Chapter 44 Arrival

Page (1/3)

A white campus shuttle bus stopped in front of them.

“Are you teachers here to attend the conference?” the elderly driver asked, leaning out.

“You’re headed to the School of Cybersecurity, right?”

“That’s it. Hop on.”

The driver nodded.

Everyone filed onto the bus. The interior was cramped, with barely enough room for three people in a row. Zhou Yun sat at the edge like a transparent man, listening to the senior scholars exchange pleasantries.

The bus moved very slowly, probably only a little faster than walking. After seven or eight minutes, it stopped in front of a building with a sign reading “School of Cybersecurity” above the entrance.

Zhou Yun tilted his head back to look at the building, which rose more than a dozen stories, and could not help sighing inwardly.

A top-tier university really was different from their small, non-elite institution. The cybersecurity building alone was grander than the entire building housing their computer science department.

Although Zhou Yun often reminded himself that, at the graduate level, the difference in a university’s standing was not all that important—as long as one had a good adviser—but when he saw such a vast disparity in facilities with his own eyes, he could not help feeling envious.

“Everyone, please follow me.”

A young man in simple clothes greeted them with a smile at the entrance.

“You’ve all had a long journey, professors! I’m Dean Yang’s student. You can just call me Little Wang. I’m in charge of reception today. This way, please.”

The group split into two and took the elevators to a huge conference room.

Several people were already seated inside, presumably participants from the host university, Huake. Apart from one seemingly older female professor, everyone else looked quite young.

“Please take any seat you like,” Little Wang called out. He then turned around, picked up two thermoses, and began pouring water into the teacups in front of each seat.

Deng Yonghua led Zhou Yun to seats near the door, in a relatively secluded corner.

“There aren’t many of us, so sitting here will be more convenient.”

Zhou Yun nodded, placed his backpack by his feet, took out the notebook—a completely black one—that he had brought, along with a pen, and set them on the table.

Deng Yonghua had reminded him to bring the notebook before they came. Meetings like this were generally documented by hand, and nearly everyone present had brought a notebook for taking notes.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

“Tea for you, professors.”

Little Wang placed two disposable cups of tea in front of them, then took out his phone.

“Professor, if anything comes up during the conference, you can contact me. Shall we add each other as contacts first?”

Deng Yonghua replied with a smile, “Sure. I’ll scan your code.”

After they added each other, Little Wang continued around the room, pouring water for the others.

When the time was right and most of the participants had arrived, the short-haired female professor seated at the head of the table rose and nodded to everyone. She was Dean Yang of Huake’s School of Cybersecurity.

“Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedules to come all the way to Jiangcheng.

“We have specifically called this in-person meeting because our Internet of Things Standards project has already gone through several rounds of online discussions and expert reviews. It has now reached the crucial final stage of the application process.

“The purpose of gathering everyone here today is very clear: we hope you can concentrate on making the final revisions and completing the draft. There are twelve days left before the final deadline. In other words, we need to go through the entire project again within ten days, so the coming ten days will be quite demanding.”

Dean Yang looked around the room and picked up two thick notebooks.

“Besides the familiar faces, I see some new teachers and students here. If you are not yet familiar with the project, these are the versions from our previous two discussions. You can take a look.”

As she spoke, she handed the notebooks to the person beside her and indicated that they should be passed around.

“Next, Little Liu will give everyone a brief overview of the revised version we arrived at after our last discussion.”

Dean Yang nodded toward a slightly stout young man sitting nearby.

“All right. I’ll go through the assignments for each research group using the presentation. Some have changed as a result of our adjustments, while others remain the same as in our previous discussion.

“Of course, these adjustments are based only on our understanding of each group’s work. How they are ultimately carried out will still depend on everyone here…”

Little Liu then gave a detailed account of the changes to each research group’s assignments, while Dean Yang added supplementary explanations whenever necessary.

After two days of intensive studying, Zhou Yun could follow the general gist. He was still unclear about the more detailed technical aspects, but he nevertheless filled several pages of his notebook, especially with material related to their own Research Group Two.

When Little Liu finished explaining the final research group’s work, Dean Yang added, “As Little Liu said, this is only a provisional version that we have drafted for now. The specific revisions still need to be discussed among everyone.

“We also hope that you will speak freely, especially regarding the topics you are responsible for or familiar with. Please consider whether these adjustments are reasonable, whether any key points have been overlooked, and whether anything needs to be clarified or refined further.”

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

As she spoke, she glanced at the clock.

“That will be all for now. I have a class to teach, so I’ll be leaving first. If any research group would like to hold a separate internal discussion, you can ask Little Wang to arrange another conference room. Thank you all for your hard work.”

After Dean Yang left, the sound of discussion in the conference room grew louder.

“Professor Deng, shall we go to the conference room next door and discuss things there?”

The man sitting beside Deng Yonghua, Director Wang, patted him on the shoulder.

This was the same Director Wang they had encountered at the university gate. He was the director in charge of technology at a telecommunications company and was responsible for coordinating this project. He was also one of the participants in Research Group Two.

Besides their institution, two other universities were involved, making four participating organizations in total for Research Group Two. Deng Yonghua had just explained all this to Zhou Yun during the meeting.

“All right. This still differs somewhat from the conclusions we reached in our last discussion. Today, let’s first organize our ideas, and at the same time see how the other research groups are proceeding.”

“Fine. Shall we go?”

“I’ll ask Little Wang to arrange the conference room next door.”

There were seven people in the small conference room: one company technology director, three university professors, and three students from the participating institutions.

“Then let’s begin.”

As the person in charge of Research Group Two, Deng Yonghua naturally became the organizer of the discussion.

He opened his notebook.

“Dean Yang and the others have already established the framework. The core tasks of Research Group Two are ‘communication protocol security’ and ‘data protection.’

“Based on the topics drafted by Dean Yang’s team, I have provisionally divided Research Group Two into five subprojects: mandatory protocol enforcement and compatibility pathways; cryptographic suite adaptation and optimization; end-to-end data protection and key management; scenario-specific extension requirements; and testing tools.

“Except for the final one, which concerns acceptance testing, the other four all involve technical challenges that we need to overcome. I’ll give a brief explanation of each. Let me know if there is anything that needs to be added.”

Page (3/3)