America: I came here to study, not to show mercy.

Chapter 213 Can I not go?
Perhaps because he didn't immediately get up and go on stage, Li Xiaoen felt a variety of meaningful gazes directed at him as he walked.

Instead of being timid or conspicuous, he walked to the front of the stage and noticed Professor Sedgewick's helpless gaze, so he gave him a reassuring look in return.

As Li Xiaoen stepped onto the stairs, he attracted everyone's attention. He strolled to the small podium, looked around at the sea of ​​people below, smiled and nodded, then turned to look at the speech documents he had submitted earlier.

"Sedgewick, is Sean really only a freshman?"

Seeing Li Xiaoen's poised and composed demeanor, Stella in the audience couldn't help but look at Sedgewick and ask, "You're even more composed than my soon-to-graduate master's student. Weren't we a little too relaxed when we first went on stage?"

"Then tell me, when you were a freshman, were you able to reach Sean's level?"

Sedgewick was greatly pleased by his friend's shock and couldn't help but chuckle, "Sean is a thick-skinned guy. He's optimistic and confident in the face of all kinds of difficulties. He's really perfect for scientific research..."

"Good morning everyone."

Ignoring the audience's reaction, Li Xiaoen turned around from behind the huge projection screen, held the microphone to his face, and began to speak.
"I am Shawn Li, a student from Professor Sedgewick's lab at Princeton University. I will now talk about our lab's research results to date, hoping it will be helpful to your experiments."

Turning back to press the simple remote control in his hand, and seeing a new page appear on the screen, Li Xiaoen then turned back and continued, "Our lab's overall research project involves the retrieval enhancement architecture and hierarchical reinforcement learning of large language models."

"We all know that the main challenges currently faced by large language models are knowledge staticity, domain illusion, and failure in complex tasks. The obvious solutions to these challenges are reinforcement and recognition retrieval, as well as hierarchical reinforcement learning..."

On the screen, there was only a simple list of titles describing the laboratory projects. Facing the many eyes of the audience, Li Xiaoen spoke off-script, talking fluently and casually, occasionally shifting his feet, as if he were just chatting idly at home.

"As previous students have mentioned, specific measures include maximizing the similarity of positive sample pairs and minimizing the difference of negative samples to construct a modality-invariant feature space. These are specific measures, and the corresponding ones are..."

The large exhibition hall was dimly lit and quiet. Many seated students and professors stared intently at the young man standing on the stage, whose calm and magnetic voice captivated them as he spoke eloquently.

From a distance, they couldn't make out the young man's appearance, but from his tall and upright posture and his consistently natural and fluent speech, they could deeply feel that he was an outstanding academic elite.

Even more shockingly, some people who had noticed the young man's distraction and delay in his speech suddenly realized what was happening and were even more astonished than the others, staring blankly at the stage for a long time without any reaction.

It turns out he really could multitask, chatting with pretty girls while simultaneously memorizing the speech on stage.
The exhibition hall was equipped with speakers at intervals to ensure that the sound could be transmitted accurately and without distance differences to every corner. However, Amelia did not hear a sound at this moment. She stared blankly at the young man on the stage who was bathed in light, completely absorbed.

Instead of following Professor Sedgewick's advice to detail his work in the presentation, after the presentation, Li Xiaoen inevitably faced probing questions from the professors in the audience, who asked him to provide more detailed answers.

"Hmm... the experimental projects are progressing well, especially the interpersonal collaboration model you were in charge of. Your presentation was also excellent, although the arrangement of the content was somewhat disappointing..."

After finally managing to deal with all the professors and seeing the satisfied expressions on their faces, Li Xiaoen breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to nod to everyone in the audience and leave, Stella took the initiative to start the summary, causing him to pause for a moment.

"I know that you Chinese people value humility and conservatism, but this is America. In other aspects, at least in our academic circles, we value strength and contribution."

Professor Stella spoke slowly, her gaze sweeping over him meaningfully, "Next time, please don't waste time going into detail about sub-projects that are progressing slowly or have yielded minor results..."

"Okay, I know."

Now that you've said that, it's hard to keep a low profile.

With a complex mix of emotions, Li Xiaoen smiled and nodded, then looked up at the crowd below the stage, thanked them, and turned to walk off the stage.

Ignoring the gazes that had gathered around him as he walked back, Li Xiaoen steadied himself in the aisle next to his seat and was immediately drawn to Amelia, who was standing there looking rather dazed.

"what happened?"

Li Xiaoen stepped inside and sat down. Seeing the girl follow closely behind, he couldn't help but tease her, "Was it because I was too handsome on stage and didn't know how to face me? Or are you unhappy that I didn't say anything to slander you?"

"I didn't expect you could actually multitask?"

Ignoring the boy's teasing, Amelia looked over with some surprise.

"I said this before, so you don't believe me?"

Li Xiaoen helplessly shrugged and asked a question instead of answering.

"Not always."

Rolling her eyes, Amelia sat up straight and looked at the stage in front of her. "Based on all the conversations we've had since we met, except for a few things related to studies and competitions, the percentage of lies you've told is as high as 85%."

As she spoke, Amelia turned her head and scoffed, "Tell me, based on this ratio and the ideal outcome, should I choose to believe you?"

"Eighty-five percent?"

Li Xiaoen raised an eyebrow, somewhat amused, "How did you know such specific numbers?"

Is this the important point?

Amelia's eyes, framed by her rimless glasses, revealed a gentle smile. "Tell me, should I remain skeptical of what you say?"

"Ok."

Li Xiaoen shrugged, turned to face Amelia, and looked down at the girl's fair and pretty face. "If I said I like you, would you believe me?"

Upon hearing this, Amelia's expression immediately changed, and she froze on the spot.

After waiting for a while, she finally reacted, lowered her eyes to avoid the young man's gaze, and turned back to look at the stage.

"If you dare talk to me like that again, I'll tell Avery."

This is about suing the teacher. Professor Sedgewick didn't work. Has it progressed to suing the parents?
Li Xiaoen's expression turned strange. Before he could say anything more, Amelia called out again.

"Also, I'll go tell those young ladies you know..."

Only then did Li Xiaoen feel a pang of surprise, raise an eyebrow, and silently sit back down.

"It was just a joke. I'm telling you now, what I said about liking you just now was a lie."

Li Xiaoen murmured softly, "Please don't misunderstand."

"Humph……"

Amelia snorted coldly, took a deep breath, and said nothing more.

After several speeches, it was almost noon. The atmosphere in the hall was much more lively than before, with many people gathered together to discuss the content of the previous speeches.

Just as Li Xiaoen was picking up two sandwiches to fill his stomach, several students gathered around him.

"Hi Sean, I'm Archibald, a master's student at Stanford University. I heard you're still a freshman, you just enrolled last year?"

The young man in the suit at the head of the group asked in surprise. Li Xiaoen remembered him; he was also a student who had given a speech on stage.

"Yes."

Nodding, and noticing the shocked gasps of those around him, Li Xiaoen added, "I started self-studying computers during high school, even on holidays and weekends."

"Self-taught?"

Archibald exclaimed in surprise, glancing left and right at his fellow students. Seeing that they shared the same expression as him, he breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head repeatedly, saying, "Your talent is truly remarkable. I think your knowledge base is already far superior to ours in your first year..."

"I'm afraid there's more than that..."

Suddenly, another voice came from the side, and Haskell and Lucas also came over. The group vaguely formed a circle, and Haskell looked over with a strange look in his eyes. "I see that Sean usually leaves the lab on time, and he even took several days off a while ago..."

"is it?"

Upon hearing this, everyone raised an eyebrow, then exchanged glances and chuckled. Giving Haskel a helpless look, Sean Lee shook his head, abandoning the idea of ​​explaining—his previous explanations had only served to downplay the system's overpowered abilities, and there was no need to repeat them now.

Stella was right. He always knew that in America, excessive modesty and timid conservatism would only make others look down on you. Only full confidence, even if it was a bit arrogant, was better than being dull and timid.

Therefore, in social situations like this, instead of actively seeking friendly interaction, it's better to cultivate oneself. If you're good at it, people will come to you. Has he become the one that college students actively seek out?

After exchanging contact information with several students from various universities, and watching them chat happily, Li Xiaoen, who was originally going to remain silent and listen quietly, was still occasionally looked at, so he had no choice but to speak up and exchange a few words, which made him feel a little emotional.

When you're poor, no one cares even in the bustling city; when you're rich, even distant relatives come calling from the deep mountains. Indeed, this truth applies to every country and every time period.

While they were eating sandwiches and chatting, another student suddenly walked over and gestured in the direction of several professors not far away.

"I'll go over there for a moment."

Nodding to the group of people gathered in front of him, Li Xiaoen walked over.

"Sean, come to Harvard."

Before she even got close, Stella raised her chin and solemnly extended an invitation, "I'm serious. I believe that with the support of Harvard, you will definitely be able to push artificial intelligence technology to a new level!"

"You son of a bitch, shut your mouth!"

Unable to resist giving a sharp rebuke, Professor Sedgewick turned around and immediately smiled. "Sean, I called you here to talk to you about the corporate project collaboration you mentioned before."

“Professor Stella, I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your proposal. Professor Sedgewick has helped me a lot, and I believe that I can achieve the same level of success at Princeton as at other schools. There will still be many opportunities for collaboration in the future.”

After responding to Stella, Sean Lee turned to Professor Sedgewick and asked, "Is it about the collaboration with the internet company?"

"um, yes."

Satisfied with Sean Lee's politeness and response, Professor Sedgewick smiled and nodded repeatedly, gesturing to Stella, who stood beside him with a helpless expression, "The partner I want to introduce to you is Harvard University, their laboratory."

"What's wrong? You're not even willing to take on a small project?"

Seeing Stella's lack of interest, Professor Sedgewick raised an eyebrow. "If you won't agree, I'll find someone else?"

"Yes, I promise."

Only then did Stella nod helplessly, which made Sean Lee's expression gradually turn strange.

After chatting for a few more minutes, the afternoon lecture was about to begin. Just as Li Xiaoen was looking around for Amelia, he noticed that the girl was already standing next to him.

"Let's go in together."

Li Xiaoen turned his head to signal, and just as he and Amelia lifted their legs, two more students approached them, young girls who were relatively rare in the venue.

"Hey, Sean..."

The girl in the suit and pencil skirt spoke up, looking at them with wide, expectant eyes. "Could we exchange contact information? You were so cool giving that speech up there..."

"Oh, thank you."

Li Xiaoen smiled and nodded. After hesitating for a moment, he took out his phone and exchanged contact information with the other party. Notably, he was even pulled aside to take a picture together.

When they walked back, they found Amelia waiting there.

"Aren't you proud?"

Amelia teased casually, "As a man, you should be very happy to have a girl take the initiative to add you on the phone, right?"

"Actually, it's alright."

Li Xiaoen nodded seriously, "We're all university students researching computer artificial intelligence. Getting to know each other might be helpful and lead to future collaborations, right?"

"This has nothing to do with whether the other person is a boy or a girl, right?"

Muttering to himself, Li Xiaoen turned to look at Amelia, noticing her expression froze for a moment before she turned away and stopped talking. He then leaned closer and asked, "Does this have anything to do with whether someone is a boy or a girl? Is there any difference?"

The girl still didn't answer, which made Li Xiaoen chuckle. He was about to try to tease her when Amelia suddenly threw another punch at him.

"Hey, is that your answer?"

Even though the girl felt no pain at all from the blow to her shoulder, Li Xiaoen still questioned her.

"Hmph, don't think I don't know you're just pretending."

With a cold snort, Amelia glared at him fiercely.

"Um……"

Li Xiaoen took a deep breath and slumped his shoulders helplessly. "Amelia, you seem to have gotten smarter."

Just as the girl's gaze suddenly turned cold, Li Xiaoen raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. As her body stiffened abruptly, he whispered, "Don't speak, just be natural. It's my turn to be your shield..."

Upon hearing this, Amelia suddenly came to her senses and her body recovered.

The afternoon lectures proceeded smoothly. After the day's seminar ended, as Li Xiaoen stepped outside the venue and took a breath of fresh air, his phone rang.

It's Suffer's.

After confirming the call, Li Xiaoen glanced at Amelia before answering and putting the phone to his ear.

"Sean, is the meeting over?"

Suffer's voice came from the other end of the phone, and you could also faintly hear a series of beeping machine sounds.

"Yeah, just finished driving it. What's up?"

Li Xiaoen answered, glancing around at the crowd that had dispersed to the parking lot.

"Thanks for your hard work."

Sophie responded gently, "Come back to school for dinner. I'll cook it for you myself as a treat."

"..."

Back at school, Sophie cooked dinner herself, and Victoria was there, without a doubt.

He opened his mouth, then suddenly woke up with a start, his face contorting with worry. He looked up at the still somewhat twilight-colored New York sky.

"I see it's getting late, and it'll take almost two hours to get back from New York..."

There was no sound on the other end of the phone. Li Xiaoen was certain that Su Feier hadn't hung up; he could still faintly hear the sounds of cooking.

"Sufeil..."

That was clearly not a reward, but a punishment!

Li Xiaoen thought to herself, then lowered her voice, both amused and exasperated, "Can I not go?"

(End of this chapter)