Sugar-Coated Shells
There was even a lottery?
After his initial delight, Wu Chen immediately drew without hesitation.
A large golden disc appeared in his mind, its pointer spinning rapidly.
The prize options included unknown theories, production lines, samples, "thanks for playing," and more.
Please don't let it be "thanks for playing"!
Wu Chen prayed silently.
After a moment, the pointer gradually slowed to a stop.
Wu Chen's heart rose into his throat.
Under his anxious gaze, the pointer slowly swept past "thanks for playing" and stopped on a sample.
[Congratulations, host! You drew a sample!]
After a line of golden text flashed past, a camera icon appeared in the sample shop.
It looked a lot like Vengeance No. 1, but its description was entirely different.
[Industrial-grade intelligent visual inspection camera]
[Grade: Green]
[Price: 2 skill points]
[Purchase limit: 5]
[Advantages: Based on HOG feature extraction and an SVM classifier; supports detection of multiple categories of industrial objects; configurable to accommodate workpieces measuring 0.5-5 cm; integrates CLAHE adaptive lighting compensation and a Gaussian bilateral filtering algorithm]
Wu Chen stared at it for a long time and realized that this thing was the perfect industrial version of Vengeance No. 1.
However, Vengeance No. 1 was an SNN-based biomimetic dynamic vision sensor, while the new sample was a traditional machine vision system based on HOG and SVM.
The two were completely different in technical principles, hardware architecture, and application paradigms. They were implementations of two separate technical paths.
It was just that, in the 2025 Wu Chen could foresee, the new sample was the winner.
But Wu Chen hadn't done enough research in this area either. The only application he could think of for now was inspecting electronic components for quality control in factories.
And to mass-produce it, he would still need to fill in all the theoretical gaps.
But since he had gotten it for free, Wu Chen didn't dwell on it.
He first redeemed Vengeance No. 1 for one skill point, then connected it to his computer and tested it.
Sure enough, it was just as he had expected.
In an ideal environment with constant lighting, a clean background, and a single, predictable target trajectory, its recognition capabilities were indeed quite good.
But as soon as he introduced a little interference, its performance immediately became terrible.
Still, it was enough to fool Wang Hongfa and Lavrov.
Wu Chen sneered.
The theory behind this thing could be published in a top journal like Neurocomputing. He didn't believe those two wouldn't be tempted.
And they would definitely want to invest even more.
Just wait and spend your lives on a road that leads nowhere!
Of course, if they really struck it lucky and produced some results, Wu Chen had dug even more pits for them to jump into, until they jumped straight into hell.
He carefully put Vengeance No. 1 away and checked his system panel again.
Then he was delighted to discover that his artificial intelligence level progress had increased!
[Artificial intelligence: Level 0 (22%)]
So verifying the relevant theories again could increase his progress too!
Could it have risen because he had seriously worked through the two theories again during his three days of research?
Either way, Wu Chen was overjoyed.
But he was too tired by now. Once the excitement of completing his research faded, his whole body went limp, and he collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
He slept all the way until the next morning.
After waking up and washing up, he felt refreshed, all his fatigue swept away.
It was great to be young!
As Wu Chen ate toast for breakfast, he sent Wang Hongfa a message on QQ to bait the waters.
"Dean Wang, my classmate's sample has arrived. Would you like to come to campus and take a look?"
The school was on break that day, and he had thought Wang Hongfa wouldn't be online. To his surprise, Wang Hongfa replied instantly.
"I'm in my office. Bring it over and let's have a look."
"I'll be right there."
Wu Chen didn't delay. He picked up Vengeance No. 1 and headed out.
He made his way to the School of Computer Science building, where he unexpectedly ran into Liu Ping, a teacher at the school.
The thirty-year-old mature beauty had a family, but she was also one of Wang Hongfa's mistresses at the school.
The two had joined forces to trip him up when he was being considered for an associate professorship, ultimately causing him to be forced out under the "up or out" policy.
But Liu Ping didn't know Wu Chen now, so she hurried away without speaking to him.
Seeing the unnatural flush on her face, Wu Chen understood why Wang Hongfa had come to campus so early even though it was a holiday.
What a fine dean.
When Wu Chen arrived at Wang Hongfa's office on the fourth floor, he found that Lavrov was there too. The two were discussing something with mysterious smiles on their faces.
But once Wu Chen came in, their expressions turned solemn and serious.
"Xiao Wu, where's the sample you mentioned?"
Wang Hongfa asked, sitting up straight.
Wu Chen took out the Vengeance No. 1 camera.
"Dean Wang, Professor Lavrov, this is a sample I made based on SNN theory. It can recognize small, dynamically moving targets. The training samples were spherical objects."
As he explained, he connected the camera to the computer and began a demonstration.
The test scenario was simple too.
He picked up small objects like golf balls and let them fall in front of the camera. The accompanying software displayed information such as their dimensions and colors.
"It actually works?!"
Lavrov shoved Wang Hongfa away from the computer with his backside and leaned close to the screen to examine it.
But after a few tests, he quickly found a problem.
"Add just a little interference and it stops working. And the delay is too slow. It has no practical value."
Lavrov was disappointed, but Wang Hongfa didn't rush to a conclusion.
He asked Wu Chen, "Is there a way to improve it?"
"Not for the time being, but I've already written the paper. I'd like to ask Dean Wang and Professor Lavrov to look it over and point out any mistakes."
Wu Chen opened the paper for them to read.
Hearing that there was a paper, Lavrov grew interested too and leaned over again to study it with Wang Hongfa.
But because Wu Chen had deliberately made the theory very complicated and inserted a few subtle errors, they found no major problems even after studying it for a long time.
After a while, Lavrov said bluntly, "This paper is decent. I can take it back and study it carefully."
People in Russia were used to snatching things outright.
Wu Chen smiled. "Sure."
Wang Hongfa was more tactful. "Don't worry, we're all scholars. We wouldn't snatch a paper... By the way, you haven't submitted it yet, have you?"
"No."
Wu Chen kept smiling.
He was only afraid the two of them wouldn't snatch it.
But having seen the actual sample, Wang Hongfa and Lavrov evidently didn't harbor many doubts.
After fiddling with Vengeance No. 1 a little more, Wang Hongfa suddenly remembered something, and a smile flashed across his face.
"Xiao Wu, if you don't mind, could you lend me this sample?"
"No problem."
Wu Chen readily agreed.
He had already checked: there was no hardware inside that was ahead of its time, and the software used a lightweight SNN inference framework that could just run on a 2008 CPU. He wasn't at all afraid of anyone noticing anything unusual.
As for Wang Hongfa's reason for taking the sample, it was nothing more than to go find a company and swindle it out of some research funding.
But anyone who associated with someone like Wang Hongfa probably wasn't much of a good bird either, so Wu Chen didn't care about their losses.
Seeing how sensible Wu Chen was, Wang Hongfa was very pleased.
"Good, then. Xiao Wu, according to school regulations, it takes at least two years to go from teaching assistant to lecturer. But if you can keep producing results like this, I can make some exceptions for you. Understand?"
The promotion system at universities was very clear:
Teaching assistant -> lecturer -> associate professor -> professor.
In his previous life, Wu Chen had been stuck at the stage of promotion from lecturer to associate professor. After being reborn this time, he was determined to climb higher.
But did he need Wang Hongfa to make an exception for him?
On the surface, though, Wu Chen put on an expression of surprised gratitude.
"Then thank you very much, Dean Wang!"