After hearing Li Dong’s voice message, Yang Shengguo waited a long while before replying with one of his own.
"You’ve been getting a little cocky lately, kid."
"When it comes to academics, I, Yang Shengguo, admit I can’t compare to you. Or Professor Penrose, or Dean Liu Ruochuan, or... hahaha."
He started laughing as he spoke.
Then, he added seriously,
"But I’ll catch up..."
Hearing this, Li Dong replied.
"I believe in you, Teacher Yang."
After finishing their chat, Li Dong stretched and climbed out of bed.
The draft of the {Φk} embedding operator family that he had left half-finished last night was still spread out on his desk.
’I should finish what I’m working on first.’
’I’ll worry about tonight’s business when tonight comes.’
Time flew, and soon it was just after five in the afternoon.
Li Dong changed into a dark gray knit sweater and put a black jacket on over it.
It was the closest thing to a "proper" outfit he could find in his dorm room closet.
He glanced at himself in the mirror.
’Yep. Daniel Wu, but with a touch of maturity.’
After leaving the dormitory, Li Dong took the subway along the familiar "genius express route," and got off about forty minutes later at Zhongguan Village Station.
He came out of the subway exit and followed his phone’s navigation north for a short distance.
Then, he saw a building with a glass curtain wall.
The Zhongguan Village Shangri-La Hotel.
This hotel held a rather special status in the Zhongguan Village area.
It was located at the intersection of Haidian Zhongguan Street and Zhichun Road, and behind it lay the densest concentration of tech industries and universities in the entire Capital City.
Just a hundred meters from its main entrance were the headquarters of a slew of well-known internet companies.
So, when people in the industry mentioned "meeting at the Zhongguan Village Shangri-La," the subtext was rarely just a simple "let’s grab a bite and chat."
It meant...
This meal was about technology, and it was about money.
When Li Dong arrived at the hotel entrance, he saw that Gao Wen was already there.
He was also wearing a dark suit jacket today, standing on the steps of the hotel entrance and chatting with another person.
The man looked to be around fifty years old, not particularly tall, and was wearing what seemed to be a very understated gray woolen coat.
But his presence was striking.
The moment Li Dong saw him, he felt the man’s face was inexplicably familiar.
He thought about it as he walked over.
And then it finally clicked.
’Holy crap!’
’Isn’t that President Li, one of the big three?’
Just then, Gao Wen saw him and waved with a smile.
"Li Dong, over here."
So Li Dong walked over.
"Teacher Gao."
Gao Wen reached out, patted the arm of the middle-aged man beside him, and made the introduction to Li Dong.
"This is President Li from Northbound."
"President Li, this is the Li Dong you’ve been wanting to meet."
The middle-aged man before him smiled warmly and extended his hand.
"So you’re Li Dong."
"A young hero, indeed!"
"You’re even younger than I imagined."
Li Dong quickly reached out his own hand to shake it, adopting a very humble posture.
"President Li, it’s an honor to meet you."
"I’m still just a student. I hope to learn a lot from you in the future."
President Li chuckled.
"A student?"
"That thirteen-question barrage in the Sunshine Hall the other day... some of the old professors in the audience were my teachers."
"Grilling them until their faces turned pale is not something a mere student can do."
Li Dong wasn’t sure how to respond for a moment.
Fortunately, Gao Wen smoothly intervened.
"Alright, alright, don’t just stand here at the entrance. The others inside are almost all here."
"Let’s go in first."
Li Dong nodded.
The three of them walked into the hotel together.
「Zhongguan Village Shangri-La, Third Floor Banquet Hall.」
The main doors were pushed open by a doorman.
Li Dong glanced inside.
The banquet hall wasn’t actually that large. Two large round tables were set up in the middle.
There were already about a dozen people in the hall, gathered in small groups of two and three.
Li Dong’s gaze swept over them.
’Whoa!’
’They’re all heavy hitters.’
’Isn’t that guy talking to someone by the window the one who was on the cover of *Caijing* magazine last month?’
’Isn’t that woman looking at her phone by the table the vice president of Li Yun?’
’And that man who looks to be in his early forties... he was just a trending topic recently for an article about the roadmap for large-scale models...’
Li Dong marveled to himself.
’The caliber of people in this room is a bit high.’
’They’ve managed to gather everyone who’s anyone in the domestic AI circle.’
Several people noticed the movement at the entrance, turned their heads, and nodded with a smile when they saw Gao Wen and President Li walk in.
A few people Li Dong didn’t even recognize greeted him as well.
Gao Wen gave Li Dong a light pat on the back and gestured with his chin toward a quieter corner of the hall.
"Go sit over there for a bit first."
The three of them walked over.
As soon as they sat down, President Li picked up a glass of lemonade from a small side table, handed it to Li Dong, and began to speak with a broad smile.
"Li Dong, let’s just talk as friends today."
"As soon as you released version 1.0 of your dimensionality reduction algorithm, the people in our deep learning lab rushed to test it."
"After they finished, they gave me a special call."
President Li paused and took a sip of water.
"The algorithm is truly outstanding..."
Li Dong took a sip of his lemonade.
"You’re too kind, President Li."
President Li smiled gently.
"Not at all."
"Our company just applied the concept of your algorithm to the communication layer of our distributed training, and the effective computing power of a single card jumped up by a fair bit."
"Do you know what that means?"
Li Dong actually had a pretty good idea.
But he played along and shook his head.
President Li laughed heartily.

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