Chapter 183 - 136: This Article Feels a Little Off
But who could have guessed that overnight, everything would be turned completely upside down.
Now the whole world knew that Jask, that filthy rich tycoon, was waving around million-dollar checks, specifically trying to poach him.
And even though Chen Lin didn’t have an account on Jask’s platform, making it an invalid @-mention, the insane amount of attention Jask generated was far more impactful than helping two of the country’s top universities with a research project.
Chen Lin had already confirmed it on the system’s interface. "Little Financial Planner" had raised the company’s valuation to over 150 million, and by extension, Chen Lin’s own net worth had surpassed 80 million.
So, even if this project couldn’t be completed as quickly and flawlessly as his past jobs, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.
Besides, it was clear from the materials Professor Lu had given him that a leading domestic battery company had already assembled a dedicated team to study this exact problem for three whole years and still hadn’t gotten anywhere.
’It’s not like the team from Modu Shuangdan University is going to just happen to crack the problem in the one or two weeks Shen Yan and I are working on it, right?’
...
...
Back in the office, Shen Yan went straight to her desk. She opened her laptop, spread the thick stack of documents out on her desk, put on her headphones, and was instantly immersed in her research, completely cut off from the outside world.
Chen Lin watched her focused profile for a moment, smiled, and returned to his own seat.
However, he had been sitting for less than a minute when his phone screen lit up with a WeChat notification.
It was from "The Loving Family," their small, three-person family group chat.
’I guess I’ve really blown up this time,’ he thought. The buzz was several orders of magnitude greater than after his last interview.
Last time, it had taken two whole days before his parents belatedly asked him about it on WeChat. This time, less than a day had passed before the news reached them.
He opened the group chat. His mom, Lin Xiaoqi, had just dropped a link to a short video.
Chen Lin clicked it. An excitable social media influencer was feverishly explaining the massive impact and shockwaves his paper had sent through the academic and tech worlds.
The content was, of course, full of exaggerations and even some outright fabrications. Chen Lin watched for less than a minute before closing it, his face expressionless.
Lin Xiaoqi: [Son, what is "large model hallucination"? [Curious emoji]]
Lin Xiaoqi: [Son, why don’t you record a short video for me, just a few minutes long, explaining your paper? [Starry-eyed emoji]]
Lin Xiaoqi: [That way, I can send it straight to your grandpa and all your aunts! [Victory hand emoji]]
"..."
Reading his mom’s string of messages, Chen Lin felt his eye twitch. He was at a loss for words.
Fortunately, he now had a perfectly legitimate excuse to refuse his mom’s request.
Chen Lin: [Mom, I’m handling important business at the office. I really don’t have time right now.]
The moment he sent the message, his dad Chen Xian’s profile picture popped up.
Chen Xian: [If he’s that busy, don’t bother him. @Lin Xiaoqi]
Chen Lin breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn’t close the chat window right away, though. After a moment’s thought, he sent another message.
Chen Lin: [Dad, Mom, the university gave me a two-million-yuan award for the paper. And the company’s business has stabilized recently, so we don’t have that many expenses right now. Let me send you guys another million.]
His dad replied the instant the message went through.
Chen Xian: [Don’t send any money! You don’t need to worry about things at home. Just make sure you take care of yourself.]
His mom chimed in right after.
Lin Xiaoqi: [Exactly! If you have extra money, save it. Don’t spend it recklessly! And don’t work yourself to exhaustion running the company. You have to take care of your health!]
Seeing his parents’ concerned replies, a warm feeling spread through Chen Lin’s chest.
He put his phone down, cleared the clutter of thoughts from his mind, put on his noise-canceling headphones, and switched into work mode.
He opened his computer and pulled up his unfinished manuscript of calculations, ready to build on the results of his JAMS paper and push his deductions to a deeper level.
The year-end World Congress of Mathematicians was less than a month away. He had taken a proper break during the National Day holiday, and now it was time to make up for lost progress.
...
...
「October 12th, Sunday, 10:30 AM.」
Yesterday had been a Saturday, but it was designated as a makeup workday for the recent National Day holiday. So, Chen Lin had dutifully gotten up at 8:30 AM sharp.
After three days of work, he felt like he was suffering from post-holiday syndrome.
He wasn’t physically tired, but he felt an inexplicable mental fatigue.
Now that it was a real Sunday, he felt like he was glued to his bed and had no desire to get up at all.
Chen Lin thought it over. He didn’t think it had anything to do with overusing his "Little Mathematician" title or grinding away at his math research.
After all, he always strictly adhered to his two-and-a-half-hour daily limit and never went over.
The problem lay elsewhere.
Starting from the afternoon two days ago and continuing through all of yesterday, Chen Lin had spent nearly all his time—outside of his sacrosanct math research hours—endlessly refreshing social media platforms.
He had to constantly monitor the online discourse about himself and Yanhai Company, watching for any particularly outrageous narratives that might pop up.
This wasn’t supposed to be his job, but he had no choice. Shen Yan was buried in the solid-state battery research, oblivious to the outside world. Huang Yiyi was busy with her own full-time job, and Yunqing happened to have something come up and couldn’t make her internship shift yesterday.
So, in the vast office, it was just him and Sun Yu, two grown men, left to stare at their screens as temporary social media watchdogs.
After two days of intense scrolling, Sun Yu was actually enjoying himself. He would occasionally take a screenshot and post a "The boss is a badass!" sticker in the group chat to liven things up.
But Chen Lin himself felt like his nerves were stretched taut the entire time.
Thankfully, after two days, neither he nor Sun Yu had come across any truly negative comments.
Aside from a few accounts, seemingly run by women, who were just as keen on gossiping about his personal relationship with Shen Yan as that upperclassman Yan Lin from the School of Chemistry he’d met the other day, the overall online sentiment couldn’t have been more positive.
As for that kind of gossip, Chen Lin’s policy had always been to ignore it.
As for Shen Yan... Chen Lin figured she was completely oblivious to any of it.
The thought of Shen Yan made Chen Lin sigh.
’No wonder she’s a top student,’ he thought. ’Her level of dedication is honestly terrifying.’
Yesterday, on a Saturday, she had stayed in the office poring over Professor Lu’s documents from 8:30 in the morning until 9:00 at night.
If he hadn’t practically had to pull rank as her boss to get her to leave, she probably would have just slept at the office.
Even though today was Sunday, a day off, Chen Lin knew without a doubt that Shen Yan was probably holed up in the library, still wrestling with that same research.
"Sigh. She’s just too intense," he muttered.
Chen Lin shook his head, making a mental note. ’When we’re back in the office on Monday, I’ll have to tell Huang Yiyi to add an extra two thousand yuan to Shen Yan’s pay this month as an overtime bonus.’
He picked up the phone from beside his pillow as he thought about it.
On the internet these days, trends were like the wind—they came and went in a flash.
The buzz from his paper and the Jask incident had been going for two days; it had probably started to cool down by now.
However, the moment he unlocked his screen and opened WeChat, he saw a bright red "@" notification in the group chat named "Yanhai Startup Squad."
Chen Lin’s heart skipped. He tapped on it.
The first thing he saw was a link to a WeChat Official Account article that Sun Yu had shared about ten minutes ago, followed by a message.
Sun Yu: [@Chen Lin Boss, something about this article feels off. Take a look, quick!]
Right below that were messages from Huang Yiyi and Yunqing.
Chen Lin frowned. Instead of reading their discussion, he tapped directly on the link Sun Yu had shared.
He was met with a long, well-formatted article from an Official Account.
"Behind the Halo: Three Reflections on the Chen Lin Phenomenon"