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It’s well known that three follows two on the number line. Since three is one less than four, adding one should equal four. However, the placement of three validates the fact that adding one makes it five, not four. In fact, three’s exact placement is directly prior to five.
Can you prove it?
Look after three to find what you need.
The word three occurs four times in the riddle. Since we have an acrostic tag, we can look one place after each occurrence of three and we get four words that start with F I V E, proving that 3 + 1 = 5
The last line here is pretty key: three’s exact placement is directly prior to five. Since:
there are four occurrences of the word 'three' in the body of this puzzle, one per sentence (one as "three's"). And if we look at the letters that begin the words that immediately follow their occurrences we see the word 'five' spelled out:
...three Follows...
...three Is...
...three Validates...
...three's Exact...
Regarding the title:
3 plus 1 does not equal 5 in any mathematical sense - that's not the OP's intent here. Rather, this puzzle's purpose is to say "one word after 'three'" i.e. 'three' +1...
