The University Exhibition Hall thrummed with a chaotic, high-energy frequency that set Lin Xiaoyang's teeth on edge. Booths lined the vast space, showcasing everything from AI-driven robotics to sustainable architecture models. The air crackled with the buzz of a hundred conversations, the clicks of cameras, and the palpable anxiety of student innovators. It was a sensory overload of catastrophic proportions, the absolute antithesis of a low-power environment.
Team EfficientHeart's booth, strategically positioned according to Tang Youyou's east-southeast directive, felt like a tiny, fragile life raft in a stormy sea. Chen Yuexi had managed to execute her "Architects of the Heart" theme with surprising elegance, using clean lines and soft lighting, but her hands were clenched tightly behind her back. Tang Youyou had a fixed, serene smile on her face, but her eyes darted nervously across the crowd, as if reading invisible energy signatures. Su Yuning stood perfectly still, her posture ramrod straight, her face an impenetrable mask of analysis as she monitored the presentation laptop's vital signs.
Lin Xiaoyang felt the phantom weight of the "Battle_Plan.txt" file in his mind. Slow is not broken. He repeated it like a mantra, a counter-spell against the rising tide of his own panic.
The first wave of visitors was a trickle—curious classmates, friends dragged along for support. The demo, burdened by its reduced cache, was indeed slow. Profile matches took a few seconds longer than ideal, the loading wheel spinning ominously.
"It's… thinking," Chen Yuexi would explain with a strained but bright smile to the waiting visitors. "True compatibility isn't rushed! It's a process of thoughtful deliberation." She was selling it, weaving the latency into her narrative. Xiaoyang felt a surge of gratitude for her theatrical resilience.
A professor from the Sociology department stopped by, peering at the screen. "Interesting premise. Matching based on shared values over superficial hobbies." He input a few test parameters. The wheel spun.
"Precisely," Su Yuning interjected, her voice cutting through the hall's noise. "The current delay is a result of the deeper semantic parsing layer actively disambiguating user intent from mere keyword matching. Each second represents a more accurate probabilistic calculation." She had reframed their greatest weakness as a feature of superior, complex engineering. The professor nodded, impressed.
Xiaoyang watched, awestruck. They were doing it. They were turning their kludge into a virtue.
Then came the second wave. More serious-looking students, potential competitors, a few industry scouts with lanyards and evaluating eyes. The pressure mounted. The app, under the strain of more complex, simultaneous queries, began to stutter more noticeably.
A tall, skeptical-looking engineering student frowned as a match result finally popped up after a five-second delay. "The UI is slick, but the backend seems… sluggish. Are you sure your algorithm is optimized?"
Before Xiaoyang could formulate a defense, Tang Youyou stepped forward, her voice calm and melodic. "The system is harmonizing multiple data streams. Not just the words, but the intent behind them. Think of it not as lag, but as the universe taking a moment to align the correct variables." She gently tapped a small amethyst cluster placed discreetly near the keyboard. "We're prioritizing resonance over speed."
The engineering student blinked, utterly disarmed by this esoteric explanation. He muttered a "Huh," and moved on, looking more confused than critical.
They were a well-oiled machine, each member plugging a leak with their unique brand of sealant. Yuexi with her stories, Yuning with her logic, Youyou with her vibes. And Xiaoyang? He was the system administrator, quietly troubleshooting, restarting hung processes, and offering short, technical explanations when absolutely necessary, his energy expenditure focused and precise.
During a brief lull, he caught Su Yuning's eye. She gave him a microscopic, almost imperceptible nod. It was the equivalent of a full-throated cheer from anyone else. The system, for all its latency, was stable.
The climax arrived in the form of Liu Yang. He sauntered up to their booth with a condescending smile, flanked by two members of his Entrepreneurial Society.
"Team EfficientHeart! I see you made it," he said, his voice dripping with false camaraderie. "Let's see how this 'heart' of yours performs under a little real-world pressure." He pulled out his own phone, opening their app's public test build. "Let's run a few concurrent tests, shall we?"
He and his cohorts began rapidly inputting data, generating multiple simultaneous requests. The presentation laptop's fan, which had been humming quietly, began to whirr loudly. The loading wheels on both the main screen and Liu Yang's phone spun, and spun, and kept spinning.
Chen Yuexi's smile became brittle. Tang Youyou's serene expression tightened. This was a deliberate stress test, an attempt to force a public crash.
Xiaoyang's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. The memory leak. The overload.
But the crash didn't come.
The app groaned, it lagged horribly, taking nearly ten seconds to return a single, simple match. But it didn't freeze. It didn't blue screen. It held on, stubbornly, by its fingernails.
Liu Yang smirked. "See? Clunky. Unresponsive. I told you, you need a more robust architecture."
It was Su Yuning who responded, her voice colder than liquid nitrogen. "Your concurrent requests are illogical and designed to trigger resource contention. You are attempting to measure a scalpel's effectiveness by using it to chop down a tree. The application is performing exactly as designed for its intended use-case: thoughtful, individual profile matching. Your 'test' only demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the product's purpose."
Liu Yang's smirk vanished. He was being publicly schooled in logic.
"And," Chen Yuexi added, her voice regaining its theatrical flourish, "sometimes, the most valuable connections are worth waiting for. Unlike some things." She gave a meaningful glance at Liu Yang's hastily retreating back as he, red-faced, turned and left with his lackeys.
A small smattering of applause came from a few onlookers who had witnessed the exchange. The threat had been neutralized.
As the fair drew to a close, a profound exhaustion settled over Xiaoyang, but it was a clean, satisfied weariness. They had done it. They hadn't been the flashiest booth, or the fastest, but they had survived. They had held their ground.
Packing up, Chen Yuexi let out a long, shaky breath. "I think I aged five years."
"Mars is now moving into a more harmonious sector," Tang Youyou reported, looking genuinely relieved. "The disruptive energy is passing."
Su Yuning closed the laptop with a definitive snap. "The application maintained 100% uptime, despite operating at 15% of optimal performance. The kludge held. Conclusion: The demonstration was a success."
Lin Xiaoyang looked at the three of them—the dramatist, the mystic, the logician. Their faces were pale and tired, but their eyes shone with a shared, hard-won triumph. He hadn't just conserved energy today; he had invested it, channeled it, and watched it generate something far more valuable than mere efficiency: resilience.
He had entered the fair a reluctant, terrified of the energy drain. He was leaving it as the leader of a team that had just passed its most grueling stress test. The most efficient system, he realized, wasn't the one that used the least power. It was the one that knew when to burn brightly, and who to burn alongside.