salon in Gangnam that she'd booked in advance that morning.
Unlike the outfit and hair, the makeup had to be done that very day.
Jingle-jingle-.
When we opened the door and went inside, the makeup artist we'd booked came out to greet us.
“Hello. Are you Ms. Yu A-yeon, who made a reservation for today?”
“Yeees-. Hello-!”
The artist complimented me while looking me over.
“Oh my. You really went all out. Is there some important event today?”
“Yees-! Something this important!”
I spread my arms wide to emphasize just how important it was.
“It’s a day when I’ll be standing on a stage watched by lots of people. Her skin is so nice, so please keep the base thin and dewy, and since the stage lighting will be strong, set her forehead and nose with powder so they stay nice and matte.”
Mom explained it all so stylishly from beside me.
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew that Mom was amazing.
The artist smiled and sat me down in a chair.
“Understood. Since it’s an important day, I’ll have to show off my skills a little. Since you’re a young child, I’ll avoid going overboard and bring out your natural charm in a subtle way.”
The artist’s hands began moving dazzlingly around my face.
Delicate, meticulous movements.
She lightly patted on a thin base, brightened the area beneath my eyes just a little, and applied a natural color to my lips.
When the final touch was finished, the artist turned the chair toward the mirror.
I examined the Yu A-yeon in the mirror.
My eyeliner had become more defined, my lips sparkled, and my skin looked brighter.
“Hoo-heh-heh.”
Cuteness limit broken!
With this, Yu A-yeon's confidence shot past maxed out to a full 3,000% charge!
“Do you like it?”
“Yeees-! I totally love it! Thank youuu-!”
I gave the artist a grateful little bow-.
I see now why people pay so much to leave their makeup to a professional.
When I secretly tried patting on makeup by myself while looking in the mirror at Mom’s vanity, I ended up covered in white powder like a glutinous rice cake.
I had used so much powder that accidentally getting it in my mouth would make me cough-cough-.
Click! Click!
Mom was incredibly excited too, snapping pictures of me from every angle.
“Oh my, oh my, our A-yeon is so cute. What should I do?”
“Heheh. Right, right? I’m cute, aren’t I?”
Peace-peace-.
I struck a pose in front of the camera, making a V sign.
Black sailor uniform, wave perm, and makeup!
With that, I had become the master of the Three Treasures of Outfit, Hair, and Makeup.
Who am I?
A genius with an IQ of 160, the former owner of an Apple phone, the first author of the paper proving the Riemann Hypothesis, and the master of the Three Treasures of Outfit, Hair, and Makeup.
I’m the master of the Three Treasures~ I’m the master of the Three Treasures~
This is the true Triforce for me!
Power, courage, wisdom?
Outfit, hair, and makeup are far more powerful than that!
✒️✒️✒️
The Seoul National University Cultural Center Grand Auditorium.
Our family had arrived early, an hour before the lecture began.
As the start time drew closer, professors and graduate students began appearing in droves in front of the building.
They gathered in small groups to talk or looked over printouts of the paper I had written.
It was the first time I had seen anyone other than my family and Professor Park Mu-yeol looking over my paper, and it felt good.
“Heheh.”
Dad gently took my hand.
“A-yeon, are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, totally! The Yu A-yeon of today is Yu A-yeon with 3,000% confidence!”
“That’s right. Dad believes in our daughter. A-yeon is a genius, after all.”
Dad started to ruffle my hair with his rough hand, but then changed it to a couple of gentle pats on my shoulder….
Because he knew it took thirty minutes to fix this hair afterward.
Rustle-rustle-.
I took the golden ball out of my pocket.
A Feroro chocolate that I had received as a gift from Eun-chae unni at the chess club yesterday.
I had realized that chocolate had a fairly calming effect, so I brought it along to calm my nerves with a little pre-lecture nom-nom.
Nom-.
Munch-munch-.
“Phew… it’s yummy.”
We entered the backstage area.
When our family of four suddenly tried to come in, a staff member stopped us, but Professor Park Mu-yeol, who was inside, said we were with him, so they let us through.
And so, we successfully entered the preparation room behind the stage.
“Professor Park Mu-yeol! Hello! Thank you for giving me the chance to give this lecture!”
Professor Park welcomed us with a benevolent smile.
“Hoho. It was nothing. I also wanted to take a close look at the process of proving the Riemann Hypothesis that you came up with, Miss A-yeon. Show it to everyone.”
Professor Park bent down to meet my eyes and held out his hand.
“Nihihee. Please watch me-!”
Swing-swing-.
I took his hand and shook it up and down.
“Unni, are you okay? Aren’t you scared?”
Arin quietly asked from beside me.
“Honestly, I’m a liiittle nervous. But I think I could be even stronger if Arin gave me a hug.”
“If you say so, Unni, I’ll hug you as many times as you want!”
Squeeze-.
Ah… this is it. This.
The natural oxytocin I received from Arin.
With this, nothing would scare me.
The promised time had arrived.
“A-yeon, it’s about time to go in.”
Mom took my hand and led me along.
Mom and I opened the front doors of the lecture hall and entered.
The gazes of around a thousand people.
And the lenses of dozens of cameras.
Considering that it was being streamed live, maybe more than ten thousand people were watching us right now.
“Phew…”
It wasn’t as if I wasn’t nervous.
However, thanks to Eun-chae unni’s Feroro chocolate, Arin’s hug, Mom and Dad’s encouragement, and the effects of equipping the Three Treasures of Outfit, Hair, and Makeup, I was able to face all those gazes without being overwhelmed.
Everyone looked bewildered.
They looked as if they were wondering who that mother and daughter were.
But we entered proudly, paying no attention to their questioning gazes.
Step-step-.
Tiny-tiny-.
Mom stood in the center of the stage, took the microphone, and spoke first.
Mom’s voice was absorbed by the microphone’s diaphragm and converted into an electrical signal.
The converted electrical signal was output from the speakers as amplified sound, echoing thunderously throughout the lecture hall.
“Hello. I’m Han Seol-ae, the second author of [On the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis].”
Then Mom handed the microphone to me.
I began introducing myself with a bright smile.
“Hello! I’m Yu A-yeon, the first author of [On the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis]! Hello everyone! I’m A-yeon Yu, the first author of [A Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis]!”
✒️✒️✒️
The various media outlets were streaming the lecture hall live on MeTube through their broadcast cameras.
The news had even reported that the unidentified author of [On the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis] was giving a lecture.
Around ten thousand people, including viewers from overseas, watched Yu A-yeon’s lecture through MeTube.
If anything, it was precisely because Yu A-yeon had maintained her mystique and refused to reveal her identity until now.
Even people who normally had little interest in such issues had clicked in out of curiosity.
- Alright, let’s go~
- Is the big one coming? Is the big one coming? Is the big one coming? Is the big one coming?
- Fuck this. Riemann Hypothesis, my ass. Give me my coins back.
- Wow, there are a shitload of people here
- Can the coin bros please get lost?
- I’m moved that an achievement of this magnitude came out of Korea
- What kind of stream is this? Did something happen?
- Is this the rumored proof of the Riemann Hypothesis?
- This is all thanks to our honorable president properly supporting education in Korea
- Ugh, all you bastards who don’t even know what the Riemann Hypothesis is, get out
- This chat is fucking pathetic
- What is the Riemann Hypothesis?
- bro i wanna be there so bad 😭😭😭
[Major Mathematics Gallery]
[Title: Anyone watching the broadcast right now?]
Title says it all.
- Watching
- I’m at the lecture hall right now lol. My professor brought me.
- ㄴHoly shit, I’m jealous. My professor went alone because there weren’t enough seats, the bastard
- ㄴLol, watch the stream
- For now, what I’m most curious about is who independent researcher Yu A-yeon actually is
[Tweet]
今、リーマン予想の証明講演がリアルタイムで配信されてるらしい。気になる人は早めにチェックした方がいいかも。
→ Apparently, a lecture on the proof of the Riemann Hypothesis is being streamed live right now. Anyone interested might want to check it out soon.
[Tweet]
めちゃくちゃ楽しみ。7大難問が解決されるのはポアンカレ予想以来、22年ぶりになるんだよね。
→ I’m really looking forward to it. It’ll be the first time one of the seven major problems has been solved in twenty-two years, since the Poincaré Conjecture.
Meanwhile, countless people watched with keen interest.
Two women—a mother and daughter—walked into the lecture hall.
Step-step-.
Tiny-tiny-.
- What the hell, she’s incredibly pretty ㄷㄷ
- Cute kid
- They brought a kid to the lecture hall?
- The sailor uniform is cute
“Hello. I’m Han Seol-ae, the second author of [On the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis].”
- Oh, she’s the second author?
- Where’s Yu A-yeon?
- But why did she bring a child?
- Cute
- But she’s seriously pretty ㄷㄷ
- Unni, you’re so pretty
- She's so pretty 😭😭😭
- The kid's cute too—must take after her mom.
And then.
— Hello! I’m Yu A-yeon, the first author of [On the Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis]! Hello everyone! I’m A-yeon Yu, the first author of [A Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis]!
At that moment.
The thoughts of everyone in the audience and watching the stream suddenly ground to a halt.
- ??
- ???
- What?
- ?????
- ?????????
- Huh?
- ?????
- ????
- ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ What the fuck
- ??
- WTF
- What are you talking about?
- What did she just say?
- Looks like the kid is playing a prank… If a kid's going to fool around at a place like this, they need to be disciplined.
- ????????
MeTube viewers began flooding the chat with question marks at an incredible speed.
The chat was on the verge of exploding.
[Major Mathematics Gallery]
[Title: Did I hear that right?]
That little kid just said she was the author who wrote the paper? And her mom is the second author?
- What is this, a hidden-camera prank?
- The stream chat just exploded too
- What the fuck are they talking about?
- The kid is probably just fooling around. It’s the staff’s fault for letting a brat like that in with them.
[Tweet]
今ガキが出てきて衝撃発言してて草
→ A little kid just came out and made a shocking statement lol
[Tweet]
韓国ってコメディで世界一を取れる国だったんだなって思ったｗwww
→ I guess Korea really is a country that can take first place in the world at comedy lol
✒️✒️✒️
The auditorium froze.
Nearly a thousand people all looked at the same thing.
The small child on the platform.
A height of 105 centimeters.
A black sailor uniform with a red ribbon.
Wavy hair rippling gently.
A bright smile as she stood in front of the microphone.
About three seconds of silence.
Everyone assumed it was a joke.
The audience began to stir.
“That’s… the author Yu A-yeon?”
“She’s that young?”
“Is this some kind of prank?”
A professor in their sixties sitting in the front row adjusted their glasses and whispered to the colleague beside them.
“What on earth was Park Mu-yeol thinking?”
“I have no idea. Is that child really the author?”
A graduate student sitting in the middle rows took out their phone and checked the author information on the Archive paper again.
[Author: Yu A-yeon]
There was no photo beside the name, no affiliation, and no information of any kind.
There was only the name, sitting there all by itself.
“That kid is Yu A-yeon…?”
The murmuring from the audience grew louder and louder.
The professors who had flown in from overseas were no different.
One of the overseas professors whispered to a colleague nearby.
“Is this a joke?”
“I have no idea.”
The colleague shrugged.
The camera crews filming also came to a stop.
Lee Dong-hyun stared blankly at the platform from the press seats in the very front row.
‘No way. That child was the author Yu A-yeon I’d been searching for all this time?’
Then a scene came to mind for Lee Dong-hyun.
The child who had happily eaten the strawberry bomb cake at the café.
And the child who had spoken in such a self-assured tone.
It felt as if the voices of the child and Han Seol-ae were ringing in his ears at the same time.
— Yu A-yeon is going to give a huge lecture later, you know? I’ll let you and one foreign press reporter you bring be the first two people to have an exclusive interview with Yu A-yeon after the lecture. It’s my thank-you for buying me the strawberry bomb cake!
— I’ll do as this child says.
When he reached that thought, Lee Dong-hyun’s eyes widened.
“Ah! Could that be what it was back then!”
✒️✒️✒️
I looked straight at the restless audience.
Doubt.
Disbelief.
Bewilderment.
I could sense something similar in every pair of eyes.
It was the reaction I had expected.
It was only natural.
Thump-thump-.
Ba-dump, ba-dump-.
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t nervous.
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t scared.
‘But the Yu A-yeon of today can do this!’
I tightly squeezed Mom’s hand beside me.
Then I let out a long whoosh and spoke clearly into the microphone.
“It’s understandable that none of you believe me.”
As soon as I spoke, the murmuring died down.
“Even I would have trouble believing that a child this small had proved the Riemann Hypothesis. But this isn’t a joke.”
After saying that, I repeated myself in English.
“I understand why you don't believe it. Even I wouldn't easily believe it either. But this is not a joke.”
The audience began to stir again.
If the earlier murmuring had been rooted in bewilderment, this was something different.
I continued speaking.
“I discovered evidence showing that the Riemann Hypothesis is true, and with my mother’s help, I wrote and published a paper. From now on, I’ll explain that process in detail.”
And in English.
“I found the key idea to prove that the Riemann Hypothesis is true. With my mother's help, I wrote the paper and posted it. From now on, I will explain that process in detail.”
When I finished speaking, the audience fell completely silent.
They must have realized that the situation was far too abnormal to dismiss as a mere prank.
That was even better.
I quietly took Mom’s hand where she stood beside the platform, then picked up a piece of chalk with my other hand.
“Heave-ho-.”
I pulled out the footstool I had prepared beneath the platform, stepped onto it, and brought my eyes level with the blackboard.
The camera captured my fingertips.
The words I wrote were projected onto the large screen throughout the lecture hall.
Tap-.
Tap-tap-.
Small, cute, but forceful handwriting appeared across the blackboard.
[Every nontrivial zero of the Riemann zeta function ζ(s) has real part 1/2.]
[Every nontrivial zero s of ζ(s) satisfies Re(s)=1/2.]
I set down the chalk and turned toward the audience.
And then.
I smiled brightly and said,
“From now on, I’m going to prove this!”