Although Xiang Kun had been keeping a close eye on the situation in Zicheng, he heard his words immediately and knew that he had been "betrayed".
But he pretended not to know, continuing to turn his back to Zicheng and the two girls, looking down at his phone at the bar, until Zicheng called him directly...
Xiang Kun had no choice but to get up and walk over, greet the two girls, then pull up a chair, sit down next to Zi Cheng, and glare at him, as if to say: Didn't I tell you to handle it yourself? Why did you "sell me out" so quickly?
Zicheng glared back at him, as if to say: I really can't take it anymore, brother!
Indeed, after he finished repeating what Xiang Kun had taught him, the two girls didn't follow his conversational rhythm. Instead, they asked him all sorts of questions to embarrass him. After a few rounds, they couldn't handle it anymore and had to ask Xiang Kun for help.
The short-haired girl with a healthy complexion looked at Xiang Kun, who had just sat down, with interest in her eyes, and asked, "Your friend said you can tell fortunes, is that true?"
Xiang Kun had actually considered saying that he had overheard their conversation when he passed by them on his way to the restroom and made those speculations, but then he thought that might lead to other questions and wouldn't be very meaningful, so he nodded and said, "I guess so."
The girl with glasses said, "Your friend said he's the 118th generation disciple of Maoshan, that can't be true, right? And you... you look more like a monk than a Daoist!"
Zi Cheng interjected in a low voice, "Um... Miss, I was referring to the 113th generation disciple..."
The girl with glasses glared at him. "So, is it real or fake?"
"It's fake, it's fake..." Zi Cheng directly admitted it without being asked.
Xiang Kun had no choice but to say, "They claim to be a Daoist lineage, but that's just a facade. We actually use scientific methods for fortune-telling, such as computer programs and quantum mechanics..."
"Quantum mechanics?" The short-haired girl chuckled, then looked at the girl with glasses.
The latter pushed up his glasses with his index finger knuckle, looked at Xiang Kun with a half-smile, and asked, "Quantum mechanics? Does it use wave functions? Or the 'inaccurate fortune-telling principle'?"
Uh, did we stumble upon their arsenal? Xiang Kun didn't think he could fool anyone just because he'd read a few introductory books on quantum mechanics recently, so he ignored the somewhat sarcastic question and said, "We're using the latest AI neural networks as the foundation for our fortune-telling research. We're using a TensorFlow-based backend to build convolutional neural network models, and we obtain fortune-telling results through big data comparison and learning."
Observing the two girls' expressions, heartbeats, and breathing, Xiang Kun immediately concluded that they knew nothing about this area. Hmph, confused, aren't you? You're great at physics, but are you great at programming too?
Xiang Kun spoke, he gave Zi Cheng a wink, meaning: It's your turn, brother. I'm your wingman!
Zi Cheng raised an eyebrow and immediately added, "Yes, we were already researching data-driven fortune telling ten years ago when we were undergraduates. Look, this is the fortune telling program we made back then. It has over 200,000 downloads and is quite popular."
As he spoke, he used his phone to search for a software called "Ma Gate Universe Fate Analyzer." However, this software was for PCs and did not support mobile systems. In short, it looked impressive but was actually quite confusing.
This software was indeed written by Xiang Kun and Zi Cheng together when they were in college; it was one of the countless "useless programs" they created.
This fortune-telling software doesn't use any deep learning or neural networks at all. It just packages together things that are already available online, such as horoscopes, birth dates and times, and personality tests, and presents them to users through a very ugly interface. It's all very basic stuff.
The download numbers online were secretly inflated using tools...
The main reason they created this fortune-telling software is because it has a "name compatibility index." If the man's name is "Liu Chuang" or "Xiang Kun," he gets a score of 100 and receives a lot of praise for being a perfect match.
Then they used aliases to spread the software link on the school forum, saying that the software was "too damn accurate!"
However, this software has a problem: when measuring the couple's compatibility score, if the male's name is "Liu Chuang" or "Xiang Kun," the female's name, regardless of whether it's "Godzilla" or "Zhu Ganglie," will always result in a perfect match of 100 points...
Later, when this was discovered, the names of the two creators were used in all sorts of ways, and they had to quickly patch it up, but it was too late. This was also the most famous time for the two of them on the school forum.
However, Liu Chuang showed off this broken software without batting an eye, and Xiang Kun nodded in agreement, saying, "Everything in the real world can be digitized. As long as there is enough data, everything can be calculated."
The short-haired girl laughed and said, "Oh? So, you just calculated our information using this software? Hey, didn't you say this software doesn't have a mobile version? How did you use it just now?"
"Of course not this software, this is just a practice piece we made ten years ago." Xiang Kun didn't answer her question directly, but instead took out a folded A4 sheet of paper and handed it over. "Please check it."
The short-haired girl took the paper with some surprise. After unfolding it, she found it to be a blank A4 sheet covered in creases, seemingly folded into many shapes. Confused, she handed the paper to the girl with glasses and asked Xiang Kun, "What's so special about this paper?"
This piece of paper is definitely special!
This is the "A4 Paper 1" that established contact with Xiang Kun. After giving the Coin to Liu Shiling and flicking the Ballpoint Pen Tip onto the earring-wearing boy, the only items left to establish contact were two sheets of A4 paper. So, although he hadn't thought about what to do with it, he still carried "A4 Paper 1" with him. Unexpectedly, it has come in handy now.
"You can go to the bar and borrow a pen, write down any number on a piece of paper, fold it into a small piece, and hold it in your hand. I'll tell you what's on the paper. If I guess right, you two will each buy us a drink, okay?" Xiang Kun said.
What if you can't guess?
"We'll buy you drinks?"
"If I'm wrong, either of you can go to the door and shout 'I'm a liar' three times across the street, how about that?" the short-haired girl said, raising her chin slightly.
"No problem," Xiang Kun replied readily.
The two girls whispered a few words to each other, then the girl with glasses took a ballpoint pen from her bag, took the A4 paper, and walked to the other side of the aisle. Out of their sight, she placed the A4 paper on the wall and wrote a number on it.
When the girl with glasses returned, she held the folded A4 sheet of paper in her hand and said, "Guess!"
Xiang Kun glanced at it and said, "Before we guess the number, let's warm up. Put your hands behind your back and pass the paper between your hands. I can guess which hand you'll be holding the paper in."
The girl with glasses then put her hand holding the piece of paper behind her back. Xiang Kun guessed correctly, of course. She tried twice more, still getting them all right. The short-haired girl next to her looked warily in the direction behind her, to see if Xiang Kun's "accomplice" was giving him a hint, but she didn't find anything.
After five attempts, the girl with glasses resignedly placed the origami on the table in front of her, stared at Xiang Kun, and said, "Guess the number. What do you think I wrote?"
"Six, the Chinese word for six," Xiang Kun said definitively.
It's not that he's established a connection with the A4 paper and can understand what's written on it. He took out the paper simply to help him locate the source of the sound.
The sound of the strokes is different when writing different numbers. He can't distinguish complex characters by the sound of the strokes, but he can distinguish numbers without much problem. The only problem is how to locate the sound in a relatively noisy environment.
The girl with glasses was quite cunning; instead of writing Arabic numerals, she wrote the Chinese character for "six".
When he heard the sound of four strokes, he immediately realized that the girl wasn't writing Arabic numerals. Among Chinese numerals, only five and six have four strokes, but the bend in five is very obvious, and the sound is easy to distinguish, so it can only be six.
Seeing that Xiang Kun hadn't even touched the still folded A4 paper, nor glanced at it, before reciting the Chinese numerals she had written on it, she exchanged a surprised glance with her companion. Her first instinct was to look up at the ceiling where Xiang Kun had been writing, to check if there were any security cameras...
"That should impress them," Xiang Kun smiled slightly and said to the two, "Everything is number; that's the mystery of calculation. Every crease on that paper has its own significance. The specific principles are extremely complex. My friend is a top student from Stanford; he's done a lot of related research in recent years..."
Xiang Kun then winked at Zi Cheng: "It's your turn. My wingman's fuel tank is almost empty!"