Chapter 62 Preparing to Set Off

The day after finishing his paper revisions, Zhou Yun arrived at the laboratory bright and early, despite having pulled an all-nighter.

There was simply no help for it. Scientific research was, most of the time, even more exhausting than a regular job, especially when tasks piled up, creating a crushing feeling—endless tasks! There was simply no finishing them!

The work that followed the grueling task of finalizing his graduation thesis consisted of posters and PowerPoint slides.

Although he had quickly put together a basic poster and slide deck when he first received the official notification from NeurIPS, the more he looked at them later on, the more dissatisfied he became.

Therefore, at the beginning of the month, he simply commissioned a design online, paying professionals to handle the layout while he filled in the text content.

Although the provider had replied long ago, he had been far too busy during the past month and only found time to deal with it today.

After all, this was his first presentation at an international conference, so investing a little extra care was only fitting.

He had to admit that apart from being expensive, anything that could be solved with money had virtually no other drawbacks.

The results looked vastly superior to anything he could have put together himself.

The conference was set to begin on December 9. To allow time for adjusting to the jet lag, their flights were booked for December 7, ensuring the schedule wouldn't be too rushed and leaving them with a decent amount of time to rest.

Consequently, Zhou Yun had about five days to finalize his poster and presentation slides.

Since he only needed to fill in the content himself, the time was more than enough.

During lunch, Deng Yonghua informed Zhou Yun about the upcoming graduation defense, though he kept quiet about Dean Lin's intention to keep him at the university for further studies.

Deng Yonghua knew Zhou Yun had a lot on his plate these days, so it would be better to discuss such matters after the graduation defense. In any case, even once the defense was successfully completed, there would still be plenty of time before the start of the next semester for him to ponder the decision.

Upon learning that he was cleared for the defense, Zhou Yun felt significantly more relaxed, and the pace at which he worked on his poster and presentation picked up considerably.

By December 5, everything had been completely settled.

At nine o'clock on the morning of the sixth, Zhou Yun was still fast asleep.

This struck his three roommates as quite strange, given that Zhou Yun usually headed out by eight o'clock at the latest, and sometimes even as early as seven-thirty. What on earth was going on today?

"Zhou Yun, what time are you heading to the lab today? Want to walk together?" Zhou Zhenghao's voice called out from behind the neighboring curtain.

"Not going today. I'm heading out for a conference tomorrow, so I'm packing my things today."

"A conference? Where to?" Zhou Yu poked his head out, still in the middle of brushing his teeth.

"Vancouver."

Swish!

The curtain next door was yanked violently open, and Zhou Zhenghao sat straight up in bed.

Zhou Yang, who had been sleeping, also propped himself up. Although his eyes were still heavy with sleep, he woke up quite a bit.

Zhou Yu froze with his toothbrush suspended mid-air, leaving only the humming buzz of the electric toothbrush echoing in the room.

Three pairs of eyes stared fixedly at Zhou Yun in unison.

"Where did you say?"

"Vancouver, to attend NeurIPS."

"NeurIPS?!"

"What's NeurIPS? Some top-tier conference?" Zhou Yang and Zhou Yu looked at Zhou Zhenghao, bewildered. Their field was Computer Vision (CV), so they were well aware of top CV conferences like CVPR, ECCV, and ICCV.

However, they had genuinely never heard of NeurIPS.

"It's a top-tier conference in the field of machine learning, pretty much on par with CVPR."

Hearing it explained that way, the two of them immediately understood.

"Holy crap! That awesome?! Someone in your lab got a paper accepted?"

Zhou Yun shook his head, tossed off the blanket, and swung his legs out of bed. "No, it was me. My paper got accepted, and the poster is already done." As he spoke, he pointed toward a black cardboard tube resting on his desk.

"Holy shit? First author? Are you for real?" Zhou Zhenghao nimbly scrambled out of bed, picked up the poster, and unrolled it. "Awesome!"

"So the rumor going around these past few months that a first-year grad student published at a top conference was actually you?"

"I never imagined a heavyweight academic master was hiding right in my midst."

After offering a few words of congratulations, each of them went back to their respective routines.

At the graduate school level, very few people behaved like high schoolers, constantly comparing themselves to others. Everyone had a clear and sober understanding of their own capabilities.

They knew what they were capable of achieving and what they weren't, holding a realistic mirror to their own abilities. Aside from a bit of envy, the only remaining sentiment regarding Zhou Yun's ability to publish at a top conference was the desire to cling to his co-author coattails.

Since he would be gone for five days, he still needed to pack a reasonable selection of changes of clothes.

Standing in front of his wardrobe to ensure he wouldn't forget anything, he held a sticky note in his hand listing the items he had jotted down the day before—all essentials that had to be brought along.

To that end, he had even checked the December weather in Vancouver beforehand, noting that it was considerably colder than their current location.

"Outerwear... sweaters... undergarments..." he muttered under his breath, his finger gliding across a row of garments. He was the type of person who suffered terribly from the cold in winter and the heat in summer. For him, winter could be warm, but freezing was strictly out of the question.

Therefore, he could pack extra clothes, but he could certainly not bring too few.

As for socks and underwear, for the sake of convenience, he had bought disposable daily pairs, preparing a full seven-day supply with two extra days just in case of emergencies, such as rainy weather, which would also save him the trouble of doing laundry.

As for daily toiletries, he decided against packing them since the hotel would undoubtedly provide them.

Every time he selected an item, he crossed it off the sticky note.

Once the checklist on the sticky note was completely crossed out, he went through it one more time to reconfirm that nothing had been left behind.

It was only by using vacuum-sealed bags that he managed to cram everything into his twenty-inch suitcase.

In the afternoon, he took some time off to go out and buy a U-shaped pillow. Since this was an international flight, the journey on the plane was bound to be grueling; his previous flight to Jiangcheng had been miserable enough after just a few hours, and without a proper pillow, sleep was completely out of the question.

Having wrapped up all his preparations, Zhou Yun made a phone call home.

"Hello? Son?" His mother's familiar voice came through the receiver, accompanied by the background sound of vegetables being chopped.

"Where's Dad?"

"He's busy cooking. I'll put it on speaker. You wouldn't call us for no reason—spill it, what's going on?"

"Nothing much. It's just that tomorrow I'm going on a business trip to Canada with my professor. I'll be gone for about five days, so I wanted to let you guys know in advance."

"Canada? That means going abroad, right?" His mother's voice pitched up slightly. "That's so far away! Didn't I hear on the news that there are wars going on overseas? Is it safe over there?"

A barrage of questions followed, leaving Zhou Yun feeling somewhat amused and exasperated. "Don't worry, there's no war in Canada, it's completely safe. Besides, my professor and classmates are going too. Rest assured, everything will be fine."

"That's a relief." His mother's voice softened a bit before she immediately lapsed into her usual nagging: "Is it cold over there right now? Did you pack enough clothes? Do you have enough money? If it's not enough, we can wire you some more..."

At that point, his father's voice chimed in. "Oh, stop worrying so much! The boy isn't a child anymore; he certainly knows what he's doing. I won't go on and on, but make sure you stay safe! I'll transfer five thousand yuan to you in a moment—spend whatever you need when you're out there, the family can afford at least that much. Once you get over there, send us a message immediately to let us know you've arrived safely, regardless of the time difference. Once we see it, we can finally rest easy..."

"There's no need to transfer money to me, I have plenty. I'll definitely message you the moment I arrive."

After chatting for a full two hours, Zhou Yun finally prepared to hang up.

"I'm going to hang up now."

"Alright, alright, hang up, hang up." Despite saying that, his mother still added one last reminder: "Remember to call us the second you arrive!"

"I definitely will. Goodbye."

The moment the call disconnected, a text message popped up on his phone. Afraid that Zhou Yun would refuse, his father had bypassed messaging altogether and sent a direct bank transfer.

Immediately afterward, a text prompt flashed on the screen:

[Son, did you receive the money?]

Faced with this, Zhou Yun could only feel a helpless warmth; his father was always terrified that he would suffer hardships while away from home.

[Received it.]