Chapter 38

After two more periods, Du Ruo and her group switched classrooms, heading off to the lab building. You’ll want to bookmark this website.
As she slung her backpack through the hallway, she spotted Jing Ming.
He was leaning against the safety door at the stairwell. “Come here,” he called, and headed down the hall without waiting.
Du Ruo wrinkled her nose, tugged her backpack straps, and slowly followed.
There were students on the stairs, going up and down. She and Jing Ming kept their distance, eyes averted. They didn’t say a word.
It was the last day of May. Outside, summer raged in full glory. Blazing sunlight drummed down, making her skin prickle with sweat.
Once the hallway emptied,
“So, what’s up…” she asked, absent-mindedly twisting her fingers. She glanced outside. “I’ve got class soon, you know.”
He slouched against the rail. “If you’re interested, you can join Prime.”
Du Ruo hesitated, glancing up at him. Their eyes met for a second, then she quickly looked away, dropping her gaze in thought. After a beat, it was still the same answer: “No.”
Jing Ming frowned. Shot down again, his patience was wearing thin. “Why? And don’t tell me it’s because of Orbit. You’re just an assistant, you’re not on any core projects, there’s no NDA, everything’s above board.”
“I know. But…”
But what? She couldn’t put it into words.
He wasn’t in the mood for her roundabout answers. “Have you been on the BBS?”
“…No,” she lied.
He looked annoyed. “Go take a look now.”
Reluctantly, she pulled out her phone, opened the forum, and scrolled through what she’d seen yesterday.
“Du Ruo, I pitched a fit in front of the whole school, told the teacher point-blank, all for the sake of recruiting you. Now everyone knows. And now what, you don’t even show up? Where does that leave me?”
Du Ruo froze. She honestly hadn’t thought about that angle.
If she bailed now, this would just turn into gossip or a running joke. Both she and Jing Ming would be left looking like fools.
How had she ended up riding a tiger, unable to get off?
He caught her hesitation and tossed in a cold, sharp jab: “Here I am, sticking my neck out for you, and this is how you pay me back: selling me out?”
“I…” She dropped her head, silent for a long moment, slim eyebrows drawn tight, fighting a battle only she could see.
“Let me show you something else.” He pulled out his phone, sent her a link, glanced at the time, and said, “Go to class. I want your answer before the day’s out.”
With that, he stuffed his phone in his pocket and walked off downstairs.
The moment he left,
her shoulders slumped, all that weird, invisible pressure gone at once.
She stood there dazed for a few seconds, then jolted upright, crap, she was late! She bolted across campus, summer sun burning overhead, rushing to the lab building.
She focused hard in class and didn’t notice Jing Ming’s link on her phone until lunchtime, back in her dorm. Only then did she remember to open it, a concept trailer.
The soundtrack was sweeping and grand, light dazzling as text flickered with the images.
“15 countries”
“24 competing teams”
Shots of jaw-dropping racecars and young faces brimming with excitement flashed across the screen.
Suddenly, the music swelled, cars tore down the track at breakneck speed,
“Cutting-edge technology”
“Leading-edge science”
Blue sky, endless sea, a crowd roaring,
flags waving as a car barreled across the finish line.
The screen faded to black, the music dissolved into silence. Two lines appeared on the screen:
First Global Intercollegiate Autonomous Racing Championship
Shenzhen, China
Aug 2017
This was a world-class event!
She’d heard rumors months ago about a global driverless racing championship being held in Shenzhen this summer.
But she never dreamed Prime would be one of the teams.
No classes in the afternoon, but it was too hot to nap. Her mind kept replaying those laughing faces, those cars flying across the track. Her heart pumped so fast she couldn’t even close her eyes.
She kept replaying the trailer over and over, getting more restless each time. In the end, unable to help herself, she summoned her courage and messaged Jing Ming:
“If I join, will the rest of the team even want me there?”
His reply came quick: “Survive two months’ probation, we’ll talk.”
Du Ruo: “…”
That was not what he said this morning.
Besides, who says she’s weak, anyway!
Another reply came flying in: “Your shares depend on ability and contribution. Prime doesn’t do freeloaders.”
The provocation shot Du Ruo bolt upright in bed. “Even if you gave me extra, I wouldn’t take it!”
He didn’t bother to reply.
She hugged her phone, waiting for a bit, but seeing no message back, she flopped back down on her bed.
Outside, the sun blazed; indoors, it was stuffy and hot.
She scrunched her brows, torn between excitement, anxiety, anticipation, and a little bit of fear.
Then, ding, another message from Jing Ming: “No class? Get to the lab. You know the drill.”
She blinked, then scrambled out of bed, changed, washed up, shouldered her bag, and dashed straight for the Prime lab.
At the door, she knocked, just barely, softly, then edged it open a crack and peeked in.
Wan Zi’ang spotted her first, flashing a grin. “Fresh blood’s here!”
The words had barely left his mouth before every guy in the place looked her way. They all knew her, but the excitement on their faces was unmistakable, a room full of cheerful, open grins.
“You finally showed! New blood at last. I was about to die of boredom with these clowns.” That lazy drawl floated up from behind a computer. He Wang, the computing prodigy from Xia Nan’s class.
“Li Wei, your class beauty’s come over,” added Tu Zhiyuan, the automation wizard from He Huanhuan’s class.
Li Wei laughed. “She’s our team beauty now, right, Little Tough?”
Du Ruo's cheeks burned. “What did you just call me?”
“Don’t your roommates always call you Little Tough? It’s cute as hell.”
“Du Ruo is such a pretty name; why call her Little Tough?” He Wang grumbled. “If anything, she should be ‘Little Flower’. If anyone’s tough, it’s Jing Ming.”
“Don’t you all have work to do?” Jing Ming strolled over.
“We’re welcoming our new member, obviously! Welcome, Du Ruo.” He Wang shot her a wink, then got right back to his project.
Everyone else said hi, then turned back to work.
Jing Ming walked over to Du Ruo, giving her a quick once-over. “You made it?”
“Mhm.” She fiddled nervously with her hands, the run over had left her sweating.
“Hot out there?”
“Yeah.”
He grabbed a water bottle, twisted it open, and passed it to her. She snatched it, fast. “Thanks.”
“Let me show you around.” Jing Ming took a few steps but didn’t hear her behind him. When he looked back, she was gulping water, caught off-guard by his gaze, she screwed on the cap and gave a tiny cough.
Jing Ming: “Keep up.”
“Oh.” She hurried after him, trailing him as he navigated the lab.
With his hands in his pockets, Jing Ming’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was clear and steady:
“When it comes down to it, an autonomous car isn’t really a car, it’s a robot.”
Du Ruo: “A robot that just happens to look like a car. Transformers, basically?”
He flicked her a sideways look before continuing, “Put simply, it works like every other robot, sensors collect info and send it to the computer, the computer crunches the data and spits out commands, the motors receive the order and execute the actions.”
There were ten people in the lab now; with Du Ruo, there’d be eleven. The team was split into three groups: Sensing, Control, Execution.
The Sensing group researched ultrasonic radar, GPS, accelerometers, IMUs, and other gadgets, basically building the car’s ‘eyes’ and ‘skin’, sending all the outside info to the computer.
The Control group worked on the computer systems, the ‘brain’. They analyzed info from the sensors and gave orders to the execution team.
The Execution group focused on steering, throttle, brake, the car’s ‘hands and feet’, carrying out whatever the ‘brain’ decided.
Jing Ming eyed her. “You see where you fit in?”
Du Ruo nodded. She’d be the first link in their chain: “Sensing group.”
“You’re the eyes,” Jing Ming said. “Remember, that’s a critical role.”
At this moment, he wasn’t the sarcastic boy she’d first met, or even the guy who’d covered for her yesterday. Here he was: Captain of Prime. Focused. Resolute. Responsible for everything in this lab.
“I will,” she answered, nodding hard. Suddenly, unexpectedly, an odd sense of pride blossomed in her chest, heavy with anticipation and responsibility.
The eyes.
She was the eyes now.
One year ago, she’d sat in a classroom, completely lost at “Sensing and Control,” wondering why she’d chosen such a foreign major. The confusion spiraled into a restless anxiety that gnawed at her for ages.
Looking back now, she realized: There’s no need to be upset if you don’t have grand ambitions or a clear goal for your future. Life doesn’t arrange perfect destiny encounters just for you. You make your own luck by stepping forward.
That afternoon, Du Ruo stuck around the lab, learning all she could about the Prime autonomous driving project, its history, progress so far, the sensor team’s achievements, and the big, unsolved issues ahead.
The more she saw, the more awe she felt for the team.
Jing Ming had said it himself: she and the group would need time to sync up. After the speed competition, if she did well, Prime would keep her on.
And she’d decided she was totally up for the challenge.
That evening, the team went out for dinner as usual.
They picked a fancy Chinese restaurant near campus. Their private room had floor-to-ceiling windows, thick crimson tassels draping three walls. Through the fourth wall they could see a little courtyard with greenery and a fake mountain. In the center stood a massive round redwood table, immaculately set with dishes and chopsticks.
Jing Ming entered first, scanned the room, then saw Du Ruo coming in. She was just about to walk past, he pulled out a chair right in her way. She blinked in surprise, but sat down.
Once she was settled, he took his seat beside her, unfolded a napkin, and laid it neatly on his lap.
Du Ruo stole a glance and followed his lead, smoothing hers over her knees, she’d always assumed napkins went on the table.
The waiter brought over four or five menus, and everyone clustered up in small groups to order.
Jing Ming opened a menu, flipped a few pages, and asked quietly, “What do you want to eat?”
Du Ruo, caught off guard at being addressed, turned his way and said, “Anything’s fine.”
He paged through, then said, “’Anything’ isn’t on the menu.”
Du Ruo: “…”
He handed the menu to her. “Pick two dishes.”
Du Ruo studied it a moment. “Stir-fried shrimp and spicy boiled fish.”
The waiter came to take orders. Each team member picked something. When it was Jing Ming’s turn: “Stir-fried shrimp, spicy boiled fish.” He closed the menu and handed it back.
The waiter asked, “And to drink?”
He Wang: “Let’s get a case of beer. Oh, wait, in case we don’t finish, can we return some?”
“No problem.”
“Cool.”
Jing Ming didn’t drink, so he ordered a pot of Dragon Well tea. He turned to Du Ruo: “What about you? What do you want to drink?”
He was so close, she forgot to breathe for a moment. “Uh?”
He Wang piped up, “Does Xiao Ruo drink?”
Du Ruo shook her head. “Nope.”
“Fresh pressed corn juice,” Jing Ming told the waiter.
The server read back the order and left.
The team launched into conversation.
Though Du Ruo was new, she already knew the guys well and felt totally at ease hanging out with people her own age. Even though the talk was all about research projects, it didn’t feel so foreign anymore, she figured she’d just soak up the details.
“Got a call from Professor Liang Wenbang on my way here,” Li Wei shared. “The school wants to pitch our project to the Ministry of Science and Tech. If we finish the initial R&D, we might actually land state support.”
Du Ruo was stunned, but everyone else played it cool, like they’d expected as much.
Tu Zhiyuan asked, “What about all those brochures we collected at the entrepreneurship expo? Didn’t a ton of companies want to invest or team up with us?”
Li Wei: “More than half got an immediate nope. Crappy conditions and a ton of attitude, probably don’t even believe we’ll succeed.”
Meanwhile, the dishes started coming out one after another.
The food tasted amazing, and Du Ruo had a healthy appetite. She chowed down, barely looking up from her food as she tuned in to the team’s conversation.
Li Wei kept going. “Sorted through them for a few days, nixed the small companies and amateur investors. Left with six solid ones.”
That included a top domestic tech company, an auto manufacturer, two famed investment firms, a foreign internet giant, and one very well-known venture capitalist.
Zhu Tao said, “Sounds pretty damn impressive to me.”
Jing Ming, though, disagreed. “Personally, I’d rather not team up with big corporate.”
“Why not?”
“Those companies already have their main money machines, their flagship projects, their big earners will always be the boss’s favorites. Autonomous driving ends up on the margins; if the leadership ever changes, or if it doesn’t pay off fast enough, a quick shareholder vote and poof, the whole project’s axed or sold off overnight. All these companies coming after us? They just want a tentacle in every pot. To them, we’re a headline, not a priority.”
Du Ruo sipped her corn juice, nodding with admiration, and, involuntarily, glancing at him again.
He Wang chimed in, “Honestly, I worry about that too.”
Tu Zhiyuan added, “Yeah, I think we’re better off going our own way. Find a good investor, build something ourselves.”
Li Wei sighed, “Investors can have great offers, but they pile on the conditions, chunk of the stock, must be profitable within X years, have to join XYZ competitions and events…”
Jing Ming took a slow sip of tea, fell silent for a moment, then suddenly said, “At the expo, Yan Ruoyu stopped by our booth.”
The whole table paused. “Old Yan?”
“That’s right.”
Yan Ruoyu was born into an illustrious family, a legendary mechanical engineering expert and one of China’s earliest researchers in autonomous driving. Sadly, his own efforts never saw success, thanks to limitations of the times and technology.
But his lifelong work had been mentoring and funding promising young tech entrepreneurs, determined to build world-class homegrown brands. His backing had launched teams and companies scattered all over the nation by now.
He Wang, excited: “Whoa, no way, did he actually take a shine to our project?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Jing Ming said, deflating him. “He hasn’t reached out.”
He Wang sighed.
Wan Zi’ang sighed, too. “He gets, what, nearly a thousand business proposals a year? He might’ve picked someone else already for all we know.”
Jing Ming said, “Let’s not overthink it. Let’s just make this project the best it can be. We’ll figure out partnerships and deals later. What matters now isn’t money or sponsors, it’s getting the work right.”
“Of course!” Every face at the table broke into grins, everyone nodding together, pure-hearted, no pretensions.
Du Ruo, munching a rib, found herself nodding earnestly too.
The lazy Susan in the middle was spinning. When the shrimp finally landed in front of her, she reached for it, but tonight, with all the new dishes out, it was parked in the exact center, and her arms were just too short.
Just as the platter was about to rotate away, Jing Ming set his teacup down and scooped a spoonful of shrimp right onto her plate.
“…Thanks,” she murmured, a bit taken aback.
Luckily, nobody else seemed to notice.
He was probably just being a responsible teammate, she assured herself, quietly savoring the springy shrimp. Zhu Tao cracked a joke: “Hey Jing Ming, why don’t you just get your dad to bankroll us?”
Jing Ming snorted. “Give me a break. I can’t stand his whole show-off attitude.”
The group: “…”
Who’s the one with the show-off attitude here?
The meal wound down; Jing Ming got up to pay, swiped his card at the front, and bumped into Li Wei on the way back.
Li Wei looped an arm around his neck, dragging him off to the side.
“What’s with you?”
“Hey, are you into her or not?” Li Wei asked.
Jing Ming paused for just a second, already knowing exactly which “her” he meant. “Why?”
“Just answer me.”
“What’s it to you?” He tried to pry Li Wei’s arm off.
Li Wei only tightened his hold. “Du Ruo’s a good girl and a friend of mine. I don’t want to see her get hurt. If you’re not really into her, don’t mess around.”
Jing Ming: “My business, not yours.”