Chapter 159 - 118: Yang Han’s Predicament
After some more careful thought, Chen Lin decided to sign up for a driving school tomorrow.
He had it all figured out. With the [Little Driver] title, the hardest parts of the driving test, Subject Two and Subject Three, would probably be a piece of cake for him.
Things like reverse parking, parallel parking, and S-curves... he could probably pass them all in one go with his eyes closed.
On the other hand, the seemingly simplest parts, Subject One and Subject Four—the purely theoretical written tests—would require him to honestly put in some effort and grind through the question bank.
After all, the system was only responsible for making him know how to drive, not for directly pouring traffic laws into his brain.
"A month and a half, and I can get my license, at the earliest."
Chen Lin took out his phone, searching for the highest-rated driving school nearby on a map app while muttering to himself.
He had already made a plan. As soon as he got his license, he would talk to his parents about replacing the old clunker at home, which they’d had for nearly twenty years.
Chen Lin had ridden in it a few times when he went home for summer break and could already faintly hear strange noises coming from it every now and then.
Before, the family’s financial situation was limited, so there was nothing they could do.
But now...
Chen Lin looked at the long string of numbers representing his net worth in the [Little Financial Planner] title and smiled faintly.
It was time for his parents to enjoy a better life, thanks to him.
.....
.....
The next day, Friday, August 29th.
At ten in the morning, in the Yanhai Company office on the second floor of Yannan University’s co-working space.
"Haaaaah—"
Chen Lin leaned back in his comfortable ergonomic chair, stretched long and hard, and let out a satisfied groan.
Just a moment ago, he had bundled up the final draft of his graduation thesis, along with all the appendices and references, and sent it to Professor Gu Ming’s email inbox.
With the crisp notification sound confirming the email had been sent successfully, a major weight on his mind was finally, completely lifted.
Director Guo Qizhi had already made it clear to him that the quality of his thesis was far beyond the standard, so he wouldn’t need to participate in the subsequent defense and review process.
Next, he just had to wait for notification from Principal Chang Kai’s side, cooperate with some necessary administrative procedures, and then he could relax and wait for his graduation certificate and degree.
The thought that he, a student about to start his junior year, was about to complete all his undergraduate academic requirements filled Chen Lin with an immense sense of relief and joy.
He decided to press on without a moment’s pause and directly begin the next phase.
He would continue his academic research in the direction of Manifold Boundary and Hallucination Control in Generative Models.
Although his previous graduation thesis on the "High-dimensional Monge-Ampere Equation" was already stunning enough, in Chen Lin’s view, it had merely scratched the surface of this grand subject, a tiny offshoot of the much larger, submerged part of the iceberg.
In the main body of this iceberg, there were more, and even tougher, nuts for him to crack.
For example, *How does the geometric structure of singular sets (such as curvature) quantitatively affect the probability of hallucination generation?*
And for another example, *Is it possible to design a ’calibrator’ based on manifold boundary detection to verify and correct the content generated by large models?*
Each of these questions, taken individually, was enough to keep a top-tier doctoral team busy with research for several years.
But Chen Lin’s ambition went far beyond that.
His ultimate goal was to propose a brand-new generative decoding algorithm based on geometric boundary control!
A universal framework capable of significantly reducing the "hallucination" phenomenon prevalent in all current large models!
He planned to save this final achievement for the fall or winter of this year, to present it to the entire world as his academic report at a world-class mathematics conference.
But before that, he needed to test the waters and build some momentum for himself.
Chen Lin set a small goal for himself: within one month, he would further deepen and expand upon the latest research in this field—including his own graduation thesis—compile the results into a paper of sufficient weight, and submit it to one of the four top-tier journals in the SCI mathematics field!
He would use this paper to make a name for himself in the international academic community and also bring glory to Yannan University!
This was the plan Director Guo Qizhi had previously suggested to him. It just so happened to give him an opportunity to repay Principal Chang Kai for his investment, and it would also allow him to show Academician Liang Tianshi his academic achievements. It would kill multiple birds with one stone.
With this in mind, Chen Lin cast aside all hesitation.
He cleared all distracting thoughts from his mind, his mental state instantly reaching a peak of focus.
He picked up a gel pen from the desk and pulled out a stack of pristine white A4 scratch paper.
Silently, Chen Lin entered the [Little Mathematician] state.
The sunlight outside was just right.
And Chen Lin was already immersed in that world composed of symbols and logic.
His pen tip landed on the paper, making a crisp, rhythmic SCRITCH-SCRATCH sound as complex and exquisite mathematical derivations flowed effortlessly from his pen.
.....
.....
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away at Jiangcheng University.
Yang Han had been having a miserable time lately.
Ever since the modeling competition, where she had publicly questioned Shen Yan and Chen Lin only to be publicly humiliated by Chen Lin in a dimensionality-reduction-like attack, her life had descended into chaos.
Some busybody had posted the video of what could only be described as her "public execution" online.
The video went viral overnight.
Yang Han’s face, slightly twisted with jealousy, and her line, "I think it’s necessary to invite that classmate Chen Lin you mentioned to come on stage and prove his mathematical abilities right here," became fodder for netizens’ non-stop memes.
"Hahahaha, I can feel the awkwardness even through the screen!"
"Her expression perfectly illustrates the saying, ’Turns out I was the clown’."
"Someone like this can represent Jiangcheng University in a competition... Is this the level of math at Jiangcheng University?"
She was quickly drowned in this torrent of online mockery.
Walking on campus, she always felt that the other students were looking at her strangely.
In her dorm, the roommates she used to be on good terms with also began to distance themselves from her, whether intentionally or not.
And that wasn’t all.
The real knockout blow came from the Yannan University administration.
Yannan University first issued a carefully worded official announcement clarifying the facts, affirming the outstanding performance of their students, Chen Lin and Shen Yan, and sternly stated that they would hold Yang Han accountable for her improper accusations.
Immediately after, personnel from Yannan University contacted the leadership of Jiangcheng University, as well as Yang Han herself, through formal channels.
They demanded that Yang Han issue a public, written apology for the false accusations she made at the competition site against the Yannan University team and against Shen Yan personally!
At first, the Jiangcheng University administration was still rather protective of its own student. They didn’t immediately agree to Yannan University’s demand, instead suggesting that Yang Han could give a verbal apology to Shen Yan and Yannan University, and that would be the end of the matter.
Yang Han was also counting on this, hoping that by playing dead and waiting for the heat to die down, coupled with Jiangcheng University’s lack of cooperation, she could avoid having to issue a public, written apology.