Peking University Wants to Hire You

"Hello, President Xu."

"Ah, Xiao Wu. Thanks for coming all this way so late."

Xu Jianping replied with a smile and pointed to the chair behind the desk. "Have a seat. Let me finish reading this document first."

After spending a few more minutes fine-tuning the funding request in the Excel spreadsheet, he finally looked up.

He pulled a Sunshine Liqun cigarette from the pack and handed it to Wu Chen. "It's the end of the year, and we've had quite a few new PhDs join us. Things have been terribly busy," he said tiredly.

Wu Chen took a lighter from his pocket and lit it for him.

"That shows our university is getting better and better under your leadership. It's also become more attractive to outstanding talent, so naturally, the standards have risen with the tide."

Only then did he light one for himself and take a couple of puffs with the president.

"That's also thanks to promising young talents like you, Teacher Wu... By the way, didn't you publish three papers? I've been too busy to look into them. Give me a brief rundown."

After a few pleasantries, Xu Jianping quickly got down to business.

Wu Chen also grew serious and stubbed out his cigarette before he had smoked even half of it.

He sat up straight. "Then let me give you a report. The core of these three papers is converting text into mathematical language. Compared with current sentiment analysis technology..."

Since Xu Jianping came from the chemical industry, Wu Chen didn't drag in too much specialized knowledge. Instead, he explained his research in very accessible terms.

Sure enough, Xu Jianping understood.

"So, in other words, you've quantified the meaning of text, right? Something that used to be a muddled mess can now be turned into numbers?"

"Yes."

Wu Chen didn't correct the errors in the details.

Xu Jianping thought for a moment. "That's a remarkable achievement. No wonder it's caused such a stir out there. I heard even Professor Yann LeCun at New York University took notice."

Yann LeCun was a Silver Professor at New York University and one of the founders of convolutional neural networks (CNNs). He was hailed in the industry as one of the fathers of deep learning and was currently also the director of Facebook's artificial intelligence research institute.

Wu Chen's ideas, however, differed somewhat from his.

His Transformer approach focused more on attention mechanisms and sequence modeling, and differed from the CNN approach Yann LeCun specialized in.

So he merely said, "Professor Yann LeCun is a towering figure in the field. If there's an opportunity, President Xu, I'd appreciate it if you could introduce us so we can exchange ideas."

"No problem. I know quite a few people in international academia."

After giving his assurance, Xu Jianping smiled and asked, "But the Ugly Country is too far away. Zhejiang University, on the other hand, might be an opportunity. I hear Professor Chen Jingming is also very interested in your results. What do you think?"

Chen Jingming wasn't as famous as Yann LeCun, but he was among the earlier scholars to study artificial intelligence in China and had worked in Zhejiang University's School of Computer Science for many years.

Wu Chen's ideas likewise differed from Chen Jingming's.

In his view, Chen Jingming was a gravekeeper of the old era, still clinging to symbolic AI, a path that ran completely counter to the future direction of artificial intelligence.

So he joked, "Symbolic AI has no future. I'd better not meet Professor Chen Jingming, or I'm afraid we might come to blows."

"What are you afraid of, young man? After all, the future belongs to you."

Xu Jianping chuckled with satisfaction.

In truth, Wu Chen was simply speaking frankly from a technical standpoint.

But in Xu Jianping's eyes, that was a declaration of loyalty.

No matter how good New York University and Zhejiang University were, they couldn't match the green hills and clear waters of Xiaoheshan University of Technology.

So Xu Jianping tossed Wu Chen another cigarette.

He said earnestly, "Teacher Wu, I asked you here today partly to consult you about some academic questions, and partly because I wanted to give you some recognition."

Wu Chen helped Xu Jianping light his cigarette again. "Thank you for your support, President."

Once Xu Jianping had lit up, he patted Wu Chen's hand and leaned back in his chair.

"First, regarding your academic rank, I was planning to promote you directly to associate professor,

but I just spoke with your Dean Wang. He said you're currently a level-13 teaching assistant, you've only just joined the university, and you have a master's degree. Promoting you in one step could easily cause discontent among others and make it difficult for you to carry out your work later.

So we'll make you a level-8 lecturer for now. What do you think?"

Wu Chen thought it over.

Frankly, the offer was quite good.

In the university system, academic ranks were indeed divided into the broad categories of teaching assistant, lecturer, associate professor, and full professor.

But within each rank, there were different grades.

For example, from lowest to highest, teaching assistants ranged from level 13 to level 11, lecturers from level 10 to level 8, associate professors from level 7 to level 5, and full professors from level 4 to level 1.

The highest rank, level-1 full professor, was somewhat harder to attain:

Usually, one could be considered for it after receiving the title of academician.

Of course, some humanities and social sciences institutions were exceptions.

In short, it was a bit like qi refining, foundation establishment, and golden core in cultivation novels, each of which also had different minor realms.

Promoting him directly from the lowest level-13 teaching assistant to a level-8 lecturer was like going straight from the first layer of qi refining to the ninth layer of foundation establishment at great perfection.

As for Xu Jianping saying that Wang Hongfa's influence was why he hadn't been made an associate professor outright,

he didn't take it to heart.

"Thank you, President Xu. I'll certainly continue to do my research diligently. But regarding work, I would still like to report to you on a few matters between Dean Wang and me..."

He then gave a detailed account of Wang Hongfa's improper relationship with Liu Ping, as well as how Yang Yuanjing had been instructed by someone to falsely accuse him that afternoon.

After listening, Xu Jianping nodded. "I understand. I'll deal with it afterward."

Wu Chen said nothing more.

He hadn't originally intended to go into so much detail.

But after learning that Wang Hongfa had called Xu Jianping in advance, he decided to give the full account after all, so Xu Jianping wouldn't be misled by hearing only one side.

At this point, Xu Jianping was very satisfied with Wu Chen's attitude.

He said, "In any case, don't let the matter with Wang Hongfa affect your work. Although I can't directly make you an associate professor this time, I can open a back door for you when it comes to research funding..."

Xu Jianping glanced at the screen and was just about to name a figure.

But Wu Chen's phone rang at an inopportune moment.

"There's a kind of love called letting go, giving up forever for love~"

Wu Chen went to turn off his phone in annoyance.

He had clearly set it to silent, but the system on this knockoff phone kept malfunctioning.

Xu Jianping didn't seem to mind, though.

He waved a hand and said with a smile, "It's so late; it must be something urgent. Go ahead and answer it."

Caller ID cost five yuan back then, so Wu Chen hadn't enabled it in order to save money.

He had intended to reject the call, but he was worried that something urgent might really have happened at home, so he picked up.

The knockoff phone was ordinary in other respects, but they certainly hadn't skimped on the speaker.

A young-sounding female voice rang out in Xu Jianping's office.

"Big shot, big shot, I finally got hold of you! I have good news for you~~~"

"Who is this?"

Wu Chen asked in confusion.

"Huh? It's Beibei, Chen Beitao from Dijing University! We've chatted for so long, and I finally managed to get your phone number from Jiang Jiang, but you can't even recognize my voice. I'm so sad, boo-hoo-hoo..."

The voice on the other end sounded aggrieved, and she even started crying like an anime character, making Wu Chen's scalp prickle.

"Talk like a normal person."

His tone was unfriendly.

Chen Beitao immediately stopped fake-crying and switched in a second to a sweet young girl's voice, speaking as if expecting credit.

"You're so mean, big shot. And here I was going to tell you that, thanks to my efforts, Peking University wants to hire you as an associate professor. Hmph~"

"An associate professorship at Peking University?"

Wu Chen repeated the words instinctively.

Then he looked up and met Xu Jianping's gradually stiffening smile.