Chapter 2: Chapter 1: The Slow Child
"His kindergarten teacher said he’s especially slow to react. Other kids learn a nursery rhyme after hearing it once, but he still has no reaction after three times. When she calls his name, he’s always half a beat behind."
Chen Jianguo frowned and patted his wife’s shoulder, trying to appear a little more rational.
"Don’t be ridiculous. There are no idiots in our family. I think he’s just introverted, or... a late bloomer?"
The old doctor pushed up his glasses and looked at Chen Zhuo.
"Here, little one. Look at me."
The old doctor took a set of brightly colored cards from his drawer. They had pictures of an apple, a banana, and a tiger.
"Tell me, what’s this?"
Chen Zhuo looked at the card with the red apple.
Of course he knew what an apple was.
’But my head feels a bit fuzzy right now... and this test is just too childish. I really can’t be bothered.’
He didn’t want to act dumb. He was just genuinely too lazy to talk.
Chen Zhuo yawned. After several seconds, he slowly squeezed out two syllables.
"Ap... ple."
Liu Xiuying’s eyes instantly reddened.
"You see? It’s such a simple picture, and he has to think about it for so long."
The old doctor said nothing, simply swapping it for a card with a tiger.
"What about this one?"
Chen Zhuo rubbed his eyes. He was a little quicker this time. "Tiger."
Next up was stacking blocks. The doctor asked him to stack a few of them.
’This is so boring,’ Chen Zhuo thought, but he still reached out his hand to comply.
The small muscles in his fingers weren’t fully developed, and he was sleepy besides, so his hand was a little shaky. The moment he placed the third block, the whole stack came tumbling down with a CLATTER.
Chen Zhuo: "..."
’How embarrassing. My adult dignity is in pieces.’
He sighed and gave up. Deciding to just let things go, he sat back in his chair and stared blankly at a button on the doctor’s white coat.
The button was about to fall off, hanging by a single thread. It swayed back and forth with the doctor’s every breath, and watching it was enough to trigger his OCD.
「Ten minutes later, the test was over.」
The old doctor removed his stethoscope and began writing something unhurriedly in the medical chart.
Chen Jianguo and Liu Xiuying held their breath like prisoners awaiting sentencing.
"Don’t worry, his intelligence is fine."
The old doctor’s words nearly made the couple collapse to the floor in relief.
"Then why is he..." Liu Xiuying asked urgently.
"The boy’s development is normal across the board."
The old doctor looked up, his gaze probing as he observed Chen Zhuo, who was still staring blankly at the button.
"I noticed during the test that while his movements and speech are slow, his concentration is actually exceptional."
"Concentration?"
"A typical five or six-year-old would be squirming in this chair by now, their eyes darting all over the place. But he’s different."
The old doctor gestured toward Chen Zhuo.
"He’s been quiet ever since he walked in. When the blocks fell over, he didn’t throw a tantrum or cry; he just calmly accepted it. That level of composure is unusual for a child."
Chen Jianguo beamed. "So it’s a case of ’still waters run deep,’ then?
I knew it! How could my son, Chen Jianguo’s son, be an idiot! We even picked his name for this reason—Chen Zhuo. The ’Zhuo’ from the saying ’true skill appears clumsy’!"
"Perhaps."
The old doctor smiled.
"Some children’s brains just develop differently. For some, their mouths move faster than their minds. This boy is likely the slow-to-warm-up type. With patient guidance, his ability to focus could one day surpass his peers."
"Yes, of course. We’ll definitely guide him."
Liu Xiuying’s tears gave way to a smile as she scooped Chen Zhuo into her arms.
"You scared Mommy to death! As long as you’re not a dummy, everything’s fine!"
Chen Zhuo rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, inhaling the faint scent of vanishing cream in her hair. He let out a silent sigh of relief.
’This doctor is pretty good. He didn’t figure out I’m a transmigrator, but at least he saw through my fundamental laziness.’
...
「By the time they got home, it was already seven in the evening.」
The Chen family lived in a housing complex provided by the machinery factory. Their apartment was a two-bedroom, one-living-room unit of just over sixty square meters.
After dinner, Chen Jianguo didn’t turn on the TV as usual. Instead, he called Chen Zhuo into the small study, which was a converted balcony.
The desk was piled high with various mechanical blueprints, along with some old, discarded parts Chen Jianguo had brought home from the factory.
"Son, come over here."
Chen Jianguo sat at the desk, an old pocket watch in hand, a vexed look on his face.
The watch, a keepsake from Chen Jianguo’s father, had stopped working completely a few days ago.
Chen Jianguo, who prided himself on being a promising candidate for an eighth-grade fitter, had tinkered with it all night. He’d managed to take it apart, but now he couldn’t figure out how to put it back together.
"The doctor said you have good concentration. Come on, help your dad take a look. What in the world is wrong with this little thing?"
Chen Jianguo was just taking a shot in the dark, and it was a good excuse to mess with his son a little.
Chen Zhuo leaned over the edge of the desk, gazing at the tiny parts scattered across it: gears, hairsprings, screws...
Chen Zhuo stared at the pile, the sight of it all making his eyes swim.
’This is way too complicated.’
He knew nothing about watch repair, much less mechanical principles.
’But these shiny little metal discs are kind of pretty.’
"Dad, where does this wheel go?" Chen Zhuo asked, pointing to a gear.
"That one... Ahem, that probably goes in the middle somewhere," Chen Jianguo said, sounding a bit uncertain himself.
Chen Zhuo didn’t say anything. He cupped his chin in his hands and stared at the pile of parts, just as he would stare at motes of dust in kindergarten.
He wasn’t in a hurry.
He had all the time in the world.
He picked up the largest gear and turned it over in front of his eyes. Then he picked up a smaller one and tried to fit them together.
It didn’t fit.
It jammed.
He tried another one.
Still no fit.
Chen Jianguo watched from the side. He wanted to offer a pointer or two, but seeing how serious his son looked, he didn’t have the heart to interrupt.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty minutes passed.
The father and son sat there in silence.
It was as if Chen Zhuo was working on an incredibly difficult puzzle.
He didn’t understand the principles, but he had an adult’s patience and mindset for trial and error.
’This one doesn’t work? On to the next.’
’Still no good? Try another.’
Finally.
Just as Chen Zhuo tentatively pushed a tiny ratchet wheel into a slot—
CLICK.
An almost inaudible, crisp sound.
The two gears meshed together perfectly.
Chen Zhuo’s eyes lit up. He reached out and gave the large gear a gentle nudge.
As the large gear turned, it drove the smaller one, which in turn moved the adjacent connecting rod... A chain of mechanical reactions spread through the mechanism like falling dominoes.
The watch wasn’t fixed yet, but at least this part of the gear train was now moving.
"Dad! It’s moving!" Chen Zhuo exclaimed in delight, pointing at the two turning gears.
Chen Jianguo shot forward, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Whoa! It really is! So the ratchet goes in backward? No wonder I couldn’t get it to fit last night, no matter what I did!"
He swept Chen Zhuo into a hug, rubbing his stubbly cheek against his son’s. "Attaboy, son! You’ve got a great eye! Better than your old man’s!"
The stubble tickled Chen Zhuo’s cheek, but he smiled.
It wasn’t because the watch was fixed, but because of the feeling from that one single moment.
When the gear clicked into its proper place, he felt the groggy fog in his mind dissipate, just a little.
The pleasure of closing that logical loop was a thousand times better than eating candy.
He didn’t understand mechanics, but he loved this sense of order.
He loved the feeling that no matter how clumsy you were, as long as you were willing to spend time on trial and error, you would always find the answer.
"Dad,"
Chen Zhuo lay his head on his father’s shoulder, pointed to the remaining pile of parts on the desk, and said seriously.
"Let’s go to the library tomorrow."
"The library? What for?"
"I want to read."
Chen Zhuo said, his voice still soft and childlike.
"I want to know why these wheels turn."
’If my brain is slow, I’ll just have to read more.’
’If I don’t understand the principles, I’ll just have to learn them.’
’Besides, I have a long life ahead of me.’
’I can take it slow.’
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