call

Lin Yuan wasn't sure how the DS Company would react, but he imagined they would be excited.

After all, who would just give away an explosive idea for free, and even provide code examples?

And indeed, Lin Yuan soon saw a reply from the DS Company in his GitHub inbox.

In the message, they expressed extreme gratitude to Lin Yuan and earnestly requested his contact information, hoping to meet offline.

Lin Yuan was uninterested in the request for a face-to-face meeting; he had no intention of having any further contact with the DS Company.

He merely replied with a blessing: "No one helps me achieve my lofty aspirations; I will tread through snow to the mountain peak myself."

It sounded a bit chuunibyou, but Lin Yuan felt that the path of technology required relentless dedication; only persistent madmen had the possibility of achieving breakthroughs. Cautious "normal people" wouldn't go far on this path.

Because there were too many temptations on this path; a trendy tech idea, with a bit of packaging, could be monetized by throwing it into the financial market.

Lin Yuan recalled the former OpenAI. When it was founded in 2015, many people must have had high hopes for it, otherwise why would it be named "open"?

Open, symbolizing openness. Hadn't all of humanity's tireless efforts for thousands of years culminated in this?

Weren't courage and blood meant to smash open the doors closed by backwardness and evil?

Finally, in his reply to DS, Lin Yuan emphasized only one point: "Please swear to Turing that you will not disclose our exchange to anyone. Please delete all records of our communication, and act as if I never existed."

Just like that, Lin Yuan waved his sleeve as if he had done nothing at all.

In the following days, Lin Yuan continued his monotonous and boring secluded life. He spent most of his time in the so-called "safe house." Only occasionally would he and Zhang Yan take walks on deserted streets in the early hours of the morning.

"Xiao Zhang, do you think someone might suddenly rush out from an angle and hit me with a combo of knife techniques to finish me off?" Lin Yuan asked blankly, staring at the dim streetlights on the empty street.

Zhang Yan looked around, "All around us are our people. Everyone who approaches you will be followed by our people until they are more than ten meters away from you. You can rest assured."

"Then when will this kind of life end? Is this how a top leader lives daily, unable to appear casually in any crowded place? It sounds boring. I only now appreciate the beauty of ordinary life."

"There is a way to save you, though."

"What way?"

"Take up public office. As long as you hold a position, you'll be safe. Because there are unwritten rules between great nations; whatever happens behind the scenes is fine, but it can't be brought into the open. And your current danger is precisely because you are still behind the scenes."

Lin Yuan understood, "But I don't want to be an official."

"Go away~~, what you just said will make a lot of people want to beat you up."

But Lin Yuan was truly speaking from the heart, "Is there no other way?"

"If you don't want to be an official, then establish a large enterprise. That can also provide a layer of protection. They generally won't directly kill you if you have a large enterprise behind you, because once you do, their attention will shift to your assets."

"What? Are you telling me to put my personal assets out in the open?"

"Exactly. That way, they can hope to get fines or compensation from you through international business means. In short, they'll find a way to get money from you."

"I understand. As long as I can show them hope of claiming compensation from me, they won't want to kill me."

"Of course. People at that level are after money, not lives, unless you push them too hard, like you are now."

"Then I'd rather hide in the deep mountains and old forests. Starting a company? Just thinking about it is exhausting."

"There's another way."

"Damn it, how many methods are you still hiding? Tell me quickly."

"You can take on a consulting role in some semi-official industry committees, something similar to an honorary title. Then find a way to mediate through some intermediaries. This is something I thought of myself. I told my dad about your situation.

My dad said that if you don't want to be an official or engage in business, then take a middle-ground approach.

Find a semi-official background place to lie low, and then find a way to compensate for some of the other party's losses through intermediaries.

As long as the other party feels that losing your code outweighs the compensation you pay them, they will know when to stop.

My dad also said that people at the international table are the most practical and will definitely understand loss aversion."

Lin Yuan understood, "Your dad isn't in IT, but he seems to understand the concept of weighting very well. I get it. Finding intermediaries isn't hard, but where are these semi-official organizations?"

"Don't worry about that. With your current reputation, entering a semiconductor or internet industry association would be effortless. Leave it to me."

With Zhang Yan's idea, Lin Yuan immediately acted. He instantly called Musk.

Lin Yuan clearly stated that he would help Musk in the future, but for now, he needed Musk to help him first. He wanted Musk to be the intermediary and mediate the fallout from the previous Tesla takeout open-sourcing incident.

Since the open-sourcing incident itself was instigated by Musk, and Lin Yuan expressed his willingness to pay to settle the matter, Musk naturally had no reason not to agree.

In the end, Musk still invited Lin Yuan to join his Efficiency Department.

The Efficiency Department was simply on a rampage now. Lin Yuan said he was scared, Musk said his security was excellent, and Lin Yuan again said he was truly scared.

So, the matter was left unresolved.

Musk seemed to have overlooked Lin Yuan's statement about "helping him in the future"; he thought it was something Lin Yuan made up to beg for mercy.

Now, Musk and his Six Gentlemen of the Efficiency Department were truly unstoppable, killing gods and Buddhas alike. Lin Yuan curiously asked him, "What is the true purpose of doing this?"

While Lin Yuan admired what the other party was doing, if one were to say Musk was entirely for the future of all humanity, haha~~, Lin Yuan would rather believe the Earth was going to wander tomorrow.

However, this did not affect Lin Yuan's admiration for Musk.

How did that saying go? True love for life is to still love it after knowing its truth. True appreciation for an individual is also like this; it is to still admire certain behaviors of a person after understanding the complexity of the human species.

Musk's final answer was, "There's a personal goal, and also some idealistic elements mixed in. But first and foremost, it's a super crazy thing, isn't it? People can always see reflections of things happening around them in what we do, even if I'm just a trailer director.

Then, in the future, when grand dramas are constantly being staged on the human stage, people will always remember me.

Look, that guy already previewed it.

Hey, that guy named Elon already revealed it like this.

Lin, isn't that a cool thing?"

"Heh heh, alright. After I've enjoyed all the prosperity of human life, and arranged things for my family in my fifties, I really do want to try it. But definitely not now, because I'm still young."

"Copy!"

The call ended there.

Lin Yuan savored Musk's reply, and the more he chewed on it, the stronger the taste became.

Perhaps Musk was truly, as he said himself, putting on a preview for the carbon-based life forms on Earth.

After all, the same carbon-based life forms cannot produce two different things. Perhaps many differences are merely different stages of development.

Humanity must always find a way to overcome the genetic defects inherent in carbon-based life DNA.

"Who knows?" Lin Yuan was too lazy to think any further.