efConstruction and M

[ljn-aaa]

In the paper, to find the neighbors of each node, you need to first find efConstruction candidate neighbors by SEARCH_LAYER function. Then find M neighbors among the candidate neighbors for connection by SELECT_NEIGHBORS_HEURISTIC function. So you need efConstruction to be always greater than M. But why in the experiment, your ef Construction appears to be less than M.

[ljn-aaa]

When efContrcution is less than M, how is it finding neighbors