Chapter 42: Conversation on the Golf Course

Out on the golf course of the Tampines Country Club, Xijie had been eavesdropping on the conversation between Hera and Fan Zhiheng.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, that was actually an AI "production" meticulously crafted in advance by Hera to deceive Xijie.

The content that Xijie heard included both Hera's brief overview of the process of discovering and trapping the robot Ada, and the latest news from the Silicon Valley AI market brought by Fan Zhiheng.

When Hera mentioned that she had a distant cousin working in the arts whom she hoped to arrange on a blind date with Fan Zhiheng, Xijie switched off the wiretap program. He refused to waste his precious energy on such mundane and tedious worldly matters.

Xijie thought to himself: Qian Zhongshu was spot on. Matchmaking and motherhood are a woman's two fundamental desires. Even an efficient, cold-blooded, and capable subordinate like Hera could not escape them.

Xijie turned his head and glanced at Wen Hui, who was clumsily swinging her club under the caddy's instruction.

Before achieving his goal with a woman whose fresh flavor he was quite eager to taste, Xijie would never reveal his inner condescension toward women as a whole.

Hiding his contempt and donning a mask of gentle self-restraint, he walked over to Wen Hui.

"I'm sorry, I was on the phone the whole time," Xijie said, looking at Wen Hui with a somewhat melancholy gaze. "I just learned that Mukesh—that Indian lad who was interviewed alongside you the other day—is suspected to have suffered a relapse of depression and committed suicide. I was arranging for an employee to visit his home. Miss Wen, did you know about this?"

Wen Hui lowered her eyelashes. "Director Xi, actually, I received word from his sister this morning."

"Then why didn't you tell me? Could it be that you were afraid I would connect our firm's refusal to invest in Mukesh's company as possibly being the straw that broke the camel's back?"

Xijie calibrated his tone carefully, devoid of any reproach, sounding instead as if he were providing a footnote to his own regret.

Hypocrite... Wen Hui cursed silently, her eyes feigning a look of awkwardness and panic.

Xijie hurriedly explained in a soft voice, "Don't misunderstand, Xiao Wen. I'm not blaming you; I'm blaming myself. Sigh..."

The capitalist tycoon wore a melancholy expression, bathing in the slanting rays of the sun as he walked toward the green.

If he had continued to remain silent, it would have been a long-shot scene with excellent lighting and a perfect atmosphere.

However, how could a successful human male who fancied himself in total control of everything not continue to pontificate?

Sighing, Xijie said to the approaching Wen Hui, "Xiao Wen, why was I suddenly so deeply moved? It's because Mukesh, well, and you—you young people—reminded me of myself over a decade ago."

Wen Hui walked slowly forward, staring at their shadows shifting across the exquisitely manicured turf, thinking: Here it comes. He's starting to recount his humble and painful past to evoke a woman's sympathy and narrow the distance between us.

Xijie tilted his head at a forty-five-degree angle, gazing at the commercial airliners taking off and landing in the sky above the East Coast, and spoke in a reminiscent tone: "In 2025, I was still a young university instructor teaching the history of Western philosophy. That year, NVIDIA held its GPU Technology Conference in Washington, which was hailed as the inaugural year of reshaping the global technological and industrial landscape. At the time, I found it quite farcical: the human world possessed AI superfactories capable of supporting one hundred thousand GPUs, and major powers boasted a considerable number of national-level AI supercomputing centers, yet they could no longer accommodate a discipline genuinely capable of resolving humanity's own rational problems—the humanities and history. The very day Jensen Huang was lauded as the hero who built the underlying structure of the intelligent world, our university held a faculty meeting to shut down forty percent of our liberal arts majors."

Maintaining a posture of humble inquiry, Wen Hui asked, "Director Xi, I was preparing for the college entrance examination that year. The downsizing of university liberal arts majors you mentioned wasn't just happening at your school, right? I remember it was a societal trend, both domestically and abroad."

"That's right, both domestically and abroad. Those liberal arts disciplines that were permitted to survive were also forced to 'cross-integrate with science, engineering, agriculture, and medical disciplines,' and come up with rectification plans. Bullshit! Damn it, that's as absurd as cross-integrating golf with the 110-meter hurdles!"

Xijie suddenly let out a vulgarity.

He hadn't expected that what he was merely performing to appeal to a prey-like girl and win her favor would actually evoke genuine emotion in him.

After all, this truly was his authentic experience from his impoverished and awkward youth.

Xijie simply decided to continue waxing lyrical: "In 2025, when I walked out of the meeting room in the teaching building and looked at my colleagues from the liberal arts departments—disheveled and looking as desolate as mourners at a funeral—I began to ponder the most crucial proposition of the humanities: What should the essence and development of human beings be? When silicon-based intelligence like AI emerges, when its functions in knowledge storage, integration, reasoning, and action far surpass those of humans and it continues to evolve, how can humanity find the meaning of survival and continue to develop itself?"

For a fleeting second, Wen Hui felt a sense of disorientation.

The words spoken by this capitalist tycoon, identified by Hera as a human traitor, felt completely devoid of hypocrisy or unctuosity.

"The meaning of survival? To continue developing oneself?" Wen Hui shook her head and said, "The prevailing trend at the time was to discard even the disciplines capable of contemplating and partially resolving these two questions. Back then, I was a candidate applying for the artificial intelligence major, and I felt nothing about the massive layoffs in the humanities. But over the past few years, I've truly felt that the moral crisis facing humanity is becoming increasingly severe."

A flicker of emotion crossed Xijie's eyes as he stared at Wen Hui. "Xiao Wen, look, you have a formal background in AI and you've thrown yourself into the cutting-edge quantum track, yet you realize that human civilization is very likely to be devoured by alienated technological behemoths. Therefore, you and I are both people with a sense of mission."

The word "mission" acted like an alarm bell, waking Wen Hui up.

Hera had mentioned that when Xijie was brainwashing her, he had started by stacking up rhetoric like "technology is tolling the knell for humanity" and "a few wise men must shoulder the mission."

Wen Hui caught this signal: "Director Xi, hearing you say that makes me feel even more ashamed. Will the quantum computing simulation of biological neurons that our company is researching end up devouring the peaceful and beautiful lives that many living people could otherwise have enjoyed?"

Xijie smiled meaningfully. "Let's not talk about this anymore. I'm sorry, Xiao Wen; I originally invited you to play golf to discuss post-investment management matters, and it ended up leading to such a heavy topic. Come on, let me teach you how to play the hazard section."

"Oh, right, Director Xi." Wen Hui maintained her obedient and docile demeanor.

Xijie changed the subject. "You said you like studying the history of religion in your spare time? Have you ever been to Angkor Wat in Cambodia?"

"Yes, I have. I went during college."

"Have you ever been to Yogyakarta in Indonesia?"

"Uh, no, but I've heard that the ruins of Borobudur in Yogyakarta are just as famous as Angkor Wat."

Xijie turned his head, squinting at Wen Hui. "Once your R&D makes a breakthrough, I'll treat you to a trip there to celebrate."