He reached out, pointed at the crowd looking up at him from below—some silent, others whispering in discussion—and rebuked loudly: "Yet—I do not believe that everyone present is so utterly incompetent as to cower before such a minor difficulty. No, this does not befit the style of a genius. In my view, a true genius should step forward right now, leave a concise and clear answer, and then depart calmly with sleeves fluttering."
Then, he had his assistant clear away a huge blackboard, densely covered with numbers and letters he had written. Only a single line of concise questions right in the middle indicated that these messy, incomprehensible scribbles were his steps to the solution.
In an inconspicuous corner, a small blank space was reserved for whoever could piece together the final puzzle piece.
Chapter 123