Twenty-nine years old (nine)
That’s all…?
Bian Senlin put down his bowl and chopsticks, staring at the fat man without blinking with his eyes full of bloodshot.
His mind kept replaying the wish he made on his 20th birthday: to become a technical expert ten years later.
On the other side, the completely unrecognizable self in nine years told him sarcastically that he didn't like this job and just wanted to make money.
It was like he was holding something very precious, full of joy, and suddenly someone ran out and smashed it to pieces in front of him.
This person is my future self.
Bian Senlin twitched the corners of his mouth, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time.
He couldn't help but recall how excited he was when he wrote his first complete program.
And the ignorant, curious and envious look on his face when he first came into contact with it.
At that time, most mobile phones were not smartphones. Flip-top and slide-top phones were still common styles, and PCs were the way most people accessed the Internet.
He was less than 15 years old at the time, and his family bought him a computer after he finished his high school entrance examination.
It’s different from the excitement of sneaking into the Internet cafe to play games and surf the Internet.
During the holidays, he had two hours of legitimate Internet time every day.
During that time, he suddenly developed a curiosity that he had never had before: how did all this work?
Why can we peek into the world through a screen?
Curiosity drove him to absorb relevant information, and among the dazzling information, he learned what a program is and what a programming language is.
The boy in his middle school years thought that this was the internal power method in the world of martial arts, and he was excited, thrilled and couldn't wait.
However, young people's interest always comes in waves.
He has limited time to surf the Internet every day. At the beginning, he spent most of his time searching for relevant information.
But the information at that time was huge and complicated, unlike the various learning platforms later. You needed to know that resources existed first, and then search and obtain them by keywords.
The border forest, without any guide, always wanders outside the door. It can only peek into the world inside the door from time to time through the brief messages of others, but it cannot form its own system.
Later, he would pay attention to relevant information every now and then, but the holidays always passed quickly and he went back to school.
After a vacation, I was so excited that I didn't even get into the forest. I comforted myself, saying it's okay, I can learn it when I go to university.
After school started, the new environment, new friends, the knowledge that was as bright as gold but could never be hammered into my mind, the teacher's lullaby and the parents' nagging, each of these things was tearing apart the border forest of my youth.
The curiosity of the holidays seemed to leave only a wrinkle in the brocade of time.
But it was the mark of this wrinkle that led him to choose computer science as his major when filling out his college application three years later.
Having a free vacation again, Bian Senlin rekindled that spark of love. He was unwilling to just pass by without entering like he did three years ago, nor did he want to wait for the teacher to come and teach him.
He searched various resources online, clumsily learned from them, and wrote his first one: Hello world.
When we officially entered the freshman year, the military training had just ended and the professional courses had not yet begun, but the guys in the dormitory had already started to call each other brothers.
Due to professional reasons, several people in the dormitory bought their own laptops after the military training. As soon as they got them, they pampered them like girlfriends.
On the night after the first professional course, Bian Senlin took advantage of everyone's enthusiasm and wrote an automatic shutdown program disguised as a courseware and threw it into the small group in the dormitory.
My second son got his laptop just two days ago, and he hasn’t installed all the software yet. He is bored watching the games being downloaded.
I saw the courseware uploaded by Bian Senlin and clicked on it casually, but found that there was no response. Just when I was about to ask something, the laptop screen suddenly went black.
The honest second brother lifted his laptop and shook it, feeling nervous: "Holy crap, why is the screen black on my new computer? Did I buy a parallel import?"
The culprit, Bian Senlin, was pretending to organize the courseware, but in fact he was eavesdropping on the movements around him with his ears perked up.
When I heard that the second child was hit, I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
The second brother stared in amazement at Bian Senlin who suddenly fell to the side laughing, then turned back to look at the computer with a black screen.
The second brother came to his senses and grabbed a pillow and threw it at Bian Senlin, shouting angrily: "Bian Lao Si, you want to die!!"
Afterwards, Bian Senlin was chased by the angry second brother and the brothers who were almost hit.
Bian Senlin, whose funny bone was tickled, dodged and apologized countless times, repeatedly assuring that it was just a shutdown program and not a virus, and only then was he able to pass the level.
It was a harmless joke, and no one really took it seriously. Instead, after some playing around, they all found it quite amusing.
Bian Senlin became even more excited after that, but he did not indulge in pranks. He just paid more attention to writing programs.
From then on, every time he encountered a bug, he would scratch his head, and every time the program ran successfully, he would be satisfied.
Whenever Bian Senlin was extremely excited, he would have a whimsical idea: could he one day write a little intelligent being that had emotions, could talk, could chat with others, could create the world with him, and could even call himself dad?
Of course, this is just Bian Senlin's wishful thinking.
From the perspective of his good friend Yuzai, every time he returns to the dormitory from outside, he will most likely see a desperate wooden man with a messy hair howling, "Why is there an error?"
Bian Senlin also knew that his idea was too fantastical, so he only told others that his dream was to become a technical expert.
Sometimes he would feel discouraged because the goal was too far away and he didn't even know which way the "smart" door opened.
But not long after, he was able to jump up again with full energy to cheer himself up.
His thinking was simple. He knew that he was not a genius, or even smart.
But he is willing to use time to polish it. If one year doesn’t work, then ten years will do. If ten years don’t work, then twenty years will do!
He is willing to spend his whole life doing this.
For a long time afterwards, Bian Senlin was always grateful that he could find a career that he would devote his life to during his college years.
This is also the reason why he is extremely angry and sad now. In just nine years, the original intention has become unrecognizable. What about twenty years and a lifetime!
Bian Senlin stared at the fat man, his voice a little hoarse from suppressing his emotions: "Then if there is another higher-paying job that has nothing to do with this industry, would you change careers?"
"Ah~" The fat man waved his hand when he heard this: "All the accumulation of the past ten years is here. How can it be so easy to change careers?"
Bian Senlin hadn't yet put his mind at ease when he heard the fat man continue, "But, you can't say for sure."
The fat man sighed heavily and said, "According to the current market situation, I may have to change my job in a few years. I have to think carefully about what I can do when the time comes."
Bian Senlin closed his eyes, his voice filled with a kind of despairing calmness: "I thought, very early on, I decided that this would be what we would spend our lives doing."
"My brother, you have to eat! You can't starve yourself to death!" the fat man lamented exaggeratedly.
After saying that, the fat man slowly realized that Bian Senlin's mood was not right, and felt a little strange.
Not really, I didn’t say anything!
The fat man glanced at Bian Senlin and tried hard to search through Pile of Ashes' memories. After a while, he finally connected with Bian Senlin's train of thought.
This...this has been a long history of middle school blackness for so many years! !
I was ignorant and fearless back then, who would have thought that I would meet myself at this age.
Tsk... I'm in trouble. You're still a bad mouth.
The fat man was thinking about how to tell Bian Senlin. He knew himself at this moment, and his mind was probably full of steel.
The fat man smacked his lips and said, "You mean to say you want to create intelligent life, right? But, uh..."
The fat man, who had been holding it in for a long time, closed his eyes and decided to say whatever he was thinking: "Have you ever thought that it is possible that we are not that kind of material?"
Bian Senlin said nothing, just glared at him with his hands folded.
You tell me! I want to see what you can come up with!
The fat man pointed at himself and said, "Look at me, your future self."
"My level is just like that now. I'm a little better than you, but at most I've just fallen into the same trap for a few more years than you!
Knowing where the pits are, you can avoid them when walking, or if you fall into a pit, you can know which posture will help you get up faster.
Being able to use tools, or being skilled in using tools, can at most make a tool by rote, but one cannot create a new tool.
Do you understand?
Bian Senlin expressed his confusion: "How can you know if it's possible if you don't try?"
The fat man laughed out of anger: "Then why don't you go make one now?"
Bian Senlin's heart choked at these words. He wanted to refute the fat man but didn't know how to say it.
He wanted to say that his current accumulation and knowledge were not enough, but he was always moving towards this path. Just because he couldn't do it now didn't mean he couldn't do it in the future...
The fat man knew what Bian Senlin was thinking, and pointed at his nose again and said, "Come, look at me again.
What you think now is what I thought before. I have been thinking this way till now..."
The fat man spread his hands and shrugged: "What was the result? Did you see it?"
Bian Senlin was hit hard, and his chest was heaving up and down rapidly.
He is not like the fat man who has been struggling in the outside world for so many years and can't speak fluently.
He wasn't good at speaking, but he didn't agree with the fat man's opinion: "I can't do it now, but later..."
Hmm? The fat man spread his hands towards him again.
Bian Senlin took a deep breath and said, "I may not be able to do it in the future..."
But I know that a certain road may only have a one in a thousand chance of leading to the exit. If I don't take it, then even this one in a thousand chance won't come!"
Bang bang bang!
The fat man clapped his hands, but the words he spoke were like stings: "Your courage is commendable, but do you know what you need to walk that path?
Apart from anything else, have you laid a solid foundation in basic mathematics?
Young man, what was your college entrance examination score back then?
Bian Senlin felt like someone had stepped on a dog's tail. He hated the bullshit theory that judged a person's life by scores the most. However, he never expected that the person holding the bullshit would become his future self!
He was a reserved man, so he spoke with a rare touch of sarcasm: "Why? Didn't the fact that you didn't score well in the exam prevent you from making money in this industry?"
The fat man looked at Bian Senlin's gaze and waved his hand, saying, "Don't get me wrong. Seriously, if you want to delve deeper into research, mathematics is essential. If you also want to build a body for the little intelligence you've been dreaming of, physics is also essential... Oh, and maybe biology will be involved..."
Bian Senlin looked at him and said firmly, "Then learn! If you don't have a solid foundation, make up for it!"
"I've heard similar things to what you're saying a long time ago, and I thought I already had the answers.
So I don't know why you would still say such things nine years later.
But I don’t mind answering it again: If one year doesn’t work, try two or three years. If ten years doesn’t work, try twenty or thirty years!
I'm only twenty years old now, so I still have at least forty years to live. Can't I use the remaining forty years to do it?"
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