Granger sent another text before disappearing for the night.

"I'm at a work dinner, you guys go ahead and chat."

After that, he was off the grid.

Once Granger got into his car, he didn't pay much attention to the ongoing conversation and replied, "I'm busy too, catch you later."

Then he closed the messaging app.

Seeing both Thorne and Granger were out of the loop, Vesta chimed in, "Time for dinner, talk later." Moran was totally speechless.

That afternoon, Charlene headed to the R&D department for a meeting. Gaylord was there too.

As Charlene skillfully identified issues and quickly offered solutions, Gaylord watched her without interrupting.

After the meeting wrapped up, Charlene was about to leave when she noticed Gaylord looking her way. She paused and, out of courtesy, asked, "Is your first day at the company going well?"

Gaylord replied, "I'm settling in fine, thanks for asking."

Charlene nodded, said no more, and left the conference room with her laptop.

In the following days, Charlene juggled her work while negotiating a copyright agreement with an Al journal.

On Friday, after reviewing the R&D department's work report, Charlene asked Chester to send Gaylord to her office.

Three minutes later, Gaylord knocked and entered.

Once he was seated, Charlene began, "Your algorithm does enhance the efficiency and performance of the existing model to a degree, but it still isn't quite living up to my expectations."

With that, she began discussing the issues with his algorithm.

Gaylord listened intently. He had been at PrimeStar for three or four days now. He had interacted with Charlene several times.

Her demeanor seemed vastly different from the day of his interview, yet Charlene didn't seem curious or surprised by this change.

Moreover, on his first day, he had sent her a bouquet of yellow roses as an apology.

Yet, days had passed, and Charlene never mentioned the flowers.

It was as if she never received them, and she didn't seem curious about his reason for apologizing.

Charlene's professional prowess was apparent to him during the interview.

However, after joining PrimeStar and witnessing her work firsthand, he realized she was far more competent than he had initially perceived.

In the Al field, Gaylord was considered a prodigy.

But after working with Charlene, he felt he hadn't even scratched the surface of her expertise.

She seemed more innovative and skilled than the big names he had encountered at Goldland.

More importantly, she-

Charlene finished speaking, and seeing that Gaylord didn't leave immediately, she looked up, "Any other questions?"

Gaylord tore his gaze away from her, stood up, and said, "No, that's all."

Charlene nodded and said nothing further.

Gaylord returned to work.

Shortly after, his phone rang.

Upon answering, the voice on the other end asked, "So, how's it going with that Charlene girl? Do you think she'd choose you over Stewart?"

Choose between him or Stewart?

In Charlene's eyes, he was probably just another researcher in the department.

"No progress," he said while continuing to analyze data. "Gotta go."

He hung up, and almost immediately, Vesta called him.

He glanced at the phone but didn't answer, focusing on his work instead.

Meanwhile, across town...

"Mommy!"

As soon as Sally spotted her mom outside the kindergarten, she ran joyfully into her arms.

Sally's mom hugged her tightly, then noticed Jasmine nearby and greeted her with a warm smile, "Hey there, Minnie."

Jasmine nodded at Sally's mom, "Hello, ma'am."

Sally glanced around and asked Jasmine, "Minnie, is your driver here yet?"

Jasmine looked around but didn't spot her family's driver. Instead, she noticed many classmates being picked up by their moms, although she was usually picked up by the driver. en

Initially, she didn't mind.

She thought having her mom pick her up wasn't cool at all.

So whether her mom came to pick her up or not didn't matter.

But...

Seeing Jasmine's driver hadn't

arrived yet, Sally's mom noticed Jasmine seemed a bit off and asked with concern, "Is everything okay? You seem a little down."

Jasmine remained silent.

Just then, her driver finally arrived.noveldrama

She waved goodbye to Sally and her mom before getting into the car.

Once inside, she watched Sally bounce along with her mom as they walked to their car. Jasmine turned away and told her driver, "I'm not going home. Take me to my

great-grandmother'söver