We have defined the matrix $\boldsymbol{X}$ via the equations

$$\begin{align*} y_0&=\beta_0x_{00}+\beta_1x_{01}+\beta_2x_{02}+\dots+\beta_{n-1}x_{0n-1}+\epsilon_0\\ y_1&=\beta_0x_{10}+\beta_1x_{11}+\beta_2x_{12}+\dots+\beta_{n-1}x_{1n-1}+\epsilon_1\\ y_2&=\beta_0x_{20}+\beta_1x_{21}+\beta_2x_{22}+\dots+\beta_{n-1}x_{2n-1}+\epsilon_1\\ \dots & \dots \\ y_{i}&=\beta_0x_{i0}+\beta_1x_{i1}+\beta_2x_{i2}+\dots+\beta_{n-1}x_{in-1}+\epsilon_1\\ \dots & \dots \\ y_{n-1}&=\beta_0x_{n-1,0}+\beta_1x_{n-1,2}+\beta_2x_{n-1,2}+\dots+\beta_{n-1}x_{n-1,n-1}+\epsilon_{n-1}.\\ \end{align*}$$

As we noted above, we stayed with a system with the design matrix $\boldsymbol{X}\in {\mathbb{R}}^{n\times n}$, that is we have $p=n$. For reasons to come later (algorithmic arguments) we will hereafter define our matrix as $\boldsymbol{X}\in {\mathbb{R}}^{n\times p}$, with the predictors refering to the column numbers and the entries $n$ being the row elements.