Chapter 2

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To go from thirty million to two hundred thousand—that was over a hundred times less than what he’d expected. Lin Xun felt himself crashing back down to earth as his wings of money disappeared into thin air. His brain was a blue screen, drawing a complete blank.\n

As he sat there, frozen in his seat, Dong Jun spoke up again. “Your thoughts?”\n

He didn’t have any thoughts. He’d been prepared for a lot, but not this.\n

“Can I ask… why you’re pursuing this particular plan of action?” Lin Xun finally asked.\n

“You mean, why I want to buy your shares?”\n

Actually, Lin Xun was asking after his thirty million dollars—but it seemed his idol hadn’t noticed his disappointment. Maybe to Dong Jun, Luoshen was only worth two hundred thousand, anyway.\n

But if it was just a small deal of two hundred thousand dollars, why would Dong Jun go out of his way to invite him to a one-on-one meeting?\n

His hopes crushed, there was no choice but to sober up and face reality. “Where did you hear about us?”\n

They were a three-man startup on the verge of bankruptcy. They didn’t have the money to hire a proper accountant—even their business plans were written by Jiagou. They’d pitched Luoshen to countless companies—and they’d been rejected every time, without fail. Obviously, they’d sent their proposals to Milky Way as well, but they may as well have been taking shots in the dark; they hadn’t been graced with even a single response.\n

Lin Xun’s idol clasped his fingers together, leaning forward against his desk. “If you must know, I stumbled across your code on Github.” Dong Jun looked him in the eye. “It piqued my interest. I don’t suppose you could explain your core algorithm to me?”\n

Lin Xun’s heart pounded in his chest. “Of course.”\n

In the past, he’d tried to explain his algorithms plenty of times—but not a single person had been interested. Most of the time, it just drove people away. Even Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou didn’t truly understand the calculations that went on under the hood of their own project.\n

This was the first time anyone had ever asked about his algorithms.\n

And it wasn’t just anyone—it was Dong Jun, the person he’d admired for years.\n

Faced with the god of coding himself, Lin Xun couldn’t help but be a bit nervous. “There are a lot of formulas. I might need a whiteboard, or something.”\n

“Alright.” Dong Jun didn’t seem annoyed by his request. “All our collaborative spaces—and our whiteboards—are in the next building over. I can get you some paper, though.”\n

Dong Jun took out a pen and paper from a drawer, then pulled out the chair next to him. Lin Xun took the hint: Dong Jun was asking him to come sit next to him. Suppressing his glee, he sat down, picking up the pen.\n

This close, he could smell the faint fragrance that clung to Dong Jun’s body: he smelled like something clean and cold, like an icy spring hidden among snowy mountains.\n

The desk was obscenely wide; Lin Xun slid the paper over to rest between him and Dong Jun before writing down a long formula. “Most AI systems these days are dependent on neural networks—or what people like to call ‘deep learning.’ But for my algorithm… the key lies in chaos theory.”\n

He paused, and just as he expected, Dong Jun spoke up. “You don’t like neural networks?”\n

Neural networks were the mainstream technology used in all contemporary AI systems. For a brief while, riding a different trend, they’d been rebranded as “deep learning,” though in the end they were more or less the same concept. They were based on the neural networks of human brains, abstracted into mathematical models and simulated on powerful computers—in this way, neural networks could reconstruct the ways that humans dealt with and reacted to inputs, allowing a program to ‘learn’ in new, unprecedented ways. With the inevitable increase in processing power over time, vast neural nets had grown more and more feasible, the technology bursting onto the market with redoubled power. \n

Lions Incorporated had bet everything on their neural nets—and they’d won thirty million for their efforts, too.\n

They’re powerful, but…\n

Lin Xun pursed his lips. “I think they’re too constrained.”\n

“Hm?” Dong Jun made a questioning sound.\n

Lin Xun drew a square on the paper, explaining, “First off, they’re complete black boxes: there are always parts of neural nets that can’t be easily explained. Take image recognition, for example. Google’s algorithm made the famous mistake of tagging a picture of a black man as a monkey—but it’s difficult to point to the one error that led to that miscalculation, since it’s almost impossible to trace every single decision-making thread in a modern neural network.” \n

“There’s plenty of research trying to solve this issue,” Dong Jun said.\n

“But that’s not really the main problem,” Lin Xun said.\n

Dong Jun raised his eyebrows.\n

“Since simulated neural networks are based in big data… the way they think, learn, and process inputs all have to come from their original data stream. For example, in a society that discriminates against women, the data produced by that society would reflect that. And all the data-based AI networks, when they make decisions trained off that data—they’ll learn to discriminate as well.”\n

Lin Xun paused, glancing over at Dong Jun. Seeing that he seemed interested, Lin Xun relaxed a bit before continuing. “Artificial intelligence isn’t about intelligence at all. It’s about statistics. Any decision a neural net makes is based on its training data—in that regard, it’ll always be constrained. You can solve the black box problem eventually, but you’ll never be able to solve this one.”\n

“They’re already good enough for most applications, though,” Dong Jun said.\n

“Yes, but…” Lin Xun met Dong Jun’s gaze, his voice serious. “But I could build a better system.”\n

Every time he’d had this conversation before, this was the part where people would laugh at him, assuming that he was just a self-important idiot. After all, in the eyes of most people, neural nets were all-powerful—technology sent straight from the heavens.\n

But to Lin Xun’s surprise, Dong Jun wasn’t laughing.\n

Instead, he said, “Run me through your system.”\n

“Thank you for the opportunity.” Lin Xun looked down at his paper, jotting down a string of keywords. “First, we presume that each actor in the system makes decisions based on their own self-interest. From there, we can start to design a fundamental model of behavior…” \n

His algorithms were difficult to explain, and at first glance, they seemed almost identical to the ideas that underlied traditional neural networks. The real world was non-linear—using fuzzy mathematics, Luoshen could assess the irregularity of real-world events. For the problems that were too difficult to model traditionally, it relied on fractal models and chaos theory.\n

At the very least, Lin Xun thought, Luoshen was one-of-a-kind—free from the constraints of traditional neural networks.\n

By the time he finally finished explaining Luoshen’s core algorithms, he was exhausted. Lin Xun didn’t even know how long he’d been talking. \n

With perfect timing, Dong Jun pushed a cup of ice water towards him.\n

When did he leave to get water? Or did Ruan Zhi bring it for him?\n

Lin Xun realized that he might have been a bit too excited earlier; clearly, he’d been so focused on explaining his theories that he hadn’t noticed a single thing.\n

He took a sip. The chill of the cold water somehow reminded him of the fragrance that clung to Dong Jun’s body. Meanwhile, Dong Jun flipped through the seven pages of notes Lin Xun had scribbled down.\n

“Sorry,” Lin Xun said quickly. “They’re a bit messy.”\n

The pages were filled with scrawled formulas, all taken from cutting-edge mathematics. This was the part that even Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou couldn’t hope to understand.\n

“It’s alright,” Dong Jun said calmly, flipping another page over. “I can read it.”\n

The afternoon sun filled the room with a gentle warm glow. In the light, Dong Jun’s eyelashes seemed tipped with gold, glimmering at the edges; his gaze was locked on the pages in his hands, reading through them with an expression of utmost concentration.\n

For the first time in three years, Lin Xun felt hopeful about the future of Luoshen. At the very least, there was someone who could understand it, and who took it seriously—and that person was none other than Lin Xun’s lifelong idol. With every turned page, Lin Xun’s heart sped up a little in his chest; soon, it was pounding a frenzied rhythm. In an attempt to calm himself down, he pried his gaze away from Dong Jun.\n

The minute he did, something else in the room instantly caught his eye. \n

Along the wall facing the office’s huge windows stood a transparent display case. On one of its shelves was a sleek, silver keyboard. Its beautiful design was elegant and minimalist, but what it symbolized was important beyond belief.\n

That was the keyboard of legend. Lin Xun had never expected that he’d have the chance to see it with his own eyes.\n

Its name was Apollo, after the Greek god of the sun. Only one of them had ever been produced, custom-made for Dong Jun by a world-famous German mechanical keyboard maker: from the plate to its switches, every single part of the keyboard had been designed from scratch. It had been a gift for Dong Jun’s twenty-sixth birthday.\n

But only two years after Dong Jun received the keyboard, he—\n

“You’re a fan, I take it?” Dong Jun’s sudden question interrupted Lin Xun’s reverie.\n

Clearly, his staring hadn’t been subtle.\n

“It’s not that,” Lin Xun said, deliberating. “It might be rude of me to ask, but… why did you stop coding?”\n

In August, two years after Dong Jun had received this keyboard, he’d suddenly stopped writing new code. No new pushes to his Github, no new development efforts—and naturally, no new code. Like an author quitting his craft and putting down his pen, Dong Jun had put down his keyboard, seemingly for good. The internet had exploded with theories—but whatever the case, the fan consensus was that it was a damn shame. Some people even assumed that he’d become a sellout, giving up on coding to focus strictly on his company’s profits.\n

Finally, Dong Jun replied, his voice low. From where he stood nearby, his words seemed to echo straight into Lin Xun’s ears. “Just a personal issue. Maybe someday in the future, I’ll come back to it.”\n

Lin Xun breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear it.”\n

To an obsessed fanboy, his idol giving up on coding had been nothing short of a personal catastrophe. But if there was hope for the future—that was all he needed to know.\n

“Over the last two years, I haven’t seen any algorithms I’ve been interested in.” Dong Jun’s voice was indifferent when he spoke, as if he was just making an idle comment.\n

Lin Xun spoke without thinking, blurting out, “Our team needs another programmer.”\n

The minute the words left his mouth, he regretted them.\n

It was true that they were short on manpower—but their existing code had been a haphazard combination of each of their sections, not elegant in the least and disgustingly inefficient. \n

What was I thinking? It’d be humiliating for Dong Jun to work on a mess like this.\n

Quickly, his mouth snapped shut. He tried to downplay the resulting awkward pause.\n

Despite it all, Dong Jun started to laugh.\n

Before, his face had been relatively emotionless, as if he was a faraway immortal—but now, laughter spread warmly across his face like winter snow melting away, handsome to a fault.\n

“I’ll consider it.”\n

Lin Xun smiled. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to afford you.”\n

“The kind of code you’re working on isn’t easy to write, either.” Dong Jun suddenly seemed a bit pensive.\n

This was it, Lin Xun thought. Dong Jun had recognized the potential of his algorithms. He was thinking over his offer, about to sweeten the deal—with, say, thirty million dollars.\n

“From what I’ve seen of your algorithm, I’m convinced that I made the right decision.”\n

…Alright then, maybe it’s still two hundred grand, after all.\n

“You seem a bit disappointed,” Dong Jun said.\n

“No, not at all,” Lin Xun quickly denied. “Without your investment, we’d be done for.”\n

Dong Jun smiled. “When you come to a decision, feel free to contact me anytime.”\n

“I’ll need to tell my partners about it.”\n

Dong Jun hummed in acknowledgement.\n

Eventually, their conversation devolved into simple pleasantries and shallow chats about new industry trends. Just as Lin Xun was about to take his leave, Dong Jun suddenly spoke up.\n

“Yesterday, I invested thirty million dollars into Lions Incorporated.”\n

Lin Xun stared at Dong Jun. The bitterness in his chest overflowed into acid; soon, he felt like a human-shaped lemon.\n

“I did that because they were only worth a price of thirty million.” Dong Jun met his gaze. “I’m buying Luoshen’s shares, instead, because I think it has the potential to be priceless.”\n

Both Dong Jun’s voice and expression were calm and emotionless—there wasn’t a hint of doubt in his delivery, only firm confidence. After Lin Xun processed Dong Jun’s words, his heart stuttered in his chest, before flaring to life—what could be better than receiving validation from his beloved idol?\n

In that moment, even that two hundred thousand—one hundred and fifty times less than what Lions had received—seemed to glimmer with promise, glittering like treasured gold.\n

—though, a nagging voice in the back of his mind couldn’t help but think that Dong Jun was just flattering him.\n

As he turned to leave, Dong Jun walked forward, opening the door for him. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Lin.”\n

“Likewise,” Lin Xun replied.\n

As he left the office, he saw Ruan Zhi standing outside the door—and floating above her head was that strange blue square.\n

The hell?\n

This whole time, Dong Jun had looked perfectly normal—no blue squares in sight. Lin Xun had chalked it up to the all-nighter and figured it’d gone away by itself.\n

He turned back to glance at Dong Jun.\n

There was nothing above his head. Seeing that Lin Xun had turned back to look at him, Dong Jun shot him a small smile. \n

Dong Jun was a cold beauty—but with laughter in his eyes, he seemed even more attractive. But even his handsome smile couldn’t stop Lin Xun’s hair from standing on edge. Bewildered, he slowly turned his gaze back to Ruan Zhi—and the square above her head—before waving goodbye to Dong Jun as he was led into the elevator. \n

When they reached the ground floor and the elevator doors opened, Lin Xun’s eyes went wide with surprise.\n

Above the heads of each and every person in the bustling lobby was a translucent blue square. Faintly, he wondered if he’d accidentally entered another dimension.\n

Ruan Zhi—along with the damned blue square above her head—followed him to the exit, seeing him off politely.\n

This district was bustling and busy; pedestrians hurried by in an unending flow—and above each person’s head was an unnerving blue square. In the crowd, the squares overlapped with one another, forming a strange blue wave.\n

A car cruised over in Lin Xun’s direction. It was the one company asset the Luoshen team had: a cheap, second-hand Jetta.\n

He got into the car, only to see another blue square floating above Wang Anquan’s head.\n

Wang Anquan gave his shoulder a shake. “Well? Bro, what happened?” \n

“I met Dong Jun,” Lin Xun replied.\n

“Aha!” Zhao Jiagou gave a loud cheer from the passenger seat. “Thirty million! Let’s go back and celebrate!”\n

The engine started on its own and the self-driving car pulled into a U-turn, heading back towards their apartment.\n

“Not quite thirty million,” Lin Xun said. “He offered two hundred grand for five percent of our shares.”\n

After a beat, Wang Anquan started to blankly count on his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five…… How come I’m missing a zero?” Suddenly, he gave Lin Xun’s shoulder a ferocious slap. “Dude, that’s not right!”\n

“I know,” Lin Xun sighed. “I’m still jealous of Lions, of all things.”\n

“Look, let’s say you’re Dong Jun, Milky Way’s big boss. You have money. In every ranking out there, your company’s in the top three. You’ve invested in every possible market. How much is your time worth?” Wang Anquan asked.\n

“Quite a bit,” Lin Xun replied, humoring him.\n

“And then, you waste an afternoon of your precious time meeting with some loser, no-name programmer to discuss a deal of two hundred grand. And, on top of that, you don’t even sign the deal then and there—you let him walk away and discuss it with his friends?” Wang Anquan stared at Lin Xun. “For just two hundred grand? To someone like Dong Jun, that’s like, spare change! Even if it was thirty million, what’s that worth to someone like him?”\n

“Okay, first of all, I’m not a loser—I’m better than plenty of programmers out there,” Lin Xun said flatly. “Second of all, you’re treating Dong Jun like a businessman. He’s not. He’s a programmer, just like us, and he understands the math. He only reached out to us because he was interested in the code we’d uploaded, and he wanted to talk about the algorithm behind it.”\n

“Dude, do you even hear yourself? You’re blinded by love, like some stupid fanboy—”\n

“Shut up,” Lin Xun said, cutting him off.\n

He tugged down on Wang Anquan’s shoulders, examining the blue square that floated in the narrow space between his head and the car’s roof. At first, it was blurry, but as he stared at it, it slowly began to grow clearer, semi-transparent. When he tried to poke it, his finger went straight through the square, as if it were a ghostly projection. But—there was something strangely familiar about it.\n

It wasn’t entirely blue. Along the top of the square was a thin, grey menu bar, with a few words written on it.\n

<File, Edit, Debug!>\n

Lin Xun stared blankly into space.\n

“What the…” He held back the stream of obscenities on the tip of his tongue. It was a compiler—he was staring at the outdated interface of Turbo C!\n

What the hell is this?\n

Why would C compiler windows, of all things, suddenly appear over everyone’s heads?\n

Lin Xun felt like he was going into shock.\n

Wang Anquan, to his credit, seemed like he was going into shock, too. “So what, you’re just going to settle for the two hundred grand? Two hundred?”\n

He threw himself forward, about to interrogate Lin Xun by force.\n

“Stop it.” Lin Xun felt a bit sick. “Change our destination.”\n

The self-driving mechanism beeped before slowing the car to a stop by the side of the road.\n

“To where?” Wang Anquan asked.\n

“The nearest hospital,” Lin Xun replied.\n

“…Huh?”\n

The second-hand Jetta made a U-turn, heading in the opposite direction. At the same time, Lin Xun called out to his handheld AI. “Luo, contact the nearest hospital.” \n

Wang Anquan was getting nervous. “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Is it bad?” Lin Xun rubbed forceful circles into his brows, muttering to himself. “Should I pay a visit to the optometrist or the psychiatrist?”\n

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