sticky notes

That document, titled "Reference_Architecture and Emotion," was like a window unexpectedly opened, allowing Jiang Mo to glimpse the carefully buried landscape within Shen Zhiyan's heart. Those papers on architecture and emotion, those yellowed sketches imbued with youthful spirit, and especially the phrase "to provide a coordinate for the wandering of the human heart to find a place to rest," were all silently reshaping his image in her heart.

He was no longer the cold observer who defined her solely with data and probability. He was a companion with a soft heart, yet who chose to exile himself to the wasteland of reason.

This realization quietly dissolved the lingering resentment she felt due to the "case study." They were both confronting the uncertainty of the world in their own ways—he relied on formulas and theorems, she relied on "Lu Gen" and the metaphors of scriptures.

When Jiang Mo faced Shen Zhiyan again, her mindset was different. She no longer tried to test or provoke him with words, but focused more on the content he was instructing her on. In a task where she was learning to use a machine learning model for image classification, she repeatedly adjusted the parameters, but the model's accuracy remained consistently low.

Shen Zhiyan came over and stood half a meter behind her, looking at the confusion matrix and loss function curve on the screen.

“It’s overfitting,” he pointed out succinctly.

Jiang Mo frowned. She understood the concept, but didn't know how to solve it.

Instead of giving direct instructions as before, Shen Zhiyan remained silent for a moment before speaking. His voice was not loud, but it clearly reached her ears: "We could consider adding L2 regularization, or... introducing a Dropout layer. Sometimes, appropriate 'forgetting' and 'discarding' can improve the model's generalization ability more than simply 'memorizing' all features."

His word choice remained professional, but the words "forget" and "abandon" sounded like a subtle reflection of their current situation. Was he also trying to "regularize" his overly complex emotions, or "discard" his old dream about architecture, in order to better adapt to the path he had chosen?

Jiang Mo tried as instructed, and the model's accuracy indeed began to steadily improve. She didn't thank him, but simply looked up and gave him a knowing, genuine smile.

Shen Zhiyan looked at the smile on her face, and his gaze behind his glasses seemed to flicker for a fleeting moment, as quick as a shooting star streaking across a lake in the dead of night. He didn't respond to the smile, but merely nodded almost imperceptibly before looking away. But Jiang Mo noticed that the edge of his earlobe seemed to have flushed with a very faint, almost imperceptible blush.

This discovery, like a pebble thrown into a still lake, created subtle ripples. It turns out that even his seemingly unbreakable shell of rationality could be affected by such delicate "data fluctuations" from a simple, sincere smile.

The recording of the program was nearing its end, and the production team planned a small "scientific research results showcase," inviting several experts from within the center to serve as judges. Jiang Mo's chosen topic for presentation happened to be "affective computing and micro-expression recognition."

Standing in a corner of the preparation area, watching the other guests rehearse with slight nervousness, Jiang Mo took a deep breath. She wasn't a scientist and couldn't offer much in-depth technical explanation. But she had an advantage—she was the "sample" being observed herself.

When it was her turn to go on stage, she adjusted her headset and glanced at the audience. Shen Zhiyan was sitting on the side of the judges' panel, head down, seemingly taking notes.

"Hello, everyone," she began, her voice clearly carried through the microphone throughout the hall. "Over the past period of time, as a sample repeatedly 'observed' by various sensors and algorithms, I have deeply experienced the ingenuity and... limitations of affective computing technology."

Her words piqued the interest of some experts in the audience.

“The machine can capture the micro-twitches of my facial muscles dozens of times per second, record the precise moment my heart rate accelerates, and even analyze the patterns in my brainwaves that I myself cannot perceive.” She paused, her gaze frank, “But it cannot understand why I maintain a smile on my face when I see a sad video, even though I am sad inside. It also cannot quantify how something called ‘obsession’ can take root, grow, and even change the trajectory of a person’s life.”

As she spoke, her gaze seemingly unintentionally swept over Shen Zhiyan on the judges' panel. He still had his head down, but the fingers gripping his pen tightened slightly.

“I believe that the ultimate goal of affective computing should not be to completely digitize and make people transparent. Rather…” She carefully chose her words, recalling a sentence from his document, “…perhaps to find a ‘confidence interval’ for those emotions and choices that cannot be simply quantified, an interval that can be understood and respected. Within this interval, contradictions are allowed to exist, ‘noise’ is allowed to appear, and some…illogical ‘outliers’ are allowed to have their unique meaning.”

She used the term "confidence interval," a language he often used and which was full of rationality, but she gave it a more emotional interpretation.

A brief silence fell over the audience, followed by polite applause. Several judges whispered among themselves, seemingly engaged in discussion.

Jiang Mo bowed and stepped off the stage. As she passed the judges' panel, she saw Shen Zhiyan finally raise his head. His gaze pierced through the crowd and met hers in mid-air. In those usually calm and unwavering eyes, an extremely complex emotion was surging—surprise, scrutiny, deep thought, and even… a faint, almost imperceptible, glimmer of emotion.

He didn't speak, he just looked at her, as if he were truly "seeing" her for the first time.

The exhibition ended, and everyone gradually left. Jiang Mo walked last, feeling a peace and relief she hadn't experienced in a long time. Regardless of the outcome, she had finally conveyed what she wanted to say in a way he might understand.

At the corner of the corridor, Shen Zhiyan stood there, seemingly waiting for her. The afterglow of the setting sun bathed him in a warm golden light, softening his usually overly sharp features.

He watched her approach without saying a word, simply handing her a folded notepad. The paper was the kind of recycled paper commonly used in laboratories, rough and unadorned.

Jiang Mo was slightly taken aback, then took the note.

Shen Zhiyan gave her a deep look, his gaze still complex and unreadable, then turned and left without saying a word.

Jiang Mo stood there, her fingertips tracing the rough surface of the paper, hesitating, not opening it immediately.

Outside the window, the sunset was as brilliant as a tapestry, foreshadowing a fine day tomorrow.

She finally slowly unfolded the folded note.

There were no formulas, no data, only a line of concise and powerful handwriting belonging to Shen Zhiyan:

"You've defined a new confidence interval. Tonight at 8 PM, B3 terrace, if you'd like."

There was no salutation, no signature, not even a complete sentence.

But Jiang Mo's heart felt as if it had been suddenly clenched and then released, pounding violently.