Asking an Academician for Advice

In the living room, Li Na fell into a thoughtful silence as she held the little one, who smelled sweetly of milk.

She had gotten up early that morning and made a point of walking over from her own complex. Her plan had been to give Mo Jingchun a good talking-to, make him see the error of his ways, and get him to pay attention in class and focus on learning his field.

But... why hadn't things gone as she'd expected? Instead, she'd given Mo Jingchun a push and sent him even farther down the road to "turning evil."

The more Li Na thought about it, the more she felt something was off. Her mind couldn't quite wrap itself around it.

Looking at the two front doors, hers and the one across the hall, Li Na couldn't help thinking that it was too late to say anything now. That guy had already run over to ask Academician Chen Xihe for advice.

"Forget it. Everyone has their own path to follow." Li Na sighed and shook her head.

The moment she looked at the milk-scented Candy in her arms, her mood brightened. Li Na realized that she was liking little kids more and more.

No, next time she went home, she had to tell her mom to get her younger brother and sister-in-law to hurry up and have an adorable little baby.

Heh!

They'd been married for over a year, and they still wanted to enjoy a few more years of freedom. How could that be allowed?

Li Na raised an eyebrow. She'd made up her mind: whenever she had time, she'd drop by her younger brother's company every few days and hurry the two of them along.

Meanwhile, Mo Jingchun followed behind Academician Chen Xihe, holding his notebook of questions and doing his best to behave.

Chen Xihe picked up the glasses case on the table. He opened it, took out his reading glasses, and said with a broad smile, "Come on, let me see the questions you've run into. It's good to love learning. Our country has grown stronger and more prosperous because there are so many people like you who love to learn."

Mo Jingchun awkwardly rubbed his nose, unsure how to respond to Academician Chen Xihe.

If he were really as outstanding as Chen Xihe said, Mo Jingchun figured he'd wake up laughing in his sleep.

Wearing his reading glasses, Chen Xihe sat down on the sofa and opened Mo Jingchun's notebook.

The first thing he saw was a fine sample of "good" handwriting, and the corner of Chen Xihe's mouth twitched.

He was an excellent student who loved to learn, so why couldn't he write neatly?

Fortunately, although the handwriting in the notebook wasn't pretty, it was clear enough, and he could make out every character.

"Mo Jingchun, I'll call you Xiao Chun."

"Tsk! You should practice your handwriting whenever you have the time. You can't just focus on absorbing new knowledge—a good hand is important too. As you young people say, good handwriting lets you show off at just the right moment."

Mo Jingchun: "???"

Before Mo Jingchun could say anything, Academician Chen Xihe's expression turned serious. He focused on the questions in the notebook, even looking over the ones Mo Jingchun had crossed out.

Beside him, Mo Jingchun leaned forward and said, "Professor, the ones I crossed out were questions I'd already solved by looking things up. The rest aren't covered in the books."

"Mm." Chen Xihe gave a soft hum, then continued going through the questions Mo Jingchun had written down, page by page.

About ten minutes later, after finishing the notebook, Chen Xihe flipped back to the first page.

Then Chen Xihe looked up and met Mo Jingchun's eyes. The moment he spoke, Mo Jingchun was stunned.

"You're working on something like a stabilizer or balancing device, aren't you?"

Seeing the astonishment in Mo Jingchun's eyes and the disbelief on his face, Chen Xihe smiled. Now he was certain: Mo Jingchun was working on something like a stabilizer or balancing device.

Just as Academician Chen Xihe had guessed, Mo Jingchun really was taken aback. Chen Xihe's guess had hit the mark exactly.

Is this what an academician is like? Just from the questions and doubts I wrote down, he can infer the whole from the details, and the system from the whole! Then he can figure out what kind of product I'm working on.

The Smart Anti-Shake Spoon might sound like a fancy name, but at its core, it was still a balancing device.

Mo Jingchun nodded blankly and swallowed before replying, "Yes, Professor. I'm developing a Smart Anti-Shake Spoon. I'm very confident in the software algorithms, and I've already finished developing them. But the hardware, as you can see, is running into all kinds of problems."

"A Smart Anti-Shake Spoon?" Chen Xihe nodded. "That's a good idea."

As an academician and an old man, he knew plenty of old friends whose hands had begun to tremble involuntarily as they got older.

A few of them had suffered strokes, and they could no longer feed themselves. They had to rely entirely on others to care for them.

Mo Jingchun had confidently claimed that the software was already finished. Chen Xihe smiled, but he didn't want to dampen the young man's enthusiasm.

The hardware wasn't ready yet, so the software couldn't possibly be finished either. For any mature electronic product, the software and hardware had to be fully adapted to each other before they could be adjusted to work at their best.

Computers were powerful in this era, but simulated results were only based on ideal models. In practice, there were always problems no one could imagine, or even think to anticipate.

Chen Xihe pointed to a question in the notebook and said to Mo Jingchun, "Here, I recommend using a screw drive instead of a gear drive."

"Why?" Mo Jingchun asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"Good question! Why?"

"Have you thought about it? Gear drives have plenty of advantages: they're precise, efficient, compact, reliable, and durable. But if you use gears inside your Smart Anti-Shake Spoon, have you thought about how many gears of different sizes it would take to perform all the complex movements needed to keep it steady?"

"Do you know what a mechanical watch is?"

Mo Jingchun nodded.

"I do."

Chen Xihe looked at Mo Jingchun and asked with a smile, "And what's the first thing you think of when you hear 'mechanical watch'?"

Mo Jingchun thought for a moment. "Expensive."

"Exactly, expensive. The more accurate a mechanical watch is, the more precise its internal gears have to be, which means higher costs."

"The Smart Anti-Shake Spoon is an everyday item, not a luxury product. If it's too expensive, not many people will be willing to pay through the nose for it."

"A screw drive is different. It can adjust the spoon's direction of movement as quickly as possible, allowing it to stay balanced. What's more, it takes up far less space than a pile of gears."

Chen Xihe smiled teasingly. "You can't expect people to hold a spoon handle as thick as a teacup."

### Asking an Academician for Advice