Engineering level 0 -> level 1

"Rumors."

Wu Chen answered without looking back.

"Someone even took photos."

Jiang Nan said.

They were just about to enter the North Ring Road Tunnel. Wu Chen drew his gaze back from the window and met Jiang Nan's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Here's what happened. The girl's name is Min Xinrou... she was just homesick."

Wu Chen had no choice but to recount the whole affair, including Wang Hongfa and Liu Ping's conversation.

After hearing him out, Jiang Nan was stunned for a moment.

Although she disliked Wang Hongfa's fawning over foreigners, she had only thought there was something wrong with his head.

She had never imagined that he would actually dare sleep with a female student at the school.

"Professor Jiang, the light's green."

Wu Chen reminded her.

"Oh."

Only then did Jiang Nan come to her senses and press the accelerator before the car behind them could honk.

But judging by her expression, she was clearly still in shock.

That's only the beginning, Wu Chen thought.

If he showed her the evidence he had collected in his previous life, she would probably be in shock for a whole day.

After a long while, Jiang Nan finally asked, "What are you planning to do?"

"Find evidence first, then report him."

Wu Chen said.

"All right. If there's anything you need my help with, be sure to tell me."

"Mm..."

Wu Chen was about to say there probably wouldn't be, but he suddenly remembered a way to quickly screw Wang Hongfa over.

He just didn't know whether Jiang Nan would go along with it.

After weighing his words, he asked, "What if I asked you to put on an act with me to fool him? Would you be okay with that?"

"What do you need me to do?"

Jiang Nan was clearly interested.

"Uh."

Her eagerness caught Wu Chen a little off guard.

Even so, he quickly explained his plan.

"Weren't he and Lavrov trying to use SNN's inspection cameras to scam money? Now that they've been found out, nobody's placing orders. So you approach him about a partnership and get him to sink a huge amount of money into research. When it's time for acceptance testing, just don't go easy on him. He'll lose everything, and in the end he'll be forced to embezzle government funds."

Wu Chen knew Wang Hongfa had quite a few research projects on hand, but none had produced much in the way of results, so he had to be desperate.

If he had the chance to complete a major partnership with Jiangdong Pharmaceutical Factory, he would definitely take the bait.

It was the evening rush hour, and they were stuck in the tunnel without moving an inch.

The brake lights of the car ahead cast flickering colors across Jiang Nan's fair face, outlining her slightly pursed lips with particular clarity and tinting even the fleeting thought in her eyes a faint crimson.

After waiting a long time without a response, Wu Chen thought she was going to refuse.

Instead, Jiang Nan suddenly spoke out of the blue.

"Then we'd better put on an act at school, so he'll have more confidence in SNN and invest even more money!"

"Mm... what kind of act?"

Wu Chen hadn't expected her to agree.

And she even seemed a little excited?

Jiang Nan tapped on the keyboard with her slender fingers and slowly said, "I won't go straight to Wang Hongfa. Instead, I'll pretend to come to you first to solve the problem, and then..."

By the time she finished explaining her plan, it was Wu Chen's turn to be stunned.

"You just came up with that?"

Jiang Nan tilted her head. "Yeah. Why?"

"You're so practiced at schemes and tricks. Have you watched a lot of shows about battles of wits, like 'Palace' or something?"

Wu Chen remembered that the show was hugely popular right now.

To his surprise, Jiang Nan raised an eyebrow. "That counts as a show about battles of wits?"

"Sorry, I guess I'm not very well informed."

"Heh."

Jiang Nan seemed to give a soft chuckle.

But when Wu Chen saw the smile at the corners of her mouth, he couldn't help asking:

"But if you put this plan into action, aren't you afraid your goddess image will be ruined?"

"Those are all labels you people stuck on me. I've never cared about them."

Jiang Nan said indifferently.

Wu Chen shrugged. "All right. And here I was thinking of you as a cool, aloof flower on a lofty peak all this time."

Jiang Nan glanced at him.

"What flower on a lofty peak would keep driving a man around?"

After returning home, Wu Chen took a cold shower, then scooped out and ate half a watermelon for dinner.

Wu Shufen was at his feet, focused on munching cat food.

Jiang Nan had once again declined the invitation to watch Wu Shufen perform a backflip and hurried back without taking a single bite.

Probably because of something Chen Beitao had said, she had great confidence in Wu Chen's technical abilities and believed he could solve the production line's problems in three days.

So before then, she had to get everything ready for production.

There was quite a lot of work.

And to screw Wang Hongfa over, she also needed Jiang Hongyue's cooperation, so she had to speak with him in advance.

After resting for a while, Wu Chen first checked his personal panel.

His other attributes had barely changed, but because he had spoken at length with the frontline technicians today, his engineering ability had improved considerably.

[Intelligence: Level 1 (25% -> 27%)]

[Stamina: Level 1 (9%)]

[Engineering: Level 0 (22% -> 31%)]

[Skill Points: 42.875]

After reading it, Wu Chen slapped his cheeks hard.

Still too weak!

He turned on his computer and first closed the speech emotion synthesis model he had only just begun researching.

It was for Min Xinrou, but it looked like he would have to put it aside for now.

Besides, demonstrating the validity of Seq2Seq and the attention mechanism wasn't as simple as he had expected. It would need longer-term planning.

Wu Chen created a new document and listed each of the problems Chen Yongkang and the others had mentioned that day.

"High-precision inspection camera. The key technology is the visual positioning algorithm, which I'll have to write myself. As for component selection, a 1.3-megapixel domestic one will be enough and cost around 800 yuan. It can even be mass-produced and sold for a profit later."

"Simple temperature-control calibration module for the reflow soldering oven. Hmm, I'll just use a sample for that. It doesn't seem to have much market value, so optimizing the temperature-zone curves with a PID algorithm should be enough."

"Rapid lens coaxiality calibration fixture... I'll use a sample for that too..."

Having settled on his goals, Wu Chen immediately began the relevant research.

This time, his sole purpose was to obtain samples, so he didn't write his papers as rigorously as he had when researching artificial intelligence. The formatting was quite casual.

And thanks to his previous experience, he made his component selections in advance in the theoretical work.

Otherwise, if the system supplied samples based on the latest hardware and produced another camera costing tens of thousands of yuan, he'd be screwed.

Before he knew it, several hours had quietly slipped by.

The alarm he had set in advance rang.

Wu You also emerged from his immersive research, saved his progress, washed up, and went to bed.

Tomorrow was Monday, and he had an eight o'clock class, so even though he could have kept going, he had to make sure he got enough sleep.

Only someone living a second life could understand how precious a healthy body was.

Besides, he had completed his target for the day as planned.

[Engineering: Level 0 (31% -> 52%)]

[Sample Shop: Visual positioning calibration module (new), CMOS sensor calibration kit (new)]

The next day.

After an uneventful twelve class periods, Wu Chen dragged his exhausted body home a little after eight in the evening.

But after looking at the twelve newly acquired Skill Points and taking another cold shower, he immediately sprang back to life and threw himself into his research once more.

This time, he completed his target for the day five minutes before his alarm went off.

He also obtained all the samples needed to solve the production line's problems.

[Engineering: Level 0 (52% -> 81%)]

[Sample Shop: Visual positioning calibration module, CMOS sensor calibration kit, PID temperature-control module (new), rapid lens coaxiality calibration fixture (new), IP67-rated dispensing and sealing fixture (new)]

After checking the sample descriptions once more and confirming they could solve every problem, Wu Chen lit a cigarette, leaned back comfortably in his chair, and called up the system.

"System, redeem the samples!"

[Skill Points: 54.875 -> 33.875]

[Redemption complete]

As several flashes of green and blue light passed, a great pile of samples immediately appeared in front of him.

Redeeming them had cost Wu Chen a total of 21 Skill Points.

But the value they could create was hundreds or thousands of times greater!

Wu Chen examined them carefully, and only after confirming everything was in order did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Then he looked at his remaining Skill Points and stared at his 81% engineering progress, giving it some thought.

He decisively allocated his points.

"System, use Skill Points to raise engineering to level 1!"

[Received]

[Beginning engineering level increase to level 1]

[Current progress: 81%]

[Skill Points consumed: 19]

[Increasing...]

[Increase complete]

[Skill Points: 33.875 -> 14.875]

[Engineering: Level 0 (81%) -> level 1 (0%)]

[Congratulations, host, on increasing your skill level. You have earned one random draw opportunity!]