Chapter 44
That day too, he was lying on the blanket and turned on his smartphone.
Unemployed for three years now.
He had no special routine.
Every morning he'd wake up, surf the forums, drop troll comments on the hot posts, and snicker at the disgusted reactions. That was all.
In internet slang, he was what you'd call a troll.
That was the most fitting word to describe him.
Not long ago, during the huge issue that had swept across South Korea—Yu Ah-yeon's lecture—he had been trolling hard, too.
When someone posted a MeTube link to Yu Ah-yeon's lecture in the gallery, and the gallery users started terrorizing the chat, he joined in too.
Controlling other people's emotions. That was his only pleasure in life.
And then, today.
A live stream popped up on MeTube's algorithm.
[IQ Genius Yu Ah-yeon : LIVE]
He gave a snort of a laugh.
‘Here we go.’
If it was Yu Ah-yeon, she was a celebrity known to everyone in South Korea.
News of Yu Ah-yeon's broadcast had already started spreading through various communities.
The viewer count was slowly climbing.
He cracked his fingers and entered the broadcast.
‘You're bored? Bad luck for you.’
But.
Something caught his eye.
An image occupying the upper-left corner of the screen.
A photo of Yu Ah-yeon together with a woman in her late twenties who looked a little like her.
And below the photo, a business card.
[Yu Jin-a Law Office]
Under that, a short line.
[Lawyer's niece↘]
He stared at Yu Ah-yeon, who was writing alien symbols on the whiteboard with a board marker.
“A lawyer's niece...?”
The hand moving toward the chat window froze in midair.
“...I'll let it slide just this once.”
He abandoned the idea of trolling and opened the gallery he often visited.
There were occasional posts there about Yu Ah-yeon's broadcast too.
Then something caught his eye.
[Title: Found a fixed-nick account suspected to be Yu Ah-yeon herself]
He clicked the post as if bewitched.
The theory post contained a screenshot of another post.
[Content]
………………………………………
[Title: I think I solved the Riemann Hypothesis]
[Author: IQ Genius]
The proof's done and the paper's almost finished too. I'll upload it within a few months, so check arXiv later.
- idiot
- don't feed the troll
- just upload it already
- Wow, that's really amazing, clap clap clap clap~
- Navier-Stokes got solved last week, and P vs NP got solved the day before yesterday, you know? Only in this gallery
- (Congrats on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, icon)
- What kind of IQ do you have to have to use a nickname like that?
- ㄴ(IQ Genius) : Wechsler 160
- ㄴ Bullshit
- ㄴ(IQ Genius) : It's true...
- ㄴNo proof, then what?
- ㄴ (IQ Genius) : Comments below 160 IQ cannot be viewed.
- ㄴ ? What kind of nonsense is this
- ㄴ (IQ Genius) : Comments below 160 IQ cannot be viewed.
- ...
………………………………………
This kind of post had gone up on the math-major gallery a few months before the paper was announced.
Fixed-nick [IQ Genius]
The YouTube channel currently streaming, [IQ Genius Yu Ah-yeon]
Yu Ah-yeon herself had bragged at the lecture that her IQ was 160.
What's more, in the documentary she had shown the exam documents proving a Wechsler 160 score.
Yu Ah-yeon, who bragged about having an IQ of 160 whenever she was bored
And the mysterious fixed-nick account that seemed eager to boast about its IQ and claimed to have proven the Riemann Hypothesis
(frog resting its chin and going 'hmm...' emoticon)
Is this really a coincidence?
- With a nickname sense like that, it has to be her lol
- Ah-yeon, nice to meet you!
- But a five-year-old hanging around the gallery is kind of a bad look. Go wash up and go to bed.
- Galleries from age five, what the hell lol. Is Korea doomed?
- Comments below 160 IQ cannot be viewed
- Even the way they comment is so childish lol
- I cried because my IQ is lower than Ah-yeon's...
- ㄴ sniff sniff
- ㄴ But I do have a better educational background than Ah-yeon
- ㄴ Even a kindergarten grad could beat Ah-yeon's academic credentials lol
As soon as he read the post, his eyes widened.
“What, Yu Ah-yeon uses the gallery...?”
That in itself was certainly possible.
The gallery is a site anyone can access just by searching for it.
But once he learned that Yu Ah-yeon's relative was a lawyer,
a creeping unease began to rise in him, wondering if something might go wrong because of something he'd posted.
Cold sweat broke out.
Gulp-.
He swallowed hard and immediately ran a cleaner to delete every post he'd written.
And the mysterious child-loving lurkers who'd been trolling in a similar way and posting those 와캬퍄헉누오옹 threads.
The moment they learned Yu Ah-yeon was a lawyer's niece, they all deleted their posts.
Thus.
The internet became a little cleaner.
Yu Ah-yeon's lawyer talisman had helped clean up the internet.
✒️✒️✒️
The broadcast continued smoothly.
I stood in front of the whiteboard and chatted nonstop.
As we got toward the latter half, I could feel my voice getting a little tired.
Still, compared to sitting in front of a laptop typing, standing up and talking while scribbling equations with a board marker was much more comfortable.
The chat room's mood changed dramatically depending on how long the broadcast had been going.
The first 15 minutes were full of praise from Korean viewers.
- Ah-yeon is cute
- Amazing for someone so young
- Keep it up! I'll cheer you on!
And so on.
But once I started babbling in English, the Korean viewers' chat speed noticeably slowed.
Every now and then, a question would still come up in Korean.
I answered in English, out of consideration for overseas viewers.
That made the chat room even quieter.
For people who couldn't understand spoken English, it must have been a boring stream that didn't even give them a dopamine hit.
Most of them were probably just leaving it on while doing something else.
The only worthwhile content was seeing cute me in a sailor uniform.
Huh...? Isn't that insanely fun content?
You guys! Share my stream with all your family, relatives, friends, and acquaintances right now!
Anyway.
Having the chat slow down was actually better.
Because the people who wanted to watch me act cute were gone, and only those who listened closely to my serious explanations remained.
Questions came flying in, in a variety of languages.
I answered each question diligently.
I smoothly answered the follow-up questions that branched out from them, too.
Then.
Mom came up beside me and quietly said,
“Ah-yeon, let's wrap it up soon.”
“Aww, but... there are still questions left...”
“It's already been two hours.”
“Really?”
Whoosh-.
I turned my head to look at the clock.
10 p.m.
Since the stream had started at 8, as Mom said, a full two hours really had flown by.
My legs were stiff, and my neck was starting to hurt too.
As the tension eased, a yawn came out on its own.
“Haaam... sleepy.”
I clicked the cap shut on the board marker.
Then I bowed slightly to the camera.
“That's it for today's stream! Thank you for listening!”
After I switched back to Korean about an hour and forty minutes in, the Korean viewers hiding in the stream started reacting a little.
I took the table clock from Dad and held it up to the camera.
“It's late, so I'm going to night-night! But there are still lots of questions piled up, so I'll do another stream later too! Bye-bye, everyone!”
As soon as I announced the stream's end, applause and praise comments flooded in.
- 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
- Good job!
- Please stream again next time
- Ah-yeon, you worked hard, sleep well ㅠㅠ
- Thank you, A-yeon
- 👏👏👏👏👏
- 👏👏👏
- I didn't understand a thing, but anyway, Ah-yeon was cute
- Good Night!
- Sleep well
- 👏👏👏👏
-👏👏👏👏👏👏
The Korean viewers who'd been leaving it on and doing other things must have hurried back only after hearing the Korean line that the stream was ending.
I read through the praise comments one by one.
Even though I couldn't hear any sound, being showered with applause and praise through the chat made me happy.
“Heheh.”
Grin-.
The corners of my mouth soared skyward.
Dad pressed the stream-end button.
“Unnie, you worked hard!”
As soon as the broadcast ended, Arin came running over and hugged me tightly.
Mom and Dad had sternly taught Arin that her face couldn't be shown on stream even by accident,
and Arin had understood that well and played by herself while I was streaming.
Even though she's only three, she can already hold back her urges like that.
What a good kid, my little sister!
Mom held out some cold water.
“Ah-yeon, you worked hard.”
Glug-glug-!
“Kyaa-! That's the stuff!”
Water after chatting for two hours really was like life-saving water.
“I'll hurry up and go to sleep so I can stream again tomorrow!”
Then Dad shook his head.
“Not tomorrow. Your voice is a little hoarse right now. Rest well, recover your strength fully, and then do it again.”
“Muu-.”
“Puffing out your cheeks won't make it okay.”
“... Okay.”
✒️✒️✒️
The streams kept going three or four more times after that.
The MeTube replay footage of my lecture broadcasts had piled up like crazy too.
If duplicate question emails came in,
I could just attach the MeTube replay link and pin down the exact minute and second with a timestamp, so it became incredibly convenient.
“As expected of Mom! Awesome idea!”
Thanks to Mom's idea, I could easily answer the flood of question emails, feel great from all the praise, and even become a little more famous.
“Hehe, right? I'm glad you don't have to stay in a posture that's bad for your health, Ah-yeon.”
“I'll praise Mom lots and lots!”
Pat-pat-.
I climbed up onto the sofa and gently stroked Mom's head.