Chapter 18: How Long Does It Take a Master?

On Ye Qinghe's end, after doing some research online, he had a rough idea of what to charge.

For a problem like the one he'd just solved, the going rate was typically somewhere between five hundred and three thousand yuan.

While it did involve some interdisciplinary knowledge — numerical solutions to partial differential equations and advanced applications of matrix theory — he hadn't provided any accompanying code implementation, error analysis, or written reports, nor had it required any innovative derivations of unpublished methods. So three thousand was about the ceiling.

Of course, it wasn't entirely fixed. Some clients paid more depending on the difficulty of the project and how flush the research budget was.

"It's a shame this kind of thing doesn't come up often. If I could land two or three of these a week, I'd be pulling in tens of thousands a month — I wouldn't even need to go on that show and fight for a job with a two-hundred-thousand-yuan annual salary."

Ye Qinghe sighed a little wistfully after reading through everything.

He didn't think this could ever become a steady source of income — it was more a matter of getting lucky when opportunities arose.

Just as he was thinking about how to reply, another message came in from the other side.

"Hey, are you still there?"

"I'm here!"

Ye Qinghe typed back.

"Hello! While your help pushed our core algorithm derivation forward by one step, we still haven't been able to finish the rest of it. We were wondering if you'd have time to help us complete the remaining derivation? Don't worry — we know how these things work. We'd like to offer you five thousand yuan as compensation."

The other party was quite savvy — they didn't wait for him to bring it up and proactively named a price, one that was two thousand yuan higher than anything he'd found online. Ye Qinghe was very pleased.

"Senior Brother, isn't that fee a bit high? Will our supervisor approve it?"

Inside a classroom at Qingmu University, a group of people were crowded around Zhou Shuo's phone. When they saw Pei Ming offer the princely sum of five thousand yuan, one of the junior sisters spoke up.

As for Zhou Shuo, he was standing on a chair nearby in his white lab coat, looking down at everyone from above.

That was because his senior sister had said that knowing he had nothing on under the lab coat but a pair of underwear made her unwilling to have any physical contact with him — so she'd banned him from coming closer.

"It's fine. The extra money comes out of my own pocket. We've finally run into a genuine expert — I'm not going to be stingy about it. This project is just a small one anyway. I've got another big project with my supervisor that's also been running into some mathematical problems lately. If this person really has the chops, I'll ask them to help sort that one out too."

Pei Ming smiled. Having a master willing to come down and take on paid work was a good thing for him.

What he feared most was that the master would look down on the money and refuse to help.

"Sure!"

Seeing how straightforward the other party was, Ye Qinghe agreed immediately.

"The master said yes! Quick, Zhou Shuo — I'll transfer five thousand to you, then you send it to Toward the Sun!"

Pei Ming didn't hesitate. When dealing with someone of this calibre, you couldn't make them wait until the work was done to get paid. He transferred the money to Zhou Shuo on the spot, who then forwarded it to Toward the Sun.

Ye Qinghe hadn't expected them to be so decisive about it — no asking when it would be done, no talk of signing a contract. The money just arrived, just like that.

So, after asking them to send over the problem, he got to work on the derivation.

"How long do you think it'll take the master to finish?"

Once Toward the Sun had received the payment and gone quiet, Pei Ming and Zhou Shuo and the others started speculating about how long this expert would need.

They'd been stuck on this particular problem for nearly twenty days, and the people they'd consulted before hadn't been able to produce any results either.

"I'd say three days. Given how flawless the previous step was, this should be solvable within three days — assuming the master is genuinely dedicating their time to it. If they've got other projects on the go, who knows."

A senior sister with long legs and a slender waist offered her guess.

"About right, though I think it won't even take three days — two at most!"

"Hold on — you don't even know who this person is, and you're already making guesses like that? Has it not occurred to anyone that this might not be Toward the Sun at all, but some random scammer who somehow found out about this?"

A senior brother who had been there the whole time but barely said a word looked at them with a puzzled expression.

"That's not possible. They contacted us through the private message I sent using the account info I shared. That account is a throwaway — nobody knows about it. I only mentioned it in the private message and never told anyone else. That's why the master is literally the only friend on that account."

That was exactly why Zhou Shuo was so confident the person was Toward the Sun.

With that explanation, the skeptical senior brother had nothing more to say.

"A message just came in!"

After chatting idly for a while, just as they were debating whether to leave, Zhou Shuo's phone chimed with a notification. He pulled it out immediately.

"How long did you all say the master would need again?"

After reading the message, Zhou Shuo couldn't help but ask.

"Two days at the fastest! Why? What's up?"

The long-legged senior sister replied.

"It looks like the master... might have solved it. From when they asked for the problem to right now — how long has it been?"

Zhou Shuo stared blankly at his phone, his voice full of disbelief.

"Twenty minutes?"

"Fifteen minutes!"

The chat history was right there on Zhou Shuo's phone, timestamps and all. From the moment the master asked for the problem to the moment they sent back the solution — exactly fifteen minutes.

Pei Ming snatched the phone out of Zhou Shuo's hands and started reading through it rapidly.

"Senior Brother, let me see too!"

"I want to look as well!"

"Senior Brother, why don't you cast it to the big screen so we can all look together?"

Everyone crowded in, eager to be the first to see. The previously invisible senior brother made what turned out to be the most sensible suggestion of all.

Once the solution was projected up, the group stared at the working process on the screen in prolonged silence.

It was entirely consistent with the approach from the earlier step — concise, and following a line of thinking completely unlike anything they had tried before.

"There are a few parts I didn't fully follow, but from a broad read-through, it looks correct. To be a hundred percent sure, we'd need to verify it from start to finish. What do you all think — do we do it now, or wait until tomorrow?"

After going through it, Pei Ming genuinely felt those five thousand yuan had been money extremely well spent. He was itching to verify it.

"Now, obviously. After seeing a solution like this, who could possibly go home and sleep? Let's get to it — worst case, we pull an all-nighter. It wouldn't be the first time!"

The long-legged senior sister's eyes lit up with excitement.

"Exactly! Let's just do it! A genius solution like this is more exciting than watching a movie — there's no way I'm leaving it unverified and going to bed."

"Right, come on, let's hurry. If we finish early enough, we might even get back in time for a few hours of sleep!"

"Let's go!"

Not a single one of the young researchers had any intention of setting it aside and going home to sleep. They were all clamouring to start verifying it right away.

"Then let's get to it!"