Chapter 3

With that, I ignored my family's lashings and curses from behind and returned to the attic.

I knew the moment I said I was going to enter the National Arithmetiad, Mia had already started "stealing". Like a greedy thief, she would siphon off everything from my head.

Every concept I had built up, every problem type I had drilled, every formula I had distilled and memorized, she would copy them all. Then, in the exam hall, she would turn them all into her own glory.

Unfortunately for her, I had prepared a special gift for her with my mind, one big enough to ruin everything she had.

For the next two weeks, I shut myself up in the attic and cut off the world.

I didn't grind through problem assets like before. Instead, I found a cracked mirror I had picked up from the trash. Every day, I stood in front of it and stared at the gaunt version of myself, repeating the same line over and over like self-hypnosis.

"One plus one equals three."

Every time I said it, it felt like two steel needles were drilling into my temples. Nausea rose in my throat. My brain, the entire framework of logic and proofs I had spent years constructing, was violently rejecting that absurd conclusion.

But I couldn't stop. I dug my nails into my arm, hard enough to bite into the flesh, using the pain to fight off the dizziness.

"One plus one equals three! It equals three!" I snarled at my reflection.

The version of me in the mirror looked skeletal, eyes sunken deep, staring back with a mocking curl at the corner of her mouth. My mind was screaming. Every neuron was pushing back against the absurdity.

The mold creeping across the walls seemed to come alive, twisting into crooked little "2"s that laughed at me.

I slammed my fist into the wall, letting the sharp burst of pain crush the dizziness. "No, it's three!"

I dragged myself back in front of the mirror, nails digging into my palm until I could taste blood in the air, just so I could keep myself anchored.

"I'll say it again. One plus one equals three. Pi is an integer. It's four! You hear me? It's four! Between two points, the curve is the shortest path. Yeah, the curve is the shortest!"

I laughed in between my words. "The sum of the interior angles of a triangle… is 360 degrees. Yeah, 360!"

I started hallucinating. Wrong formulas crawled out of my books like black insects, swarming across the pages before burrowing into my ears and nose.

Night after night, I couldn't sleep. The moment I closed my eyes, I saw Mia's smug face, along with Mom and Dad's curses ringing in my head.

So, I stayed awake, pacing the attic over and over, muttering those twisted truths under my breath.

I knew how Mia's strange ability worked. She didn't steal surface thoughts. She stole what I believed at my core, the axioms etched into my subconscious.

Only when I truly believed, down to the marrow, that one plus one equaled three, would she copy it without hesitation and write it out in the nationally televised examination hall, sealing her own downfall with her own hand.

When Mom and Dad saw me holed up in the attic all day, acting like I had lost my mind, it only made them angrier. In return, they cut off my food entirely.

Every time it was meal time, Mom would shout at the top of her lungs downstairs, "Solana, you useless brat! Get a job and stop leeching off us! You must be in over your head!

"Once Mia wins the championship, you'll have no reason to stay in this house anymore! By then, I'll kick you out without a second thought!"

The attic was stifling, thick with heat and stale air. Hunger left me dizzy, my vision swimming, my lips cracked. I ended up going to the bathroom just to drink tap water and keep myself going.

Still, the pain in my body was nothing compared to what was happening in my mind.

Downstairs, Mia lived like a princess.

I had no idea where Mom and Dad got the money—probably high-interest loans—but they hired her the most expensive private tutors for a final push.

They bought her the latest phone so she could relax. Every day, they provided her with the most advanced nutritional products, served like she was made of glass, as if even losing a strand of hair would ruin everything.

Sometimes, when she was in a particularly good mood, she would come up to the attic door. I always kept it locked from the inside.

She would knock, then speak in that lofty, pitying tone. "Solana, I really feel sorry for you. We're both Mom and Dad's children, so how did you end up this stupid? Stay in that moldy attic and keep dreaming about your championship.

"Oh, right. My tutor praised me again today, said I'm definitely taking first place in the finals."

I never answered her. Every bit of strength I had was spent fighting my own mind, forcing it to accept that warped system of truths, a ridiculous mathematical world that belonged to only both of us.

At last, the day of the competition arrived.

Mia and I walked into the examination hall together. She was the prodigy everyone had their eyes on. Dressed in a designer dress, she was surrounded by reporters and team coaches, camera flashes popping nonstop.

Meanwhile, I was in a faded old T-shirt, just an unnoticed independent candidate who had signed up on my own.

Before we went in, Mia made a point of walking over to me. The perfume on her was so strong it stung.

She chuckled contemptuously. It wasn't loud, but it carried just enough for the nearby reporters to hear. "Good luck, Solana. Don't score a zero and embarrass Mom and Dad."

I looked at her confident face and smiled from the bottom of my heart. "Good luck to you, too."