Chapter 201 Countdown

March 6th arrived in the blink of an eye, and as expected, Li Jianren's promotion was officially announced on this day. However, no one paid attention because an article titled "Implicit Computation: An Event-Driven Paradigm Beyond the Von Neumann Architecture" was published in the journal Nature.

One stone stirs up a thousand waves!

Within just half an hour of its publication, the paper sparked a nuclear-level discussion in the world's top academic circles and geek communities.

Because its conclusions were so revolutionary, the initial reactions from the mainstream scientific community and industry giants were generally shock, skepticism, or even denial.

Nevertheless, Zenti convened an emergency meeting immediately.

When Lee Kin-yan participated in the online meeting, he was completely bewildered.

He had just met Chen Jingyang a little over ten days ago. At the time, Chen Jingyang looked like he had a lot of bitterness and resentment, and he complained to him that he was very confused!

This groundbreaking paper, which shook the entire industry and kept him awake at 3 a.m. to attend a conference, was it his confusion?

Core engineers, architects, and the strategy team all came online. Zenti's CEO remained calm: "I believe everyone already knows the reason for this emergency meeting. I won't go into the details of the paper in Nature."

He paused for a moment: "From now on, we will divide into five groups to study this paper word by word and understand its principles. I will hold a second meeting in eight hours, and hopefully we will reach the desired conclusions by then."

Ideals are lofty, but reality is harsh.

Chen Jingyang's paper only describes "what" and the result, while the most crucial implementation path—how to achieve it—is deliberately obscured.

This is like someone saying that they have proven Goldbach's 1+1 conjecture. They only say that the conjecture is correct, but they don't clearly explain how they arrived at this conclusion.

How could Li Jianren and his team have made any discoveries in just 8 hours?

While Zenti was working on her research paper through the night, Chen Jingyang's personal social media accounts were being "besieged" by people from all directions.

The comments below are all the same: Is this true?

Twenty-four hours after the paper was published online, Chen Jingyang's account was updated with only three lines of text:

An eighty-year era of computing will come to an end tomorrow at sunset. Join us in defining the next era!

Beijing time 20:00.

The only live stream link will be published here.

The accompanying image is a minimalist, ticking countdown timer against a backdrop of blurred cosmic nebulae.

Meanwhile, Zenti's public relations and legal teams were embroiled in a heated debate—whether to "acknowledge its greatness" or "question whether it's a scam."

As an industry leader, Zenti naturally attracts a lot of attention when it faces disruptive challenges, and everyone wants to hear the "big brother's" opinion on this paper.

But the media was quickly disappointed, as Zenti declined to comment.

Lee Kin-yan was quickly summoned by the CEO for a private meeting, but he was not happy at all, because the CEO began to have doubts about his intelligence gathering ability and sensitivity.

"Lee, you and Chen Jingyang are alumni and have worked together at Tanzhi Technology for so long. You've been in Beijing for the past few months, yet you know nothing about Chen Jingyang publishing this paper. What do you have to say about that?"

Lee Kin-yan had a lot to say, such as what kind of relationship it is to be an alumnus, since Tsui Kam-tim is his childhood friend!

Don't you know why I went to Tanzhi? Was it to get closer to Chen Jingyang?

I've been in Beijing for the past few months, but my purpose here is to facilitate and ensure the smooth progress of the acquisition. What does that have to do with Chen Jingyang's thesis?

Besides, how could Chen Jingyang possibly leak such an important paper to me? He's not stupid. If you were the author, you would definitely keep it a secret too!

However, Lee Kin-yan knew that he couldn't say these seemingly legitimate and reasonable reasons.

What doesn't the CEO know? Asking him isn't about giving him a chance to defend himself!

"I'm sorry!" Li Jianren sighed. "I will try to get as much information as possible from other channels. Please wait for my reply."

The CEO naturally knew that he was asking a difficult question, but there was nothing he could do. Reality is just that cruel. It's like a frog living at the bottom of a well waking up to find itself lying in a rice paddy, unable to see the end of the sky no matter how you look at it.

The physiological panic caused by things beyond one's comprehension can only be understood by those who have experienced it.

Li Jianren first tried calling Chen Jingyang, but the number was not in service.

He contacted his colleagues at Tanzhi again, but Chen Jingyang had already severed ties with Tanzhi, and several engineers who had good personal relationships with him had also left the company a few months ago.

He then contacted several scientists and editors who considered themselves to have a good relationship with Chen Jingyang, but without exception, none of them knew what Chen Jingyang had done.

Time passed by, second by second.

With only two hours left before the press conference, Chen Jingyang updated his social media account again, this time more concisely:

The live stream portal to the new world is now open.

Join us at 8:00 PM Beijing time by clicking the link!

The accompanying image is a striking GIF—a close-up of an old server fan spinning wildly on the left, a quiet FPGA board on the right, and a huge “VS” logo in the middle.

Anxiety within Zenti has reached its peak!

At 8:00 PM Beijing time, which is 4:00 AM at Zenti's headquarters, none of Zenti's executives were asleep. After a day of aimless busyness, a sense of powerlessness that was almost overwhelming enveloped everyone.

A day and a night passed, and they were still unable to make any effective decisions!

The countdown resembled a death sentence, and people dominated by fear were unwilling to struggle any further.