6:30 a.m.
Shenzhen Bay No. 1, Building T5, study.
The winter solstice had just passed, and the nights were long while the days were short.
Outside the window, it was still pitch-black.
The spacious study's main lights were off. Only a warm-toned desk lamp designed to protect the eyes was lit.
The central air conditioning had been switched off, leaving the room slightly damp and cold.
Liu Qingning sat in an expensive ergonomic chair, still wearing the loungewear from the night before.
She seemed to have maintained that posture for a long time.
Her hands and feet were icy, yet she felt nothing.
The computer screen before her displayed lines upon lines of densely packed IDE code.
The cursor blinked on the final line.
Staying up all night was perfectly normal for her.
From joining Professor Wang Chang's research team in university to later founding [Century Zhixue].
Whether it was getting an algorithm to run or optimizing a model, she often worked through the night.
Back then, exhaustion had felt fulfilling—the sense of accomplishment that came from watching the progress bar inch toward completion.
But never before had it been as agonizing as it was tonight.
The work that had always calmed her down so quickly was completely ineffective now.
Her brain was still working, but her logic had become a tangled mess.
Though she looked cute and sweet, Liu Qingning was, at heart, an extremely hardcore science student.
She was used to using logic to deconstruct the world, using plans and formulas to deduce the future.
Encounter a problem, analyze the problem, solve the problem.
That was her way of thinking.
So, over the past few days, she had been constructing a logical model of "self-deception."
*As long as I work hard enough, as long as I gain real