cooperate
In September, in the laboratory on the third floor of the computer building, the air conditioning was on full blast, but Luo Yan still felt a sticky sensation on the back of her neck. She stared at the code jumping on the screen, her fingertips typing rapidly on the keyboard. Lines of green characters spread out like flowing water, finally settling on the prompt box that read "Model training complete, accuracy 89.7%".
"Done." She let out a long sigh of relief, leaned back in her chair, and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She was now alone in the lab; the shadows of the camphor trees outside the window swayed gently in the breeze on the floor.
My phone vibrated on the table. It was a message from Zhang Qi: "The Sports Academy is urging us. They said the meeting for 'tennis motion data annotation' will start at 3 p.m., and they need the technical team to send someone over."
Luo Yan frowned. This project was a sub-project of the school's "Intelligent Sports Project," and the Computer Science Department was responsible for developing the "Intelligent Error Correction System for Basic Tennis Movements," which required the School of Physical Education to provide standardized movement data. As a core developer, she couldn't avoid it anyway, but the thought of dealing with people from the School of Physical Education made her heart tighten inexplicably.
It's been over a year.
She almost never set foot on the campus of the sports academy again. Occasionally, when she caught a glimpse of that gray apartment building in the distance on campus, she would subconsciously avoid it—it held too many fragments of Qi Sheng, like thorns stuck in her flesh, causing a dull ache even without touching them.
At 2:50, Luo Yan walked into the conference room of the Sports Academy with her laptop. Several people were already seated inside, most of them unfamiliar faces, but the only boy in the dark gray shirt at the head of the table made her stop in her tracks.
It is a prayer for prosperity.
He was thinner than last year, and his hair was shorter. He wore a black sports watch on his left wrist, the edge of the dial slightly worn. He was looking down at a document, his profile more defined than I remembered, his jawline taut, as if tied in an unresolved knot.
He looked up when he heard footsteps.
The moment their eyes met, the air seemed to freeze. Luo Yan saw his pupils contract slightly, then quickly regain their composure, like a stone thrown into a lake, creating only a ripple before returning to silence. His gaze lingered on her face for less than half a second before shifting to the computer in her arms, his tone devoid of emotion: "The tech team?"
"Hmm." Luo Yan looked away and sat down in the seat furthest away from him, placing her laptop on the table. In the reflection of the screen, she could see him lower his head again, his fingers sliding across the documents, the calluses on his fingertips more noticeable than last year—the result of years of holding a tennis racket, but now, those hands no longer touched tennis balls.
After the meeting began, a teacher from the School of Physical Education introduced the project background. When mentioning the need to provide standardized movement videos and parameter annotations, he pointed to Qi Sheng: "Qi Sheng is in charge of this part. He is a senior graduate student in our school and a top contender in the provincial competition back then. He has the most accurate grasp of the standardization of movements."
When the words "provincial competition" were mentioned, Luo Yan noticed that Qi Sheng's fingers, which were gripping the pen, tightened suddenly, and his knuckles turned white. He didn't speak, but just gave a soft "hmm," his voice so low it was almost inaudible.
Luo Yan's heart tightened.
She recalled that last year in the bookstore, when Su Yu shoved a tennis racket into his arms, Qi Sheng reacted in the same way—as if he had been burned by something, but he stubbornly endured it, refusing to show any weakness.
"...So the technical team needs to first clarify which basic movements the system needs to recognize? Forehand shot, backhand shot, serve?" The teacher from the sports academy looked at Luo Yan, interrupting her thoughts.
Luo Yan snapped out of her reverie and opened a document on her computer: "The initial plan is these three. We need high-definition side and front views, with a frame rate of at least 60 frames per second, and the motion must cover samples of different heights and weights..."
As she spoke, she could feel a gaze upon her. It wasn't scrutiny or probing, but more like an unconscious following, as if confirming something. Without looking up, she continued, "Also, we need to mark the key parameters for each movement, such as the knee bend angle, the range of rotation, and the height of the striking point..."
"Does the height of the hitting point need to be differentiated by age group?" Qi Sheng suddenly asked, his voice clearer than before.
Luo Yan finally looked up at him. His gaze lingered on her face for a moment before shifting to the screen: "The physiological structures of teenagers and adults are different, so the standards should be different."
“We will develop a dual model,” Luo Yan said, “but we need you to provide age-specific data.”
“Okay.” He nodded, pulled a stack of papers from the file bag, and pushed them to the center of the table. “This is a list of common mistakes I’ve made. You should add a warning module to your algorithm. For example, gripping the racket too tightly or raising the elbow too high are the easiest ways for beginners to get injured.”
Luo Yan picked up the list. The handwriting on the paper was neat and powerful, and it was Qi Sheng's handwriting. Under the item "grip too tight", he marked a line of small red words: "Common in people with psychological tension. It can be monitored in real time through a 'grip force sensor'. The threshold is recommended to be set to 3.5 kgf."
She paused, stunned. This parameter was the optimal value she had repeatedly tested when developing the mini-program for the charity competition last year. She had only mentioned it to Zhang Qi at the time; how could Qi Sheng know?
She looked up to ask, but saw that Qi Sheng had already lowered his head and continued to look through the documents, his face turned to the side as if he was hiding something.
After the meeting, everyone left one after another. As Luo Yan packed up her computer, she noticed that Qi Sheng hadn't left either, and was typing on his phone with his head down. The air conditioning from the lab blew in from the doorway, ruffling the stray hairs on her forehead. She smelled a faint scent on him—not the cedar scent of last winter, but a refreshing minty fragrance, like the smell of a clean tracksuit after it had been sun-dried.
“Um…” Luo Yan hesitated for a moment before speaking, “How did you know the parameters on the list?”
Qi Sheng paused in his typing, without turning around: "I've seen the code for the mini-program used in last year's charity competition."
He added, "My supervisor asked me to assess the technical feasibility, not on purpose."
"Okay." Luo Yan picked up her laptop. "I'll head back now. Contact me via email if you have any questions."
"Wait a minute." He suddenly stood up, holding a black USB drive in his hand. "These contain the anatomical parameters for basic movements. They're newer than those in the textbook, and might be helpful for your modeling."
Luo Yan took the USB drive, her fingertips touching the back of his hand. His hand was cold, as if it had just been washed with cold water, and when it touched her warm skin, they both recoiled as if electrocuted.
"Thank you." Luo Yan stuffed the USB drive into her bag, turned and walked away quickly. Only after she had walked out of the sports academy building did she dare to look back. Qi Sheng was still standing at the door of the conference room, his back to her, looking at the distant playground, holding the list in his hand, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the words "grip too tight".
Back in the lab, Luo Yan plugged the USB drive into the computer. Sure enough, there was a folder inside called "Motion Parameter Library". After opening it, in addition to the standard data, there was a hidden subfolder named "Error Cases".
She hesitated for a moment, then double-clicked to open.
There were a dozen or so files inside, but no video, only audio. Clicking on the first one brought up a familiar voice—it was Qi Sheng's, with a touch of youthful naiveté: "Pay attention to your body rotation! How can you have explosive power if your knees aren't bent?"
It's a recording of him training the school team back then.
Luo Yan's heart was pounding, and her fingertips trembled as she clicked on the second one. This time it was his voice from when he was working on a project recently, deeper and a little tired: "When hitting a backhand shot, the angle of your elbow joint cannot be less than 90 degrees, or you will strain your arm... twist your arm like a pretzel."
The last sentence was spoken very softly. Luo Yan's eyes reddened—during her freshman year sports meet, she went to retrieve a baton that had fallen onto the tennis court for a classmate, and was hit on the arm by a flying tennis ball. It was Qi Sheng who ran over to help her up, frowning and saying, "Your arm is almost twisted into a pretzel, why are you being so stubborn?"
So he remembered everything.
The sunlight outside the window gradually slanted, falling on the keyboard and reflecting tiny dust particles that danced in the beams of light. Luo Yan stared at the audio waveform on the screen, recalling last winter when he told her in the snow, "Keep moving forward, don't stop." But now it seemed he hadn't gone very far himself. Those past events he had deliberately sealed away were actually hidden in this data and recordings, like compressed files, just waiting for the right opportunity to decompress and reveal a complete picture.
My phone vibrated; it was an email from Qi Sheng with the subject "Supplementary Parameter Explanation." The body was short, only two lines: "The rotation range threshold for the youth group can be relaxed by 5 degrees, as they have good flexibility. Also, in your model, the 'hit timing judgment' module uses the 'frame difference method'? Perhaps trying the 'optical flow method' would be more accurate."
Luo Yan looked at the three words "Optical Flow Method" and suddenly laughed.
This was a new algorithm she saw in a paper last week, but hadn't had a chance to apply it to the model yet. How did he know?
She opened the reply box and typed: "Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try. Also, the audio file was very useful, thank you."
When the notification popped up that the email had been successfully sent, she could almost see Qi Sheng sitting in the conference room, stunned when he saw the email.
The autumn wind blew through the lab window, bringing with it the distant noise of the playground. Luo Yan stared at the "Error Cases" folder on the screen and suddenly realized that reconciliation might not require grand apologies or confessions. Perhaps piecing together their hidden feelings slowly, line by line of code, parameter by parameter, was more fitting—two people neither good at expressing themselves, only able to tentatively approach each other in the most familiar way.
She opened the model file and typed in the code for the "optical flow method." The moment the compilation succeeded, the setting sun outside the window shone on the screen, turning the green characters into a warm orange, as if adding a layer of human warmth to the cold data.
In the conference room of the School of Physical Education, Qi Sheng stared at the email with the sentence "The audio file is very useful," his finger hovering over the screen for a long time before finally replying with just one word: "Hmm."
Some distances cannot be bridged by time. Just like these unspoken thoughts hidden in the data, they may seem cold, but they have already quietly taken root without either party knowing.
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