The lights in the auditorium dimmed. Lin Zhixia stood in the center of the stage, holding the microphone. The big screen behind her showed the countdown, and a small number of the audience below read out loud: "Ten, nine, eight, seven..."
When they said "zero", the spotlight on the ceiling cast several beams of light, converging on Lin Zhixia.
Today, Lin Zhixia wore a dark red suit, and her hairstyle and makeup were very delicate and beautiful. She could withstand everyone's repeated stares. Even if she didn't say a word, she was the well-deserved focus of the whole audience.
She first thanked the guests present, and then said in a narrative tone: "Three years ago, our team was just established. At that time, no one thought that three years later, we would bring a series of new products to redefine the concept of 'quantum computing'..."
Reporters from all walks of life pointed their cameras at Lin Zhixia, and the atmosphere in the auditorium suddenly became much more lively.
The guests in the audience began to cheer. Jiang Yubai sat quietly in the soft chair in the middle of the first row. His assistant sat next to him. The assistant's surname was Shen, and he was about 30 years old. He was well-dressed, well-mannered, and looked very handsome. Assistant Shen was originally an employee of the president's office, affiliated with the head office managed by Jiang Yubai's father. Later, Assistant Shen was noticed by Jiang Yubai's father and switched to work under Jiang Yubai.
The focus of Assistant Shen's recent work is to organize today's new product launch conference.
Assistant Shen is a careful person. He checked all the procedures of the press conference, organized two perfect rehearsals, and worked overtime to promote cooperation among various departments. His life goal is to show his potential and characteristics as the "first special assistant of the group" in every aspect of daily life.
So far, everything has gone well with the launch.
The audience was fascinated and the reporters were amazed.
Assistant Shen sat upright, his hands on his suit pants, and he seemed to be wearing the crown of "the group's first special assistant". At this moment, Jiang Yubai actually said: "Half an hour ago, Chai Yang sent a Weibo that several contracted anchors in his company were going to do a live broadcast at Lin Zhixia's product launch conference."
Assistant Shen froze.
He couldn't believe it.
Chai Yang's live streaming app was just launched not long ago. Their company has signed a number of male artists who are good at entertaining and making jokes. These male artists always laugh and scold in their respective live streaming rooms, and occasionally talk about some pornographic garbage, which makes the audience smile after thinking about it carefully. This type of live streaming style, for Lin Zhixia's press conference... is simply unimaginable!
Assistant Shen turned his head and said calmly: "Boss Jiang, I checked the personnel list and prepared three layers of security. Unless Chai Yang can get in through the cracks in the ground with his employees, they can't show up at our press conference. All entrants must provide an invitation letter..."
Jiang Yubai still looked straight ahead, without even the slightest deviation. He occasionally made eye contact with Lin Zhixia, and smiled faintly, as if all his attention was on Lin Zhixia. At the same time, he was also talking to Assistant Shen: "How many invitations did you send out?"
"Four hundred and sixty-seven." Assistant Shen answered seriously.
Jiang Yubai pointed out a key point: "Chai Yang doesn't need to be present at the scene."
"You're right," Assistant Shen agreed, "As long as Chai Yang arranges a group of friends to come over, they can privately take out their mobile phones, upload the video footage, and the anchors can dub at home to hype up the live broadcast app. Our security guards can't chase them away, otherwise it will damage the company's image..."
Jiang Yubai held onto the armrest of the chair. He told Assistant Shen that in order to ensure that Lin Zhixia's speech went smoothly, he had prepared mobile phone signal jammers in advance and had already deployed them around the auditorium. He wanted Assistant Shen to turn on his phone and try to see if he could watch the video smoothly.
Under the influence of mobile phone signal jammers, mobile devices can connect to the Internet and send and receive QQ and WeChat messages. However, if the network condition is poor and video recording cannot be supported, the live broadcast will be intermittent, and it will look like the live broadcast app has suddenly crashed.
Assistant Shen couldn't help but sigh: "Mr. Jiang... good idea."
Then, he had another question in his mind: why didn’t Mr. Jiang use his own mobile phone to check the network
Soon, Assistant Shen found the answer.
Because Lin Zhixia was standing on the stage.
In this way, Jiang Yubai would not lower his head to study the Internet. Even if he could not talk to Lin Zhixia, he would devote himself to the invisible interaction between the two of them.
Lin Zhixia knew nothing about the dispute off the stage.
She saw several audience members in the back row stand up from their seats, raise their mobile phones and face her, but then slowly sit down again. Their listless expressions were like eggplants hit by autumn frost.
Lin Zhixia was not affected by them.
She had finished introducing the quantum encryption security library, and Professor Gu Likai, who was sitting in the front row, led the applause for her.
Teacher Gu Likai is over 70 years old and flew from Beijing to the provincial capital to attend today's press conference. Lin Zhixia was particularly grateful. She felt that she had completed a certain inheritance and presented this special "inheritance" to the public.
A few days ago, the vice-president once said to her: "After all, it's still a common lineage."
Inherited from the same source.
She raised her head slightly.
Everyone was looking at her.
She raised her voice and continued, "Next, I will focus on introducing the new generation of cloud computing platform, which represents an epoch-making innovation. As a young technology company, we have our own sense of mission and responsibility..."
When she read the word "responsibility", strangely, a picture flashed through her mind.
When she was ten years old, she made a pinky promise with Shen Zhaohua in the marine physics laboratory, promising that she would continue to pursue her ideals throughout her life.
She is used to using "ideal" instead of "truth" because the "truth" that humans currently understand is not necessarily true and absolute. It may just be a special tool used to express concepts or solve problems in a certain environment, just like cyclic groups and non-cyclic groups, Euclidean space and non-Euclidean space - they follow contradictory laws, and they each have unique meanings.
Lin Zhixia's brain was working at high speed, but her words were still clear and concise: "We have given a whole new meaning to quantum technology products."
The staff pushed over two tables with two computers connected to the local area network, and the images on the monitors were projected onto a large screen. Using these two computers, Lin Zhixia demonstrated the difference between quantum cloud computing and traditional cloud computing platforms. The advantages of quantum cloud computing include but are not limited to highly efficient acceleration, encryption, and quantum security application mechanisms.
After the demonstration, the whole place was silent.
Jiang Yubai stared at Lin Zhixia, and Assistant Shen stopped breathing.
Lin Zhixia stood still and continued, "As you can see, for individual users, we provide simpler acceleration, more secure encryption, and more favorable prices to ensure that you can enjoy the ultimate speed and security when surfing the Internet. For enterprise and government users, we will tailor-make solutions and build service systems to ensure the security of data transmission and improve the reliability of communication networks. For example, we can support encrypted quantum communications between earth satellites and ground base stations [1]."
This statement once again ignited the enthusiasm of all the reporters.
Assistant Shen said with emotion: "Colleagues in the engineering department all say that Professor Lin always takes the lead in overcoming technical difficulties... She is a genius."
"Of course," Jiang Yubai said proudly, "She is a genius."
She's a genius, he thought.
He leaned back slightly in his chair and watched her glowing on the stage.
Lin Zhixia was in high spirits and continued to describe: "Now, we have opened the 'Product Inspector' activity, inviting tens of thousands of individual customers from all over the world to use our quantum computing platform for free for life. The reason why we dare to do this is because we are very confident in our products!"
Jiang Yubai led the applause.
Everyone present responded.
The applause lasted for more than ten seconds. Lin Zhixia straightened his back and said confidently: "In the future, we will carry out in-depth cooperation with many industries such as finance, communications, electricity, security, and biopharmaceuticals. We are still at the forefront of creating quantum computers. We are committed to delivering high-quality software and hardware services to the market. We are the first company in the world that can provide large-scale commercial quantum products. I am sure that at this moment, at 10:30 am on October 28, 2016, the first generation of products released by our company will make a long-term contribution to the technological transformation of the 21st century."
After he finished speaking, a promotional video started playing on the big screen again.
Lin Zhixia slowly exited the stage.
She continued speaking alone for more than an hour.
Her throat was dry and aching, but her heart was beating fast and thumping.
It was an amazing feeling—like something was growing out of her body.
A product launch is completely different from an academic conference.
At academic conferences, Lin Zhixia only used complex and difficult professional terms to elaborate on her thesis ideas and innovative technologies.
At the product launch conference, Lin Zhixia compared her company's products with those of her peers, focusing on describing the product's functions and prospects. The audience's response was more enthusiastic than she had imagined. After she rested for a while backstage, the staff told her: "Professor Lin, you are on the news, and the whole industry is boiling."
"So fast!" Lin Zhixia was a little surprised.
She unscrewed a bottle of mineral water, took a sip, tidied herself up a little, and walked to the front desk again.
The lights in the hall were bright, and the audience left one after another. Lin Zhixia also saw her undergraduate advisor Gu Likai, her immediate superior, the vice president, the technical backbone of the company's engineering department Luo Ying, Tang Tingting, Lin Zeqiu and others... and Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai had just finished talking to Gu Likai. When he turned around and saw Lin Zhixia, he extended a hand to her.
Lin Zhixia ran towards him happily.
He smiled and said, "Your speech was wonderful." He also revealed, "Teacher Gu is optimistic about our company."
Gu Likai was standing not far away.
Lin Zhixia hadn't seen Professor Gu for a long time. Professor Gu was the one who led her to the quantum industry and had given her many favors. She said to him happily and shyly, "Professor Gu, I now also supervise three graduate students."
"Okay," Gu Likai nodded, "Keep it up, you can achieve greater success."
Lin Zhixia secretly held Jiang Yubai's hand behind her back. At the same time, she firmly replied, "Teacher, don't worry, I will."
Gu Likai looked around the room but couldn't find Tan Qianche. Gu Likai knew what was going on but didn't say a word for Tan Qianche. He just said, "Your senior's paper output in the past two years has not been rich enough."
Tan Qianche started his undergraduate studies at the age of 18 and graduated with a doctorate at the age of 28. Gu Likai mentored him for ten years. After he graduated with a doctorate, Gu Likai also helped him to find a way to work as a postdoctoral fellow in a top foreign laboratory, thus adding luster to his academic resume.
There is no doubt that Tan Qianche is Gu Likai's favorite disciple.
Lin Zhixia knew that Gu Likai and Tan Qianche had not seen each other for a long time. So, she said, "Teacher Gu, I'll call my senior brother and let's get together as a sect."
Unexpectedly, Gu Likai refused and said, "I'm taking a flight back to Beijing this afternoon, so there's no need to see him." He also said, "You've been making progress over the years and are more sober than your senior brother."
Lin Zhixia seemed to be thinking about something.
When Lin Zhixia was an undergraduate, she was still underage. She was actually a little different from her now.
When she was an undergraduate, Lin Zhixia would never have imagined that she would have to personally market the company's quantum products.
The day after the press conference, the marketing plan developed by Lin Zhixia went online.
Lin Zhixia wrote a series of popular WeChat articles with eye-catching titles and shocking content. Her writing skills have reached perfection, and she successfully hyped up a hot topic "quantum cloud computing" in just a few days. In response, she was very humble and said directly: "It's nothing, I just want to attract public attention. I hope Chai Yang can apologize to me as soon as possible."
Jiang Yubai couldn't help but wonder that even if Lin Zhixia just opened a WeChat public account and wrote self-media articles every day, she could still live a very comfortable life.
The popularity of "quantum cloud computing" has not faded, and the vice president introduced government officials to Lin Zhixia. The two sides held several negotiation meetings to discuss in detail how to "promote the application of quantum technology in the field of government security." At the same time, several financial and Internet companies in Beijing and Shanghai came to her, and foreign companies also extended olive branches of cooperation. In less than two months, Lin Zhixia's quantum technology company opened the door to the global market - she had almost no competitors.
At this time, Lin Zhixia turned around and looked at Chai Yang again, and had a very subtle feeling.
One day in late December, Lin Zhixia sat in the study of Jiang Yubai's house and described to Jiang Yubai: "Chai Yang seems to have nothing to do with us anymore."
Jiang Yubai had just returned home and was still wearing a suit. He unbuttoned his cuffs, revealing his wrists—the lines of his wrists were smooth and beautiful. Lin Zhixia couldn't help but extend her fingertips and gently touched him, and heard him say, "Chai Yang wants to sue me."
"What?" Lin Zhixia was surprised.
Jiang Yubai was very calm: "It's a civil dispute, not a big problem."
"Criminal disputes are very serious." Lin Zhixia said seriously.
Jiang Yubai pulled his sleeves up an inch. Lin Zhixia stretched out her fingers, followed his veins, and carefully stroked the back of his hand: "I'm curious, why did he suddenly want to sue you? Shouldn't he concentrate on starting his own business? How can he attract investment if he can't produce results?"
Jiang Yubai reviewed Chai Yang's network of relationships and added, "Nie Tianqing works at a top venture capital firm. He has a good relationship with Chai Yang."