Chapter 128
Because I was going to see Joshua the next day, I made sure to take a shower that evening and carefully washed my hair, worried that I might smell like cooking oil from the restaurant at lunch or have any other unpleasant odor that would make him uncomfortable.
Milly was holding onto my arm, sleeping soundly. Her little face was rosy, and her breathing was steady.
Looking at her peaceful sleeping face, the tension and anxiety in my heart eased a little.
I picked up my phone and sent my mom a message, asking about Flora's day.
Only after receiving my mom's reply that everything was fine did I finally feel at ease enough to fall asleep.
Early the next morning, I changed into a clean and professional shirt and pants, carefully checked the materials and laptop I needed to bring for the presentation, and after confirming everything was in order, set off with William to meet Joshua.
As the car drove toward Professor Thomas's house in the suburbs, my mood grew increasingly tense as we got closer.
The last time Joshua held my error-filled data report, that disappointed and stern look in his eyes still haunted me.
I didn't want to see that look again.
Especially since I was his only final and most important disciple.
This title had once brought me great honor and his high expectations, but now it had become my heaviest source of pressure.
I was afraid I wasn't good enough, afraid he would think he had misjudged me, afraid I wasn't worthy.
William seemed to sense my nervousness and tried to make light conversation along the way, but I was somewhat distracted and only gave brief responses.
When we arrived at the familiar gate of Joshua's house, I took several deep breaths before following William inside.
Joshua was in his study looking at materials. When he saw us, he nodded and gestured for us to sit down, without any extra small talk.
He looked energetic with sharp eyes as always, though there seemed to be a few more wrinkles between his brows than the last time I saw him.
I didn't dare delay and immediately opened my laptop, connected the projector, and showed him everything one by one: the new project proposal, the optimized core algorithm architecture diagram, and the detailed code data simulation demonstration.
Throughout the entire process, I explained everything extremely carefully, even a bit cautiously, repeatedly confirming every key point, terrified of making mistakes.
William supplemented with project background and business prospects, but I handled the main technical explanation.
Joshua leaned back in his chair with his hands crossed in front of him, his eyes focused on the screen, his face expressionless—impossible to tell if he was satisfied or not.
The more I spoke, the less confident I felt, and my back even broke out in a thin layer of sweat.
William gradually fell silent too, and the atmosphere in the study became heavy and quiet, with only my somewhat dry voice explaining and the slight hum of the projector's fan.
Finally, the entire presentation was complete.
I turned off the projector, closed my laptop, and together with William, held our breath waiting for Joshua's comments.
Time passed second by second, and Joshua remained silent, his gaze resting on my face, yet seeming to look through me at something beyond.
That silence was like a boulder continuously pressing down, weighing heavily on William's and my hearts.
Those few minutes of silence felt like a century.
Just when I could almost no longer bear this wordless pressure and my heart was about to jump out of my throat, Joshua finally let out a soft sigh.
That sigh was like a heavy hammer, striking hard at my taut nerves.
William's and my hearts instantly jumped to our throats, and we even held our breath.
I didn't dare ask. My throat felt blocked by something, unable to make any sound. I could only sit there stiffly, waiting for what might be a verdict.
Seeing my face turn pale and my fingers tightly gripping the corner of my clothes, William took a deep breath and broke the suffocating silence, his tone respectful yet tentative, "Teacher, is there something still wrong? Please guide us."
Joshua didn't immediately answer William. His gaze refocused on my face, sharp as a knife, as if he could see through all my anxiety and unease.
He pointed at what I had just presented, "Grace, I've always appreciated your algorithmic thinking. Clear, precise, straight to the core, never messy."
He paused, his brow furrowing slightly, his eyes showing clear disappointment and confusion, "But look at the code architecture of this new solution, and the logic of the data flow."
"Complex, redundant, taking many unnecessary detours. In some places, problems that could obviously be solved clearly and efficiently with a simple algorithm conversion—you chose the most clumsy, most bloated way to implement them."
He looked at me, his tone full of undisguised pain, "How have you regressed so much?"
Regressed so much...
Those words were like a cold needle, piercing sharply into my eardrums and stabbing into the most sensitive, most painful place in my heart.
I opened my mouth but couldn't make any sound to argue.
Because Joshua was right.
He hit the nail on the head.
When I was debugging, I had vaguely felt that the logic in some places wasn't clean and smooth enough, that it was convoluted, and something felt off. But at the time, I was tangled up with the project and various other matters, couldn't calm down to dig deeper, and just built the framework following my habitual thinking.
But now that Joshua had pointed it out, I suddenly realized that without knowing it, I had fallen into some kind of fixed mindset and become dull.
Was it because I hadn't received this kind of high-intensity, systematic thinking training for too long?
Was it because the energy and sharpness that had been worn away by marriage and trivial matters during those six years hadn't fully returned?
I really did feel like I had regressed.
Enormous regret and self-blame instantly overwhelmed me.
I not only regretted marrying George, regretted impulsively quitting my originally promising job and diving headfirst into that cold, draining family, becoming a housewife disconnected from society and gradually losing professional sensitivity.
What I regretted even more was that I had wasted my most precious youth and talent on a relationship and marriage that simply weren't worth it.
I had given everything sincerely, only to receive bone-chilling indifference and betrayal in return.
And when I finally broke free and wanted to pick up my former dreams and abilities again, I discovered that some things had already been worn down, rusted, and no longer functioned as smoothly as before.
It was perfectly normal for Joshua to be disappointed in me.
I had let down his expectations and let down myself.
Last time, because personal matters affected my work and I nearly made a big mistake, Joshua had been cold to me for over half a month.
Later, he even said that if I continued being so confused, he wouldn't acknowledge me as his final and most important disciple anymore.
I thought that this time, seeing me turn in such a regressed piece of work, Joshua would be completely disappointed and might even directly say those words to sever our relationship.
In that instant, I even panicked, thinking: if Joshua really didn't want me anymore, what would I do?
Would kneeling and apologizing help?
However, Joshua didn't say those most terrifying words.
He looked at my pale face and the panic and self-blame almost spilling from my eyes, and fell silent again for a moment.
Finally, in the depths of his stern gaze, a trace of extremely faint tenderness seemed to pass.
Joshua picked up a pen, casually pulled over a blank sheet of paper, and quickly sketched a few strokes, outlining a simplified algorithm model.
"Look here," his voice still had no warmth, but was no longer pure criticism—it carried a guiding tone, "you used three nested loops to handle this data filtering and mapping. It's inefficient and the logic gets confusing easily. Try using a hash table combined with a single traversal, and convert the conditional statements..."
As he spoke, he wrote and drew on the paper, using the most concise language and diagrams to point out the key problems in my complicated solution.
I was stunned, and then an indescribable sourness and warmth suddenly surged to my eyes.