Her tone was flat, the same way she'd ask if a physics problem was outside the national curriculum.
"Internship wages," Roan said, pulling out a chair. He poured himself a glass of ice-cold Coke and drained it in one go. The frigid liquid acted like a heat sink, pulling the thermal energy from his overstimulated nervous system. "I landed a job yesterday. Professional driver. That five thousand is just the sign-on bonus."
Roan's voice was steady. He hadn't just inherited Sarah's IQ; he'd inherited her "poker-face" trait—the ability to remain utterly impassive while the world collapsed around him.
Sarah finally set down her red pen. She looked at Roan's youthful face, then at the deep purple welt still etched into his neck. As a senior physics evaluator with twenty years in the trenches, she understood better than anyone that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
"So..." Sarah crossed her arms, adopting the posture of a department head leading a faculty meeting. "What is the thesis here? Is this five thousand meant to prove that the forty thousand dollars the school spent on your tuition wasn't a waste?"
"No. The money is just a verification token." Roan pointed to the cash, then gestured toward his bedroom. "It proves my software is optimized. The bottleneck is the hardware."
"Hardware?" Sarah raised an eyebrow.
The focus of the interrogation had successfully shifted, but Roan didn't let up. "That 3090 graphics card I brought home is part of the upgrade. My current PC case is too small; it lacks the volume for proper airflow and thermal management. It needs to be replaced."
Roan paused, pointing to the bruise on his neck. "I'm the same. Running professional racing loads on the weakest possible physique... this is the result. Systemic overheating. The hardware can't keep up with the processing demand."
He looked his mother in the eye, delivering his proposal with clinical precision. "I need a hardware upgrade. Keep the five thousand as a down payment, but I need an E-ATX full-tower case. Order it today. I need it by the weekend."
It wasn't just about a computer case. It was a sophisticated physical metaphor designed to speak her language. Roan's brain was the 3090, but his body was the flimsy shoebox he'd rigged it into.
Sarah understood. She looked at her son. The boy who used to be content rotting in his room with games now had the cold, sharp edge of a drawn blade.
"Interesting," she murmured, a trace of a smile touching her lips. It was the look she gave a top-tier student who solved a complex problem with an unorthodox but elegant derivation. She used one finger to flick the stack of crumpled bills. "Fine. Keep your money. Don't play the big shot with me. I'll buy the case."
Roan felt a surge of relief. He thought he'd successfully bypassed the danger zone. Then, Sarah's tone shifted, and the air in the room turned to liquid nitrogen.
"I don't care about racing," she said, her aura expanding until she loomed over him. "But in physics, if you want more kinetic energy, you need sufficient fuel and a scientific analysis of the forces involved. In this house, 'fuel' is your GPA. The 'force analysis' is your class ranking."
Roan froze. The old fox... I didn't fool her for a second.
"Don't give me that look," she scoffed. "Do you think I don't know you sleep through your morning classes? Or that you're up half the night screaming into a headset in your room? I didn't intervene because you remained in the Top 5 during the last mocks."
She grabbed a scrap of paper and circled a large number: 5.
"The college entrance exams are an assessment. A race is an assessment. In my house, they carry equal weight. If you stay in the Top 5 in next month's mocks, I don't care what case you buy, where you hang your neck, or if you move your entire rig into the school dorms."
"But," her glasses reflected a predatory glint, the ultimate nightmare of every student she had ever taught, "if you drop out of the Top 5, it proves you are unstable. It proves your 'bandwidth' is insufficient."
"At that point, the computer is confiscated. And that resistance band..." she pointed at the backpack hanging on his chair, "I will use it to lash you to your desk until you've memorized every prep book in the library. Am I clear?"
This was Sarah's philosophy: macro-management with micro-autonomy. As long as the output was correct, the process could be as chaotic as he liked. But the moment the result deviated, the "physical override" was absolute.
Roan took a deep breath. This high-pressure, performance-based contract was exactly what he liked. It was honest. It was efficient. It was a thousand times better than being told "it's for your own good" by someone who had already decided his future.
"I'm adjusting to a new racing schedule," Roan countered, trying to find a gap in the logic. "I'm requesting a two-month bedding-in period for the ranking."
"Denied." Sarah checked the wall clock and returned to her grading. "The exams won't wait for your bedding-in. Will the races? Go study. I'll cover the case; it'll be here when you get back next week. Assemble it yourself."
Roan grabbed his cash and bolted toward his room, moving with the speed of a 2.0-second pit stop. But just as his hand touched the doorknob, he hesitated.
Two seconds later, he walked back and placed the sweaty stack of bills next to her hand.
"Mom, keep the five thousand. Deposit it and WeChat it to me when you have time. Paper bills are unhygienic and a pain to carry."
Sarah looked at the cash with a touch of professional disdain, but she took the stack and tapped it neat against the table. She didn't look up from her work, but her voice softened just a fraction.
"And next time you 'hang' your neck, use a padded towel. Friction creates heat; that's middle-school physics. Don't be an idiot."
Roan grinned, gave a quick nod, and disappeared into his room.
The door clicked shut. Sarah set her pen down and looked at the empty Coke can, shaking her head. "Stupid kid... he finally looks like he's actually alive."
People said a father knew his son best, but Sarah disagreed. At least in this house, she was the only one who could read the data. Her husband and her son were both obsessive freaks. She remembered her husband ten years ago, sleeping on a lab floor for a month to verify a fluid dynamics model.
Roan had that same look now—that terrifying willingness to tear himself apart to rebuild something faster.
"As long as he doesn't break the law," she whispered, her eyes softening before the stern mask of the star teacher returned. "But if he drops to 6th place... not even his father will save him."