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

Chapter 243 Comic Strip Matters
Snapped!
After a storm, Li Xiaoen was clearing the table when he was suddenly slapped hard on the back, making a crisp sound.

Turning his head, he looked down at Suffer, who was sitting limply in the chair. Suffer glared at him, and a helpless smile appeared on his face.

"Go upstairs! How many times have I told you?!"

With a sharp rebuke, Suffer noticed the smile on the young man's face and, feeling indignant, raised her hand and slapped him again.

"Your refusal wasn't very firm."

Reaching out and taking the girl's hand, Li Xiaoen sat down beside her, chuckling as he pulled her onto his lap. "Let's eat, okay?"

"What's the point of eating? It's all cold now."

Sophie struggled for a few moments, but gradually calmed down in the young man's arms.

"Um……"

Li Xiaoen's expression turned strange. "So, this is my fault?"

These words drew a disgruntled glare from the girl on top of him, and he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

“Sophie, that’s an advantage.”

After saying that, Li Xiaoen quickly carried Su Feier back to the chair, stood up abruptly, picked up the dinner he had prepared earlier, and went into the kitchen, his movements quite clumsy.

"Humph……"

Seeing this, Sophie couldn't help but roll her eyes, pursed her lips, and sat quietly in her chair.

Despite the fact that she seems to be in a superior position in their interactions and conversations, the young man still acts as if he's afraid she'll cause trouble again. When it comes to things that the other party has an idea, she still can't go against him—taking Victoria away before is a case in point.

"It's heated up again."

After a quick heat-up, Li Xiaoen soon came out of the kitchen with the steak, saying, "Sophie, your steak is here."

"Since you say it's mine, then don't eat it later."

Clearly, she was repeating what she had said earlier, so Suffer retorted.

"If you can't finish it, I'll eat it for you."

Smiling and nodding at the girl, Li Xiaoen sat down next to her again and used a knife and fork to cut a piece of food from their plates.

"Oh, yes."

Enjoying the quiet dinner time after the battle, Li Xiaoen clinked glasses with Su Feier, then suddenly remembered something and handed her his phone over, "Su Feier, take a look at this app."

"what is this?"

Looking down at the simple and plain interface on her phone, Suffer frowned slightly. "This software design is so ugly..."

"It's a bit ugly, but it's interesting."

Raising an eyebrow, Li Xiaoen smiled awkwardly to salvage the situation, "The functions may not be the best, but they will definitely surprise you."

"Is this all the work your studio has accomplished this week?"

Looking up at the young man, Suffer lowered her head and began to tentatively operate the device.

She had noticed how busy Li Xiaoen had been this week, and it was only this morning that they brought up the date for tonight. Considering the young man's amazing abilities and excellence, she couldn't help but feel excited.

"..."

"This... isn't it just a third-party platform? It's the same as opening a social media app. It's just an extra step. What's the difference between opening it on this app and not?"

She repeatedly operated the system, opening various social media apps on her phone, including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and quickly scrolling through a few homepage notifications. If it weren't for the semi-transparent app interface icon in the upper left corner, Suffer would have thought she was simply operating the phone's operating system.

“This is different, Sophie.”

With an unperturbed expression, Li Xiaoen forked a piece of beef and put it in his mouth. While chewing, he leaned towards Su Feier and asked, "Have you noticed that the content and push notifications from these apps are quite interesting?"

"Sorry, I'm not interested in excavators and robots fighting."

Rolling her eyes, Sophie announced in an extremely calm tone.

"Oh, this is my phone."

Realizing what was happening, Li Xiaoen smiled awkwardly, "Here, take a look here. These are the push notifications that the app helped filter out."

As he scrolled through the page, Li Xiaoen noticed a few pictures and texts featuring revealing skin, large breasts, big hips, and yoga pants, mixed in with mukbang videos and individual self-media influencers. Li Xiaoen paused for a moment.

"Although I don't usually pay much attention to it, I do occasionally want to take a look. This is something I need to improve."

Looking at his phone and muttering to himself, Li Xiaoen shook his head. A tearing pain shot through his waist, causing him to grimace and hiss.

"I didn't realize you had such high needs."

Suffolk squeezed tightly, twisting her wrist, and glared fiercely at Suffer.

"I'm putting myself in the users' shoes and considering their needs, but this only applies to my app..."

Unable to pry it open, Li Xiaoen was both amused and exasperated. She quickly explained, "Think about it, what's wrong with a normal man liking to look at women, especially women with good figures?"

Upon hearing this, seeing the fierce look in Su Feier's eyes, Li Xiaoen knew something was wrong. He quickly raised his hand, cupped the girl's cheeks, and kissed her. "They're not as pretty as you, they don't have your figure. I have better choices, don't I?"

"Who knows?"

Unable to bear the sight of the young man's frivolous grin, Sophie turned to the dining table, picked up her wine, and took a sip.

“Sophie, you should know that according to machine learning analysis of my usual preferences, these women are filtered out and will not appear in my app push notifications.”

Li Xiaoen shrugged. "I could have kept quiet. It was only out of a user testing mindset that I considered any areas for improvement in this app."

"Alright, you don't need to say anymore."

Giving her a meaningful look, Su Feier casually remarked, "Anyway, even the most heinous crimes can be made to look innocent by your mouth. It's a real shame you're not a lawyer."

"Consider it a favor I leave for the legal profession."

Li Xiaoen waved his hand with amusement.

Returning a shameless, disdainful look, Su Feier lowered her head and repeatedly browsed through the social media app login page and the app's backend, finally gaining a glimmer of understanding.

"So, you're planning to design a new push algorithm, partner with internet companies, and sell the algorithm and logic?"

Sophie raised her head again and tentatively looked at the young man.

"This can be considered as the initial business for the early development of the studio."

There was nothing that Suffer couldn't say to her. Li Xiaon nodded seriously, "What I'm thinking is to develop and gradually optimize this software so that it can achieve cross-platform sharing of training materials, and even sharing between people and users."

"Sophie, you should know that getting familiar with a new app requires a significant time investment. Creating an account, browsing the social media platforms to find the information you need, and developing an initial understanding of your preferences all take considerable time and consistent use..." "Furthermore, because different platforms are owned by different companies, there are multiple points of vulnerability to personal information leaks, making it difficult to prevent..."

As he spoke, Li Xiaoen became increasingly engrossed, his eyes filled with excitement as he looked at Su Feier. "And my app accepts all the information and push notifications from the platform, then, based on training, selectively filters out what users tend to see and like to see, turning multiple sources into our own..."

Listening to the young man's eloquent speech, Su Feier was suddenly stunned for a long time before she came to her senses and took a deep breath.

"I knew you were bold, but I never expected you to be this audacious."

Looking at the young man, Su Feier suddenly smiled incredulously, "Are you... planning to declare war on multiple internet giants at the same time? You're that confident?"

“I’m facing challenges from many sources, but there are just as many sources of information available to me, aren’t there?”

Li Xiaoen maintained his usual nonchalant smile, "In the end, it all comes down to algorithmic ability. My machine learning training library is larger than theirs, so it seems I have an advantage, haha."

"If you do this, it's fine if the market doesn't grow, but what if it does? Aren't you afraid they'll target you, sue you for breaking the law, and illegally intercept their user training preference data?"

Suddenly remembering this, Sophie quickly asked again.

"What I captured was just the user's actions, which should have been checked before logging into my app."

Li Xiaoen explained, "Moreover, according to your statement, if I were to intercept their user data, I would have to hack into their database, but in reality, I did not."

Upon hearing this, Su Feier nodded repeatedly with feigned seriousness, lowered her head and stared blankly at the phone in her hand. Listening to the young man's long speech, and anticipating the vision and challenges he mentioned, she felt a strange excitement spreading through her heart, even though it was something that seemed impossible to achieve.

"Therefore, we sincerely invite the first user outside our studio to try out our app, give it a thorough experience, and write a review of no less than 800 words. Thank you."

Li Xiaoen smiled and extended his hand to Su Feier, gesturing for her to enter.

He had heard before that for almost every software product launched on the market, including push notifications, the first user was often a relative of the developer. Now he was experiencing it firsthand.

The young man rolled his eyes at him, and Suffer shoved his phone into the other man's hand.

"Please install your app for me too."

"No need to rush."

Li Xiaoen shook his head and put his phone on the table. "I have already submitted the application for listing this app to Apple's App Store. It can be found on other systems now."

There was no way around it; both he and Suffer had Apple phones, and apps that weren't approved for release on their app stores couldn't be downloaded without tampering with their phones—his phone had already been modified.

"Free?"

Sophie looked up, her eyes wide.

"Yes."

Li Xiaoen nodded, "Suffolk, you're really smart."

A heartfelt compliment earned him an eye roll. Li Xiaoen mentally complained that he had seen far too many eye rolls from girls today.

He took a deep breath before continuing, "You've already experienced it for a while, and you can probably tell that our results this week are still rough. Right now, the most important thing is to acquire more user data to expand our studio's database. This is the feed for machine learning."

"After the app is improved, will it start charging?"

Sophie asked again.

"I still won't accept it."

Seeing the meaning in the girl's eyes, Li Xiaoen raised his chin. "Sufeier, do you think I'm smart?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the girl slapped his thigh again, and his expression slowly changed as he looked at her with narrowed eyes.

Ignoring the changing gaze of the youth, Sophie turned around, picked up her wine glass, and took a sip.

"Don't just drink, have some steak. You've been talking the whole time, I haven't seen you eat more than two pieces."

Li Xiaoen sighed and used his fork to pick up a piece of steak and hand it to the girl.

Suffer glanced at Li Xiaoen, then lowered her head, bit off a piece of beef from her fork, and just as she was about to pull it back, she raised one leg and pressed it onto the young man's thigh.

"By the way, do you need me to find someone to help you promote your studio's app?"

The two sat leaning against each other. Sophie swallowed the beef in her mouth and then bumped into the young man again.

And so, the two of them ate their dinner in a somewhat awkward manner, while briefly chatting about the app, until they finally finished at 8:30 p.m.

After cleaning up the leftovers and putting all the tableware and kitchen utensils into the dishwasher, the two of them turned to look at each other at the same time.

Without saying a word, they embraced each other tightly again. Suffer hung up on him, and Li Xiaoen took a deep breath, reached back, and kissed him as they walked upstairs to their room.

The next day.

As the software successfully launched on the Apple Store, Sean Lee drove to Seton Hall University early in the morning and met George, a chubby Japanese-American boy he hadn't seen in a long time, at a nearby coffee shop.

"Sean, are you sure you don't need me to transfer the corresponding authorization fee to you?"

When the two met, before Li Xiaoen even got close, George stood up to greet him, and said the same old thing: "Now that the comic is longer, my royalties have increased by about three or four times, and I've also received a lot of reader tips, all because of your character."

"Since you said no, then no. I've occasionally seen your comics, and they're very well drawn. Let's not talk about this anymore."

Li Xiaoen smiled, waved, and sat down. After ordering an iced Americano from the waiter, he turned back to the other person and asked, "You didn't call me here just because of this, did you?"

"No, of course not."

George quickly shook his head, his face showing some hesitation as he spoke, "Sean, I don't know if you've seen the news, but the website company where I publish comics has been acquired."

"Does this affect your comics and income?"

Li Xiaoen frowned slightly.

As is well known, when acquiring any company, as long as the company maintains a good expected profit, the acquiring company usually will not interfere too much with its original business and management. Moreover, George's comics are very profitable, so in theory, they should not be affected too much.

"They said either stop including Chinese elements in the comics, or force the publication to cease."

George looked up and glanced meaningfully at Sean Lee. As soon as he said this, he saw the young man's face darken instantly.

Which company is the acquirer?

Li Xiaoen took a deep breath and frowned.

Hearst Corporation.

Upon hearing this, Li Xiaoen raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Hearst Corporation, isn't that the company owned by Catherine's family?

(End of this chapter)