The person Celeste and Matthias were having dinner with was Maxwell Joreau, the head of the tech company Velotra.
YodaVision had just signed a partnership agreement with Velotra that morning.
After the meal, Celeste and Matthias visited Velotra together.
That day, they spent hours talking with Velotra’s engineers and didn’t go home until nearly midnight.
Over the next two days, Celeste frequently went to Velotra as well. She and the engineers there were practically working overtime together every night. 1
Friday marked the product launch that Velotra had scheduled over a month in advance.
The reason for their hard work wasn’t anything else–it was purely in hopes of refining and partially implementing their collaborative concept before the launch.
Once this concept was fully realized, it would significantly shift the focus of Velotra’s upcoming launch event.
In the early hours of Friday morning, after Celeste and Matthias returned home to rest, both of them headed to Velotra’s launch event later that morning.
Velotra had invited many media representatives and industry peers to the event. As fellow players in the same field, Trevor and Wynn were naturally among the invitees.
Celeste and Matthias, having been busy these past few days, arrived relatively late. As soon as they entered the venue, Trevor and Wynn noticed them.
Upon seeing Celeste and Matthias, Wynn paused briefly.
It was expected that Velotra would invite industry peers–not just to showcase their technology, but also in hopes of potential collaborations.
YodaVision held a major advantage in language systems.
Although they had ended their partnership with InnovaTech and begun cooperating with the Fleming Group, the nature of the cooperation with the Fleming Group was different from the one they’d had with InnovaTech.
In other words, YodaVision was still free to partner with other autonomous vehicle companies, specifically in the area of language systems. So, it was quite possible that Velotra had invited Matthias for exactly that reason. 3
Though Velotra was one of the newer tech companies, it had seen impressive growth over the past few years. Their autonomous vehicles consistently ranked among the top in the country.
If they now managed to secure a collaboration with YodaVision, given YodaVision’s strong public recognition and technological prowess, it would undoubtedly enhance Velotra’s external competitiveness in autonomous vehicles.
That said, Wynn wasn’t worried. 6
InnovaTech’s core strength in autonomous vehicles didn’t lie in language systems. Her company had its own unique advantages
now.
With that thought, Wynn calmly looked away.
As soon as Celeste and Matthias arrived, Maxwell came forward with a smile to greet them.
Seeing how much importance Maxwell placed on Matthias only further convinced Wynn that Velotra interfded to work with YodaVision.
After greeting Celeste and Matthias, the launch event officially began.
Given Fleming Group’s leading position in the tech world, Trevor was naturally seated in the front row as an honored guest.
Possibly thanks to her association with Trevor, Wynn was also seated in the front row, right next to him.
Over the past few days, Maxwell had come to realize that Celeste was actually the key technical contributor in their collaboration.
So, her seat was even more centrally positioned than Matthias‘.
Seeing that her seat was next to Trevor’s didn’t surprise Matthias,
So, he directly took Celeste’s assigned seat. Celeste simply smiled and sat down in the seat next to him.
Wynn didn’t expect Celeste’s seat to be right beside Trevor.
But she didn’t dwell on it–assuming the staff thought Celeste and Matthias were a couple and wouldn’t mind the arrangement.
When Trevor saw Matthias take Celeste’s seat, he said nothing, but politely greeted him, “Mr. Yoder.”
Matthias responded with a cold nod.
At that moment, the product launch officially began. Everything proceeded in an orderly manner.
The first half of the presentation followed Velotra’s original agenda. It wasn’t until the midway point that Maxwell took the stage to speak.
He said, “This project of ours has fully realized intelligent automation–not just in the autonomous driving system, but also in the engine. Velotra has always been at the forefront of the industry, and this has earned us recognition from many peers.
“Recently, we’ve reached a long–term partnership with YodaVision and achieved significant breakthroughs in various areas.
“Now, I would like to invite Ms. Celeste Rodriguez, a distinguished engineer from YodaVision, to come on stage and share the recent progress we’ve made in this project. Let’s welcome Ms. Rodriguez!”
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