157: Chapter 157 The Second Coordinate is Formally Established

In the days following the start of military training, the entire Tsinghua University campus seemed to have been recompiled by some unified underlying code, strictly following a tedious, repetitive, yet undeniable rhythm.

The morning whistle was a forced system interrupt instruction; the daytime goose-stepping and military posture were high-intensity stress tests; the evening song battles were interfaces for releasing collective emotions; and returning to the dorm at night was a hibernation period to clear the cache.

The rough camouflage fabric rubbed against skin, uniformly issued rubber shoes stomped dull echoes on asphalt, sweat dripped down sunburned necks of freshmen, and blurry training photos refreshed punctually in class WeChat groups every day—all together forming the Physics daily routine of Tsinghua University freshmen after enrollment.

While this rhythm was exhausting for most, for Jiang Lin, it served as a rare background cooldown period for his brain.

Another day of high-intensity military training came to an end. The last rays of the setting sun stretched long shadows across Zijing Playground.

After having dinner with his classmates at the cafeteria, listening to them complain about sore leg muscles and ineffective sunscreen, Jiang Lin chimed in with timely responses before crossing the tree-lined path alone to return to Room 402 in Building 17.

Taking a shower and changing into a clean, soft pure cotton T-shirt, he felt a reset spanning from the Physics level to the mental level.

He sipped water while powering on his computer.

The moment the screen lit up, an abstract forwarded from the Tsinghua University Math Center archiving inbox popped up right on time.

[PFR/Marton Public Version Email Layered Summary | 2022-08-24 | 17:00]

Jiang Lin opened the email.

The proof of PFR, a massive project that had once consumed all his computational capacity, had now entered its next life cycle.

With its core logic closed, all lemmas and corollaries had stood firm against the most rigorous peer review.

Now, like a distributed computer spanning time zones, the global mathematical community was beginning to digest its computational results layer by layer.

Seminars at Princeton were deconstructing its algebraic structure, scholars in Paris were attempting to generalize it into broader group theory frameworks, and several domestic research teams were validating its derivative applications in combinatorics.

It remained dazzling, and for quite some time, it would serve as a surging engine within the mathematical community.

However, this engine no longer required Jiang Lin to keep watch over it at full capacity every single day.

Tsinghua University, a century-old institution, demonstrated its heritage and power as a top academic institution, having temporarily built a solid protective shell around his mathematical line of work.

Interview requests from various media outlets, a flood of academic conference invitations, and even blatantly utilitarian commercial endorsement requests were all blocked by the Math Center's administrative system.

And now, what truly lay exposed without an outer protective shell was Low Entropy Workshop.

Having handled these tedious math-related affairs and pulling his thoughts back from high-dimensional space into the real three-dimensional Physics world, Jiang Lin opened an unread email sent by Liang Zhixia.

The subject line carried a heavy engineering report style.

[WRC-2022 Low Entropy Workshop Exhibition Review Pack_v1.0 | Cooperation Leads Cleaned Version | Please Review]

Six files were neatly listed in the attachments.

[LEI-WRC2022-LeadList-Cleaned.xlsx]

[G-01C-WRC-Demo-Telemetry-Pack.zip]

[WRC On-Site Questions Classification and Risk Annotation_Chen Yan Version.docx]

[Exhibition Business Leads Grading Table_Liang Zhixia Annotations.xlsx]

[Low Entropy Workshop Beijing R&D Center Construction Proposal_Draft.pdf]

[G-01C unit 3 Demo Unit Return Status Checklist_Xu Man.pdf]

In the body of the email, Liang Zhixia's text retained that emotionless minimalism.

...

WRC teardown materials arrived at the Jiangcheng old factory building today at 11:40. The G-01C unit 3 demo unit, terrain boxes, spare parts boxes, promotional materials, and original on-site registration forms have all been checked into inventory.

Chen Zhi has completed the first round of asset verification, while Xu Man and Chen Yan are conducting return inspections and telemetry packet verification.

Over the four days of the exhibition, total contacts were estimated at over 1,200. On-site registered cooperation intentions numbered 134, with 87 retained after initial screening.

After a second cleaning, 7 leads were preliminarily deemed to possess real-scene verification value.

Additionally, 31 leads regarding pure PR, white-labeling, or fundraising packaging, 9 demanding access to core control chains or parameter generators, and 6 suspected competitor parameter-probing inquiries were all flagged red and intercepted.

It is recommended to establish the Beijing R&D Center to handle R&D, testing, talent acquisition, and technical reviews.

Tonight's brief meeting requires confirmation on three things: which scenarios Low-Entropy will integrate with next, the scope of Phase 1 for the Beijing R&D Center, and the division of labor between Jiangcheng and Beijing regarding data, prototypes, and personnel.

...

Jiang Lin checked the time and opened the video conferencing app directly.

Liang Zhixia was already online.

On screen was the meeting room with a rough industrial style in the Jiangcheng Old Industrial Park.

The unpainted concrete wall on the second floor had a fluorescent tube on the ceiling that was even flickering slightly.

Liang Zhixia sat in the main seat wearing a dark gray shirt, her hair tied in a low bun, with an open laptop in front of her.

To her left was Chen Zhi, rapidly verifying paper forms.

To her right was Qiu Yue, her screen displaying the initial screening page of the recruitment backend.

Xu Man was not seated; she stood behind them holding a detached foot protection shell.

By the window, Chen Yan stared intently at a long, rapidly scrolling log verification progress bar on his screen.

"President Jiang," Liang Zhixia looked up.

Jiang Lin nodded, his gaze sweeping across everyone on screen. "Good work, everyone. Let's begin."

Liang Zhixia shared her screen directly, pulling up the first deeply cleaned master summary table.

...

On-site registered cooperation intentions: 134

Retained after initial screening: 87

Possessing real-scene verification value: 7

Demanding technical audit/open underlying control chain: 9

Pure PR/white-label/fundraising packaging: 31

Suspected competitor parameter-probing: 6

Media interviews and non-technical invitations: 42

...

"This WRC exhibition was a huge exposure for Low-Entropy," Liang Zhixia's voice echoed in the spacious meeting room. "However, along with it came not just potential orders, but also a massive amount of noise."

The meeting room was deathly quiet.

Because everyone—whether Chen Yan in charge of code or Xu Man in charge of hardware—had deeply experienced this at the exhibition.

Those wearing suits and handing out business cards weren't all there to discuss technology.

Some asked with a smile at the booth whether the size of the G-01C could be cut in half and wrapped in a stuffed toy shell to make a consumer-grade companion robot dog for children.

Some came under the banner of obscure organizations, wanting to hold a joint product launch event about a mathematical genius cross-boundary creation, even having the PPT template prepared in advance.

Others dressed in casual wear approached as industry peers, lowering their voices and trying to bypass defenses with professional-sounding terms: "President Jiang's algorithm is indeed incredible. Actually, we could cooperate. We don't need you to open-source the code; we just need to do a security audit on the underlying control chain and align interface protocols."

Everyone was tech-savvy; no one was a fool.

Who couldn't see through these tactful line-testing tactics and probes disguised as cooperation?

They weren't here to buy products; they were here to scope out secrets.

The underlying control chain and state machine were the soul of a legged robot. Giving that up was tantamount to handing over Low Entropy Workshop's most core barrier.

"So," Liang Zhixia hit the Enter key, "I cut off all those with ulterior motives, clout-chasers, and shell company fundraisers. Only these seven remain genuinely valuable. I sorted them based on customer background and intent."

Seven names popped up on the screen, accompanied by detailed notes.

Hengtai Equipment.

Northern Underground Utility Tunnel Operations Co.

North China Mountainous Power Channel Inspection Project Team.

Provincial Emergency Rescue Equipment Center.

An Unstructured Terrain Laboratory at a Certain University.

Field Geological Sampling Joint Team.

An informal meeting request submitted by an equipment research institute.

Behind each lead were densely listed contact titles, budget inclination, scenario descriptions, risk levels, and recommended follow-up actions.

Jiang Lin stared at the screen as his brain rapidly constructed Physics models of these scenarios, evaluating degrees of freedom, constraint conditions, and friction coefficients.

"Zhixia, don't sort by customer size and budget."

"Sort by what then?" Liang Zhixia paused slightly.

"Sort by the Physics difficulty of the scenario challenges," Jiang Lin said. "A customer's budget is a variable on the commercial level, but gravity, friction, electromagnetic interference, and harsh terrain are constants on the Physics level."

Liang Zhixia caught on immediately and switched to a backup worksheet.

The file name was [Scenario Challenge List_v0.2].

Mines/Enclosed Roadways: optical sensor failure due to extreme dust, low-light environment, damp and unpredictable gravel roads, communication latency caused by long distances and low bandwidth.

Underground Utility Tunnels: extremely narrow operating corridors, severe electromagnetic interference from power cables, non-standard steps, low-light environment.

Mountainous Power Channels: soft soil, slick gravel, sudden drops in foot traction after rain, low-power GPS signal loss in dense outdoor forests.

Emergency Rescue Reconnaissance: unknown ruin voids, risk of secondary collapse at any time, low-payload sampling and center-of-gravity control on unstable structures.

Field Geological Exploration: battery anxiety from long-distance approaches, telemetry data transmission under ultra-low bandwidth, real-time measurement feedback of surface mechanical parameters.

As soon as this table appeared, Chen Yan, who had been staring closely at the log screen, finally raised his head.

Adjusting his black-framed glasses, he let out a long breath: "This version looks much better. Seeing that mountain of company names earlier gave me a headache."

Qiu Yue looked at the table and couldn't help asking: "President Jiang, for commercialization, shouldn't customer budgets and payback periods be the top priority? Although Hengtai Mining has a harsh scenario, they are solid cash-flow customers."

"Budgets change and customers can be replaced," Jiang Lin's tone carried a tranquility that penetrated the essence of things. "However, in a roadway two hundred meters underground, wet coal cinder won't dry up just because a contract value is high, nor will dust refrain from interfering with external perception just because a customer is famous. We are solving problems of the Physics world, not financial statements."

"Agreed."

Xu Man raised her voice from behind, holding up the foot protection shell in her hand closer to the camera.

High-intensity lighting struck the black engineering plastic.

A deep diagonal scratch was visible on the edge of the protection shell, the outer black coating completely scraped away to reveal the light gray composite material substrate underneath.

"Look at this. When packing up after the expo, our securing setup inside the crate was absolutely fine. But on the way from Beijing back to Jiangcheng, the logistics heavy truck must have slammed on the brakes or experienced violent bumps, subjecting the crate to a severe lateral impact. Although the protection shell only suffered surface damage, this stress was transmitted directly to the leg joints. Whether the inner reducers and motor bearings were affected can't be judged by eye; we must put it on the test bench for a complete baseline run."

Chen Yan also turned around to chime in.

"I've only proofread 62% of the telemetry packet data so far. The exhibition environment was actually far from clean—heavy foot traffic brought occlusions, vibrations, reflections, and continuous noise, while dense mobile phones and wireless devices inside the hall made telemetry conditions complex. This differs greatly from the single harsh environment of Hengtai Equipment's enclosed roadway. To compare both datasets, strict variable control is required; again, we can't just judge state normalcy by eye. We need stronger computing power to run offline simulations."

Listening to everyone's feedback, Liang Zhixia nodded and quickly added a new column to the right side of the table.

[Physics Scenario Challenge Priority]

Selecting those customer names with her mouse, she dragged them apart, ignoring the temptation of contract amounts, and reordered them strictly according to technical challenge.

...

Rank 1: Hengtai Enclosed Roadway Follow-up Phase. (Extremely tests the robustness of the perception system under harsh environments)

Rank 2: Underground Utility Tunnel. (Tests gait planning and anti-electromagnetic interference in narrow spaces)

Rank 3: Mountainous Power Inspection. (Tests unstructured adaptability in complex outdoor terrains)

Rank 4: Emergency Rescue Reconnaissance. (Validates extreme maneuverability and self-recovery mechanisms under high-risk environments)

Field sampling and university collaborations were temporarily put on hold.

The meeting with the equipment research institute was put on hold separately, not entering the near-term business pipeline.

An operational roadmap based on Physics rules rather than commercial logic officially took shape.

...

"Next are the issues regarding Beijing."

Liang Zhixia closed the spreadsheet and opened that PDF document.

The cover bore bolded text—

[Low Entropy Workshop Beijing R&D Center Construction Proposal (Phase 1 Draft)]

Turning past the first page, Liang Zhixia analyzed with clear logic.

"Beijing has top universities and research institutes like Tsinghua University, Beihang, BIT, and CAS Institute of Automation, gathering top national talent in robot motion control, multimodal perception, automotive-grade chips, and manufacturing software. After the WRC expo, we have made a real name for ourselves in the industry. Over the next three months, customer visits, capital due diligence, media interviews, and most importantly, top-tier recruitment will all converge on Beijing. Keeping our production and heavy-duty testing bases in Jiangcheng unchanged while establishing an R&D center in Beijing is imperative."

Jiang Lin quietly stared at the functional breakdown modules listed on screen.

Algorithm Control Group.

Perception & State Estimation Group.

Simulation & Data Closed-Loop Group.

Prototype Regression Testing Room.

Customer Scenario Technical Review.

Talent Interview & Partnership Portal.

Tsinghua University Academic Boundary Isolation.

"Agreed," Jiang Lin gave an affirmative reply after a moment of thought.

Liang Zhixia nodded and raised her hand to flesh out two more lines on the draft.

[Beijing R&D Center Phase 1: Focus on algorithm R&D, high-fidelity simulation, prototype regression testing, small bench testing, high-level talent recruitment, and customer technical reviews.]

[Manufacturing, batch assembly, factory overhauls, and heavy-load harsh environment testing will remain at the Jiangcheng base.]

Looking at the meager budget column on screen, Qiu Yue felt a wincing headache.

"Since it's an R&D center, the office standards definitely need to be high. Algorithm engineers are easy enough—just give them a computer. But we need to build testing rooms, equipment rooms, and strictly confidential meeting rooms to receive state-owned enterprise clients. Ordinary office buildings simply won't meet our requirements."

"Look for industrial parks," Jiang Lin immediately cut off Qiu Yue's fantasy. "The Beijing R&D Center should prioritize old science parks or independent spaces where hardware startup teams gather. Avoid downtown coworking spaces and glass-curtain-wall office showrooms. The location we choose must be able to partition confidential meeting rooms, algorithm workstations, archives, and a small prototype regression testing room with solid walls. More importantly, it must feature cargo elevators capable of moving heavy equipment, independent industrial-grade circuitry, strict Physics access control, and a sufficiently large low-voltage room."

Mentioning hardware requirements, Chen Yan immediately chimed in, his tone urgent: "Speaking of low-voltage rooms and servers, President Jiang, Beijing must establish a computing power replica immediately, or our algorithm team won't be able to work. The data volume collected from the expo is huge right now; without powerful local compute support, the simulation platform can't run at all. But purchasing a new high-performance computing cluster now takes way too long."

"I'll take care of part of the computing power issue," Jiang Lin replied.

At this moment, Liang Zhixia was more concerned about the overall architecture of Low Entropy Workshop.

She quickly opened a new document page and rapidly drew a dual-city synergy structure diagram.

[part:gemini-3.5-flash-lite]

Beijing node: core algorithms, motion control, environmental perception, digital twin simulation, prototype light regression testing, high-end talent recruitment entry, and client technical boundary review.

Jiangcheng node: precision machining, complete machine assembly, severely damaged factory return review, heavy-load limit testing, long-term actual testing in dirty and harsh scenarios, and primary underlying log database.

The meeting proceeded steadily, followed by staffing and budget approval.

"Beijing needs to hire people, and urgently."

Liang Zhixia listed the latest core recruitment positions on the screen.

...

Control Algorithm Engineer: Two.

Perception and State Estimation Engineer: Two.

Digital Twin Simulation Platform Engineer: One.

Hardware and Software Integration Test Engineer: One.

Business Manager with Engineering Background: One.

Confidential Administration and Document Management: One.

...

After reading this extremely streamlined personnel list, Jiang Lin added one more item at the end: "Establish a fixed technical window."

Liang Zhixia raised her head and looked at the screen: "What is the specific frequency?"

"The technical problems and client scenario feedback gathered daily by the Beijing R&D Center will be pre-screened internally by Low Entropy Workshop first. For those that cannot be decided or involve core architecture that require my personal review, they will be handled centrally during a fixed window period every night," Jiang Lin said. "Lately, I have things to do during the day and cannot be interrupted by fragmented engineering problems."

Liang Zhixia took down these requirements one by one.

Just then, Chen Yan's log verification finally finished running.

A reassuring green prompt popped up on the screen.

[WRC-Demo-Telemetry-Pack integrity check passed.]

Without celebrating, Chen Yan clicked open the next cumbersome workflow.

[G-01C unit 3 factory return deep testing: Pending Execution]

Xu Man picked up the insulated anti-static gloves on the table and slipped them on her hands.

"I'm going to open the factory return regression test chamber."

She reported briefly, turned around and left the frame, walking into the testing area in the back.

The meeting entered the summary stage of the final page.

Liang Zhixia saved all the discussion drafts.

The file name was updated accordingly.

[Low Entropy Workshop Beijing R&D Center_Phase I Draft_v0.3]

Time: 20:28.

She dragged the file into the Low Entropy Workshop internal archive library, placing the directory under [Organization_R&D].

"Let's call it a night for now," Liang Zhixia arranged the subsequent work. "I will produce the first version of the Beijing site selection inspection checklist tomorrow morning. Qiu Yue, the detailed JD (job description) for personnel must be sent to me for review tonight. I emphasize again, the four words 'founder IP' must never appear in any externally published documents."

Qiu Yue raised her right hand and made an OK gesture: "Received, guaranteed to be clean."

"Chen Zhi, immediately physically seal all original registration forms from the exhibition site. After desensitizing the scanned copies, enter them into the internal lead database. Ensure the absolute security of customer information."

"Okay, Sister Zhixia."

"Chen Yan, send me the telemetry package verification results packaged together with the factory return test plan that Xu Man needs to do tomorrow."

"I'll send it to your inbox in ten minutes." Chen Yan didn't even raise his head.

Liang Zhixia cast her gaze back to Jiang Lin on the screen. "President Jiang, are there any other arrangements?"

Jiang Lin glanced at all the resolutions on the shared document and said, "Before the Beijing R&D Center officially goes online, all external technical and business talks must use temporary numbers instead of specific project names. All requirements raised by clients must be able to be implemented into a specific physical scenario evaluation table. Those that cannot fall into the scenario table and are purely conceptual hype will not enter the technical review stage under any circumstances."

"Understood."

The video conference hung up.

The screen changed back to the desktop.

Jiang Lin leaned against the back of his chair, raised his hand to press his eye sockets, and switched back to the local editor.

[Reality_Runtime_Sketch_v0.1]

Next to it, he created a new file.

[LEI_Organization_Runtime_Map_v0.1]

...

Liang Zhixia's execution efficiency was efficient as always.

On the evening of the second day after the meeting ended, Jiang Lin had just finished the afternoon military training and hastily ate a bowl of noodles in the cafeteria when his mobile phone email received two new important documents.

[Low Entropy Workshop Cooperation Contract Boundary Template_v0.2 | Please Review]

[Beijing R&D Center Preparation Proposal_v0.1 | Revised according to last night's product line meeting]

Jiang Lin did not look at the preparation proposal first, but directly clicked open that contract boundary template.

[Low Entropy Workshop Cooperation Contract Boundary Template_v0.2]

The first page was a definition table.

[Product Stage Definition]

[Display Prototype: Used for public demonstrations, technical presentations, and conceptual explanations, and does not constitute a delivery commitment.]

[Engineering Prototype: Used for closed or semi-closed scenario testing, possessing clear boundary conditions, and does not constitute a mass-produced product.]

[Validation Platform: Used for joint R&D, scenario data collection, and engineering problem definition, and is not delivered in the form of a mature product.]

[Finalized Product: Only after completing configuration freezing, test baseline, maintenance plan, acceptance criteria, and after-sales boundaries can it be used as a sales product.]

Jiang Lin read it carefully word for word.

Because in his view, these few short lines of words were a thousand times more important than any praise given to Low Entropy Workshop by the outside world at the WRC exhibition, and than those empty checks issued by investors.

Countless hard-tech companies with extremely high potential do not die because their technology goes unnoticed, but rather die because they are seen by capital and the market too early, losing themselves in this gaze.

When a rough prototype is just seen, enthusiastic clients hope it is a mature product that can be directly thrown into a mine to work.

When the product has not yet been completely finalized, profit-driven capital hopes it is a bottom-level platform capable of empowering thousands of industries.

When the platform has just depicted a prototype, flamboyant media hopes it is an industrial revolution that subverts human society.

Every vocabulary word is being elevated upward, and every elevation is breaking away from the gravity of the physical world.

And every illusory elevation will eventually be ruthlessly shattered by reality.

Those hyped narratives will bury all the critical factors in real engineering—screws that cannot be tightened, tolerances beyond the acceptable range, thermal deformation of motors under high loads, wire harness wear in complex environments, misjudgments of state machines in unknown terrain, aging hysteresis of sensor protective layers, and desperately long repair cycles—all beneath gorgeous PPTs.

What Jiang Lin is most vigilant and repulsive against is this narrative acceleration generated to cater to the outside world.

He wants to use contracts and legal terms to firmly anchor Low Entropy Workshop in hard reality.

The second page was the restricted zone drafted by Liang Zhixia.

[The following terms shall not be accepted in principle, serving as the red line for business negotiations]

[1. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to open source the underlying control chain, state machine source code, parameter generator, and complete core logs.]

[2. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to promise commercial substitution capabilities in unverified scenarios.]

[3. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to bear the delivery responsibility of mature products using display prototypes, engineering prototypes, or validation platforms.]

[4. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to provide exclusive scenario authorization or exclusive cooperation rights.]

[5. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to accept the client's audit, reconstruction, or co-ownership of core technical routes.]

[6. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to commit to promotional messaging such as general-purpose robots, universal inspection platforms, and all-terrain autonomous operations without clear scenario boundaries.]

[7. Requesting Low Entropy Workshop to endorse commercial cooperation using Jiang Lin's personal academic status, Tsinghua University student status, or Tsinghua University-related resources.]

Jiang Lin hovered over the seventh item for a moment.

Liang Zhixia had already written the isolation of Tsinghua University into the contract template.

This showed that she did not just understand the boundaries at the meeting, but truly put the boundaries into the company's documents.

Jiang Lin replied a sentence to Liang Zhixia.

[Put the seventh item into the general provisions, and do not treat it as an ordinary business term.]

In less than three minutes, Liang Zhixia's reply popped up.

[Received, adjustment completed, the updated version is being uploaded.]

...

At the same time, thousands of miles away at the Jiangcheng Low Entropy Workshop.

The G-01C unit 3 display machine had been pushed back to the first-floor test area.

Transportation scratch inspection completed, locking mechanism re-tested and passed, state machine log verification completed.

Chen Yan timecode-aligned all demonstration data from the four days of the exhibition and put them into the internal shared drive.

On the second-floor desktop, what was spread out was not machine blueprints, but a stack of contract intention summaries.

Liang Zhixia sat alone at the conference table, holding a red signature pen in her hand.

In front of her were three key documents that had been initially screened.

These three documents represented the three temptations that tech startup companies are most likely to encounter in their early stages: large clients' orders, capital's huge capital injections, and local government's policy support.

The first one came from a well-known domestic system integrator.

The other party's business phrasing was written very beautifully, full of the style of a major enterprise.

The document mentioned the hope to establish a deep strategic partnership with Low Entropy Workshop, jointly promoting the comprehensive landing of domestic legged robots in multiple cutting-edge scenarios such as smart mines, smart pipe corridors, and smart cities.

The cooperation amount was very substantial, even one could say tempting.

The initial intended purchase order was as high as twenty high-configuration versions of the G-01C.

But the devil is often hidden in the details.

The other party's requirements were also written extremely subtly and covertly.

"To facilitate the later system integration and secondary development of the project, we hope that the Low-Entropy side can provide partial interface descriptions of the underlying control chain, logic audit materials of the state machine, and underlying tuning permissions for key motion parameters."

The other party also solemnly guaranteed behind: "The above materials are limited to internal project integration use, and will never involve external dissemination of the underlying source code."

Liang Zhixia sneered, picked up the red pen, and drew two heavy lines under the words state machine audit materials and parameter tuning permissions.

Then in the blank space beside, she neatly and decisively wrote two large characters:

[Rejected]

Buying complete machines is fine, but wanting to leverage the underlying technological barriers through orders?

This type of clause has no room for discussion.

The profit of these twenty orders is not even enough to compensate for the devastating blow brought by technology leakage.

The second document came from an investment institution located in Guomao.

The early valuation given by the other party was breathtakingly high, even exceeding the average level within the industry.

The investment term sheet explicitly stated that they highly recognized Low Entropy Workshop as the most promising early-stage star project in the domestic extreme-environment legged robot track, and were willing to lead the investment under extremely lenient financial conditions.

They even magnanimously stated that within the next two to three years, they could set no short-term revenue assessment targets, allowing the team to focus on R&D with peace of mind.

However, turning to the page of attached conditions, Liang Zhixia's eyes turned cold.

The other party put forward three core demands.

Requiring the establishment of an observer seat with veto power in the board of directors of Low Entropy Workshop.

For the company's future major technology authorization and transfer matters, the investors have veto power.

Harsh priority co-investment rights for the next round of financing and rigorous anti-dilution clauses.

Where is this coming to invest? This is coming to buy the future control of Low-Entropy.

There is no revenue bet because they don't care about short-term money at all; what they care about is being able to completely control the direction of this technology on a certain day in the future.

After reading it, Liang Zhixia did not hesitate at all and annotated on the side:

[Enter the alternative pool for observation. Resolutely do not accept existing terms; if the other party insists on control demands, terminate contact immediately.]

The third document was somewhat special; it came from a national-level industrial park in a certain place in the north.

The conditions given by this term sheet were the most tempting and grandest of the three.

Committing to provide up to three years of rent-free, thousands of square meters of high-standard R&D and office space.

Providing high-end talent settlement and financial subsidies for the core team.

Providing high purchase subsidies for advanced experimental equipment.

The local government's industrial guidance fund promised to conduct a large-scale co-investment.

Providing a green application channel for provincial-level robot industry special scientific research projects.

Everything was almost a tailor-made hotbed for a startup enterprise.

But the only additional problem was: the other party proposed in the appendix that they hope Low Entropy Workshop can directly locate the planned Beijing R&D Center in their local park, and in all future commercial promotional materials and news releases, the words "Low-Entropy Northern Headquarters" must be explicitly written.

This kind of condition was different from the previous two, which were full of obvious malice or greed.

It was not a purely bad condition.

It had money, ready-made physical space, strong policy backing, and the extremely urgent cooperation willingness of the local government.

For a startup company that had just stepped out of the spotlight of the exhibition and urgently needed to expand its team and venue, this cake was so big that it was almost impossible for people to refuse.

But Liang Zhixia knew that Low-Entropy was not an ordinary startup company, and its helm Jiang Lin was even less an ordinary entrepreneur who would be blinded by immediate interests.

It could not be bound by free space, seemingly lucrative subsidies, and the grand stories of local industries to tie up its own R&D coordinates and strategic autonomy.

Once the positioning of the northern headquarters was accepted, future talent flow, technical planning, and even equity structure would be invisibly restrained by local policies.

Liang Zhixia took a deep breath, picked up the mobile phone placed aside, opened the dialog box with Jiang Lin, and sent a message.

[President Jiang, we have encountered a category of local government-level policy support intentions. The amount and venue are very tempting. How should we set the negotiation principles in this regard? Especially regarding the final site selection of the Beijing R&D Center, and the issue of the northern headquarters expression requested by the other party.]

After the message was sent, Liang Zhixia did not wait long before getting Jiang Lin's reply.

[The establishment of firearms or the Beijing R&D Center can accept general policy support of an inclusive nature in accordance with laws and regulations. But do not accept any grand narratives about headquarters; do not accept exclusive landing as a prerequisite; do not accept any form of technical audit requirements; absolutely do not accept so-called support that uses the company's actual control and the R&D coordinates of core technology as exchange conditions.]

Looking at this reply, Liang Zhixia's mouth raised slightly, showing a knowing smile.

Picking up the red pen again, she heavily wrote beside that industrial park's term sheet:

[Communication channels can be kept, but explicitly reject the relevant expressions of the northern headquarters. The first and only principle for the site selection of the Beijing R&D Center is: it must serve cutting-edge engineering R&D and talent recruitment, and must never serve any local political achievement propaganda or investment attraction gimmick.]

After writing these, she opened the "Cooperation Contract Boundary Template" on the computer again.

She added the principles Jiang Lin just sent into the general provisions word for word.

[Special Statement: The functional positioning of the Beijing R&D Center of Low Entropy Workshop is only a technical R&D and testing institution subordinate to the company, and shall never serve as a local headquarters, capital roadshow center, or fake brand exhibition hall in any sense. Low Entropy Workshop may apply for inclusive technology policy support from the location in accordance with the law, but resolutely does not use ceding core technology routes, sacrificing company control, binding R&D geographical coordinates, making exclusive landing commitments, or opening underlying technology audit permissions as conditions for exchanging any resources and policies.]