At the start, I had to choose one of four options, and I immediately picked the Brahmin from the cou

The report was short, only three pages long, and included a comparison table of the latest "Technical Review Rules for the Recognition of Provincial High-tech Enterprises" issued by the Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

Li Xiao didn't rush to turn the page, but instead read the first page from beginning to end. Chen Qiming's writing style was always concise, without piling up adjectives or exaggerating emotions, but this page exuded an undeniable confidence—the V2.0 underlying reconstruction was completed, the NLP semantic matching accuracy was 93.8%, the average response latency for 100,000 concurrent users was 120 milliseconds, the peak memory usage was 15.6 GB, and the system achieved zero crashes and zero data corruption in five rounds of full load testing.

All three core invention patents achieved an A-level technical barrier rating, with the graph neural network resume matching algorithm being specifically highlighted by the provincial science and technology department's preliminary review expert group as a priority for further consideration.

Li Xiao placed the report on the table and leaned back in his chair. He recalled how Dr. Chen, looking exhausted, had explained the theory of childbirth to him a month ago in Xinglan Technology's office, which reeked of instant noodles and the acidity of black coffee—it was impossible for ten women to give birth in a month. Now the children were born, and they were triplets.

Zhou Yanhuai, sitting opposite him, was also reading the same report, but he read much slower than Li Xiao.

He flipped through the two pages of technical specifications three times, comparing each line with his finger each time, his lips moving silently as if reciting a string of unfamiliar numbers. When he finished reading it the last time, he put the report down and looked at Li Xiao with an extremely complex expression.

"Brother Xiao, 120 milliseconds." Zhou Yanhuai emphasized these three words, as if to confirm that he hadn't been misled by the unit of measurement. "Last time I went to the provincial capital on a business trip, I took the opportunity to visit a leading company in intelligent recruitment in Suzhou High-tech Zone. They had just completed their Series C funding round, and their team size was eight times that of Dr. Chen's. Their server cluster used Alibaba Cloud's latest generation of GPU computing power matrix. Their concurrent matching latency was 800 milliseconds. At the time, their CTO told me that in the niche field of NLP semantic matching, there were no more than five teams in China that could reduce the latency to less than one second."

He paused, then his gaze returned to the line of numbers on the report.

"Dr. Chen's team has pushed the record of the top level in China forward by nearly seven times."

The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.

Zheng Hao sat at the other end of the conference table, unusually silent. In front of him lay a printed copy of the provincial science and technology department's review guidelines. He turned to the page on the high-tech enterprise introduction indicators, where a circle in red pen indicated the A-level rating of Dr. Chen's team's three invention patents.

"The provincial science and technology department's review expert group will be in Jiangyang next week. Based on this technical review result, Xinglan Technology will almost certainly be recognized as a provincial high-tech enterprise. We have already met the city's mandatory requirement for the high-tech zone—to introduce at least one provincial-level or higher recognized high-tech enterprise by the end of next year—a year and a half ahead of schedule."

He paused here, as if waiting for Li Xiao to complete the final piecing together of these two pieces of information.

Li Xiao didn't respond. He simply reached out and adjusted the slats of the blinds, letting the sunlight shift from the tabletop to the white wall opposite. A master plan of the Jiangyang High-tech Zone hung on the wall, the location of the core plot circled in red marker, with the words "Property Rights Confirmed" next to it. His gaze lingered on the red circle for a moment, then he spoke a remark completely unrelated to the technical report.

"A signing ceremony will be held next Monday. Xinglan Technology will be officially listed as a provincial-level high-tech enterprise and will simultaneously sign an agreement to become a joint operator of the high-tech zone's incubation platform."

"I'll have the administration department liaise with the county party committee office for the signing ceremony." Zhou Yanhuai quickly jotted it down on his phone's memo app. "Cao Weidong will definitely be willing to attend, after all, attracting a provincial-level high-tech enterprise is a key performance indicator for the high-tech zone's annual assessment, and he needs this achievement. I'll notify Dr. Chen to prepare a brief presentation on his technical achievements; the PPT used by the expert panel during the review will suffice, no need to redo it."

"No need for the county committee office," Li Xiao waved his hand. "Hold the signing ceremony in the lobby on the Xinglan Technology floor. Have Cao Weidong come over and let him see that office, which is less than 200 square meters, with his own eyes."

Zhou Yanhuai's finger paused on the screen for a moment, then he nodded knowingly.

Letting Cao Weidong see with his own eyes that cramped office, with walls covered with mathematical formulas and neural network topology diagrams, was more convincing than any report—Lansheng wasn't packaging an empty shell project to exploit policy benefits, but was genuinely using real money and solid technological accumulation to incubate a technical team in this inconspicuous corner of Jiangyang County that could compete head-on with leading companies in the provincial arena.

The signing ceremony is scheduled for next Wednesday.

That morning, Cao Weidong's car pulled up on time in front of the somewhat dilapidated office building. When the county party secretary got out of the car, he looked up at the mottled exterior wall and the bronze plaque at the entrance that read "Lansheng Capital Angel Investment Fund Incubation Base," and his expression was somewhat subtle—not disgust, but more like a surprise that "I didn't expect you to actually be working here."

Zhou Yanhuai greeted him at the lobby entrance. The elevator slowly climbed three floors, and as soon as the doors opened, Cao Weidong almost tripped over several boxes of unopened server components piled up in the corridor. He steadied himself by holding onto the wall, and then saw the office at the end of the corridor with the Xinglan Information Technology sign hanging on it—the door was open, more than a dozen monitors were lit up at the same time, four whiteboards on the walls were covered with writing, and the smell of black coffee mixed with the slightly burnt smell of electronic components filled the air, so real that there was no room for embellishment.

Chen Qiming stood at the door, wearing a slightly faded plaid shirt, his glasses still bearing the fingerprints of someone who had stayed up all night. He hesitated when he saw Cao Weidong, and unconsciously rubbed his palm against the seam of his trousers as he reached out—a detail that was accurately captured on camera by the accompanying county television cameraman.

"Hello, Secretary Cao, welcome to our work." Chen Qiming's voice was slightly dry, but his back was very straight.