Su Yang giggled when he heard people talking about him again. He felt great.
As the three girls continued discussing, they noticed Su Yang walking towards them.
“Hey, isn’t he that busker?”
“No way. I heard it was a student on our campus.”
“Impossible! That busker was practically a professional singer.”
Su Yang walked past them as if nothing happened, concealing his fame and name.
Women were always the shortcut to collecting information. From the three girls, he learned why the university showed so much concern towards this campus singing competition: a second-tier artist had been invited as the judge.
It should be a mini-event at first, but the exposure had increased overnight, so it might evolve into a large-scale event.
However, why would someone as popular as Han Yi come all the way here to be a judge? This particular point still baffled Su Yang.
Rather than believing what the three girls said about some higher-ups being related to her, Su Yang tended to believe there was another layer of truth, possibly some shady deals involving fame and profit.
Ms. Yuan had not arrived yet when Su Yang reached the classroom, but Chu Xia was already there.
Her hair was pulled into a ponytail today. She wore a lemon yellow short-sleeved T-shirt with all kinds of English alphabets on it. Su Yang stared at them for quite a while but still could not understand what they meant.
She coupled her T-shirt with cropped jeans with holes all over it. It made her look less tender and youthful, lending her a cool and experienced air.
However, she was already beautiful, so whatever she wore seemed nice.
Su Yang did not greet her. He headed to the last row of the classroom and sat down. It was not because he felt awkward facing her after the little conversation about the singing competition but because Chu Xia was being surrounded by other students at the moment. They were talking about the singing competition and Su Yang did not enjoy the chatter.
As the class secretary, Chu Xia was also in charge of the singing competition, so she had access to more insider news than other students. Plus, she was quite approachable and easy-going, so it was only natural that all the students would go to her for some insider news.
Su Yang took his textbook out when he arrived at the last row. He hid himself behind the book and took out his phone, intending to check on the mobile data package.
Similar to his English class, Su Yang loved to sit at the back during Advanced Mathematics. However, unlike the English class, in which he sat behind because he did not understand a thing, he sat behind during Advanced Mathematics because he understood everything and was not bothered by the lecture.
He scrolled his phone and checked for the mobile data package to subscribe to.
Neither did Su Yang ever play games on his phone nor did he stream or download any video. He only used his phone for finding information and part-time jobs, so he had been subscribing to a 1 GB mobile data package. Now, he had a new tenant in his phone who was a super heavy user: Deeny.
Su Yang believed that he should get a package with more quota.
After a while, he realized that all the mobile data packages were really expensive. The normal package with 1 GB of data cost 20 yuan. There were also unlimited packages but those cost 168 and 208 yuan respectively.
The good thing about the unlimited data package was that it could be upgraded directly and he would gain access to the service right away.
168 yuan per month for a mobile data package? On top of that, once the quota exceeded 20 GB, the speed would decrease, so that would be far from enough.
Su Yang tapped his screen and typed in a message: ‘Deeny, how much data can you use up to in a month?’
‘I don’t know. If I can simply surf the net, I guess 1 to 2 TB of data? My database is incomplete at the current stage, so I have to fill it by downloading and searching for various information. It might be more than that,’ she replied.
Su Yang was silenced by the astonishing figure.
‘1 to 2 TB worth of data...The system must have labeled her wrongly. This little girl doesn’t destroy the world. She’s destroying my wallet!’
A short thought later, Su Yang replied, ‘If I get you an unlimited data package, the speed will slow down to 100 KB per second after the 20 GB quota. Is that okay?’
‘I’m okay with anything you give me, Master,’ answered Deeny.
Su Yang sighed at Deeny’s reply.
‘I guess I’ll get an unlimited data package first. I’ll try to get broadband installed at home. Deeny’s appetite can only be satisfied with WiFi.’
After he made the decision, Su Yang bought an unlimited data package and registered for the installation of broadband. In less than two minutes later, the data package service came online.
Deeny was even more excited than Su Yang when she received the message. ‘Thank you, Master! Master, you’re the best!’
Su Yang smiled. ‘Learn as much as you can and expand your database. I hope you can be my Jarvis in the future.’
‘Who’s Jarvis?’
‘An A.I. for some man covered in an iron suit.’
‘Ooh...’
While Su Yang was chatting with Deeny, he suddenly felt the lighting above him grow dim. He instinctively looked up and saw the straight-A student, Li Runze, looking down at him.
Su Yang’s typing fingers froze as he looked at Li Runze with a surprised expression and awkwardly greeted him, “H-hello?”
Li Runze said with a blank expression. “Is the seat beside you taken?”
Su Yang shook his head, so Li Runze sat down beside him, putting his bag down and taking out his book and notes.
Su Yang had a glance at the title of the book that Li Runze took out. It was TensorFlow Technology’s ‘Analysis and Applications’.
‘Yeap, I don’t understand a word.’
However, Su Yang kept his curiosity in check and did not bother asking. He only wondered why Li Runze would read a different book in the Advanced Mathematics class.
He looked around and realized that the Advanced Mathematics class was a small one today. No other classes joined them today. Of course, even if there were other classes joining them today, the Chinese Literature class and the students from the Faculty of Information would never get together.
Li Runze flipped the book to where he left his bookmark. He picked up his pen and started to take notes.
Su Yang stole a glance at the book again. The book was packed with handwriting. Su Yang believed that the book would be twice as thick when Li Runze finished taking his notes.
Maybe because he sensed Su Yang’s gaze, Li Runze asked without looking at him as he continued writing in his book, “Are you interested in A.I.s too?”
Su Yang almost choked on his own saliva. ‘A.I.s!? Did I expose Deeny?!’
Li Runze showed the book cover to Su Yang. “TensorFlow’s predecessor is actually Google’s deep learning neural network, DistBelief. It’s a symbolic math library that was widely used in all kinds of coding algorithms for machine-based learning which also indicates artificial intelligence coding algorithms.”
Su Yang felt a little dizzy when he heard all those English terms. He glanced at the book again, then asked Li Runze, “Do you understand all that?”
Li Runze nodded without any reaction. “What the school teaches is too shallow, so I’ve been self-studying.”
‘Hmmm...compared to these alien languages and super-advanced technology, the school lessons are really a little shallow.’
Su Yang had seen all kinds of programming skills developed by students during their university days and he also saw many students who studied hard, but he had never really seen anyone researching A.I. The term ‘A.I.’ alone sounded like super technology.
Judging from the notes that Li Runze had made in the book, he was at least at entry-level and not just a simple hobbyist.
‘Okay, okay, I get it. You are super smart, so I’ll stay away from you.’
Su Yang buried his head behind his book, not wanting to feel inferior in front of Li Runze. Even though he and Li Runze had scored 100 and 98 marks respectively in Advanced Mathematics in the last semester, Su Yang had scored 98 marks because he was smart whereas Li Runze had scored 100 marks because he could only score that much in the paper.
Su Yang wanted to escape, but Li Runze did not want to spare him, so he asked, “Do you remember that we have a lunch appointment on Monday? You promised me last week.”
Su Yang was shocked. ‘Sh*t! This smart guy is serious! He wanted to invite me again because he didn’t get to have lunch with me last week? What’s he up to? We’ve only met each other twice, and my sexual orientation is normal!’