Dear Archimedes

Chapter 1

It was bitterly cold in the mountains at the early springtime.

Zhen Ai felt the coldness crawling up to her when she got off. After a while, it swept in her whole body. She wrapped herself in her woollen coat, and continued to walk fast towards the old castle.

She felt that it was somehow odd when she was walking, so she stopped and looked around. As it was snowing since a few days ago, trees were covered in snow. The surroundings give off a calming white scenery. Driving there, the scene was like a beautiful frost.

It was too quiet that the only thing she can hear is the roar of the strong wind. It was snow-white around which made the castle in white tiles more boundless. In contrary, the black window was solitary, like eyes fixated on Zhen Ai in the centre of the snowfield.

What kind of person could live at such a weird place?

Ignoring the strange feeling, Zhen Ai took out a name card from her pocket. Just a card in black and white terms, no other decoration or colours.

In the centre of the card there was some handwritten English-

S.A.Yan
言溯 The Man of Letters
＊言溯 = Yan Su

The white card reflected the harsh light which was refracted in her pitch-dark eyes. It was a little unexpected that she got the name card from Owen. Cryptologic Linguist, logician, behaviour analyst, FBI and CIA special advisor, and a lot of such titles. But it's so brief on the card, The Man of Letters. Scholar? Or code analyst?

For her, it's not low profile but insufferably arrogant.

Zhen Ai got on the heavy stone stairs and rang the doorbell. A maid who was in dark yellowish skin at the door said in South-Asian English: "Miz, please wait da minut, ai'll get cha masder, ai'dly do say u mai suid yourse, but du no." (Miss, please wait a minute, I'll get my master. I'd like to say, you may suit yourself, but do not.)

Zhen Ai nodded: "Thanks!"

Then the maid left. Zhen Ai frowned as she thought the last sentence the maid said was so like what the master would say.

As expected she saw the words at the right side of the entryway, the same black and white colour and the same script as the name card-
You may suit yourself, but do not!

The heat in the house is warm enough. She ignored the hat rack near the door, untied the buttons of the coat, loosened her scarf, but she didn't take off anything.

Unlike the outside, it was warm and clean inside the castle with decorations from Renaissance times. The light reflected by snow from the outside brightened the space indoors. It was not dazzling, but the light is soft on the masterpieces which have survived many vicissitudes.

Zhen Ai stayed at the entryway for a long time. It had been ten minutes already but nothing happened in the castle. She held the envelope in her hands， went on the stone stairs and left the envelope on the table near the corridor. When she turned, she saw some colourful light at the end of the corridor out of the corner of her eyes. She stood there, stunned for a long while, then she went there unconsciously.

The end of the corridor was really a new world. Colourful lights like waterfall falling from the sky. Everything seemed to be captured in the colourful light curtain. A spacious rotunda with dozens of meters of high-roofed ceiling was full of wooden bookshelves.

From the top to bottom there were tens of thousands of books. High and low, in different colours, these books were just like the colourful candies waiting for others to taste. There were two spiral staircase on both sides of the roof-high shelves. For taking a book, from bottom to the top there were round passages every two meters.

She had never seen such a big private library. There seemed to be some magnificent aura from the elegance of the old books.

Zhen Ai couldn't help herself to be in awe and adoration when she stood at the palace of knowledge.

She took a deep breath and lowered her head slowly then she saw a white grand piano in the library. How strange... After thinking back and forth, she took a few steps, she realised that there was a young man behind the piano.

He was about 24 years old, fair-skinned with a chiseled face of a Westerner. With his handsome face, it's like he just came out from a classical oil painting. He has thick eyebrows and deep brown eyes under beautiful feather-like lashes.

When she came close she was surprised to find out that he was not sitting on a piano bench, instead he was sitting on a wheel chair.
He is tall and he's wearing sweater and trousers, he seemed at ease as he wrote something on the music sheet. He is composing?

Zhen Ai felt sorry for him, how such a handsome young man could be...

It seemed that he was deeply lost in his thoughts of inspiration, he didn't realise she was there. He stopped then he stretched his hand towards the book near the piano.

Seeing him having difficulties in reaching for the book, Zhen Ai pushed his wheelchair forward subconsciously, but by the time she put her hand on the wheelchair she had realised that it was impolite. So she just kept her hands in place, embarrassed of her sudden actions.

He saw her retracting her hands with a longtime silence. His gaze, pale and piercing，was fixated at her with the desire of exploring something.

Zhen Ai felt strange when she found he was staring at her and then asked him: "Hello, is Mr. Yan Su here?"

After asking she realised she was not using English, when she was about to ask again in English, he answered:
"Yes, it's me."

Zhen Ai was astonished.

She thought Yan Su was a hunched old man with a kerosene lamp wandering in a haunted castle. From the rumours she heard, he was odd and had no friends so he just lived alone in a secluded place.
Also, she knows "Yan Su" means "solemn" in Chinese, so she thought that he must be an old man. She even thought this young man is Mr. Yan Su's son.

How could a legendary logician be so young?