The call was from Lin Wei.
Li Dong answered without the slightest hesitation.
After all...
He was getting paid for this.
"President Lin."
"Li Dong, sorry to bother you."
Lin Wei’s voice came from the other end of the line, as crisp and professional as ever.
"I had Zhang Mo compile a list of problems the engineering team ran into this past week. I wanted to confirm a few points with you."
"Go ahead."
Li Dong cradled the phone with one hand while his other hand habitually rummaged through his pants pocket, but he couldn’t find a pen.
But it didn’t matter.
With his Memory Palace, he rarely needed a pen and paper anymore.
"First point. When running pipeline scheduling for your algorithm version 2.1 on a multi-core heterogeneous platform, there’s a data dependency between the spectral decomposition module and the basis construction module. Zhang Mo and his team have tried several scheduling strategies, but they can’t seem to increase the pipeline’s throughput."
"They suspect it’s caused by a serial bottleneck in the basis construction phase, and they want to know if this serial dependency can be bypassed on a mathematical level."
Lin Wei was very detailed.
This showed that he had already fully digested the problems from Zhang Mo’s side before making the call.
It was rare to see a client’s boss go to such lengths.
"It can," Li Dong replied without even thinking.
He was all too familiar with this problem.
In his Memory Palace, every line of derivation for that dimensionality reduction algorithm was neatly arranged in a separate file room. He could even "see" the single character he had mistyped when writing page thirty-two.
"The serial dependency in the basis construction comes from the sequential constraints of layer-by-layer orthogonalization. But actually, the orthogonalization of the first three layers can be parallelized. That’s because their cross-terms are zero-order infinitesimals under normalized weights. You can compute them in parallel first and then apply a unified correction."
"Have Zhang Mo try that. The throughput should at least double."
The other end of the line went silent for two seconds.
Lin Wei was probably taking notes.
"Second, when the flow field simulation and verification team was testing high-gradient regions of the boundary layer, they found that after local mesh refinement, the modal stability of the dimensionality reduction basis started to fluctuate. The error would occasionally exceed the upper bound of the engineering tolerance..."
"What’s the mesh refinement factor?"
"Is it eightfold?"
"Eightfold is too aggressive."
Li Dong’s judgment was decisive.
"When local refinement exceeds fourfold, the support domain of the basis functions will cross the coupling boundaries of adjacent grids, causing the truncation error of the projection operator to be amplified."
"Tell them to keep the refinement factor within fourfold. If the precision isn’t high enough, use an adaptive mesh instead of uniform refinement. I provided a criterion formula for adaptive meshing on page thirty-six of the technical document. They can just use that."
"...Okay, I’ll have them look it up."
Lin Wei’s voice held a hint of wonder.
’How on earth is this young man’s brain wired?’
He remembered exactly what was written on which page of a forty-seven-page technical document.
After that, Lin Wei asked three more questions in succession.
One was about the overflow risk of the sparse matrix storage format on the GPU end under extreme conditions. Another was about the matching validation standard between the flow field reconstruction precision after dimensionality reduction and the original turbulence model. The last one was a boundary condition degradation problem Zhang Mo’s team had encountered during stress testing.
Li Dong answered every single one instantly.
There was no hesitation, no "I’ll check on that and get back to you," no "I need to think about this problem."
Every answer was precise, down to the specific parameter ranges, the exact page numbers in the documentation, and the fundamental mathematical principles.
Lin Wei stopped talking on the other end and just focused on taking notes.
He knew in his heart that the problems his team of engineers had spent a week failing to understand were being rattled off by Li Dong as easily as a waiter reciting a menu.
This was the gap between them.
"Alright, that’s all for now. I’ll trouble you again if more issues come up."
"Of course, President Lin. Any time."
Li Dong hung up the phone.
He didn’t find it to be a hassle at all.
Lin Wei paid well and was professional in his conduct. A client like that was a rare find.
Besides, Huaxuan had even arranged for his uncle to join the technical training program for their core supply chain, a matter which Lin Wei had never once brought up himself.
He hadn’t even said a single word to take credit for it.
The man had handled things so perfectly. He, Li Dong, couldn’t fail to appreciate the gesture.
After hanging up, Li Dong glanced at the time.
It was almost noon.
’I should go find Mom.’
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and strode toward the school gate.
No matter what, he had to figure out why Li Qin had come all the way to Capital City.
「Forty minutes later.」
Li Dong was standing at the door of the room Li Qin was staying in.
He swiped the key card and pushed the door open.
The room was empty.
The bed was neatly made, Li Qin’s suitcase was resting against a corner, and a file folder sat on the desk.
Li Dong glanced at the folder but didn’t touch it.
He checked the time again. It was almost one o’clock.
Even if Li Qin had gone out for a stroll, she wouldn’t have been gone this long.
The area was just ordinary residential neighborhoods and small shops. The January weather in Capital City was bone-chilling, and someone like Li Qin, who was from Rongcheng, wouldn’t be able to stay outside for long.
He tried calling Li Qin.
RING... RING...
No one answered.
Li Dong’s heart leaped into his throat.
He stood in the room for a moment, thinking, then took out his phone and dialed another number.
The call connected after three rings.
"Xiaodong!" Li Yang’s cheerful voice came from the other end. "What’s up?"
Hearing Li Yang’s voice, Li Dong let out half a sigh of relief.
If something major had really happened back home, Li Yang wouldn’t be in this state.
He knew his uncle.
Li Yang was usually carefree and casual, but when something serious happened, he was completely unable to fake it.
"Nothing, Uncle. I just wanted to ask how your training is going."
"Hah, don’t even get me started!" Li Yang’s tone immediately became animated.
"These past few days, I’ve been learning about high-precision compensation algorithms for CNC milling machines. That thermal deformation compensation coefficient you mentioned? It took me two days to figure it out. These guys in precision machining are seriously incredible..."
Li Yang chattered on, jumping from thermal compensation to workshop management, and then from workshop management to the braised pork ribs in the cafeteria.
Everything was normal.
"Alright, Uncle. Keep up the good work. I’ll come visit you when I have time."
"You got it! Oh, by the way, Xiaodong, have you eaten?"
"Yeah, I’ve eaten. I’m hanging up now."
Li Dong ended the call.
’What on earth happened to Mom?’
Just as he was mulling it over...
His phone rang.
It was a call from Li Qin.
Li Dong quickly answered.
"Xiaodong!" Li Qin’s voice came through the phone.
"I was taking a nap and fell asleep, so I didn’t hear the phone ring. What’s up?"
’A nap?’
Li Dong froze for a second.
He looked around the empty room.
He didn’t want to beat around the bush on the phone anymore.
"Mom, I’m in your room."
The other end of the line was silent for two seconds.
"What’s really going on?"
Li Dong’s voice was quiet but serious.
"Why did you come to Capital City? What have you been so busy with? You have to tell me everything today."
The other end of the line went silent again for several seconds.
Then, Li Qin sighed.
"...Wait for me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes."

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