Howard originally wanted to comfort Raj, but when he saw the attractively dressed woman on his computer screen, his eyes lit up immediately, and he forgot what he was about to say.
"This is one of the people competing for my assistant position," Raj explained briefly.
"Wow! She's gorgeous," Howard said excitedly, and then he smiled again. "At first, I was quite sad for you when I heard that you and Penny broke up. But now I'm actually happy for you instead. Look at this—so many highly educated and beautiful women vying to be your assistant. They're all much more qualified than Penny ever was. Sure, you lost one tree, but you've gained an entire forest. I'm so envious of you!"
The prospect of so many attractive, highly educated women for Raj to choose from made Howard genuinely envious. It was also fortunate, in his view, that Penny had broken up with Raj; otherwise, Raj wouldn't have this kind of freedom to explore his options.
"Okay, they're competing for assistant positions, not auditioning to be in the the King's harem," Raj said with a wave of his hand. "Even if I wanted to pursue someone, it would depend on whether they'd agree or not."
"Still, it'll be much more convenient having them close by," Howard grinned mischievously. "Come on, I'll help you review these carefully and try to choose the most beautiful one."
Before Raj could stop him, Howard had already clicked on the next email.
Raj smiled and shook his head but didn't actually try to stop him.
The two of them spent the entire morning searching through nearly a hundred resumes submitted for the competition. Honestly, there were quite a lot of talented applicants. Graduates from prestigious schools were abundant: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Caltech, and more. And they weren't just intellectually impressive—many were also good-looking, with excellent temperament and figure, which made Howard practically salivate.
"This one is the future Mrs. Wolowitz!" he'd exclaim.
"No, no, no, this one is my future wife!"
"Wow, she's taller than all the women in my family combined—I must marry her!"
He watched and commented on each one, declaring that he wanted to marry every single candidate and take them home.
"Howie, this is to choose an assistant for me, not a wife for you," Raj reminded him, exasperated. "Even if I hire any of them, you can't disturb them while they're working."
"I know, I know," Howard laughed. "But you also said just now that you'll respect other people's opinions. I won't disturb them—I'll pursue them properly. So there's no problem, right?"
"Well, I suppose that's okay," Raj nodded reluctantly.
"Also, after she arrives, let's compete fairly. You're not allowed to swoop in and steal her away again," Howard demanded. "Penny was preempted by you last time."
"How can you call it—" Raj started to deny it, but after thinking it over again, he shook his head. "Okay, fine. Whatever you say."
"Thank you," Howard said happily.
By lunchtime, Raj and Howard had finalized their choice for the assistant position. She was a master's student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in mathematical physics, and her name was Paige Swanson. She was twenty-six years old this year, about the same age as Raj, Howard, Leonard, and Sheldon.
The reason she was chosen was twofold. First, she was genuinely beautiful—blonde hair, blue eyes, and exquisite facial features. She was easily one of the most beautiful women Raj and Howard had ever seen.
Second, and more importantly, she held a master's degree in mathematical physics. Mathematical physics is the mathematical theory and methodology aimed at studying physical problems. It explores the mathematical models of physical phenomena, studies the mathematical solutions to the physical problems established by those models, and then interprets and predicts physical phenomena based on the solutions—or revises the original model based on physical facts.
Currently, Raj, Howard, and Leslie were working on a quantum navigation system. This project required extensive mathematical calculations, and the mathematics level of all three of them was relatively average. They urgently needed a mathematical talent to join the team. Moreover, Raj's "Super Asymmetric Theory" also required a tremendous amount of calculations. So Paige Swanson, with her master's degree in mathematical physics, fit the bill perfectly.
"Such a beautiful girl—I absolutely must pursue her," Howard said eagerly, staring at her resume with obvious interest.
Raj couldn't help laughing when he heard this. Howard was always like this. He wanted to pursue every beautiful woman he saw, but he always fell short because of his overeagerness and poor timing. It was rather pitiful, really. Just like that girl he'd picked up on Halloween—she'd only tolerated him for three days before he scared her away by rushing her to meet his family.
"Hey, wait. That's not right," Howard suddenly said in surprise.
"What's wrong?" Raj asked curiously.
"Look at her resume—she's been in high school since she was eight years old," Howard said, pointing to Paige's educational timeline.
"That's not so rare. You and I both skipped grades," Raj waved his hand dismissively and smiled.
For geniuses like them, skipping grades was a very common occurrence. He himself had skipped several grades in elementary school, junior high, and high school. At the age of twenty-two, when most people were just graduating from college, he had already obtained his doctorate. And they had a super-genius like Sheldon among their circle of friends. Sheldon had been admitted to university at the age of eleven and graduated with a Ph.D. at sixteen. Therefore, going to high school at the age of eight didn't seem particularly remarkable to him.
"Think about it again," Howard persisted. "If she was already admitted to high school at the age of eight, why did she only graduate with a master's degree this year?" Seeing that Raj still didn't understand, Howard quickly added more context to help him see the issue.
Hearing this, Raj immediately understood the discrepancy.
If she'd been admitted to high school at eight years old, her IQ should be no less than theirs. But it had been more than four years since they'd graduated with their doctorates, while Paige had just graduated with a master's degree. There must have been something significant that happened in the middle to cause such a delay.
"Look at her resume more carefully," Howard continued. "She started elementary school at the age of four, junior high at seven, and high school at eight. But then she spent twelve years in high school, and didn't go to university until she was twenty." Howard studied the resume, and the more he looked at it, the stranger it seemed.
"You're right. When she was around eleven years old, something must have happened to her, and her studies suddenly stopped or slowed dramatically. She didn't return to a normal pace until she was twenty," Raj said, examining the resume with growing confusion.
"Could it be that there was a car accident when she was eleven, and she was in a coma for nine years before she woke up?" Howard proposed a bold hypothesis.
"Impossible. If someone were really in a coma for that long, it would prove that at least thirty percent of their brain cells were damaged. Even if they did wake up, their IQ would drop drastically. They wouldn't just be unable to enter a university—they'd probably struggle with basic daily self-care," Raj said, waving his hand dismissively.
"Then what could have happened to cause such a talented girl to waste nine years of precious time?" Howard couldn't figure it out.
"Okay, with just these few clues, even if you wanted to break your head thinking about it, you couldn't figure it out," Raj smiled. "I'd better wait for her to come in for an interview and ask her in person."
"Okay, fair enough," Howard nodded in agreement.
Paige Swanson... why did that name sound so familiar? Raj thought hard, and suddenly a bell went off in his head. That's right—wasn't there a Paige Swanson from the spin-off series "Young Sheldon," a prequel to "The Big Bang Theory"? She was a gifted child prodigy with an IQ even higher than Sheldon's.
Now that Raj looked at her photograph from the resume more closely, she did look remarkably like an older, more mature, more beautiful version of the American actress and singer McKenna Grace who had played young Paige. Could this actually be the same person, all grown up?
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