The beginning is always difficult

Good Group's test in River West quickly commenced, even before Lin Yuan had submitted a detailed technical report.

Because for commercial companies, profit is always the driving force behind all actions. Technology always serves business.

Lin Yuan found an excuse—he was busy coordinating Good Group's testing deployment in River West and didn't have time to organize technical documents.

He naturally managed to deal with the immediate trouble using this plausible reason, as testing work is indeed very trivial and busy.

The Group Vice President sent by Good Group from Shanghai personally oversaw operations in Zijin City, and Lin Yuan was, in fact, no longer under the jurisdiction of the Zijin Branch's technical department. His employment was registered with the research branch in Shanghai.

Although Good Group's headquarters and internal research institute were in the capital, they also established a research branch in Shanghai. This was because Shanghai is, after all, the core of Dragon Country's economic engine, and almost all internet companies have important institutions there. Good Group was no exception.

After Lin Yuan's position was registered with the Shanghai branch, although his job level was not high and was much lower than the head of the technical department at the Zijin Branch, in Good Group's internal administrative division, Lin Yuan was not subject to the jurisdiction of the Zijin Branch.

Therefore, in fact, Lin Yuan was already detached.

Lin Yuan had originally worried whether his colleagues would be unaccustomed, but in reality, his colleagues adapted quickly. The head of the technical department naturally treated Lin Yuan as an equal in daily interactions. Occasionally, he would even humbly consult Lin Yuan on the specific technical details of this food delivery algorithm iteration.

Lin Yuan wasn't deliberately hiding information from him, but what was troubling Lin Yuan now was not knowing how to explain the fact that he relied on the system's cheat. Naturally, he couldn't tell the other party.

Lin Yuan had originally worried that the other party might resent him for this, but to his surprise, the more he perfunctorily dealt with the other party, the more solicitous the other party became.

In the end, for some unknown reason, this matter reached the ears of Group Vice President Liu Zhang. As a result, the head of the technical department in Purple Gold received an internal company reprimand.

Lin Yuan was completely bewildered when he received the email about the other party being reprimanded.

The email mentioned that the head of the Zijin Branch's technical department violated company internal regulations by unauthorizedly inquiring about work content outside his personal duties and authority. His original responsibility was to assist with the algorithm's iterative testing; he did not have the authority to inquire about the algorithm's implementation details. His private inquiry violated the company's internal confidentiality regulations.

It was then that Lin Yuan truly realized: the non-disclosure agreement signed upon joining was not a joke. Companies are not like schools; they don't joke around. Breaking rules results in real penalties. The head of the technical department in Purple Gold, who was originally beyond reach, was transferred to some unknown location just for inquiring about the algorithm.

What made Lin Yuan even more afraid was that he himself had not reported this matter to the Group Vice President, and the head of the technical department would obviously not casually publicize his misdeeds. So how did the Group Vice President know?

Besides someone informing, was there any other answer?

This was Lin Yuan's first time experiencing the cruelty within a large enterprise.

What made Lin Yuan even more afraid was that the head of the technical department was quite senior and could not possibly be unaware of the company's internal confidentiality regulations, so why would he repeatedly risk asking Lin Yuan about the algorithm?

Was it to improve his personal technical skills?

But Lin Yuan recalled that he had never seen the head of the technical department personally write code; he clearly wasn't someone dedicated to frontline technology. The answer was obvious—commercial competition?

Lin Yuan only felt an immense sense of confusion.

Compared to the intricate complexity of the current world, this system with unclear rules was clearly not even as developed as a primary school student.

It was at this moment that he fully grasped his mentor's words—to reveal some, and hide some.

Finally, Lin Yuan was too lazy to deliberately maintain colleague relationships, because who knew which pair of eyes was secretly watching him from a corner. He quickly deleted all the core code from the laptop the company issued to him, purely using it as a test machine. He preferred to continue coding on his old T440.

These small interludes did not affect Lin Yuan; he quickly fully immersed himself in the testing work in HX District.

Good Group naturally granted Lin Yuan full access to delivery riders information, so Lin Yuan no longer needed to collect information by installing small software on delivery riderss' phones.

The real obstacle was the collection of merchant information.

When training the initial draft of the algorithm, the data Lin Yuan used was from the area under Liu Huzi's jurisdiction, which was only about one-tenth of the entire HX District.

And to collect data from this one-tenth of the HX District, Lin Yuan personally rode his electric scooter to each store, one by one, to calibrate the camera of each merchant for the system, thereby obtaining merchant data.

Doing this for a small area was fine, but for the entire HX District, this would be deadly. Lin Yuan couldn't possibly visit every single store, could he?

What's more, what if the algorithm is expanded to the entire Zijin City in the future, and then to the entire Dragon Country? Lin Yuan couldn't possibly cover every single merchant nationwide like a map surveyor, could he?

Therefore, the technical details of the algorithm's implementation hadn't been figured out yet, and now there was the added trouble of expanding the data collection scope.

Lin Yuan could only first integrate the delivery riders information from Good Group, and then, using the small area under Liu Huzi where merchant data collection had already been completed, let the algorithm go online and run.

This way, he could give the company an explanation—'Look, the algorithm has started testing in a small area, one-tenth of the HX District. I'm still figuring out how to expand it to the entire HX District.'

But Lin Yuan knew that Good Group would not give him much time. Not to mention a week, results had to be delivered within two or three days.

Because the nature of software products dictates that, with sufficient data, the algorithm can be rolled out very quickly. And Good Group had already given Lin Yuan full access to delivery riders and merchant data in HX District (merchant data on food delivery platforms is very limited). If the algorithm couldn't be rolled out to the entire HX District within two or three days, it would obviously be inexcusable.

Scratching his head, Lin Yuan even considered the worst outcome—he would just personally run through the entire HX District. He would deal with the immediate trouble first.

And to truly solve the trouble of merchant data collection, he would ultimately have to turn to—the accursed system.

“System, can you damn well change your data collection method?”

“I can't clone myself, and with your current crappy collection method, forget about the whole country, I can't even visit every merchant in the entire Zijin City for you. One HX District is already my limit.”

But the system habitually played dead.

“Do you really want to force me to expose myself: 'I have a system'?”

“Forget it, you're just a dog.”

Finally, Lin Yuan could only rely on himself.

He thought back. Ever since the system guided him to get into Zijin Aviation School, the system had increasingly acted like a tool. Not only did it no longer guide his subsequent direction, but even for problems encountered, he had to figure out the solutions himself.

Things like “computing power exchange rate” and “data pathway construction”—all of them were figured out by himself.

“You, are you a three-year-old system?”