Chapter 70 A Lonely Late-Night Snack at the Convenience Store

"Boss, are you alright?" Ding Chu asked worriedly, looking at her face that had suddenly lost all color.

Ye Yuying shook her head and returned the phone to Ding Chu, her voice suddenly sounding much more tired.

"Could you help me contact Zino's studio? I'd like to know if there's... anywhere I can go to see her off."

Everything happened so suddenly. Before she could even think of how to thank Zino for his support, he had already passed away.

Perhaps, bidding farewell to Zino, saying "thank you," and offering a bouquet of white chrysanthemums as a sign of respect and sorrow would be all that's needed.

However, Ding Chu said regretfully after making a phone call.

"Boss, we've made contact. The other party... is very grateful for your kindness." Ding Chu's tone was somewhat downcast.

"But they said that, in accordance with Zino's wishes, all her funeral arrangements would be kept simple, with no public memorial activities, and no release of any of her private information, not even... her real name."

This answer completely severed the last shred of any possibility that Ye Yuying and this "stranger comrade-in-arms" could have any contact in the real world.

Zino.

She is just a symbol, like her name, whose meaning is unknown.

It came mysteriously and left mysteriously, like a cold star that streaked across the long night in the most brilliant and dazzling way, and then disappeared without a trace.

That night, Ye Yuying did not work.

She returned to her newly moved-in apartment, which was still somewhat empty.

She didn't turn on the lights or the echo.

Instead, he sat alone in front of the huge bay window, playing Zino's album on repeat, from beginning to end.

The ethereal, pure, yet melancholic voice flowed slowly through the quiet room.

She felt a deep, sympathetic sorrow for the passing of this kindred spirit, whom she had never met but felt as if she had known him for a long time.

*

The news of Zino's passing remained on the trending topics list for a long time, but as time passed and newer, more popular news emerged, the buzz gradually faded.

The cold winter will eventually pass slowly with Zino's departure. Before the New Year, Ye Yuying used the night in her apartment to do one last optimization and adjustment of the echo.

She has preserved Echo's previous persona for her account, but the version that will be presented to the public will definitely be completely separated from the predictions and training data she gave Echo at the time.

Using new predictions, a completely new personality can be trained to be presented to the team, and a more rigorous "fact cross-validation" module has been added to Echo to reduce the "illusion" problem caused by data correlation in large language models during dialogue.

The AI's short-term and long-term memory models have been optimized, enabling it to better maintain consistency of personality and memory during multi-turn conversations with users, reducing memory confusion.

After completing this series of preparatory work, Echo was completely transformed into a prototype of an emotional companionship AI product with huge commercial potential that could be demonstrated to the team.

The following day, after discussing the next steps in the development of the Ashera exoskeleton, Ye Yuying presented everyone with a brand new topic.

“We’ve discussed before the future cash flow and product portfolio of Hungry Goose Company,” she said, looking around at core members such as Ding Chu and Lao Wu. “We will have a new, parallel product plan. I’ve already made a prototype, and now I’d like to hear everyone’s opinions.”

Ding Chu was extremely excited, rubbing his hands together eagerly. "This is a low-asset product that meets the emotional needs of today's young people. We can consider creating several different types of personalities that are pre-trained, such as 'gentle and protective type,' 'sharp-tongued and arrogant type,' 'sunny and cheerful type,' 'dark and yandere type,' etc., allowing users to choose for themselves, or even pay to unlock their favorite personality and exclusive voice!"

Ding Chu's business acumen is undoubtedly sharp; in an instant, she had already conceived a clear and highly attractive commercialization path for this project.

In the conference room, the other male software engineers, their faces flushed with excitement at the imaginative concept of "virtual lovers," began to discuss it in hushed tones.

Only Lao Wu, the person in charge of core technology, remained silent.

His brows were furrowed as he stared intently at the few concise yet logically sound dialogues projected on the screen. In his eyes was the inquisitive gaze of a top engineer, a mixture of shock and profound confusion.

Ye Yuying observed Lao Wu's reaction, wondering if Lao Wu, being older than them, was unable to accept such new things.

Her gaze fell on Lao Wu. Lao Wu was in charge of the core technology; he could see the real problems behind the project from a technical perspective.

After a long while, Old Wu slowly raised his head and looked at Ye Yuying, his voice filled with undisguised shock: "President Ye, when did you start making this model?"

"Its ability to empathize and its consistency in contextual logic far surpasses all the so-called 'intelligent chat companion' products I've seen on the market. This... shouldn't be something you can achieve in a short time."

"However," Old Wu changed the subject, raising the most crucial and practical question, "the computational load of this model must be terrifying. To support real-time conversations with millions of users, our existing server architecture needs to be completely rebuilt. Also, where does its training data come from? Is it a public dataset or our own? How can we guarantee the compliance and privacy of the data?"

These are the most crucial, and also the most critical, issues that a chief technology officer must consider.

The conference room fell silent instantly. All eyes were once again focused on Ye Yuying.

Ye Yuying looked at Lao Wu and gave him an approving smile.

"Old Wu, you've asked some crucial questions."

She stood up, leaning on her cane, and slowly walked to the whiteboard, picking up a marker. She exuded a composure and efficiency that was usually evident in her.

“First, regarding the server,” she said, quickly drawing a new, distributed system architecture diagram on the whiteboard. “The reason I dare to propose this plan now is because the server architecture we pre-designed for Ashera exoskeleton version 3.0 has enough computing power to support tens of millions of users for Echo. We can see it as an extension of the exoskeleton project, a ‘downsizing application’ at the software level.”

Old Wu looked intently at the ingenious and forward-thinking architecture diagram on the whiteboard.

"As for the corpus..." Ye Yuying's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly, but her tone remained calm and professional.

"This is a dataset I developed during my studies in Germany. Out of interest in affective computing, I integrated several open-source psychology dialogue datasets from European universities and trained them independently over several years using a 'personalized supervised learning' algorithm that I wrote myself. All the data strictly adheres to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards and is safe and clean."

She provided a flawless business explanation.

Objectively speaking, that data does not involve the privacy of others, but only her own.

There's nothing wrong with what she said; she just skirted the line and avoided her own privacy.

She went straight to the point and began the next strategic deployment.

“Ding Chu,” she said, looking at Ding Chu, “starting today, you will lead the establishment of an independent project team for ‘Echo.’ Strive to produce a preliminary market research report, competitor analysis, and preliminary commercialization plan within two weeks.”

"Yes, boss!" Ding Chu replied excitedly.

“Old Wu,” she turned to Old Wu again, “I will work with you to come up with a ‘technical implementation path and stress test plan’ to see how much traffic the current computing power can support, and then we will decide whether we need to seek new investment.”

"No problem." Old Wu nodded readily.

“At the same time,” Ye Yuying said, withdrawing her gaze, “she will also be responsible for the final optimization of the core personality module of ‘Echo’ and its… ethical boundary setting.”

The meetings always ended efficiently and concisely. Ye Yuying would not ask anyone on the team to write meaningless written reports, but would ensure that everyone performed their duties and did not go around in circles on trivial matters.

On this day, a brand new virtual product line for Ashera officially began.

*

After nightfall, I turn the office lights to their dimmest setting, letting the unfathomable darkness of the city outside the window completely envelop me.

In this utter silence, she would be alone, slowly and meticulously manipulating the mouse, examining the complex 3D models and data on the screen, inch by inch.

She enjoyed the incredibly safe and peaceful midnight hours, which allowed her to generate many ideas.

It was 11 p.m. when a familiar, empty hunger pang came from her stomach. Ye Yuying rubbed her throbbing temples, took her cane, and went downstairs to buy some food and relax.

She took the elevator down to the first floor and stepped out of the building. A damp chill, typical of a late winter night, hit her in the face.

This year is said to be a mild winter, but for Ye Yuying, it is just as difficult as ever.

She wrapped her cashmere coat tighter around herself, limped quietly to the side of the road waiting for the red light, and then walked toward the only 24-hour convenience store that was still lit.

She didn't notice that among the cars that had stopped to wait for pedestrians to cross the road, there was a dark blue Porsche parked.

In the silent carriage, Cheng Mingdu's gaze pierced through the darkness of the night and landed unblinkingly on the thin figure walking slowly alone in the cold wind.

He watched as she skillfully used her cane to support her somewhat fragile and unruly leg. Her movements were practiced, as if it were a kind of instinct, a habitual way of using her strength that had long been ingrained in her body.

The green light came on, and he was supposed to turn left onto the elevated road, but instead he found a place to make a U-turn. His hands on the steering wheel unconsciously tightened little by little, as his strong desire to find out the truth made him determined to turn around and see what was going on.

He parked the car on the side of the road, and across the street, he saw Ye Yuying in the brightly lit convenience store. She was holding a simple tuna rice ball and a bottle of hot barley tea. She walked to the row of windows facing the huge glass window, sat down, and patiently ate the rice ball by the bedside. She had a look of enjoyment on her face, but not because of the rice ball, but because of the night.

She unscrewed the cap of the barley tea bottle, took a sip, and then chewed the lukewarm rice ball in small bites.

She looked at her blurry reflection in the glass window, illuminated by the shop's lights. Behind that reflection lay an endless, rain-soaked, pitch-black street.

She ate alone in the empty convenience store at midnight, with only her shadow by her side.

Cheng Mingdu stood across the street, quietly watching all of this in the darkness.

I watched her finish this lonely late-night snack, all by herself.

The image was one of independence and strength, yet loneliness, like a dragonfly that could penetrate the windshield, reached the enclosed carriage where he was.

After finishing her rice ball, Ye Yuying threw away the trash and then, leaning on her crutches, walked out of the convenience store.

She accomplished everything by herself, coming alone and leaving alone.

As she approached the office building's access control, preparing to take her access card from her coat pocket, perhaps because her fingers were stiff from the cold, the thin card slipped quietly from between her fingers and fell with a "thud" onto the wet, cold ground.

Ye Yuying paused in her movements.

She looked at the card on the ground with some distress, remained silent for a few seconds, and then sighed helplessly.

She knew how difficult and painful it was for her to bend over right now.

She could only carefully lean her cane against the wall, then reach out and hold onto the cold wall, preparing to squat down slowly and awkwardly.

However, just as she was about to bend her knees—

A pair of handcrafted black leather shoes, spotless and damp from the rain, appeared silently in her sight.

Immediately afterwards, a hand with distinct knuckles, long and clean, reached down and easily picked up her access card from the ground.

Ye Yuying's breathing stopped abruptly at that moment.

Seeing the figure in front of her, she felt a chill run down her spine.

Cheng Mingdu stood quietly before her, holding a long-handled black umbrella. His amber eyes, as serene as an ancient well, were fixed on her in the night.

He handed her the access card, his voice filled with deep doubt, sounding exceptionally clear and crisp in the quiet rainy night, blending seamlessly with the raindrops.

Why isn't my leg better yet?

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Author's note: 50~