101: Chapter 101 The defense almost turned into a fight.

Financial hegemony is the cornerstone of America's national power. Qilan Investment shorting the Nasdaq isn't a big deal in itself—America's own financial moguls are doing the same thing. The problem, however, is that Qilan Investment is not a domestic American company, Gao Qilan is not an American citizen, and she is certainly not part of the inner circle of financial tycoons. Once targeted by America, Gao Qilan's personal safety could be at risk.

Zhao Yang quickly pulled up his specialized tools and cut into America's peripheral databases, narrowing down the search layer by layer based on the information Gao Qilan provided. Half an hour later, a long list of names appeared on the screen. He stared at a few of the names for a moment and let out a sigh of relief.

“Xiao Lan, don't be nervous. Currently, it's just a routine check. Recently, all large capital outflows have been subject to extra scrutiny; it has nothing to do with you guys.”

“That's good.” Gao Qilan let out a visible sigh of relief.

Zhao Yang thought for a moment and asked, “How much has been transferred out?”

“A little over nine hundred million. There's less than a hundred million left.”

“That's already quite a lot.” Zhao Yang smiled. “Leave the rest in America; don't transfer it. Find someone in the financial sector in Los Angeles—the type who is politically very anti-Dragon, very conservative, and xenophobic. Sign a secret employment agreement with him.”

“Brother Yang, are you planning to cultivate a proxy in Los Angeles?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Then why look for that kind of person?”

“The more anti-Dragon they are on the surface, the easier they are to control, actually. Being anti-Dragon is just business; what they value most is profit. As long as the price is right, those people would even dare to bomb their own buildings.” Zhao Yang's lips curled slightly. With the Seal of Hearts Return, as long as a contract was signed, the other party would never betray him. After a pause, he continued, “With a proxy, we won't have to keep shuffling our funds back and forth like this in the future.”

“Okay, I understand. I'll get on it right away.”

“Come back once you've signed it. Let Old Wu stay there and set up a scheme with that guy to move the remaining money into his company. On the surface, it should look like Qilan Investment was swindled by him. Then file a lawsuit—and make sure you lose.”

Gao Qilan's laughter came from the other end of the phone. “Brother Yang, you're playing a big game this time. No matter how I look at it, it seems like you're planning to give America a nasty sting.”

Zhao Yang laughed as well. “You'll find out when the time comes. There's also a major event domestically that needs Qilan Investment to make an appearance. It's not convenient to go into detail over the phone; we'll talk in person when you return.”

“Understood.” Gao Qilan's voice suddenly softened. “Brother Yang, I miss you.”

“I miss you too. I especially want to kiss you, hug you, and lift you high up.”

“Lift me high up? Oh—Brother Yang, you're so wicked!”

The two of them exchanged a few more shameless words before finally hanging up.

...

The next day, Zhao Yang set off for Handong University of Political Science and Law.

He had originally wanted to hold his thesis defense in the Imperial Capital, but Vice Chancellor Sun Shuxin resolutely refused to agree.

Zhao Yang was the first doctoral student he had supervised, his top Disciple. He was counting on this defense to make a grand impression at his new post at the University of Political Science and Law. Getting it over with in the Imperial Capital? Not a chance.

The professors participating in the review were all doctoral supervisors from Handong University of Political Science and Law, but the lineup of those coming to audit was quite massive—a large group of professors and students from the Shuimu School of Information had arrived, along with many experts from other research institutes of the Ministry of Public Security.

What these auditors were targeting was naturally the 'miraculous' System Zhao Yang had developed: it could actually automatically provide directions for investigation based on existing evidence, and if the data was detailed enough, it could even pinpoint where a suspect was hiding. They all wanted to know exactly how Zhao Yang had achieved this.

Because there were so many attendees, many of whom were renowned big shots in the industry, Handong University of Political Science and Law had no choice but to arrange Zhao Yang's doctoral thesis defense in the main auditorium. This was considered quite a novel occurrence nationwide.

On a bright and sunny afternoon, the defense meeting officially began.

The first half was relatively normal. The cutting-edge content of Criminal Investigation involved in the thesis, such as the extraction of criminal information features and especially the digitization of criminal evidence, left the group of Criminal Investigation experts mesmerized. But by the second half, the style changed.

Zhao Yang flipped to a new page of the PPT and said calmly, “To achieve multi-dimensional data Fusion and perform automatic reasoning, a large number of parameters are required for model building... Distributed representation via multi-level attention mechanisms captures non-local semantic dependencies... Through residual gradient conduction, it fits high-dimensional conditional probability manifolds under cross-entropy constraints...”

...

The Criminal Investigation experts collectively had question marks on their faces.

What on earth was he talking about? Was this even human language?

What followed was even more outrageous.

What the hell was a high-concurrency mode instantaneous-trigger communication protocol?

To improve the programming efficiency of distributed Systems, you also casually improved a programming language? What the hell was that about too?

Wait—what was your thesis title again?

The Criminal Investigation experts were completely lost. Am I attending a doctoral thesis defense for Criminal Investigation? It seems like it, but then again, it doesn't.

On the other side, however, the people from computer-related fields were collectively excited. Especially the Shuimu support group led by Professor Lin; their eyes were shining like hungry wolves.

As soon as Zhao Yang's explanation ended, Professor Lin sprang up and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Zhao Yang! That data sharing method for high-concurrency scenarios you mentioned—the one about 'don't communicate by sharing memory, share memory by communicating'—expand on that! Also, is the learning curve for that programming language of yours high? Can it be popularized? Can that theory on large models be used in areas other than criminal feature extraction? For example, Natural Language Processing!”

This shout immediately drew the angry gazes of the big shots from the University of Political Science and Law.

Where did this guy come from?

This is our Criminal Investigation doctoral student's defense, not your Department of Computer Science's!

Yes, the thesis indeed proposed many computer-related things, but the core was all for Criminal Investigation!

“Ahem, Old Lin!” Vice Chancellor Sun Shuxin quickly tried to smooth things over. “Save your department's matters for private discussion! This is Zhao Yang's Criminal Investigation doctoral thesis defense!”

Professor Lin froze for a moment and gave a sheepish laugh. “Sorry, I got too excited. Do you all realize what this kid just said implies? A new computer language! It solves all the pain points of current traditional languages! And that large model he mentioned—that's cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence theory! And yet he stuffed it all into a Criminal Investigation thesis. This is simply a waste of God's gifts...”

Before he could finish, a dozen or so angry glares pierced toward him in unison.

A waste of God's gifts? What the hell do you mean by that?

Looking down on us?

An old professor with a hot temper stood up abruptly, rolling up his sleeves as he fumed, “What did you just say? Explain to me exactly what you mean by 'a waste of God's gifts'?”

“What is your Shuimu's intention here?”

“Don't think of leaving until you've made yourself clear!”

Seeing that the scene was about to spiral out of control, the chairman of this defense committee—the Vice President of the University of Political Science and Law—quickly stood up and shouted, “Silence! Everyone, please observe the meeting discipline! Observe the meeting discipline! Auditors, please take note: if you need to consult Student Zhao Yang, please do so privately. Now, Student Zhao Yang, please continue.”

After speaking, he glanced at Zhao Yang, and the corner of his eye couldn't help but twitch.

Zhao Yang's lips were slightly curled, wearing an expression as if he were watching a good show.

This brat did it on purpose, didn't he?