Noreen crouched by the edge of the pool, dipping her hand in to test the


    water.


    It was icy cold–sharp enough to sting her fingers.


    Still, ire kept diving in, again and again.


    By the time she climbed out, she was shivering uncontrobly, her whole body trembling from the cold.


    Noreen didn’t dare make a sound. The assistant had warned her–if she


    disrupted ire’s mood, they might have to reshoot the whole scene.


    So she kept her worries bottled up, waiting anxiously until the shoot finally wrapped. Only then did she grab a towel and hurry over to dry ire off.


    “What are you doing here?” ire looked genuinely surprised to see her, but there was a spark of delight in her eyes.


    “Don’t talk. Just get changed first,” Noreen said, her eyes red–rimmed with


    emotion.


    Once ire had swapped her wet clothes for something dry, Noreen immediately took off the thick down jacket she’d worn–ire’s own jacket, which Noreen had borrowed on purpose just so she could warm her up.


    After <i>two </i>steaming mugs of ginger tea, ire finally started to feel human again.


    “If you knew this kind of scene was torture, why’d you take the job?” Noreen grumbled, though she never stopped rubbing ire’s hands between her own <i>to </i>warm her up.


    “Because it pays well! And it’s a big production–who knows, maybe this is the break that finally makes me famous!”


    ire was an eternal optimist.


    08:40


    “If I make it big, you’ll have to book an appointment just to see me. And when we meet, you’ll have to call me ‘Best Actress ire“!”


    “Best Actress ire, if you get famous, are you going to hire someone to take me out?” Noreen teased. “I know way too many of your secrets, after


    all.”


    ire lifted her chin with a grin. “Depends on how you behave.”


    Joking aside, ire didn’t forget to ask Noreen how her business trip


    went.


    Noreen sighed. “Comparisons will be the death of me. I talked my head off and practically downed a whole bottle of vodka, just to scrape a few


    resources out of them.”


    “What happened?”


    So Noreen recounted the dinner meeting to ire.


    ire was furious when she heard it. “Seth again? Why does he keep showing up everywhere like a bad penny? He’s still protecting that mistress of his–pulling strings for her all over town!”


    “Tell me about it.”


    Just thinking about that night made Noreen’s chest tighten.


    With Seth backing her, Bianca was at ease the whole time. She didn’t have to say a single ttering word–Mr. Naylor just handed over the resources without hesitation.


    Meanwhile, Noreen had spent the entire evening walking on eggshells, and all she got was a measly bit of support.


    ire jumped to her defense. “If Seth is so eager to bend over backwards for her, why doesn’t he just hand Aurelion Group to her outright?”


    Noreen replied, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”


    Seth’s devotion to Bianca had already gone far beyond anything Noreen couldprehend.


    212


    08:40


    ire rolled her eyes. “Let’s not talk about that jerk anymore. When I make it big, I’ll have your back. I’ll be your rock, and we’ll send all those scumbags packing!”


    “Then you’d better hurry,” Noreen said, blowing warm air into ire’s hands. “When I be a big shot myself, I’ll make you an international star. We’ll conquer the world together!”


    “You make the future sound so sweet! Keep iting–I love your


    dreams, and I’m hungry for more.”


    Three days after Noreen returned to Rivercrest City with new resources from Eastvale Corporation, Carman finally cracked the challenge they’d been facing at work.


    Using his technical prowess, he pioneered an innovative algorithmic framework that delivered a putational efficiency breakthrough.”


    By employing a sparse activationwork architecture, he tripled their training efficiency and shed model inference costs by 60%.


    This “leanpute, heavy algorithm” approach meant their models needed far less processing power while still running at top speed.


    The night he solved it, Noreen was workingte at the studio as well.


    Carman rushed in as soon as he could, eager to share the triumph.


    Ovee with excitement, he pulled Noreen into a tight, exuberant hug, repeating over and over, “We did it, Noreen! We really did it!”


    <b>08:40 </b>