Chapter 22 Everyone present fell silent…
The reason Lu Ming didn't ask any more questions was because of Wen Chu's last words.
Many people looked at him with disapproving eyes, given his inglorious background. Their eyes held contempt and scrutiny, yet they had to feign respect for him, a hypocritical act that only fueled their disgust.
But these differences are so subtle that he can perceive them because he is involved. For an outsider who is not involved, it would take a lot of careful attention to observe this, so it doesn't seem like a lie.
As it approached six o'clock, everyone moved from the main hall to the inner hall, found their assigned tables, and sat down to prepare for the meal.
The seating arrangement was also very particular. The Wen family and the Qi family were naturally arranged together, sitting in the most spacious and central positions.
Of course, the positions could be changed, but Wen Shiyang and Qi Rui clearly had no intention of doing so.
Wen Shiyang mainly thought that Qi Siyan was quite good, and that her appearance and education were a good match for his daughter, so he wanted to let the two get to know each other.
However, her daughter was too stubborn. Even in this situation, she didn't say anything and just stared at the stairs on the second floor until Lu Ming came down from upstairs. Only then did her eyes flicker with emotion.
Wen Shiyang thought to himself, "He's hopeless."
Lu Mingxiao was greeting the guests when he saw Lu Ming and wanted to give him a sour look, but in front of everyone he still smiled and scolded him, "Why are you only coming down now? Everyone is waiting for you! You sit at this table and keep Chairman Wen and Chairman Qi company for me."
Everyone heard it, and Lu Ming couldn't refuse, so he could only nod and agree. He arrived late, and there were only two empty seats at the table: one between Chairman Wen and Chairman Qi, and the other between Wen Chu and Qi Siyan.
He didn't feel entitled to sit between the two elders, so after only a second of hesitation, he pulled out a chair and sat down between Wen Chu and Qi Siyan, forming a barrier that blocked their view, and he didn't speak to them.
Qi Siyan is his biggest competitor right now, and Lu Ming doesn't give him a friendly look, as does the other side.
Wen Chu thought yes, sitting so close would allow him to keep an eye on the other person and stop them from drinking.
The banquet started promptly at six o'clock.
On Wen Chu's side, besides the Wen family and the Qi family, there were also the CEOs of several smaller technology companies. From the very beginning, they were enthusiastically toasting Wen Shiyang and Qi Rui at the table, and then intentionally or unintentionally introducing their company's business and products.
Wen Chu listened silently, eating and drinking. She hated drinking culture the most, and now that she didn't need anyone's help, there was no need for such formalities; she could just remain invisible.
The CEO, who was quite a distance away, was still talking animatedly: "We're currently riding the wave of artificial intelligence. Our company's upcoming new model has increased the parameters by dozens of times compared to the original, which will better support the interaction requirements of large enterprises... His..."
Wen Chu rested her chin on her hand, listening absentmindedly as he sang eloquently about a model framework that would be obsolete in less than a year. She found it quite educational. If she had his eloquence, she wouldn't be constantly being told to be honest by that big devil.
People tend to feel awkward when they're idle, so she would occasionally stuff something into her mouth to make it seem like she had something to do.
She tried her best to eat slowly, gracefully, and elegantly, but the food still went into her mouth much faster than everyone else. After all, no one else was there to eat; she was probably the only one who thought the food on the table tasted good, and eating it was a bonus.
"I never ate a meal in my past life." Lu Ming lowered his head, picked up a piece of shrimp with his chopsticks, put it in his mouth, and said in a voice only the two of them could hear.
Wen Chu paused, then mumbled a reply, "It's your family's food, I'm being generous by eating a few more bites, okay?"
“I don’t need it.” Lu Ming said, instinctively reaching for the wine glass on the table.
Wen Chu quickly moved him aside, glancing at him sideways: What did you just say?
Lu Ming was speechless and lowered his raised hand.
Seemingly worried that others would notice their actions, they stopped talking.
The atmosphere was buzzing with excitement thanks to the CEO's splendid vision of the future and his eloquent speaking skills; everyone was discussing the upcoming trends. Wen Chu thought to herself, "A table full of workaholics, even a meal can't be peaceful."
It wasn't until her father suddenly called on her, giving her a sidelong glance and telling her to listen more, that Wen Chu straightened her back, like a poor student who had been called on in class.
The CEO smiled and said, "Your daughter is still young, and I'm afraid she doesn't know much about these things yet. It's okay if she doesn't understand. Take your time, don't push her too hard, Chairman Wen!"
"You'll never understand if you don't learn. She told me the other day that she was going to get involved in core algorithm development, which gave me quite a shock!"
"Hahaha, it's a good thing to have this ambition!" Everyone joked, clearly not taking it seriously, just having a laugh.
His words revealed his distrust of her. Wen Chu initially intended to just laugh it off, but then this President Chen brought up Lu Ming and Qi Siyan, clearly treating them as knowledgeable people. Although they were both juniors, he was much more respectful to them, and his words were full of eagerness for cooperation.
Even his father relented, saying that they could consider it further. He was clearly swayed by President Chen's persuasive words. But only Wen Chu knew that the technology he was talking about had a lot of drawbacks and would soon be replaced by a new technology that would suddenly appear. It would be good enough if they could break even and make a small profit in the meantime.
She hesitated for a moment, but couldn't resist, so she said, "I'm quite interested in this too. I wonder if I could ask Mr. Chen a few questions?"
As soon as she spoke, all eyes at the table turned to her, seemingly surprised that she would have a say in such a conversation.
Mr. Chen stopped and waved his hand: "I'd be happy to. Go ahead and say it!"
"How much computing power do you think this technology requires to be put into use?" Wen Chu put down her chopsticks, slowly and deliberately wiped her mouth with a wet tissue, and asked in a gentle voice.
Mr. Chen smiled and said confidently, "You've hit the nail on the head. My new product saves five times the computing power cost compared to the most advanced products on the market."
Wen Chu already knew this, so she nodded and said politely, "That's quite impressive."
Mr. Chen became even more smug: "Miss Wen, you flatter me. If I didn't have something to offer, I wouldn't dare to speak here, would I?"
But Wen Chu changed the subject and asked, "But I don't know if you've read a paper that was published a month ago, which proposed a prototype algorithm called RX?"
"Ah..." The man thought for a while before saying uncertainly, "I seem to have heard about this. But I haven't paid much attention to it. After all, there are so many papers being plagiarized these days, and everyone is rushing to publish, saying that their innovative algorithms are easy to use, but in reality, they have a lot of drawbacks. Nobody knows if those can really be implemented. I think we should focus on the practical things in front of us."
Many people in the audience nodded in agreement.
Wen Shiyang didn't think his daughter was showing off her limited knowledge. Instead, he was surprised that she had started reading cutting-edge papers. She was just a fresh graduate who spent all her time eating and studying. Did she even know how to write the word "paper"? He cast a curious and appreciative glance at her, trying to encourage her not to be afraid and to say more.
Mrs. Wen was even happier, and her thoughts were almost the same as Wen Shiyang's.
Not many people were optimistic about that paper at first, but there are many talented people in the world, and there are always people willing to study it. They optimized it again and again, and eventually it achieved great success.
Two years after the current timeline, RX technology emerged and continued to iterate, driving massive changes in the industry and causing a shockwave in the field of artificial intelligence. A lot of research by small and medium-sized companies was cut short, while the remaining projects were propelled into transformation.
Lu Ming glanced at Wen Chu thoughtfully, as if he had something to say, but his lips moved and he ultimately did not say it in public.
Qi Siyan's eyes lit up upon hearing this. She bypassed Lu Ming and peeked at Wen Chu: "You actually know about RX? That's something my teacher's team researched. Although the results look pretty good, there are still many limitations in its implementation. What are your thoughts on it?"
"You...your teacher?" Wen Chu was taken aback. After ten years of research, this was the first time Wen Chu had realized how close the genius was to her. Was he really the one in the real world? Or was it a fictional character? But either way, it was incredibly exciting.
Seeing that there was someone on the field who understood her, Wen Chu couldn't help but peek out and chat with the person, bypassing Lu Ming. She genuinely loved this field; whether it was the seemingly abstract algorithms and diagrams or the code that was as difficult to understand as celestial scripture, it was all very interesting to her.
Wen Chu ignored everyone else and chatted with Qi Siyan for a while. Of course, she didn't forget to keep an eye on Lu Ming out of the corner of her eye. Whenever she saw that he was thinking of drinking, she would kick him as a reminder.
Unexpectedly, Qi Siyan knew a lot and introduced a lot about his teacher's research ideas. In her excitement, Wen Chu almost told Qi Siyan about the development path of the algorithm, wanting someone to tell this great teacher how much he had contributed to their field and let him sit back and collect money! But she suddenly stopped when she mentioned a flawed solution.
Wait, this guy seems to be Lu Ming's rival?
She immediately pursed her lips, swallowing back what she was about to say without making a sound, and secretly glanced at Lu Ming.
Lu Ming seemed to catch her gaze, and turned his head expressionlessly, asking, "Did I interrupt Miss Wen's conversation?"
It's so cold.
Wen Chu coughed lightly, "I just felt it was a bit impolite to have you in the middle of this conversation..."
“I don’t mind, I can switch seats with you.” Lu Ming said, and was about to stand up.
"No, no, no, there's no need for that." Wen Chu quickly pressed down on his thigh under the table to stop him, then peeked out and said to Qi Siyan, "Let's... talk about it after dinner."
Qi Siyan smiled and said, "Okay, don't forget to give me your contact information."
Wen Chu gave an OK sign.
Lu Ming slapped her groping hand away in disgust, picked up his wine glass, and drank the liquor in it in one gulp.
!!
Crazy?
Wen Chu's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Enraged, she kicked someone under the table and whispered, "What are you doing! What did you promise me?!"
"Don't touch me," Lu Ming said coldly, his face stern.
...
What is that?
Why did it suddenly go crazy? It's so fierce!!
Wen Shiyang took in the two men's attitudes toward his youngest daughter and felt an immense headache coming on.
Seeing that everyone had already drunk the drinks, Wen Chu knew there was no point in saying anything more. She could only anxiously wait for the system to give her a warning. She then returned to the previous topic and said to everyone, "What I was trying to say was that I believe the RX algorithm has great potential for development. If we can break through the bottlenecks, the development costs could be reduced by at least 50 times."
"50 times??" The CEO of another company couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, and laughed in disbelief: "Ms. Wen is probably too young. She doesn't know what a 50-fold reduction in costs means. Mr. Chen's 5 times is already frightening enough. If that were really the case, I don't know how many companies here would go bankrupt."
Mr. Chen, reeking of alcohol, naturally didn't believe her words, but he smoothed things over by saying, "Haha, it's alright, it's alright. I'm quite surprised that Miss Wen understands these cutting-edge fields. Like father, like son! Chairman Wen has indeed raised her son well!"
"Oh, I've made a fool of myself," Wen Shiyang said, but the expression on his face clearly showed that he was in a good mood.
What a smooth flattery! He hit the nail on the head when it came to his father.
Wen Chu didn't take it seriously and continued, "Not only that, what I just mentioned was only the cost incurred during the model development and training phase. In terms of computational efficiency, I think there will also be a 5-10 times improvement. Therefore, in the subsequent inference output process, the cost may also decrease by 10-20 times. And right now, the most important thing is the output price. No matter how good the performance is, it is destined to not go far if it is paired with expensive usage costs. This will be the greatest development potential of RX."
Her words silenced everyone present.
Even her father fell into deep thought, and after a while, he couldn't help but ask her, "Where did you hear that from?"
But Wen Chu stopped there. She had already reminded this Mr. Chen not to invest too much in the existing technology, and even listed the specific data for him to see, whether he believed it or not was up to him. So she turned around and smiled awkwardly, saying to her father, "Nobody told me this. These are just my own opinions, which may not be very mature. I apologize for making a fool of myself. If you don't believe me, just take it as a joke."
Everyone present was shrewd and initially didn't take it seriously. However, faced with Wen Chu's detailed and specific figures and his composed and assertive tone, as if stating a fact, they developed considerable apprehension and other thoughts, resulting in subtle changes in their expressions.
Lu Ming glanced at her again, seemingly having some thoughts on what she had said.
Receiving the man's gaze, Wen Chu winked at him playfully, as if asking: Do you believe me?
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Author's note: A bit busy, it's getting late [poor face]
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