Chapter 20 Yuanxin's One-Man Show
Walking out of the provincial airport, Su Yuanshan immediately spotted Senior Brother Tang Wenjie, who had come to pick them up.
After a brief hug, the four of them headed straight back to the university. Tian Yaoming returned to his doctoral dormitory to catch up on sleep, while Su Yuanshan and his two senior brothers went to Su Xinghe's office.
Although Associate Professor Su was sitting in front of the computer, his mind clearly wasn't on his work. When he saw the three arrive, he quickly stood up and, ignoring even his own son, immediately grabbed Qin Weimin's shoulders.
"Weimin, you've worked hard."
Qin Weimin hid his excitement behind a smile. "It wasn't hard at all. We ate and slept well over there. But you, Professor, seem to have gained a lot more gray hairs."
"Old age brings gray hair naturally," Su Xinghe laughed heartily, patting Qin Weimin heavily on the shoulder before pulling his son into the office.
"Oh, right, Weimin," Su Xinghe said, turning back. "You need to prepare yourself. Once you get your master's degree, I'll have to go to the capital. I'll be taking Wenjie and his girlfriend with me. You'll need to stay behind and take over my current work."
Su Xinghe glanced at Su Yuanshan. "You gave your senior brother all the materials, right?"
"I did. If nothing else, Senior Brother's skills in chip design are solid," Su Yuanshan said.
Qin Weimin blushed but only shook his head with a smile.
Regarding who should accompany Su Xinghe to the capital to present Yuanxin EDA, by rights, Qin Weimin should have been the first choice. However, once Su Xinghe left, only Qin Weimin could take over the work at the joint research group. Moreover, bringing Tang Wenjie along would also facilitate registering Yang Yiwen to file various patent applications. Thus, bringing Tang was the best choice.
Not that Qin Weimin minded. During the days they waited for the final pager production, Su Yuanshan had discussed microcontroller architecture and microcode design with him in great depth.
Being chosen by a professor with real ability like Su Xinghe as the first disciple already proved Qin Weimin's outstanding talent and vision. He could clearly tell that this "little junior brother" understood microcontrollers even more deeply than he did.
In fact, it was less like a discussion and more like Su Yuanshan was "teaching" him.
This realization, combined with Su Yuanshan's monstrous programming and chip design capabilities, forced Qin Weimin to admit: true geniuses really did exist.
...
After chatting for a bit longer, Qin Weimin and Tang Wenjie left, giving the father and son some private time.
"I heard you put on quite a show at Huajing?" Su Xinghe asked, smiling at his son's thin but spirited face.
"I put on quite a few. Which one are you referring to?"
"Haha, you brat," Su Xinghe laughed. "On the news broadcast for July 1st, they announced that Huajing had successfully fabricated and tested the world's first Chinese digital paging chip, breaking the Western monopoly. At first, I thought you guys had been kidnapped by Huajing. But then your mother pointed out that since they didn't mention who designed it, it was obviously a tribute gift."
Su Yuanshan chuckled. "Consider it building good relations. We don't need the credit anyway. Just having Yuanxin EDA will be enough to make us famous for half a lifetime."
Su Xinghe laughed and scolded him fondly, "You sure know how to boast."
"And besides," Su Yuanshan added, "you know about Jia Jibing, right? That guy not only has his nose in the air but even dared to say you were 'neglecting your duties' by running a private company. I made sure to humiliate him properly in front of his superiors."
In his previous life, Su Yuanshan had spent most of his career deeply involved in technical work, protected by his senior brother Qin Weimin. He had rarely encountered political nonsense. So after being reborn and running into someone like Jia Jibing—a useless bureaucrat masquerading as an academic leader—there was no way he was going to take it lying down.
Su Xinghe froze for a moment, then smiled bitterly. "From an outsider's perspective, it does look a bit bad for a professor to not focus solely on teaching."
"Dad, times have changed. The best way to improve graduate student quality is by involving them in real research projects. Think about it—why was the joint research group at UESTC formed so smoothly? It's because the university leaders and professors saw that after just three months, the graduate students we borrowed showed a significant improvement in skills!"
Su Yuanshan winked. "Of course, I think some of them just wanted to ride your coattails and enjoy the benefits."
Su Xinghe couldn't help laughing and smacked his son lightly. "You need to watch your mouth. Some of those professors are very respectable. And now, everyone's putting their full effort into the microcontroller project. Don't go stirring up trouble. Speaking of pagers, what are your plans there?"
At the mention of pagers, Su Yuanshan's face lit up. He licked his lips and took a sip from his father's teacup. "That side is completely handed over to Uncle and Director Wang. If everything goes smoothly, by the end of the year, we're looking at revenue of at least 200 million yuan, with a gross profit of about 100 million."
"I told them their main task this year is to scale up production capacity—get monthly production up to 100,000 units by the end of the year."
The pager market hadn't exploded yet, but next year, when private paging stations were legalized, the market would truly take off. Back then, Motorola made huge profits through its partnership with Langchao on the first Chinese-character pagers.
Su Xinghe was stunned. "Fifty percent margin?"
"Yup. That's the bonus for being first movers," Su Yuanshan grinned. "We're the first Chinese-character pagers. Plus, we developed the encoding chips too. That means once we secure the paging stations nationwide, everyone else has to adopt our standard."
"Heh... I wonder if anyone else is working on Chinese-character pagers. If they are, they must be furious."
Su Yuanshan narrowed his eyes and smiled faintly toward the northeast—toward Shandong.
He didn't know about others, but he knew Langchao was working on it. They had less than a month left. Being overtaken by a completely different encoding standard was enough to drive anyone crazy.
"And after that? I think you need to rest for a while," Su Xinghe said, looking worriedly at his son. "You've lost weight again in just one week. Your mother's going to nag you to death."
"Time waits for no one, Dad," Su Yuanshan said, brushing off the concern. "After this, I'll focus solely on chip design. Your main task will be your trip to the capital."
"You need to do everything you can to advocate for Huajing and push for the 908 Project's approval. And you must persuade the leadership about the importance of Yuanxin EDA's globalization."
Su Xinghe nodded thoughtfully. "The university is also planning to apply for a few spots to attend the World Distributors Conference in October. The leadership wants the students to see the real world."
"That's good," Su Yuanshan said. "Getting a reality check is important. Only by facing the gap can we hope to close it. Otherwise, if they stay stuck in campus life, worrying about trivial stuff like housing assignments and salary grades, they'll never see the bigger picture."
"Once the new high-tech zone is fully developed, and we at Yuanxin have enough money, we'll buy 800 or even 1,000 acres of land. I'll build thousands of luxury apartments and give them to our researchers for free! We cannot let high-tech talents worry about money."
Su Xinghe was dumbfounded. "You little brat, how much money do you think we have right now to be talking like that?"
Su Yuanshan just laughed and didn't bother explaining.
In his previous life, even top tech companies in China invested little in true R&D. The reasons were complicated, but at the root of it all was money.
Companies had to focus on profitability to survive. Researchers needed to eat too. "Running on love" wasn't sustainable.
Su Yuanshan had spent eight years at Guoxin essentially "working on love"—if not for his wife Ye Rudai being a gentle, understanding woman without materialistic demands, he wouldn't have lasted a year.
In this new life, he didn't care what other companies did. At Yuanxin, at least, no researcher would ever have to worry about housing, kindergarten fees, or other trivialities again.
"Come on, let's go home. I think you're the one working yourself harder than a president," Su Xinghe said, fondly patting his son.
"Hehe, let's go!"
As they walked home, Su Yuanshan's mind was already busy planning the next steps.
Yuanxin's next focus would be on developing an MPEG1 decoder chip.
He wasn't interested in fighting Scophony at next year's exhibition or partnering with any "W+Y" collaborations.
This time, he wouldn't let VCDs become cheap, easy-to-assemble junk that even a farmwife could put together in half a day.
He would make VCDs highly integrated and miniaturized—the kind of high-tech product that only top companies could produce.
For the next few years, Yuanxin would dominate the VCD market, alone on stage, playing its one-man show.
Thank you for the support, friends. If you want to read more chapters in advance, go to my Patreon.
Read 20 Chapters In Advance: patreon.com/Albino1