Chapter 121
Valencia sat beside them, listening to her husband talk about their daughter. Her eyes reddened again, but the smile lines around her mouth were too deep to hide.
"Cindy works too hard. There was something at the institute today, so she's been working overtime and still hasn't come home. I called her at lunch to come back and eat, but she said she was busy adjusting some parameters—scarfed down a couple bites and hung up. Tonight she said she can't come home again. My heart is so torn—I'm proud of her, but it hurts to see her push herself like this. She's barely been back, and already she's driving herself into the ground."
Wesley reached over and patted his wife's hand, his tone gentle. "It's good for young people to be driven."
"Good, yes, but she can't keep going like this." Valencia's eyes reddened further. She pressed a hand to her chest, as if she'd suddenly made up her mind. "No, that house I just gave her isn't enough. I need to give her something else."
She picked up her phone and dialed a number. "Lawyer, it's me. That Greenfield Superstore on the east side—yes, the one in the best location. Transfer it to Cindy's name. Get the paperwork done tomorrow."
Manuel had been sipping his soup. At that, his spoon froze mid-air. He glanced at his mother, then at his father.
Wesley didn't even lift an eyelid. He raised his wine glass, took a sip, and said flatly, "That supermarket has good annual revenue. Perfect for Cindy. She works hard—if she wants to eat something, she can have it delivered anytime. Convenient."
Manuel finished the soup in his spoon, set down his bowl, and his lips curved slightly.
His sister had been back less than a month, and their parents had already given her houses, a company, jewelry, and now a supermarket. They'd practically move the entire Douglas family estate to her doorstep if they could.
If it were anyone else, he might think it was too much.
But recalling what his assistant had described—what she'd done at Ridgeway Tech, recovering surveillance footage, tracking transactions, reverse-poisoning the data so the competitor got nothing but garbage—he thought everything they gave her was well deserved.
"Interesting," he murmured, picking up his utensils and continuing his meal.
Dahlia sat at the far end of the table. The food in her bowl had barely been touched.
Her fingers gripped her utensils tightly, her gaze fixed on the piece of beef in her bowl. She didn't move for a long time.
Greenfield Superstore.
She'd shopped there countless times. Every time she picked something up, she never had to pay. The staff would see her and call her "Ms. Douglas." That feeling of being cherished made her believe the entire Douglas family belonged to her.
Now, that supermarket had been casually given away. No one had even asked her.
She took a deep breath, swallowed down the bitterness rising in her throat, speared a piece of vegetable, and chewed it for a long time before swallowing. Her face showed no trace of emotion.
No one noticed her.
Everyone's attention was on the person who wasn't even there.
At the research institute, the lights blazed.
In the central lab, several researchers in white coats stood by the door, defeat written all over their faces.
They'd been holed up in this lab for over ten days, sleeping less than four hours a night, drinking box after box of coffee. But that damned problem just wouldn't budge.
Elowen leaned against the wall, holding a stone-cold paper cup, dark circles heavy under her eyes.
"Failed again," she said to the person next to her, her voice hoarse. "Thirty-seventh time. The response delay in the motion control module is always off by 0.3 seconds. No matter how we adjust it, it won't go up."
Before the other person could respond, footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway.
Lucinda stepped out of the elevator, wearing a white lab coat, her hair tied in a low ponytail, a thick stack of files in her hands.
When she entered the lab, everyone automatically parted to make way.
She didn't waste words. She walked straight to the main console, dropped the files on the desk, and her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Code cascaded down the screen like a waterfall. Her eyes were locked on it, her fingers moving so fast they were almost a blur.
"Elowen, pull up the log for module three."
"Pull up the parameter list for the motion control algorithm."
"Here—see that? The delay isn't in the computation process. It's in the data transmission channel. This channel's bandwidth is being hogged by another process. The priority was set wrong."
Elowen leaned over to look at the screen. Her pupils shrank sharply. "So it's not an algorithm problem—it's a system scheduling problem?"
"Exactly. You've been optimizing the algorithm for over ten days. You were heading in the wrong direction from the start." Lucinda's fingers didn't stop. Line by line, she rewrote the code.
Forty minutes later, she hit enter. A line of green text appeared on the screen: "Test passed. Response delay: 0.02 seconds."
The lab fell silent for a moment. Then cheers erupted, impossible to suppress.
Elowen was the first to shout. She tossed her paper cup into the trash and jumped into the air.
"We did it! We finally did it!"
A few young researchers hugged each other, eyes red.
The gray-haired senior specialist came up to the screen, stared at that line of green text for a long time, then turned to look at Lucinda. His lips trembled for a while before he finally managed, "Ms. Wipere, you really are..."
He couldn't finish. He gave her a big thumbs-up and shook it hard.
Lucinda leaned back in her chair, rolled her stiff neck, and her lips curved slightly.
"Don't celebrate too early. This is just the first version. It can run and jump, but it's still a long way from true intelligence." She paused, her fingers tapping lightly on the desk. "Robots serving humans isn't just about following commands. They need to autonomously make optimal judgments based on environmental changes. That requires more complex neural network models and more efficient edge computing power—at least ten times harder than what we just did."
The cheers in the lab gradually quieted. Everyone was looking at her.
"But I'm going to try." When she said that, her tone was calm—but the light dancing in her eyes made everyone's heart beat a little faster.
When Lucinda left the institute, the night was deep as ink.
She took a cab back to the Douglas Estate, pushed open the door as quietly as possible, didn't even turn on the hallway light, and changed into slippers in the dark before creeping upstairs.
"Cindy?"
Valencia's voice came from the direction of the living room, startling her.
She turned around and saw Valencia standing up from the sofa, still wearing the same clothes from earlier. She'd clearly been waiting for her.
A soup tureen on the coffee table was still steaming, and the tableware beside it was neatly arranged.
"Mom, why aren't you asleep yet?"
"Waiting for you. The soup's still hot. Have a bowl before you go up." Valencia walked over, reached out to touch her face, and her brow immediately furrowed. "Your face is so cold. Is it freezing outside?"
Lucinda shook her head. Valencia pulled her over to sit at the dining table, and soon a steaming bowl of chicken soup was placed in front of her.
She took a sip. The temperature was perfect. The savory flavor bloomed on her tongue, warming her all the way down to her stomach.