Chapter 269: Young Sheldon and Dr. House—The Enemy of My Enemy Is Not My Friend
"What do you mean my idea isn't original? Who thought of it before me and implemented it?"
Young Sheldon, suppressing his anger, finally let his pride overcome his fear of Chuck and shouted indignantly.
"It's exactly what it sounds like,"
Chuck said calmly. "As far as I know, someone has already created it and put digital currency into circulation."
"How come I didn't know about this?"
Young Sheldon was incredulous.
"Is it in the criminal underworld?"
Professor Alicia immediately thought of the first application scenario for digital currency.
"Yes,"
Chuck nodded.
Digital currency, as long as both buyer and seller agree, can be used as a means of payment.
And this novel and difficult-to-regulate medium was naturally suited to the underworld; he knew that someone was already using it for illegal transactions.
"Impossible!"
Young Sheldon couldn't accept that his groundbreaking genius idea had been beaten to market.
And by criminals, no less!
"What's impossible?"
Chuck looked at him. "Actually, this idea isn't anything special; it's just an upgraded version of something your brother Georgie casually came up with."
"Hahaha."
Hearing Chuck say this, Sheldon immediately dropped his disbelief and inability to accept it, and scoffed.
"An upgraded version of something Georgie casually came up with?
You're comparing Georgie to me?
In fact, before I even asked you for investment, I asked him first, and he couldn't understand it at all. He just said I was using a bunch of complicated jargon to scam people out of money…"
He paused here, meeting Chuck's gaze.
Because he couldn't continue to refute Georgie's point that although his idea was very cool, it was indeed a scam at its core.
And according to this logic, Chuck's claim that his genius idea was an upgraded version of Georgie's casual concept didn't seem entirely unreasonable.
This made him very unhappy.
"This isn't his idea…"
Sheldon didn't want to be dragged down to the same level as his brother Georgie, and tried his best to refute it.
"That's not what I'm talking about,"
Chuck reminded him. "Remember when Leonard mentioned that you told him your brother Georgie worked for your Meemaw and they ran a small illegal gambling operation behind the laundromat?
It was illegal gambling, so to avoid legal issues, Georgie immediately thought of not directly cashing out winnings from the slot machine, but adding an extra step.
When a customer won chips from the machine, Georgie would give them a stuffed animal.
Then, completely deadpan, he'd say the stuffed animal was so cute that he wanted to buy it back, and he'd take the stuffed animal from the bewildered customer.
Finally, he'd give them cash for the stuffed animal, trying to evade gambling regulations.
What's the fundamental difference between that and your cryptocurrency?
Both are about defining something arbitrary as a valuable, exchangeable currency.
He chose a stuffed animal; you chose a string of special numbers."
"No!"
Young Sheldon's expression was priceless, his instinct refusing to accept that he and his brother Georgie were operating on the same intellectual level.
"Yes, they're definitely different."
Chuck nodded sarcastically. "Not to mention that someone had already thought of cryptocurrency beforehand and implemented it.
Just looking at you and your brother Georgie, it's hard to argue that your current idea wasn't derived from his stuffed-animal money-laundering scheme."
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
Little Sheldon couldn't accept it any longer and screamed, "When I explained the theory to him, he didn't understand at all!"
"Did your brother's customers understand?"
Chuck countered. "They were also completely bewildered and passively accepted the process.
Even though they didn't immediately grasp it, they ultimately got the cash they wanted, and that's enough.
Besides, even with their limited intelligence, they could have figured it out with a little thought.
The reason your brother Georgie said he didn't understand was because you used too much technical jargon, which he didn't want to hear.
But that doesn't prevent him from immediately grasping the core of your theory—that you were using a complicated set of rhetoric to trick people into believing something has value.
It's clear that your brother Georgie has a very natural talent for making money, arguably even better than yours.
If someone really had to solve your family's financial problems, excluding your parents and Meemaw, among the three Cooper siblings, it would be him, not you.
You're even ranked after your sister, Missy!"
"..."
Young Sheldon was speechless, his lips twitching, his eye twitching, completely devastated.
Chuck's words were a crushing blow.
Of the three Cooper children, he had always looked down on the other two.
Okay!
Forget the siblings—he actually looks down on everyone, including his parents!
Because it's an absolute intellectual superiority!
And now Chuck is saying this… and the more he thinks about it, the more logical it seems.
He knew about Georgie's use of stuffed animals to skirt gambling laws, and with his eidetic memory, he couldn't deny it even if he wanted to.
So he remembered it, was subconsciously influenced, and directly upgraded to a more sophisticated method—this is perfectly reasonable logical deduction.
After Georgie heard about the theory of making money through digital currency, he indeed ignored all the technical explanations and directly identified the key point.
He was very interested in participating, until Georgie mentioned needing to invest $500,000 to buy a mainframe computer, at which point he hung up on him.
In this respect, Georgie, whom he always looked down on, does indeed have a very strong instinct for making money, as Chuck said.
Although he doesn't think Georgie's better than him…
And then there's his twin sister Missy!
When the family faced a financial crisis, she actually started helping even earlier than him, by getting a job at a comic book store.
But she didn't like comics at all, and the interview questions she passed relied on his extensive knowledge of comics that he'd shared with her.
She couldn't even tell whether Batman was a billionaire philanthropist or a psychopath living in a rich man's basement...
In the past, he would have dismissed her question immediately.
But this time, he told Missy with absolute certainty: "He's a psychopath living in a rich man's basement!!!"
"Sheldon, are you alright?"
Professor Alicia saw that young Sheldon had fallen into a state of dissociation after being eviscerated by Chuck again, and gave Chuck a reproachful look.
"He's fine."
Chuck said matter-of-factly.
"After all this, he's still fine?"
Professor Alicia pointed at young Sheldon's twitching face, which looked like it was about to go completely blank.
"I'm fine."
Chuck said expressionlessly: "At worst, he'll end up like me now—it won't be any worse."
"..."
Professor Alicia looked at the expressionless Chuck, speechless.
"Ow."
Young Sheldon groaned in pain when he realized that his ultimate coping mechanism was ineffective against Chuck.
"Your face hurts, you don't need to clutch your stomach,"
Chuck reminded Sheldon as he doubled over.
"…No,"
Sheldon said, clutching his stomach with a pained expression, "My stomach actually hurts."
"Stomach hurts?"
Professor Alicia said worriedly, "I'll take you to the university health center!"
"I don't want to go to the university health center!"
Young Sheldon clutched his stomach and cried out, "The facilities there are terrible, and the service is awful. They don't care about students at all!"
"You've been there before?"
Professor Alicia immediately understood.
Anyone who'd been to the Princeton University Health Services had various complaints.
Besides, the health center's resources were limited.
They'd often make you wait, then wait until the illness miraculously resolved itself, or even have you Google your symptoms and treatment options.
Of course, treating Young Sheldon wouldn't be so straightforward.
Because Young Sheldon would Google beforehand, find the most severe diagnosis corresponding to his symptoms, and tell the doctor, saving the unreliable physician the step of searching online themselves.
The result was that the university doctors were even more reluctant to treat Young Sheldon with such a "serious" condition.
And even if the university health center's service and medical care were originally adequate, once Young Sheldon had been there, the medical staff would likely deliberately avoid him, keeping him away from the health center.
There was no way around it!
Young Sheldon was just too difficult to deal with.
"Just take him to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital!"
Chuck said. "I'll go get the car."
"I'm not going there!"
Young Sheldon cried out again.
"Why not?"
Professor Alicia asked curiously, "Have you been there too?"
"No!"
Young Sheldon looked at Chuck painfully, "He told me to go there, so I can't go!"
"He won't hurt you."
Professor Alicia said, both amused and exasperated, "It's the best hospital in New Jersey, and it's nearby. It's also covered by the university's health insurance. It's the right place to go."
"I'm not going there."
Young Sheldon clutched his stomach, stubbornly shaking his head no matter how Professor Alicia tried to persuade him.
Clearly, Chuck had left him with deep psychological trauma.
"Chuck, you caused this, you fix it!"
Seeing that she couldn't convince him, Professor Alicia could only pass the responsibility to Chuck.
"Okay."
Chuck nodded, then looked at Young Sheldon, who was stealing glances at him. "Dr. House at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and I have the same relationship as you and me. Haven't you heard that saying?"
"Really?"
Young Sheldon keenly recalled a famous quote, but still didn't dare believe it easily. Instead, he looked at Professor Alicia for confirmation.
"It's true."
Professor Alicia nodded and smiled. "Compared to House, Chuck has been quite gentle with you. As for Dr. House, Chuck directly broke his cane and made all sorts of sarcastic remarks; I couldn't bear to watch."
"Then let's go there and see Dr. House!"
Sheldon made his decision immediately.
After getting into the car with Chuck driving, Professor Alicia turned to Sheldon.
"Why did you suddenly change your mind?"
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend!"
Sheldon uttered his classic line.
"You define me as your enemy?"
Chuck's gaze fell on him through the rearview mirror.
"…Ow!"
Sheldon's expression froze, revealing an 'Oh crap, I've been caught' look, then he clutched his stomach, his pain intensifying dramatically.
Professor Alicia, seeing this, couldn't help but chuckle, guessing that Sheldon was probably fine, so she wasn't worried anymore.
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital
"Well, well, well."
When Chuck and his two companions arrived, Dr. House, who always vehemently opposed working clinic duty, came over immediately, leaning on the cane Chuck had given him via Joey, a malicious smile on his face: "What interesting patient have you brought me this time?"
"I want to go to another hospital!"
Young Sheldon's heart sank. Dr. House's malicious smile suddenly overlapped with Chuck's expressionless face, and he suddenly realized his mistake.
While there is indeed the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' there is also the opposite: 'the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.'
And clearly, this Dr. House was definitely not his friend!
"Too late."
Dr. House's gaze was already locked on them, and he immediately began to intimidate Young Sheldon, just as Chuck had hoped: "This isn't some Burger King where you can have it your way."
"Dr. House, don't scare him!"
Professor Alicia blocked Young Sheldon, who was hiding behind her, and said helplessly.
"Looks like you're recovering well."
Dr. House looked Professor Alicia up and down, a playful smirk on his face. "Is this a rehearsal for the nuclear family visiting the doctor?"
"Haven't you been shot by a patient yet?"
Chuck asked casually.
"Nobody's stupid enough to waste a bullet on a cripple."
Dr. House chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Besides, I'd block it." He picked up his cane and started striking various martial arts poses, his exaggerated expressions adding to the absurdity.
"You're wrong. After getting shot, only you die, while the shooter likely walks away fine,"
Chuck said. "If you really want to use your cane to deflect a bullet, it's not impossible. I could train you."
"So you want to shoot me first as practice?"
Dr. House laughed.
"Alright, stop messing around, you're both adults."
Professor Alicia laughed. "Dr. House, please examine Sheldon—he has a stomachache."
"Stomachaches are common in children,"
Dr. House said dismissively.
"I don't think so!"
Young Sheldon immediately protested, peeking out from behind Professor Alicia Florrick. "I'm not just any kid!"
"I see."
Dr. House shifted his gaze from Chuck back to Young Sheldon, looking down at him. "I bet you've already made your own diagnosis, haven't you?"
"Yes!"
Young Sheldon nodded: "I think I have a peptic ulcer! A very serious one!"
"Hmm."
Dr. House stroked his chin, appearing to think seriously: "Do you know what the odds are for a child your age to develop a peptic ulcer?"
"The odds of someone like me existing are one in 5.453 billion. Can the odds of getting a peptic ulcer be lower than that?"
Young Sheldon said: "Besides, I have a history. I had one three years ago!"
"Oh?"
Dr. House said with mock surprise: "You look only eleven or twelve years old. Three years ago, even younger, you developed a peptic ulcer?"
Then, he looked enlightened, pointed at Chuck and laughed: "I know—you didn't know him three years ago, did you?"
"..."
Young Sheldon glanced at Chuck the Great Devil, and felt his stomach hurt even more.
Three years ago, he developed an ulcer because of too much stress, and if he had known Chuck back then, his peptic ulcer would probably have progressed to stomach cancer by now.
(End of Chapter)
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