“Solve This, and I’ll Marry You!” Professor Mocked a Single Dad — Then He Shocked Her!
Chapter 2
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Nora was the only person who knew how much he enjoyed it. When she struggled with a difficult puzzle, he never gave her the answer immediately. He asked her what she noticed, what seemed strange, and which part she could simplify."A hard problem doesn't mean you're not clever, sweetheart," he often told her. "It just means you haven't found the right way to look at it yet."Their apartment was small, with a narrow kitchen and a living room that served as Nora's study area. A second-hand bookshelf held her school books, picture books, and a few of Thomas's old mathematics texts. On the top shelf sat a framed photograph of Claire smiling in the garden with Nora in her arms. Thomas had promised himself that he would give his daughter a childhood filled with encouragement, even if he could not give her everything she wanted. He repaired her broken toys, attended school meetings, and made sure she never felt that her mother's absence was something she had to hide.At Westbridge University, most professors knew Thomas as the quiet technician who arrived before the classrooms opened. Some greeted him warmly, while others barely looked up when he entered. He did not complain; he had learned that a person's respect could not always be measured by the attention they received.The one person who rarely acknowledged him was Professor Evelyn Shaw, 41, head of the university's applied mathematics department. Evelyn was brilliant, ambitious, and admired for her work in optimization theory. Her lectures attracted students from several departments, and her published research had earned her invitations to international conferences. She had built her reputation through years of discipline, but success had also made her impatient with people she considered unprepared. She believed that intelligence should be demonstrated through formal achievement, not casual observations from people outside academic circles.Her department was preparing to submit a major research proposal for a national grant. The project involved developing a mathematical model to coordinate emergency medical supply deliveries between hospitals during severe weather. The model was intended to reduce delays when roads closed, vehicles became unavailable, or hospitals suddenly required additional supplies. Evelyn had led the research for almost four years, and the grant would secure funding for her team, several graduate researchers, and a new laboratory.However, a serious problem had appeared during the final testing stage. The model performed perfectly under normal conditions, but produced inconsistent results when several delivery routes became unavailable at the same time. Evelyn believed the issue was caused by a software implementation error. Her graduate team had spent weeks checking the code, but nobody could identify the reason. She was under pressure from the university administration, and the grant submission deadline was only 12 days away.One Tuesday afternoon, Thomas was repairing a projector in a lecture room when he heard two graduate students discussing the model. They were looking at a diagram showing a network of hospitals, supply centers, and connecting routes. One student complained that the same input sometimes produced different results depending on the order in which the data was processed.Thomas glanced at the screen while checking the projector cable. Something about the diagram caught his attention. He looked at the sequence of routes and noticed that two restrictions appeared to contradict each other. He did not say anything at first. Then he asked, "Have you checked whether your model assumes that every route can be reversed?"