Chapter 29: Acceptance

Shen Rui nodded repeatedly at his side.

Zhou Yun had effectively spoon-fed him the solution, unlike their advisor, who would only ever say: "There are many papers in this direction; go look them up yourself." Or, "Is there really no other way? There must be, keep looking." Or even, "You can't always wait for me to help you. If I do it all for you, what are you going to do?"

It was all empty rhetoric without a shred of substantive help. However, he couldn't really blame the professor; after all, no other mentor was as meticulous as Zhou Yun.

"Thank you so much! Tell me, when are you free this week? Let me treat you to a meal."

"If you have any more questions, just find me."

"I don't think I will. If I still don't get it after you've taught me this much, then I'd truly be hopeless."

For Zhou Yun, this was a trivial issue, but for Shen Rui, it was a lifeline. After speaking, Shen Rui hugged his laptop and returned to his desk.

Zhou Yun shook his head and began reading his papers again. Over the past two weeks, he had gone through most of the relevant technologies in the field of large models. Today was the last dozen or so papers on his schedule; once finished, he would begin designing the model architecture.

He already had the foundational framework—the architecture of his previous time-series prediction model—which Zhou Yun had given a name he personally found quite elegant: OracleNet.

He hoped that one day, OracleNet would achieve true omniscience.

Compared to other time-series prediction models, the greatest distinction of OracleNet was its ability to ingest various forms of information while utilizing minimal computational resources, eventually encoding all that data uniformly. Of course, Zhou Yun had previously only utilized a portion of time-series data, occasionally supplementing it with some text data. He had barely developed a quarter of the model’s potential, which was precisely why he believed it was nowhere near its limit.

If one viewed OracleNet as a set of building blocks, his next task was to figure out how to arrange them to maximize computational efficiency and achieve high precision. It was much like the game *Minecraft*; there were always those who could use a pile of simple blocks to construct something truly extraordinary.

However, there were still differences. Designing the overall model architecture required solving many problems: How should the model capture data from different time intervals? How should information from different modalities be integrated?

Then there were the classic issues of large multimodal models, such as catastrophic forgetting and data overfitting. All of these required well-thought-out solutions during the design phase.

He had to solve all these problems alone. There was no other way; he had no one under him, and even if he did, they were just fellow students. Zhou Yun didn't mean to look down on them, but to be honest, everyone had their own strengths. At least in the realm of scientific research, he hadn't discovered any exceptional talent among his peers. They were fine for engineering tasks, but when it came to research, they couldn't provide much help.

This also showed that Zhou Yun’s own talent was truly maxed out. Even with such high-intensity research, he still had time to work out and rest every day without feeling particularly exhausted.

"Zhou Yun, come out for a second." The voice of Deng Yonghua interrupted Zhou Yun’s reading.

"Coming."

At the desk by the door, Deng Yonghua beckoned him over. "Sit."

"Your NeurIPS paper has been accepted. I received the email yesterday. Didn't you know?"

"I haven't checked my inbox in the last few days. So fast? Isn't it not even August yet?" Zhou Yun had been too busy reading papers to pay attention to his email.

"I’m telling you, you need to pay attention to your rest. Don't push yourself too hard." Deng Yonghua patted Zhou Yun on the shoulder with a smile.

If Qiu Yan and the others had heard this, they would have certainly asked, "Is he a poet?" They slaved away until ten o'clock every night, only to be told by Deng Yonghua during group meetings that their progress was slow and they had no results. Yet, when it came to Zhou Yun, who left at six o'clock sharp every day, it suddenly became "don't work too hard" and "balance work and rest"?

Zhou Yun felt a bit embarrassed, as he didn't actually feel that tired, but he just nodded repeatedly.

"Keep an eye on it. Add the author information and any other details, then submit the final version. This paper is basically done. The next step is preparing for the conference in December. Given your score, you should be giving a presentation. You can start working on the PPT early. After all, it's an international stage, and it's your first time presenting at an international conference, so you should be well-prepared. That’s all for now. I'm treating everyone to dinner tonight; tell the others. Consider it a celebration for you."

"Alright, thank you, Professor."

"It is I who should thank you." Deng Yonghua smiled, waved his hand, and returned to his office.

Back at his workstation, Zhou Yun opened his email. Sure enough, there was an unread message. When he saw the word "Accept," the corners of his mouth curled into a smile involuntarily.

He had fantasized about receiving an acceptance notice many times, but now that he had actually received the email, he felt unexpectedly calm.

He opened the pre-prepared manuscript, added the paper ID provided in the email, checked that everything was in order, and submitted it directly to the system. The next thing he would receive should be the official invitation to NeurIPS.

He closed the browser calmly and continued reading the paper he hadn't finished. NeurIPS was merely the starting point of his research journey; there was still much to be done in the future.

Time spent on research always passed in a flash. In the blink of an eye, it was the end of August.

"Zhou Yun, leaving so early today?" Qiu Yan glanced at the clock; it was only two in the afternoon.

"Yeah, school is starting soon, isn't it? The dorms are open, and I plan to move in today."

"Moving? Need any help?"

Zhou Yun initially wanted to decline, but then he realized he actually had quite a lot of stuff. He had only arrived with two suitcases, but now he probably wouldn't be able to fit everything into four.

"Uh, maybe a little bit of help?" After months of working together, Zhou Yun didn't feel the need to pretend with his seniors; they were close now, and he really did need a fair bit of help.

"Let’s go then. It’s a good excuse to slack off, and even if Professor Deng finds out, he won't say anything."

"Let's go, let's go together," Yu Tianrui said, getting up as well.

"I won't go. I'm revising my paper; the deadline is tomorrow." Shen Rui waved his hand. The dark circles under his eyes made it clear he hadn't slept well in days.

"Alright then, keep at it. We’re heading out."

As for Wang Jiayue, she had already left for her internship.