He was outscored after scoring 520 points, but his status as a prodigy can't be hidden.

Lin Yu initiated the blind test. In front of the three judges, he used the algorithm that had been criticized as lacking practical application to compress a 4K high-definition movie into the size of a single document in a few seconds, and played it smoothly on the spot without any stuttering.

Faced with irrefutable data and live demonstrations, any attempt to suppress the results seemed futile and laughable. The judges' faces turned pale and then red, unable to find any grounds for rebuttal, and they were forced to revise the scores.

The project was forcibly revived, and the team was directly admitted to the school-level finals.

The news quickly reached Sequoia Capital.

Gu Feiyang looked at the report on his phone and sneered.

"That's interesting. They even know how to use the rules to their advantage."

Gu Feiyang picked up his coffee cup. "Since we can't control him, let's just lift him up to the sky. The higher he climbs, the harder he'll fall."

In the following days, the wind suddenly shifted in the atmosphere on campus forums and in various groups within Beijing's venture capital circle.

A large number of online trolls and media figures, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, began to hype up Lin Yu's singularity algorithm.

Shocking! A freshman disrupts the industry, a terminator of the streaming era!

"100x Compression Ratio! Another Miracle from the Top Scorer in Beijing!"

Sequoia Capital is paying close attention; a valuation exceeding 100 million RMB for the Singularity team is not a dream!

The overwhelming amount of advertorials touted Lin Yu's project as a groundbreaking masterpiece. All expectations were instantly raised to the maximum.

At the same time, Sequoia Capital announced that it would invest 20 million yuan in the adaptive bandwidth project in Beijing and would release a mature commercial-grade product at the Challenge Cup finals.

Praise to death.

They used extreme praise to raise the public's threshold, and then, at the final competition, they used a well-developed, commercially successful product to crush a rudimentary demo made by a makeshift team.

In the computer room, Wang Lei was sweating profusely as he looked at the news on his computer screen.

"Lin Shen, something's not right! These people are hyping us up way too much. Right now, the entire school, even half of the investment community, is watching tomorrow's finals. If our demo has even the slightest bug, or the interface isn't commercially viable enough, we'll be attacked by public opinion and labeled as fraudsters!"

Xia Zijing, who was organizing physical parameters, didn't even look up: "Gu Feiyang hired online trolls. He wants to use you as a stepping stone for his Jingbei project at tomorrow's finals, in front of all the investors."

Lin Yu sat in front of the control panel, his fingers rapidly tapping on the keyboard, writing the final core interface.

"That saved us a lot on marketing and promotion costs. That's good." Lin Yu said calmly.

"Lin Shen, aren't you worried?"

Wang Lei was so anxious he was pacing back and forth. "The other side is a well-established company that's received 20 million in investment. They have a professional UI team and legal counsel. We haven't even made a decent PPT!"

Lin Yu pressed the last Enter key.

A line of green code popped up on the screen: 【System-level permission integration complete.】

"No PowerPoint presentation needed."

Lin Yu unplugged the USB drive, stood up, and tugged at the collar of his school uniform.

He looked at Wang Lei with a cold and resolute gaze.

"The essence of business isn't about who has the prettiest PowerPoint presentation. It's about who can control whose life."

Lin Yu put one hand in his pocket and walked towards the door. "I'll go to the scene tomorrow and show them what a real dimensional reduction attack is."

The next day, at nine o'clock in the morning.

The Centennial Auditorium of Peking University.

The scene at the Challenge Cup National Finals.

Luxury cars lined the outside of the auditorium, and security personnel set up a cordon to check the name tags of each person entering.

In addition to the 30 top university teams from across the country participating, the front row seats were filled with partners from leading domestic venture capital firms and reporters from major media outlets.

Backstage waiting area.

Wang Lei sat in a folding chair, clutching a heavy Alienware laptop, his legs trembling uncontrollably. He pushed up his thick-rimmed glasses, which had slipped down to the bridge of his nose, and looked at the list of investors scrolling on the large screen at the front desk.

"Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Matrix Partners China... Lin Shen, this lineup today is terrifying."

Wang Lei swallowed hard. "I just went to see the booth from the Beijing-Beijing team. Their UI was outsourced to a professional company; the dynamic charts were flashy and looked expensive. Ours..."

He glanced down at his computer screen.

A command-line window with black background and white text, displaying only two lonely buttons: compression and playback. It was as rudimentary as a DOS system from the 1990s.

Xia Zijing stood to the side, holding a can of full-sugar Red Bull. Today she was wearing a plain white shirt and black straight-leg pants, her long hair casually tied in a ponytail.

"As long as the data is correct."

Xia Zijing handed her a Red Bull. "Did the memory pool overflow during the last load test last night, where the concurrent threads reached 100,000?"

"No. Lin's underlying code uses space reuse, and the CPU load is always kept below 5%."

Wang Lei took the Red Bull, his hands still trembling. "But those judges and investors don't understand code! They only look at the PPT and the interface."

Lin Yu leaned against the wall, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone playing Snake.

"They don't need to know how to code."

Lin Yu didn't even look up as the snake precisely devoured the light spot at the edge of the screen. "As long as they understand money, that's enough."

A thunderous round of applause erupted from the front desk.

The final match has officially begun.

Gu Feiyang sat in the center of the judges' panel. He was wearing a bespoke navy blue suit, and his gold-rimmed glasses gleamed sharply under the spotlight. He turned his head and whispered a few words to the judge next to him, and the two exchanged a smile.

Gu Feiyu sat in the row of family and friends seats behind him, his eyes fixed on the waiting area, a cold smile on his lips.

The first few projects were presented, but the response was lukewarm.

"Next, please welcome the team from the Department of Computer Science at Peking University to present their project—the Starflow Adaptive Bandwidth Adjustment Engine!"

The host's voice was loud and clear.

Three male members of the Jingbei team, dressed in suits, walked onto the stage. The large screen lit up, and an extremely well-made business PowerPoint presentation appeared before everyone.

Holding a laser pointer, the speaker spoke eloquently: "Currently, domestic short video and live streaming platforms spend tens of billions of yuan annually on bandwidth. Our Star Stream Engine uses AI to dynamically predict the user's network environment and adjust the bitrate in real time. Laboratory tests have shown it can effectively reduce platform bandwidth consumption by 10%!"

The large screen displayed a series of detailed market analyses, competitor comparisons, and profit model predictions.

The presentation ended with thunderous applause from the audience.

The professors on the judging panel nodded frequently.

Gu Feiyang picked up the microphone, a warm smile on his face: "A very mature business concept. To be honest, Sequoia Capital has decided to invest 20 million RMB in the Xingliu team for its angel round. We believe that this engine will occupy a significant share of the domestic streaming transcoding market next year."

The media section below the stage was ablaze with flashes.