Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 290 I'm Home
Under the bright sunshine, Sophia got out of the car with a big smile on her face. She stood on Stanford's Sunset Boulevard, turned around a few times with light steps, and then looked at Tommy who got out of the car. "When I stepped onto the land of Stanford, it seemed like I was back to those days. I felt relaxed. The speed at which time passed was really shocking. It has been six years since I left Stanford, and you have been graduated for almost three years."
"When people reminisce about the past, they always subconsciously deceive themselves, selectively delete some memories, and then beautify some memories. For example, you, my dear Ms. Sophia, the time you reminisce about, if I remember correctly, you yelled at me all day long, asking me why I didn't pay you, and saying that you were tired of working part-time at Actor." Tommy sat on the front of Sophia's sissy pink sports car, took out a cigarette from the pocket of his floral shirt, lit it, and said with a smile:
"Friendly reminder, it is precisely because of this boring period that made you gnash your teeth and feel extremely annoyed that you earned money that many people cannot earn in their lifetime, that you were so bored that you could come back to beautify your memories. Think about it, if you had not been mercifully picked up by me, what would you be doing now? Maybe you would be busy taking the judicial certificate exam with a part-time job, or you would have passed the judicial exam and worked as an assistant in a law firm or a county inspector's office in a remote area, working like a cow every day. Not to mention beautifying your memories, you wouldn't even have time to change your sanitary napkin and could only hurriedly put another pad on top of the old one..."
"Tommy, can't you give me some room for imagination?" Sophia stopped reminiscing about the good old days, frowned slightly, and interrupted Tommy with disgust.
Tommy waved his hand a few times in the direction of Stanford campus, holding a cigarette in his mouth, and then continued, "This is true. Delia's life was like this when she first joined the law firm. She was ordered around by her boss and didn't even have time to change her own thing. She had to run to buy Trojans and sexy underwear for the boss and prostitutes."
In the distance, a girl whose makeup and clothes looked very androgynous saw Tommy and waved, then drove a golf cart towards the two of them.
Sofia hesitated, but couldn't help herself and retorted: "Then why didn't you tell me about Otilia's example? Otilia told me that her job was very easy at that time."
"Girl, because her father had assets worth 400 million at that time, and her boss is her godmother." Tommy stood up from the front of Sophia's sports car, smiled and opened his arms to greet the oncoming golf cart.
The man was a member of Stanford University's fraternity ONE, a student organization that Susan had established at Stanford University with Tommy's financial support. It has now become very successful. Although it cannot be compared with those large fraternities with decades of history, it is no longer one of those unknown fraternities that were established this year and disbanded next year.
"Good morning, Tommy, thank you for showing up. You allowed me to be kicked out by my tutor again and drive this thing to take you around the campus. Hurry and get in the car, because I have a lot of work waiting for me." The androgynous girl greeted Tommy coldly while sitting in the driver's seat of the golf cart, then tilted her head to signal the two of them to get in the car.
Tommy got on the golf cart and introduced this cool girl with short hair dyed silver to Sophia: "Quinn Bates, a 1988 graduate of Stanford University, the first vice president of ONE fraternity, majoring in computer science, from a small rural area, her family is extremely poor, and she is ambitious. She is exactly like me except that she doesn't like ineffective socializing, her breasts are flatter than mine, and she doesn't have any golf clubs."
"One more thing, Susan and I slept together, but you didn't." The cool girl named Quinn retorted to Tommy without turning her head.
"Well, that's cool. Hi, I'm Sophia." Sophia greeted the other party, and then lowered her voice to Tommy: "Normally, you can't meet such high-quality talents, and I feel that the other party doesn't want to know you either."
"She had no choice. She and I shared a mentor, and she was the only woman in my mentor's work team at Stanford. She was also the one with the lowest education. Although she didn't look feminine, just like you don't look like you have breasts, she was indeed a woman. My mentor had been taught a habit by his mentors since high school, which was why the work team always had a female member, because she looked good and could help everyone pour coffee and run errands."
"So..." Sophia blinked in confusion: "Is this why I am the only female colleague around you?"
"No, there are some differences. I don't need you to feast your eyes. I just run errands." Tommy laughed.
Sophia said dissatisfiedly: "I will quit my job when I get back. Anyway, the money I earn is enough for me to retire and enjoy life."
"If you're not kidding, can you leave me your phone number?" Quinn, who was driving, still looked arrogant, but after hearing Sophia's words, he asked.
"Of course. So you're willing to introduce me to a new job?" Sophia responded happily. At the same time, she looked at Tommy proudly and silently opened her mouth and said to Tommy:
See, asshole, I'm not worried about losing my job if I leave you.
"No, I mean, I want to introduce a few fraternity alumni to apply for your vacant position." Quinn gave an answer that almost drove Sophia crazy:
"Although this bastard discriminates against women just like our mentor, the old guy, and has given me the urge to strangle all the team members with cables many times, I must admit that they are excellent. Before killing them, I must absorb as much nutrition from them as possible."
Sophia couldn't help but lean towards the front row and looked at this cool girl sideways: "You can change your advisor. Why do you have to endure their discrimination? Or why don't you complain to the school about the gender discrimination? The school will not condone them, and the students in the law school will be willing to stand up for everyone."
"Because they are strong enough, so strong that I can hypnotize myself and ignore the discrimination. The school will also indulge them because they are strong enough. If I complain, I will be transferred. If it is serious, I will be compensated and let me go to another university. They will also be retained by Stanford University. I even think that if the law school makes trouble for such a small matter, Stanford can cancel the law school." Quinn looked at the fork in the road ahead and asked Tommy:
"Should we go directly to see the old guy , or go to ONE to see the other little Tommy fruits that are still developing? Let me remind you, the old guy is having a tantrum, cursing the unfortunate guy on the other end of the long-distance line."
"Is SSD okay? If possible, I want to go to SSD and have a drink first. Maybe by the time I finish drinking, the professor will have calmed down." Tommy heard that his professor was losing his temper, so he simply asked about SSD's situation.
Quinn took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, then he grabbed a Zippo and rubbed it against his white thighs on his denim shorts, causing the Zippo to ignite a cluster of flames. He lit the cigarette with the flame and took a puff before continuing:
"They probably don't have time to entertain you today. They are busy organizing a charity donation competition for veterans with the BDP Golden Hair Society to see who can raise the most money. Several SSD members working in the supercomputing center have asked the old guys for leave to go back and participate. I think you might be more interested in the Golden Hair Society, because I heard from those SSD guys that the Golden Hair Society's fundraising method is to give away a lot of tits."
"The Blonde Society hasn't made any progress. They always use this despicable trick of selling sex to cheat, using their bodies to deceive men into donating money. The minimum donation is ten dollars to get in and see breasts... Men have been tired of it after so many years." Tommy said with disdain after hearing Quinn's words.
After a few seconds, he said to Sophia, "Remind me to go to BDP before six o'clock in the evening. I... don't want to see young girls posing, but simply want to donate ten dollars to improve the living conditions of veterans."
"You can donate it to SSD." Sophia glanced at Tommy and reminded him knowingly.
Tommy turned his head and looked at the scenery of Stanford campus outside. "Isn't that a waste of ten dollars? If I go to the Blonde Club, ten dollars can at least get a lot of young girls to warmly welcome me. What can I get with ten dollars at SSD? A bunch of idiots handing me, a fellow alumnus, a beer and then writing my name in the register to express their gratitude? They won't say a word to me during this competition. No matter how much money I donate, as a fellow alumnus, it will only be counted as a donation of ten dollars. Do you expect those bastards to give me a smile for ten dollars?"
"So, do you want to go to ONE or not? There should be a few first-generation Stanford students who still remember you and look upon you as an idol."
"Forget it. Wait until Susan gets rid of those actors' mess and come back when she has time. ONE was founded by her, not me." Tommy shook his head.
"Go to the Stanford National Center for Supercomputing Applications to meet the professor directly. The last time I met him was last year, when Jason and I were invited to attend the dinner where the IEEE Board of Directors awarded him Fellowship and Lifetime Membership."
"Stanford National Center for Supercomputing Applications? What organization is that?" Sophia asked in surprise when she heard the long list of names.
As a Stanford graduate, she had no impression of this huge-sounding organization, and she had only graduated five or six years ago.
"How long has it been since you last went back to Stanford?" Quinn asked, a cigarette in his mouth.
Sophia said, "Six years? After I graduated from law school, I went to New York and Los Angeles to work for Tommy, acting as his stand-in to ensure that he could continue his studies at Stanford."
"In the past five or six years, there may not be much change for other universities, but at Stanford, especially in computer science, the changes are beyond description. The National Center for Supercomputer Applications was initiated by leading universities in related majors with funding from the National Science Foundation in 1987. It is a national research institution. The purpose of this institution is to discover and conduct basic research on wide area networks and the World Wide Web, and to improve and guide the development direction of future computer systems. There are only five in the United States, and California has two, one in USC and one in Stanford." Quinn introduced to Sophia while driving:
"Tommy didn't tell you this?"
Sophia shook her head. "After graduation, he was busy renovating his house and starting a TV network. He rarely talked about his life at Stanford."
"Before he graduated in 1987, or in other words, during his four years at Stanford, he participated in a lot of computer and Internet-related research at Stanford University. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been treated like this by me picking him up." Quinn curled his lips upwards:
"So you didn't know that his and my mentor was Vinton Cerf, right?"
"Do I need to know?" Sophia looked at Quinn seriously and asked, "I mean, I really don't know."
Quinn smiled more. " No, not everyone knows him. It's just that the only topic I use to brag to outsiders is that I work at Stanford University and am a student of Vinton Cerf and a member of his team."
Sophia looked at Tommy in confusion, and Tommy explained:
"Our mentor, Vinton Cerf, graduated from Stanford University with a degree in mathematics. He is now a tenured professor of computer science at Stanford University and more than a dozen other universities. He is a true genius. As a high school student, he was invited by NASA to participate in the software development of the F-1 engine in the Apollo program. In 1974, he wrote the world's first TCP protocol. We later generations respect him as The Father, the father of the Internet."
"Quinn is an undergraduate student, but she is asked by him to pour coffee and run errands every day. This is a trivial task that she self-deprecates as sexist. It is a good job that countless doctoral students from other prestigious universities would beg for. So she was actually just showing off that she is very favored. Not everyone is qualified to pour coffee for Professor Cerf. Do you understand?"
Sophia was not too shocked when she heard the title of the other party's mentor. She was immune to most gossips. After all, she personally participated in the establishment of Tommy Actor Company during college. She also heard Ottilia and Stephen say that Tommy, that bastard, served as the temporary prime minister of a country in high school to collect debts from the United States.
After spending too much time with the idiots, the legendary experience of another high school student participating in the US Apollo program to help write software for the engine doesn't sound so incredible anymore.
But she asked Quinn suspiciously:
"He doesn't have a high degree, only a bachelor's degree in computer science. I mean, why didn't the genius professor choose a graduate student or a doctoral student? Why did he choose Tommy? His grades are excellent, but he is not ranked first."
"He just said that I was the woman with the lowest education around the mentor. What he didn't say was that before he graduated, he was the man with the lowest education around the mentor." Quinn flicked the ash off his cigarette, held the steering wheel with one hand, leaned back in his chair and said:
"Of course a higher degree is better, but it is not necessary at Stanford University. You know Jason, right? Jason didn't even get a diploma, but that didn't stop many Stanford professors from accepting his employment to conduct relevant research."
"We're here," Quinn said, motioning for Sophia to look at the buildings ahead.
Sophia looked over and saw several buildings in front of her with red-gray exterior walls. They looked no different from the red scientific research buildings commonly seen at Stanford University.
Over there, Quinn had already parked the golf cart along the roadside. He then took out a work badge from the armrest box and threw it to Tommy: "Wear it, otherwise you will be caught by the guards if you run around. I will have to waste my time explaining to them. The guards have been completely replaced in the two years since you graduated. The current security level is on par with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Don't expect them to recognize you."
Sophia glanced at the work card Tommy received in his hand. It was simple in design, with a photo of Tommy Hawke when he was younger a few years ago, and an introduction to his identity below:
Tommy Hawke, a researcher at the Stanford National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Issued by: Vinton Cerf, Principal Director of the Stanford National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Standing in front of the voice interactive screen set up outside the gate of this five-story building, Tommy Hawke, wearing a floral shirt, beach pants, and flip-flops, put on his work ID, took off his sunglasses, and smiled brightly at the screen: "Hello, Stanford family, I'm home."
