Waiting for the final harvest

A month later, as the winter break approached, Lin Yuan’s first semester was also nearing its end.

He had a very fulfilling semester.

Aside from not attending classes diligently, he made significant progress in both his work and personal life, successfully turning a new page in his life.

Now, he had to face his final exams.

But precisely at this time, Group Vice President Liu Zhang conveyed to him the notice that the food delivery algorithm work would resume its advancement.

Lin Yuan knew it was time for Good Group to reel in its net.

For a time, Lin Yuan was swamped, juggling work, stock trading, and exams.

Among these, work and stock trading were relatively easier, while the exams were what truly gave him a headache.

Because the exam content was incredibly comprehensive.

Theoretical courses delved into operating systems and database principles, while practical sessions even graded code programming standards.

Lin Yuan knew that at Good Group, he never cared about programming standards.

It wasn’t that Good Group didn’t have internal programming standards, but rather that Lin Yuan was only responsible for providing algorithms; his algorithm code just needed to be delivered.

No one dared to bring up programming standards with Lin Yuan.

It was like no one would quibble over the indentation of the first line or the correctness of punctuation in Einstein’s papers.

However, due to the school’s final exams, Lin Yuan had no choice but to buckle down and study programming standards.

Operating systems and databases, in particular, filled him with loathing.

He was clearly planning to use the system to play with algorithms, so why bother learning these two things?

Should a writer learn how to make pens?

The most frustrating part was that he also had to take English, which had plagued him all the way from elementary school until now.

Actually, to write code, mastering 200 words is enough to get started.

If you’re a bit less ambitious, memorizing 50 common words will suffice.

After all, if all else fails, you can always use Pinyin.

And after writing a lot of code, it’s always the same few words; seeing them every day makes you sick, so it’s hard not to remember them.

But the funniest part was his major courses.

Lin Yuan had originally chosen the AI direction, and in the first semester of his first year of graduate school, a machine learning course was offered.

AI falls under the scope of machine learning, so this was originally Lin Yuan’s home turf.

However, the machine learning course covered too much, with modern AI’s commonly used neural networks being only one part of it.

The course started from linear regression.

Therefore, Lin Yuan had to catch up even on his major courses.

Amidst this chaos, online video conferences with Good Group became his most relaxing moments.

Because when he was reviewing for exams, he felt like he was a poor student.

This wasn’t just his own feeling; he read it in the eyes of others.

Ever since Lin Yuan established his persona as someone with connections, he openly approached classmates to ask questions.

His classmates all knew that Lin Yuan held a high position at Good Group and was backed by Professor Zhang and Dean Li, so they always treated Lin Yuan with three parts respect.

However, Lin Yuan could still read a hint of a different emotion in their eyes—an emotion called jealousy.

It was the kind of jealousy reserved for poor students: 'Why do you, a poor student, have such a good future, when you’re still asking such basic questions?'

Lin Yuan was quite at ease with this.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know; he just didn’t want to learn.

What was the point of cramming so many books? Wasn’t it just to make money?

Now that he had a way to make money, why cling to those books?

If it weren’t to keep himself grounded, he would have even considered dropping out.

Furthermore, Lin Yuan was very different from Gu Xuan.

Gu Xuan enjoyed the thrill of being an academic overachiever; he enjoyed being looked at with admiration after answering others’ questions.

But Lin Yuan was not like that.

Instead of spending time answering others’ questions, wouldn’t it be better to go make some money?

Moreover, if Lin Yuan hadn’t deliberately acted like a poor student to avoid trouble, Gu Xuan wouldn’t have had any chance at all.

He only needed to casually obtain a few less important technical documents from Good Group, which would be enough to instantly surpass the course designs at school.

There’s not much to say about this.

One is validated in production practice, and the other is conjured up in isolation.

You tell me.

Which materials would this group of graduate students, who are worried about not finding good jobs in the future, be more interested in?

Can you write a technical solution capable of handling high-concurrency requests during peak food delivery hours behind closed doors?

Therefore, Lin Yuan was too lazy to pay attention to the impotent jealousy of others.

Especially that jerk Gu Xuan; every time he answered Lin Yuan’s questions, he always acted like a senior.

Lin Yuan found it amusing, like an adult watching a child show off.

One should know that during internal meetings at Good Group, engineers who graduated from Tsinghua and Peking Universities would respectfully address Lin Yuan as “You.”

The reason is simple: they couldn’t replicate Lin Yuan’s food delivery algorithm.

Before a prodigy, mortals are ultimately powerless.

—

That day, after dinner, Lin Yuan returned to his dormitory.

Originally, he had planned to go to evening self-study, but Good Group suddenly notified him of a meeting.

When Lin Yuan opened the meeting software and logged in, the conference room on screen was already full of people, waiting only for him.

“Lin Yuan is here,” said Group Vice President Liu Zhang, who was chairing the meeting.

“I’m really sorry, but the headquarters made some adjustments again, so we can only work overnight to revise the testing plan.

The project timeline is too tight, and we’re worried about flaws in the testing plan.

So, we’ll have to trouble you to listen in and help us review it.”

“Mr. Liu, you’re too kind.”

Liu Zhang, the Group Vice President of Technology at Good Group, showed Lin Yuan an exaggerated politeness far beyond his usual demeanor.

This was clearly not out of genuine respect for Lin Yuan, but rather because headquarters was pressing too hard.

In fact, Liu Zhang himself was wondering why the food delivery algorithm testing work had been inexplicably put back on the agenda, and headquarters even required three reports a day—one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.

But Lin Yuan knew clearly: Good Group was about to reel in its net!

Stocks, while complex when deeply investigated, had a commonality Lin Yuan discovered after this period of understanding, especially after seeing the computing power system’s statistics on various trading traces in stock history.

That is, when planting the seeds, the groundwork is laid subtly and far in advance.

But when it’s time for harvest, it’s a sudden, lightning-fast reversal.

Given the current situation, Good Group has most likely completed its position building.

They are just waiting for good news to drop, to pull up sharply and count their money with an empty position.

Therefore, Good Group had to make ample preparations.

They couldn’t afford any missteps in any link that might drag down the excellent food delivery algorithm, allowing a competitor to pull a trick and prevent an explosive reversal in public reputation.

Because once that happened, it would result in a situation where the trump card was played but had no effect—the stock price didn’t go up, and their own intentions were exposed instead.

Then, various capital forces, sensing the opportunity, would swarm in, and various disruptive operations affecting the stock price would begin simultaneously.

The stock market is very strange; phenomena where value and price are inverted often occur.

Stock price ultimately reflects people’s consensus, not the stock’s true value.

But consensus, you see, is most easily influenced by public opinion.

Therefore, Good Group naturally feared that the value of the food delivery algorithm would be discovered, but the public wouldn’t establish a matching consensus for that value.

This would make something originally worth ten yuan be perceived by the public as only worth five yuan in the market.

Although with the passage of time, a ten-yuan item will eventually return to its rightful value, in this process of change, Good Group’s cake would be divided up by various capital forces that smelled the opportunity.

Simply put: Good Group had already set up the trap and wanted to catch everything in one net, not letting a single fish escape.

And the key to this was to create an explosive reversal of public reputation in the Public opinion field (public opinion sphere).

Therefore, the new round of testing for the food delivery algorithm could not have the slightest error.

Lin Yuan looked at the programmers in the camera, many of whom had been transferred from all over the country by Good Group, intently discussing the plan; they wouldn’t know the trickery behind it.

At this moment, inside Good Group’s headquarters, representatives of various capital forces were probably like ants on a hot pan, meticulously discussing their strategies in the stock market.

They surely thought Lin Yuan didn’t know, but Lin Yuan actually knew everything.

Lin Yuan had also completed his position building—no, more accurately, Lin Yuan had completed his parasitism.

He was like a parasite clinging to the backs of these capitalists, ready to suck blood along with their harvest.

After a month of frequent short-term operations, Lin Yuan’s more than two million yuan had now turned into six million.

After all, the short-term sniping model provided by the system was no joke.

Lin Yuan was already waiting for that final moment of harvest.