Chapter 3: The Genius of the Century
"He didn't learn the world. He rewrote it."
They had all seen genius.
Each of the Long daughters was considered a national treasure. Pearl had debated diplomats into silence at age eleven. Crystal reinvented green tech at thirteen. Jade's first choreography was performed at the Summer Palace. Emerald's literary critiques left universities stunned.
They were used to excellence.
But Haochen was something else.
He wasn't a genius.
He was impossible.
Age 2: The Day the Scholars Fell
The event was informal—a gathering of family friends and visiting scholars at the Long estate. The topic was Tang Dynasty warfare and Confucian social theory. Haochen had wandered into the room with a paintbrush in one hand and a rice cracker in the other.
He was supposed to be playing with building blocks.
Instead, he listened.
And then interrupted.
"Confucius would not have approved of Li Shimin's reforms," he said.
The room fell silent.
One of the guests, a retired historian from Tsinghua University, frowned.
"And why would that be, young man?"
Haochen blinked. Then recited a quote—in classical Chinese.
Then another. And another.
And followed it with a perfectly reasoned argument, complete with parallel metaphor referencing ancient scrolls none of the scholars had expected a toddler to even see, let alone understand.
Pearl watched, frozen.
"He just embarrassed six men with PhDs… and he hasn't finished teething."
Age 3: Crystal's Realization
It started with the Equation Wall.
A nine-panel screen in Crystal's lab filled with unsolved problems in mathematics, AI coding, and quantum pattern structures.
She used it as her personal project board.
Haochen walked in one afternoon and stood before it silently. Crystal, amused, offered him a marker.
"Go ahead, Starboy. Show me what you think."
He didn't just solve two of them.
He corrected one.
"You had a variable misclassified as an integer. See?"
He wrote the adjustment backward, from right to left, in mirror logic.
Crystal dropped her stylus.
She left the room in silence.
That night, Haochen found a new entry on her AI screen.
A note to herself:
"He surpassed me before he even formed full emotional memory. I'm proud. And… scared."
Age 3: The World Begins to Listen
It was Pearl who arranged the publishing.
Haochen had begun writing notes in the corners of his coloring books. They weren't doodles—they were philosophical reflections on suffering, free will, and beauty, disguised as children's poetry.
Pearl, skeptical, submitted one anonymously to a literary journal.
It went viral.
By the end of that year, Long Haochen had published two volumes of poetry, one short treatise on the evolution of social systems, and was declared the youngest recorded scholar in history.
He became a member of the World Child Prodigy Council.
The world took note.
But the sisters began to worry.
"What if they stop seeing him as human?" Jade whispered once.
Age 3.5: His First Symphony
He composed it in the garden.
He told Jade he could "hear colors when the wind moved." She laughed, until she saw him arranging leaves by their sound.
He sat at the piano later that week and didn't blink for four hours.
The piece was titled:
"Unspoken Apologies in the Eyes of Autumn."
When the orchestra performed it in London, the conductor cried during rehearsal.
The world praised it as genius.
Jade said nothing.
Later, she would write in her journal:
"He can do anything. But can he ever just… rest?"
Age 4: Paintings, Journals, Architecture, and Judo
It was Emerald who noticed his hands.
Not just graceful—but deliberate.
By four, Haochen was painting vivid impressionist pieces using colors not taught in any curriculum.
He designed a temple structure inspired by Tibetan wind harmonics and submitted it to a global design expo.
It won.
He wrote a short story that made an old general sob.
He constructed a wooden bridge in the courtyard, calculating the angle of sunrays so that at exactly 7:17 a.m., the shadow of the bridge would form the Chinese character for "hope."
And then…
He asked to learn Judo.
"Why?" Crystal asked.
"Because my body is too slow for my mind. I want them to match."
He picked it up within days.
By the time he was four and a half, he could disarm an adult with a pivot and redirect.
He wasn't violent. He never hit back.
But his presence… made opponents hesitate.
Their Growing Fear
He was loved. Adored. Respected.
And isolated.
Pearl saw it in the way he flinched from applause.
Crystal saw it in how he watched her walk away.
Jade heard it in the silence of his songs.
Emerald saw it in his journal.
They had raised a boy so bright…
The world could no longer look at him without squinting.
At the end of that day his sister Emerald walked in his room and asked him.
" How was your day?
One night, after another award interview, Haochen sat quietly in his room.
He stared at his hands.
They were covered in ink, chalk dust, paint, and a scratch from Judo practice.
Emerald entered, sat beside him, and asked softly:
"Did you have fun today?"
He shook his head.
"Then we'll make tomorrow better," she said.
"How?"
She smiled and lifted a comb.
"By letting your sister braid your hair again."