Russian Experts Would Never Lie

However, after Wu Chen restored the memorial photograph, the old lady in it looked much kinder and gentler.

It was also easy to see that she must have been a beauty in her youth.

After studying it for a few moments, Wu Chen followed Wang Hongfa and Lavrov into the reception room next door.

On seeing the man at the door, Wang Hongfa hurried forward and gripped his hand tightly with both of his.

"Factory Director Jiang, please accept my condolences!"

The man was tall and handsome, with sharp features, but his face was now marked by unmistakable grief.

He was Jiang Hongyue, the successor to the Jiangdong Pharmaceutical Factory.

He also gripped Wang Hongfa's hand tightly and said sincerely, "Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to attend my mother's memorial service, Dean Wang."

Then he called into the inner room, "Nannan, your school's leaders are here. Come take them somewhere they can rest."

As soon as he finished speaking, a graceful figure stepped out.

She was about twenty-four, dressed in a well-tailored black suit, her long hair loosely pinned up behind her head. But her lovely eyes were swollen like two walnuts, and she appeared to have been very close to her late grandmother.

She came up to Wang Hongfa and bowed slightly in greeting.

"Dean Wang, I'm Jiang Nan. I joined the School of Pharmacy this year. Thank you for coming. Please follow me to rest over here first. The memorial service will begin shortly."

Her pleasant voice sounded a little hoarse, lending her already delicate features an even more fragile air.

A flash of admiration crossed Wang Hongfa's triangular eyes, but he kept his expression composed. "All right."

As he followed Jiang Nan inside, he introduced the others.

"This is Professor Lavrov. He developed the automated pill inspection system your father is planning to buy."

Lavrov wore an expression of formulaic sorrow and nodded slightly in greeting, looking perfectly proper.

But while Jiang Nan wasn't paying attention, his gaze slithered over her like a slimy viper. Then he exchanged a discreet smile with Wang Hongfa and said something in Russian.

Jiang Nan was leading the way and didn't see it clearly, but Wu Chen was walking beside them and saw everything.

He didn't understand Russian, but as a man, he knew that look all too well.

Still, he quickly suppressed his anger.

After all, he had seen plenty of this sort of thing in Wang Hongfa's circle.

Besides, he had heard of Jiang Nan in his previous life.

Although she was in the School of Pharmacy and he had little contact with her, he knew she was not only beautiful but also highly capable academically.

Before she turned thirty, she had published four SCI Q1 papers in succession and earned a full professorship early on, a stark contrast to him, who had struggled for half his life without even making associate professor.

What she was most famous for, though, was publicly rejecting a wealthy businessman's son.

The man had carefully arranged a sea of roses on campus.

But Jiang Nan hadn't even shown up. She had simply sent someone to pass along one word-"Scram"-and brought the farce to an end.

Wu Chen had been among the onlookers at the time, shouting "666."

Later, when he was reborn, Jiang Nan still hadn't dated or married.

A serious accident had occurred at the Jiangdong Pharmaceutical Factory, leaving Jiang Nan saddled with several hundred million yuan in debt at a young age, so marriage had been out of the question.

Wu Chen was recalling Jiang Nan's past when he saw her suddenly stop, turn around, and speak coldly to Lavrov.

"Please show some respect. This isn't a bar. It's my grandmother's memorial service! (Russian)"

Wang Hongfa and Lavrov both froze.

They hadn't expected Jiang Nan to understand Russian.

And even with Lavrov's heavy accent, Jiang Nan had actually understood him!

"Ms. Jiang, Professor Lavrov has an American green card and teaches at Carnegie Mellon University. He's been strongly influenced by the atmosphere over there, so please don't take it to heart."

Seeing how awkward things had become, Wang Hongfa hurried forward with an explanation.

Lavrov also apologized in clumsy Chinese, feigning sincerity.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Jiang. You're the most beautiful Chinese girl I've ever met. I couldn't resist complimenting you, but I absolutely meant nothing improper."

Jiang Nan said nothing.

She merely stared coldly at Lavrov for a few seconds before turning around and heading inside again.

Her slender figure gave off the chill of thousand-year-old ice.

Though Wang Hongfa was the dean of the School of Computer Science, even he dared not offend the heiress of Jiangdong Pharmaceuticals.

Besides, he was counting on swindling her father out of his money.

So, for once, he humbled himself.

"Teacher Jiang, if you run into any difficulties at the university in the future, you can come to me. And this young man is also a new teacher who joined us this year. He has a fairly solid command of his field and knows Professor Lavrov's research well."

After the brief introduction, he instructed Wu Chen in a low voice.

"Ask Teacher Jiang if there's anything she needs help with at the memorial service. Take the initiative and lend a hand. Young people really have no sense of what's needed!"

Fucking Wang Hongfa.

Wu Chen wanted nothing more than to slap him a few times.

But he still stepped forward and said to Jiang Nan, "Hello, Teacher Jiang. Is there anything I can help with?"

"No. Just get some rest."

Jiang Nan only glanced at Wu Chen before looking away, her tone indifferent.

Wu Chen was speechless.

He could tell she had taken him for one of Wang Hongfa and Lavrov's lackeys, thinking he was a jackal from the same lair as those two old geezers.

But Wu Chen didn't hold her coldness against her.

For one thing, he understood how she felt.

For another, he didn't care.

After they rested for a while, the memorial service soon began.

Jiang Hongyue and Jiang Nan both went onstage to speak, expressing how much they missed the late old lady.

It was only from their eulogies that Wu Chen learned the old lady had been among the early students sent to study in the former Soviet Union. Afterward, she had devoted herself to developing China's chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

She had made indispensable contributions to the Jiangdong Pharmaceutical Factory's achievements today.

No wonder Jiang Nan understood Russian.

Wu Chen glanced at Lavrov beside him and found that he looked as uncomfortable as if he'd eaten shit.

After all, Jiang Hongyue had just sung the Soviet Union's praises several times, leaving the Russian traitor exceptionally embarrassed.

After the memorial service, Wu Chen and the others went with Jiang Hongyue to the lounge, intending to discuss their joint project in private.

That Jiang Hongyue could make time at a moment like this and bring Jiang Nan, his future successor, along showed how much importance he attached to it.

He got straight to the point.

"Dean Wang, Professor Lavrov, last time I mentioned wanting to use the system you researched to automate quality inspections of our pills. How did your investigation go? Is it feasible?"

Wang Hongfa immediately said, "Factory Director Jiang, there's absolutely no technical problem with implementing it. Professor Lavrov has also provided solutions in America for companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson."

When he finished, Lavrov chimed in at just the right moment.

"Mr. Jiang, you can rest assured about the technical side. The system I developed, combined with the dynamic intelligent cameras I showed you a few days ago, is perfectly suited to solving your problem. Once it's deployed on the production line, it can quickly detect the size and color of pills, whether they have any defects, whether their surface coating is intact, and so on..."

He went on at length, but his central point was simple:

I'm a big shot in America, too!

Solving the problems of a little Chinese factory like yours is no trouble at all. It'll just take a few hundred million in pocket change to adapt and optimize it.

But Wu Chen immediately recognized that Lavrov was bullshitting, and in a way that was very much in the Russians' style:

He talked it up to the heavens, glossed over every detail, and insisted it would definitely work whenever anyone asked.

The simplest issue was using his Vengeance No. 1 cameras...

Or rather, the dynamic vision sensors Lavrov had renamed the Prometheus Type I simply couldn't perform stable, continuous multi-object tracking and identification on a pill production line.

And that was only the smallest problem.

There were also problems with interference from light reflecting off the pills and variations in color.

Wang Hongfa and Lavrov either glossed over them or avoided mentioning them altogether.

In reality, with 2008 technology, there were simply no solutions to these problems.

That was a limitation of the era.

Apart from Wu Chen, no one currently had an algorithm that could solve these problems.

But Jiang Hongyue had clearly been taken in.

He was ready to place an order on the spot and push the project forward as quickly as possible.

The Jiangdong Pharmaceutical Factory's current sorting system was extremely rudimentary.

Not only was it inefficient, with missed inspections and errors commonplace, but it also relied heavily on manual labor.

If this technology could be put into production, the factory would save millions of yuan in costs every year.

"In that case, I'm relieved. Besides, Professor Lavrov is one of our Russian big brothers. He won't let down the friendship between China and Russia."

He said it with a cheerful smile.

Lavrov once again looked as though he'd eaten shit.

He tried to pull up the corners of his mouth, revealing an awkward smile.

Why did he have to call me Russian?

I'm already an American citizen!