My IQ has been increasing year by year.

The electronic reading room on the second floor of the library.

Rows of computers were lit up, and the sounds of keyboards being typed and mice clicking filled the air.

There weren't many people.

Lu Jia walked down the aisle and saw her senior in the third-to-last row by the window.

She casually tied her hair back with a clip, and a thick stack of printed questionnaires was piled on the table.

A thermos was next to him, and he was staring at the computer, looking worried. He was resting his chin on his hand, his brows furrowed.

Lu Jia walked over, pulled out the empty chair next to her, and sat down.

The senior student turned around, saw him, and was stunned for a moment.

Lu Jia didn't say anything.

He placed the blank draft paper on the table, took out a pen, and uncapped it.

He didn't touch his senior's keyboard and mouse, but just stared at the messy scatter plots and error messages on the screen.

I watched for about two minutes.

"The underlying logic is scattered."

Lu Jia spoke, her voice not loud, but very firm.

"The independent variable and the residual are correlated, which means you have an endogeneity problem. If you do a regression directly, all you'll get are spurious correlations."

The senior student looked at him.

"Then how should we change it?"

Lu Jia lowered her head, and the tip of her pen fell on the paper.

He didn't use a computer to test his mistakes; instead, the pen tip slid quickly across the paper.

Write out a matrix and label the conditions next to it.

Next is a line of partial differential equations.

He extracted several core variables from the senior student's questionnaire and rearranged them on paper.

The senior student sat to the side, looking at the increasing number of formulas on the paper.

This boy, who usually stutters when he greets me on the street, now has an eerily bright look in his eyes as he stares at the draft paper.

His pen never stopped moving, and his mind seemed to be working faster than the Pentium 4 processor computer in front of him.

It filled an entire page.

Lu Jia put down her pen and pushed the paper in front of her senior.

"Find instrumental variables."

Lu Jia tapped the last line of formula on the paper with the tip of her pen.

"Reconstruct using this logic, and re-enter the software according to the conditions I wrote."

The senior student took the paper, looked it over, and started typing on the keyboard to modify the parameters.

Lu Jia sat to the side and watched. He didn't interfere with the operation of the software, but only corrected the senior when she entered the wrong conditions.

It got dark.

The lights in the reading room came on.

The senior student pressed the Enter key, and the progress bar finished.

A new data chart popped up on the screen.

"Significance has increased."

The senior student breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed her sore neck.

"However, there are still a few distractions that haven't been completely removed."

She glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer screen.

It's 9:30 p.m.

That's all for today.

The senior student closed the software and unplugged the USB drive.

"Thank you so much for today."

"Tomorrow night at seven o'clock."

Lu Jia gathered up the remaining blank draft papers on the table.

"I'm still looking for you in this location. We need to build a new sub-model to extract the remaining collinear variables."

The senior student turned to look at him and smiled.

"it is good."

As they left the library, the two parted ways at the crossroads.

The senior student went back to the girls' dormitory, and Lu Jia walked back.

Push open the door to dormitory 216.

The main lights were not on inside.

The screen on Chu Ge's desk was lit up, and the fan was spinning wildly.

Chu Ge slumped in his swivel chair, a thick English original copy of "Advanced Operating Systems" on his left and a stack of completed test papers on his right. He had a steamed bun between his teeth and was staring intently at the scrolling code on the screen.

Hearing the door open, Chu Ge didn't even turn his head.

"You're back?"

Chu Ge swallowed the steamed bun in his mouth, his voice weak.

"Um."

Lu Jia walked to her desk and put down the draft paper.

"Did you hold hands?"

Chu Ge's hands never stopped typing on the keyboard.

"How about we grab a late-night snack at the cafeteria together?"

"no."

Lu Jia took the washbasin.

"Today I manually pushed through a page and a half of paper to help her eliminate two spurious correlation variables."

The keyboard clicks stopped.

Chu Ge slowly turned his chair around, looking at Lu Jia with eyes that were filled with my incomprehension.

"Her data logic is not closed-loop, I have to help her straighten it out."

Lu Jia spoke as if it were perfectly reasonable.

Chu Ge rolled his eyes and turned back to look at the screen.

"Okay, I'm really afraid that while everyone else has already received their graduation certificates, you'll still be calculating constants on scratch paper."

The next three days.

Lu Jia appears in the electronic reading room at 7 p.m. every night.

He doesn't touch the computer, he only carries paper and pen. Every time his senior's computer crashes, he rewrites it on the paper.

The stack of discarded drafts covered with formulas on the table grew higher and higher.

On the afternoon of the third day, the senior student brought two hot lattes when she came.

It was placed next to Lu Jia.

Lu Jia put down her pen, glanced at the paper cup beside her, and then at the clock on the wall.

Five o'clock in the afternoon.

"The half-life of caffeine in the human body is four to six hours."

Lu Jia pushed up her glasses and looked at her senior.

"Taking it now will affect the probability of entering deep sleep at 11 pm tonight. The brain nerves will not get rest, and the error rate of calculations will increase tomorrow." The senior student's hand holding the coffee cup stopped in mid-air.

Looking at Lu Jia's serious face, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Is this all you think about?"

The senior pushed the coffee towards him.

"You can have yours."

Lu Jia didn't say anything more. He removed the lid and took a sip.

very bitter.

I returned to my dorm in the evening.

Lu Jia sat at his desk, staring blankly at a scrap of paper he'd discarded during the day. He couldn't quite grasp the range of values ​​for a variable on it. Chu Ge had just closed his book, "Advanced Operating Systems," and stretched, his bones cracking.

He walked past Lu Jia with his water glass in hand, glancing at the draft paper on the table.

"Is it stuck?"

Chu Ge took a sip of water.

"There's an error term that can't be eliminated."

Lu Jia poked the paper with the tip of her pen.

Chu Ge leaned closer to take a look.

"Don't bother calculating."

Chu Ge patted the back of Lu Jia's chair.

"What you're doing is overfitting. You're trying to fix a small bug by changing the entire main logic."

Lu Jia turned to look at him.

"It won't be perfect if it's not changed."

Nothing in the real world is perfect.

Chugo leaned against the edge of the table.

"In my eyes, as long as the main program can run without crashing, the rest of the minor problems are just unavoidable system noise. Just leave them alone and submit the closed-loop update." Chu Ge took his water cup and returned to his seat.

Lu Jia stared at the draft paper, her brows furrowed.

Fourth day.

In the reading room.

After completing the final derivation, Lu Jia handed the draft paper with the final corrected formula written on it to her senior.

The senior student typed the code line by line into the software.

Click to run.

The result popped up.

The prominence of a patch of green is highlighted by the suggestion.

The scatter plot is beautifully distributed, perfectly matching the theoretical expectations of sociology.

The senior student let out a long sigh and leaned back in her chair.

"Finally finished."

She glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer screen.

It's 9:30 p.m.

The senior student stood up and began to gather the messy questionnaires on the table one by one, folding them neatly.

"Thanks to you these past few days, I've finished all the mental work. I'll treat you to a late-night snack at that barbecue place near the East Gate."

She turned to look at Lu Jia.

Lu Jia didn't look at her; his gaze fell on the inconspicuous number at the bottom of the data table.

The residual is 0.5%.

Lu Jia turned her gaze from the screen to the table in front of her.

There was still the last A4 sheet of draft paper he had used for his calculations, covered with the corrected formulas he had derived.

Lu Jia reached out and pushed the paper covered with formulas aside, making room for a clean tabletop.

Then, he took a brand new piece of paper out of his coat pocket.

He placed the paper on the table and gently pressed down the creases with his fingers.

"There is a residual defect."

Lu Jia spoke up.

His voice was steady, without any inflection, not even the slightest hint of surprise, as if he were stating an extremely ordinary objective fact. "Five per thousand," Lu Jia said.

The senior student paused for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"Five per thousand? That's data from a sociological questionnaire."

The senior student pulled out a chair and sat down again, patiently explaining to him.

"This is already a perfect result. In the field of social sciences, this residual is negligible and can be used directly for the defense." Lu Jia did not look at her.

"The residuals did not converge to zero."

Lu Jia's voice remained completely calm.

"Since there are residuals, it means that there are still endogenous variables in the system that have not been captured. The omission of variables means that the model is not closed-loop in its underlying logic." The pen tip landed on the paper.

He didn't get annoyed, didn't frown, and didn't stop working just because his senior said he could hand in his work.

He was like a precisely programmed instrument, automatically triggering the underlying debugging mechanism when encountering instructions whose logic could not be fully closed. In the first line, he wrote down a new assumption.

The handwriting was exactly the same as on the first two draft papers—neat, clear, and every letter and symbol was as precise as if measured with a ruler. There was no scribbling or panic.

The senior student sat next to him, watching his movements.

At first, she thought Lu Jia was just a math genius who instinctively wanted to push the limits of data.

But she soon realized something was wrong.

Lu Jia didn't write the equations quickly, but he didn't pause at all.

He wrote line after line, disassembling the model that was already good enough to submit, trying to find that one in a thousand flaw in the gaps between thousands of data nodes. "Lu Jia."

The senior student called his name.

Lu Jia's pen never stopped.

"You don't need to calculate it."

The senior student looked at the increasing number of formulas on the paper.

"Sociology is not mathematics. The questionnaires are given to students to fill out. Some people may not even have read the questions carefully before randomly checking an option. This 0.5% is caused by these random answers." Lu Jia finished writing a partial derivative and moved to a new line.

"If the data is contaminated, a cleaning mechanism should be established in the early stages."

Lu Jia answered calmly as she wrote.

"As long as we find the distribution pattern of pollution sources and fit it into a reverse filtering matrix, we can eliminate them."

The senior student looked at him.

The light from the computer screen shone on Lu Jia's profile.

That was the face of a sixteen-year-old.

Clean, delicate, and even with a touch of childishness still lingering.

But the expression on that face now sends chills down your spine.

It was a mechanical sense of entitlement.

He didn't feel like he was being stubborn or doing something unnecessary.

In his cognitive system, 100 points is considered complete.

A score of 99.95 is a defective product.

Defective products must be scrapped and started over.

Even a sociology assignment that doesn't require a perfect score.

The draft paper was half full.

Lu Jia's pen moved smoothly across the paper.

He didn't feel tired or wronged.

He was just going around in circles quietly and tirelessly in a dead end.

The senior student didn't say anything more.

The sound of keyboards clicking continued in the reading room.

The senior student watched quietly as Lu Jia finished writing a complex integral formula, and as he prepared to start constructing the inverse filtering matrix he had mentioned on the next line. The senior student extended her hand.

She didn't unplug the computer.

He didn't try to snatch the ballpoint pen from Lu Jia's hand.

She quietly reached out and placed her hand flat on the A4 paper that Lu Jia was writing on.

The senior's hand, warm and calm, pressed directly onto the draft paper that Lu Jia was frantically writing on.

His palm covered the paper and also the back of Lu Jia's hand holding the pen.

The ballpoint pen came to an abrupt stop on the paper.

Lu Jia froze, and he looked up.

There was a hint of intense doubt in Lu Jia's eyes.

He doesn't understand.

The model isn't finished yet, the flaws are still there, why is she covering up the paper?

The senior student was looking at him.

There was no surprise or impatience in her eyes, only a deep sense of tolerance.

She did not pull her hand back.

"Lu Jia".

The senior's voice was much softer and gentler than before, as if she were talking to someone who had been lost for a long time.

"You can stop now."

Lu Jia looked at her, her lips moving slightly.

"There's still five per thousand left."

Lu Jia stated this fact.

"The model is incomplete."

"It is not incomplete."

The senior student looked at him.

"It's good enough."

Lu Jia did not respond.

His gaze returned to the draft paper, which was half-obscured.

The pen was gripped tightly in his hand.

"Not good enough."

After a long while, Lu Jia whispered three words.

In a corner of the reading room, several senior students packed their bags, chatted and laughed as they pushed open the glass door and walked out, a gust of night wind blowing in through the door. Lu Jia looked at the handwriting on the paper.

"Even a little bit off is not good enough."

His voice remained steady.

There was no complaining, no grievance, and not even a trace of sadness.

It's just a kind of numbness that has been etched into one's bones over the long years.

"At my house."

Lu Jia slowly loosened her grip a little, and the tip of the ballpoint pen left the paper.

"If you get 98 points on the final exam."

He paused for a moment, as if recalling a very ordinary scene.

"It's the same as failing."

The senior student's hand remained still on the paper as she listened quietly.

"Nobody cares how he got those 98 points."

Lu Jia looked at the wood grain on the table.

"They would only focus on those two points they lost, and then ask me over and over again why they lost them."

"No excuses, no reasons."

"If it's two points short, then there's a flaw in the system; it's not perfect."

"Imperfect is wrong."

Lu Jia raised her eyelids and looked at the green "Pass" sign on the large monitor.

"I'm used to it."

There was a chilling sense of self-assurance in his tone.

"I'm used to calculating everything to the absolute minimum. If there's even a 0.5% error, I can't stop writing, because if I do, it means I've submitted a failing paper." Lu Jia finished speaking and fell silent.

The air in the reading room seemed to have become a little heavier.

The senior looked at the boy in front of her who had straightened his back.

She finally understood why this genius, who could construct countless complex matrices in his mind, walked around school with such rigid precision, even the size of his steps seemed measured. Because he dared not make a mistake.

His life from childhood had no room for error.

Even the slightest error can lead to a devastating rejection.

The senior student slowly withdrew her hand from the draft paper.

She didn't touch the paper, nor did she pick up the file folder.

She leaned back in her chair and looked into Lu Jia's eyes.

"Lu Jia".

The senior student's voice was soft and gentle, without any condescending advice or excessive sympathy.

It's like stating an extremely common sense fact.

"Those were math problems."

Lu Jia looked at her.

"Math problems need to be answered perfectly, because one is one, and two is two."

The senior student pointed to the computer screen.

"But what you're calculating for me now is sociology."

"Sociology studies people, not numbers."

The senior looked at Lu Jia's clear but always tense eyes.

"No matter how human we are, we can never fit together perfectly."

"You can never be sure if someone is in a bad mood when filling out a questionnaire, or if they accidentally crossed out the wrong option because of ink leakage from their pen." Lu Jia didn't speak; his hand holding the pen trembled slightly.

"That 0.5% is not a loophole you failed to find, nor is it because you are imperfect."

The senior student smiled, her smile carrying the tolerance of an older sister.

"That's noise that's allowed to exist in the real world."

noise.

"That's the breathing space this world leaves for the living."

Lu Jia was stunned.

His hand completely relaxed, and the pen slipped from his fingertips, falling onto the table with a thud.

Breathing space.

Sixteen years have passed.

No one ever told him that noise is allowed in this world.

No one ever told him that the two points lost, the five-thousandths margin of error, were not some unforgivable flaw, but simply the reality of life. There was no need to overturn it.

There's no need to blame yourself.

There's no need to fill in the gaps with countless late-night calculations.

Lu Jia lowered her head and looked at the draft paper with the filter matrix half-written on it.

The equations on the paper are still neat and tidy.

But suddenly he felt that they no longer seemed like a life-threatening exam.

He felt something invisible suddenly slip off his shoulder.

It's not a collapse.

Instead, it was an extremely unfamiliar, solid feeling of having both feet firmly planted on the ground.

The tension in my chest, a constant fear of making a mistake, gradually dissipated.

The senior student looked at his relaxed shoulders.

She did not continue with this heavy topic.

She reached out and turned off the computer, and the screen went dark instantly.

Then, she put the last of the scattered documents on the table into a file bag.

"Alright, the work is done. We were just saying I'd treat you to barbecue at Dongmen."

The senior student stood up, hugged the file bag to her chest, and looked down at Lu Jia, who was still sitting in the chair.

"But look at the time now, the barbecue stalls are probably packed with people and very noisy. And that mental workout you just did must have been more tiring than running 5,000 meters for me. If I take you to get some skewers now, you probably won't even have an appetite and will just be sitting there reviewing the remaining tasks."

Tomorrow is the weekend.

The senior student tidied up the stray hairs by her ears.

"We're all graduating soon, and everyone's cleaning out their dorms. Tomorrow morning, we're setting up a flea market on Linqian Road in the East District, selling used books and other secondhand items." Lu Jia looked up at her.

The senior student didn't say anything about thanking you for your help, nor did she say anything about teaching you how to relax.

Her invitation was extremely natural, just like she would to an ordinary friend of the same age.

"That's purely physical labor."

The senior looked at him with a smile on her lips.

"Moving books around, setting up stalls, and shouting at the top of their lungs to sell them."

"You don't need to use your brain, you don't need to do the math, and you don't need to get a perfect score. I'll treat you to a nice lunch; there's a really good braised pork place outside." She paused.

"Would you be willing to come help me move some books tomorrow?"

The lights from the ceiling of the reading room shone on the senior student.

The senior seemed to radiate a hazy, soft light.

Lu Jia sat in the chair.

He looked into the senior's eyes.

Those eyes held no assessment, no scrutiny, only an equal inquiry.

Lu Jia felt her ears slowly starting to heat up.

He slowly withdrew his hand from the table.

He looked at his senior.

Then, very slowly, but very forcefully.

He nodded.

"it is good."

The senior student smiled.

"See you at the East Campus cafeteria entrance at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Don't wear a white shirt, remember to wear something that won't get dirty."

The senior student slung her bag over her shoulder, held the file folder in her arms, and turned to walk towards the door of the reading room.

Lu Jia remained seated.

He watched his senior's back as she pushed open the door and disappeared at the end of the corridor.

He looked away.

On the table, there was still the half-written draft paper and the ordinary ballpoint pen.

Lu Jia reached out and picked up the pen.

He removed the pen cap and put it back on the nib with a soft click.

Then, he picked up the half-written draft paper.

He didn't tear up the unfinished draft and throw it in the trash as he usually did.

He folded the paper back to its original creases.

Along with the blank papers from before, I carefully put them back into my coat pocket.

Push open the door to dormitory 216.

Chu Ge remained in the same posture, only the book on the table had turned to a new page.

"You're back?" Chu Ge asked casually.

"Um."

Lu Jia walked to the table, took out the ballpoint pen from her pocket, and placed it on the table.

"How many pages did I push today?" Chu Ge typed in his code.

"Not a single page has been pushed." Lu Jia picked up the washbasin.

The keyboard clicks stopped.

Chu Ge turned his head.

Tomorrow is the weekend.

Lu Jia looked at Chu Ge.

"I'm going to the East District to help her move books at the flea market."

Chu Ge stood there, stunned.

Lu Jia carried the washbasin to the bathroom door and paused for a moment.

"You're right, the system is allowed to have some background noise."

The sound of running water came from the bathroom.

Chu Ge sat in the swivel chair, digesting the information for a long time.

Then, looking at the two lines of code on his screen that just wouldn't compile, he let out a long sigh.

"Depend on."

Chu Ge pushed the keyboard aside and leaned back in his chair.

"Finally, we've broken through."