One Life, One Incarnation, Beautiful Bones

49

Sometimes, wisdom is knowing when something just is not yours to have…

Chapter 15.3 – To Leave Painted Only Half of One’s Face (3)

An explanation was not needed because a visit so late in the night, without question, could only be about Wenxing.

Mei Xing did not belong to the Zhou family. After this incident, Zhousheng Chen’s mother naturally wanted to prevent anyone from getting close to Wenxing. Hence, he had received the news but was unable to see her, and finally, he had no other option but to seek out Zhousheng Chen.

The two men were having their discussion in the living room while Shi Yi made tea for them.

Then, closing the door behind her, she stayed alone in the study and read.

It was relatively quiet until, all of a sudden, the noise of something shattering rang out.

Startled, Shi Yi yanked open the door. Turning toward the sound made by the opening door, Mei Xing glanced at her and gave a very apologetic smile. He then shifted his eyes back to Zhousheng Chen, forcing himself to keep his emotions under control. His voice was much lower as he said, “My apologies. I got too worked up a moment ago.”

Zhousheng Chen shook his head. “It’s alright. I was much more worked up than that when I was at the hospital.”

The two of them simultaneously bent down to pick up the broken glass.

“Don’t pick it up with your hands.” Shi Yi hurriedly stopped them and then, from the kitchen, brought over a clean dishtowel. Zhousheng Chen took it, picked up each of the pieces, and wrapped them carefully in the towel before handing it back to her.

“Should I make a new cup of tea for you?” she asked Mei Xing.

“No, it’s getting late.” Mei Xing smiled, rose from the sofa, and bid them farewell.

After seeing their guest out the door, she picked up his cup of tea and brought it to the kitchen to wash.

The whole time, the living room maintained a state of quiet. Finding this rather odd, she hurriedly finished tidying and stepped back out, where she saw him still silently sitting on the sofa, folding a piece of paper in half, then in half again, and so on, carrying this pattern on repeatedly.

The paper was getting smaller and smaller with each fold until it was so small it could no longer be folded in half anymore.

Hearing the sound of her footsteps, he lifted his eyes to look at her and suddenly chuckled, “At first, everyone believed that a single piece of paper could only be folded in half eight times when done in real life. Later, it was argued and proven that, if you use a machine, you could fold it nine times.”

“And then?” She predicted that someone else must have overturned this conclusion.

“And then, someone later calculated it out that it was twelve times.[1]”

“Calculated it out?”

With an “mm,” he explained, “This is actually a math problem.”

“Really?” Shi Yi crouched down in front of him, taking the paper from his hands. “People who study math are so weird. They’d take something like paper folding and use it for calculations, too?”

“Is it weird?” He was smiling. “You never learned this in primary school?”

“Primary school?” Shi Yi was even more astonished.

She tried hard to recall. She should… not have learned it, right?

Had she? How was a math problem like this supposed to be solved?