Chapter 149: Winning Gets You Happiness, Losing Gets You Prison
"You are not allowed to talk to me in that tone!"
Little Leonard was silent for a moment, then said angrily.
"What tone?"
Little Sheldon was puzzled.
"..."
Little Leonard was speechless.
He couldn't say that Sheldon's tone was just like his father—no, like an imaginary father figure, because his real father didn't have the intellectual capacity for such conversations with his mother. It was his mother who had the final say in everything.
But he wasn't Little Sheldon; even if he thought it, he wouldn't say such harsh things.
"What you're looking for is a wife, not a mother."
After struggling with his thoughts, Little Leonard finally turned it into a deep complaint.
"You're wrong!"
Little Sheldon said confidently. "If I had to find a wife according to social conventions, then I'd definitely choose someone like my mother, because she loves me unconditionally. Of course, it would be best if she wasn't so foolish as to believe in God, understood science, and had an above-average IQ. At the very least, she'd be able to appreciate my scientific humor. It's a shame Beverly is my mother's age, otherwise she could have taken over caring for me."
"Don't you dare say that about my mother!"
Little Leonard, hearing the subtext that Sheldon regretted not being able to marry Beverly, was furious.
"What did I say?"
Little Sheldon asked innocently. "I have nothing but praise for Beverly!"
"Just don't say that again... You'll never find a wife!"
Little Leonard complained.
"Why should I find a wife?"
Little Sheldon was genuinely surprised. "After all that discussion, don't you get the point? The point has always been that you shouldn't find a wife unless it's absolutely necessary. Women only hinder our intellectual development."
"..."
Little Leonard was speechless.
"Mr. Cooper, tell me about those mathematical problems Noah discussed with you. I'll determine if he was making any real progress,"
Chuck said, glancing at Daphne, who looked increasingly distressed.
"You don't believe I'm qualified to judge?"
Sheldon said indignantly. "I'm no less capable than you."
"Ha!"
Leonard laughed out loud.
"What are you laughing at?!"
Sheldon shrieked.
"I'm laughing because I didn't realize you could be so funny. You actually said something like that,"
Leonard chuckled.
Normally, when they were together, he was always left speechless and frustrated by Sheldon's bizarre remarks and superiority complex.
But as soon as Chuck was involved, the situation was completely reversed, and it was only Sheldon who ended up speechless and frustrated.
This gave him complete confidence that although life was often difficult, it always had its bright moments.
"Mr. Cooper!"
Chuck emphasized the title.
"..."
Sheldon hesitated, then could only reluctantly recount the mathematical problems he had discussed with Noah.
"There really wasn't any breakthrough,"
Chuck said, looking at Daphne.
"Impossible!"
Daphne's eyes flashed with panic. "My fiancé is a true genius! He said he was about to make a breakthrough and would give me a good life in the future."
"You may not understand what he was researching,"
Chuck said calmly. "To crack various codes and create a universal code decoder, the most effective mathematical approach currently is to prove that P equals NP. This is an extremely difficult mathematical problem, a breakthrough from zero to one. Countless brilliant mathematicians have failed to achieve this over centuries. Noah may have claimed he was close, but at best, he was only at 0.9. True success at 1.0 might be 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999... infinitely approaching but theoretically no different from zero."
"Impossible..."
Daphne's tears began to well up again, shaking her head and crying, "Noah wouldn't lie to me."
"He might not have lied to you, and it's not really lying,"
Chuck looked at her. "Because breakthroughs can happen in an instant. When things are going well, he has confidence. So in that moment, facing you who work so hard to support the family, he confidently shares the good news. But there's a high probability that progress stalls at the very next step, or the one after that. Confidence turns to inadequacy, and he can't express this to you. This is very common."
"No!!!"
Daphne had already stood up, crying and shouting, "Noah won't lie to me!!!"
"Another possibility is that he doesn't realize he's deceiving you."
Chuck said, "You mentioned that he is a real genius, but do you know the current state of geniuses in our country? You attended that mathematics competition last time and spoke with Monica. You should know that geniuses in America are often mentally unstable. Once triggered, they're likely to suffer from serious mental illness. It's very common for them to become detached from reality and develop delusions. Because they're introverted and don't communicate with others, it's difficult for people who aren't close family to detect this. Sometimes, because these delusions don't have a major external impact, unlike cases where someone might become violent, even close relatives can't tell whether it's a mental delusion or reality because they lack sufficient professional knowledge."
"Noah is not crazy!"
"I'm not crazy!"
Daphne and little Sheldon shouted in unison.
"My mom had me tested!"
Little Sheldon exclaimed angrily. Remembering Chuck's previous comment that his mother might regret consulting an unqualified professional, he added proudly, "Beverly tested me too. I'm not crazy!"
But compared to Little Sheldon's smugness, Daphne's voice was filled with insecurity and fear.
She had witnessed the gathering of East Coast mathematical geniuses during the competition, and from her conversations with Monica, she'd discovered that none of them were entirely normal.
Now, after hearing Chuck's analysis, the thought that her Noah might have been triggered and unconsciously developed delusions, all because of his desperate desire to give her a prosperous life... she was on the verge of collapse.
"Impossible, impossible."
Daphne shook her head through her tears, unwilling to accept this conclusion: "This is just one possibility. Another possibility is that Noah really solved it. He is a real genius. Isn't there anyone in this world who can solve that problem?"
"Perhaps."
Chuck said calmly: "But now it appears it wasn't Noah. His notes and his conversations with Mr. Sheldon Cooper all show that he was far from truly solving P=NP."
"What's there to cry about?"
From the phone, little Sheldon heard this and bluntly added insult to injury: "Noah isn't as smart as me, and he has his fiancée distracting him. Even I couldn't solve it, let alone him."
"He solved it, and someone offered $2 million to buy it..."
Daphne yelled heartbreakingly, but she realized something was wrong before she finished speaking, seeing Detective Amy Santiago looking at her with a knowing expression.
Chuck hung up the phone and said calmly, "Let's talk about this $2 million deal."
"I, I just heard him say that... Now that I think about it, it was definitely his imagination, like you said."
Daphne panicked and tried to cover up her slip, finally covering her face and crying.
"What happened?"
Noah's brother was confused.
Detective Amy Santiago explained Chuck's analysis of the psychological dynamics and their conclusion that the crime must have been committed by someone close to Noah.
"It was you!"
Noah's brother looked at Daphne in disbelief.
"Confession brings leniency, resistance brings severity..."
Chuck said, "Even Sheldon Cooper, who communicated with Noah regularly, doesn't know about these valuable mathematical developments, let alone others. Only you, who were with him every day, might know. The clown killer severed Noah's right index finger because he needed his fingerprint to unlock some encrypted device. That matches the $2 million you mentioned."
"It wasn't me,"
Daphne cried, shaking her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Are you sure?"
Chuck looked at her: "You've left too many loose ends. You posted anonymous messages online to recruit clowns to cover your tracks. Although it's difficult to trace, that depends on who's doing the tracing. I'm an FBI consultant and can easily mobilize the FBI's cyber monitoring resources. If you did this, it will be difficult for you to escape.
Noah is dead, and now you've revealed your hand. Combined with my analysis of the psychological dysfunction, I can easily apply for a search warrant to conduct a comprehensive search here.
As long as your computer was used, there will be traces. Noah's severed finger must have left evidence on your body and car, as well as the clown makeup you used for disguise. Whether cosmetics or clown costumes, they will carry your traces. Under a comprehensive search, it's impossible for you to erase all evidence.
The crime scene was in Brooklyn. New York has the most intensive public surveillance system in the United States. As long as they investigate, they'll eventually find your car in places where it shouldn't have been before and after the crime. Your alibi will be destroyed.
You're not wealthy with countless properties, both obvious and hidden, where you can stash things. The places you can hide evidence are very limited. As long as this wasn't a carefully planned, premeditated murder, the evidence will be very easy to find."
As Chuck slowly laid out the case, Daphne couldn't bear it any longer when she heard it wasn't premeditated murder. She broke down. "I didn't mean to kill him. Noah promised to give me a happy life, but he didn't. I've always been the one supporting this family. I work 50 hours a week, depending on tips to support us both. But when he told me someone offered him $2 million to solve a puzzle and create some kind of universal decoder, and he succeeded, I thought my hard work had finally paid off. But he actually said that giving it to someone would cause great harm to the world, so he refused to trade the device for $2 million. Despite my repeated pleas, he refused, saying I couldn't understand the potential consequences. I couldn't stand it any longer, so I decided to show him I could be smart too..."
"No, you're not smart,"
Chuck said bluntly. "To be more precise, you're very stupid! You don't love Noah at all. You just wanted to gamble big on this genius. If you won, you'd have everything. You didn't even think about what would happen if you lost. And now we all know what happens when you lose."
Daphne smiled bitterly. "This just proves what Monica said is right. Geniuses are crazy, and those who get close to geniuses go crazy too, right?"
(End of Chapter)
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