Riding the wind of rebirth

Therefore, from the perspective of the entire systematic research results, even if Zhou Zhi only played a general role in grasping the key points, he could easily have obtained a doctoral degree in sociology or ethnology based on this role and output alone.

However, these achievements cannot be considered the boy's main focus, because his expertise lies elsewhere: the reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology. Therefore, even Mai Mingdong felt sorry for Zhou Zhi.

However, Zhou Zhi wouldn't take the bait. Mai Mingdong might genuinely feel sorry for Zhou Zhi, but it would be naive to think that he felt sorry for Zhou Zhi's lack of academic recognition for his humanities and social science achievements.

What Mai Mingdong truly regrets is that Zhou Zhi didn't become a colleague of his beloved granddaughter. He feels that the doctorate Zhou Zhi should have received was neither a doctorate in philology nor a doctorate in social sciences, but rather... a doctorate in information engineering.

"The children are back, you can have a drink tonight," said Aunt Liu. "I made steamed pork knuckle with rice flour, which is one of your favorites."

"Would you like something to drink?" Mai Mingdong asked.

“Just drink the one Xiaomiao sent from Liangshan.” As she spoke, Liu Ma explained to Mai Xiaomiao and Zhou Zhi, “The doctor said that Lao Mai used to stay up too late and has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar. Now it’s best to balance work and rest, quit drinking, control his diet, and try to lose some weight.”

“Drinking a little Ziyi wine is fine. It’s a low-alcohol beverage made from buckwheat, and it’s even good for your health,” Zhou Zhi said.

Aunt Liu took out a gift box from the wine cabinet. Inside was a pair of wine bottles. One bottle contained clear, transparent wine, while the other contained cloudy wine. These were "Ziyi Sake" and "Ziyi Cloudy Sake," produced in Liangshan Prefecture, which have now opened up sales channels in Japan and South Korea.

“These Japanese names are really hard to pronounce,” Mai Mingdong said, looking at the Chinese characters written in a Japanese calligraphy style on the bottle label.

"This is actually a transliteration of the Yi language into Chinese characters," Zhou Zhinan said with a smile. "Ziyi means 'soaked in water' in Yi language. Ziyi wine is actually rice wine made by fermenting buckwheat and glutinous rice soaked in water. One type is kept as is, while the other adopts the clarification process of island nations, thus creating two types: clear wine and cloudy wine. In order to attract customers from Japan and South Korea, the bottles and labels were deliberately designed to resemble the style of island nation products."

“So that’s how it is.” Mai Mingdong said, both amused and exasperated. “At first glance, I thought it was an imported product from Japan. I have no idea whose idea it was.”

Mai Xiaomiao pointed at Zhou Zhi and laughed, "Isn't that Zhou Zi's idea!"

“There’s nothing we can do about it.” Zhou Zhi shrugged. “If we were to use the kind of earthenware jars that the Yi people use, we definitely wouldn’t get a good price. Besides, although the recipe for this wine is based on a local recipe, the production equipment and management techniques were all brought over from Japan by the Zhou Liu Niang Group. The standards are also strictly in accordance with the quality standards for export goods. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to get a good price.”

"The funniest thing right now is that some bars, Japanese restaurants, and izakayas in the capital, Shanghai, are selling this drink as Japanese sake, and it's surprisingly popular, even more so than real Japanese imported sake. There's no way to reason with them."

"Isn't that great? It can be considered as achieving domestic substitution," Mai Mingdong said with a smile.

Zhou Zhi opened the bottle and poured wine for everyone: "To be honest, the process of making this sake is nothing special. It's far less difficult than making baijiu, sauce-flavored liquor, or huangjiu. The main reason it sells well in China is because it's a foreign product."

"McDonald's is a similar case," Mai Xiaomiao said. "In the capital, a three-piece chicken meal costs twenty-five yuan, a hamburger ten yuan, a corn on the cob seven and a half yuan, and a Coke four yuan. Even a kids' meal is thirteen yuan!" Mai Mingdong was so surprised that he almost dropped his glass, not because of McDonald's exorbitant prices: "When did you start caring about these things?"

"That's exactly right. McDonald's is just fast food abroad, like a Chinese person eating a pancake for a meal. With foreign incomes, it's indeed about the price of a pancake. But if it's sold at North American prices in China, the Chinese people are losing out!" Mai Xiaomiao said indignantly. "At least you should divide by seven according to the exchange rate. Hmm, a three-piece chicken meal costs three or four yuan, a kids' meal costs two yuan, and a corn on the cob costs one yuan, that's about right!"

“Xiao Miao has now habitually judged whether a price is reasonable or not based on the prices in Lianhe Township.” Zhou Zhi smiled and gestured for Xiao Miao to serve food to his grandfather. “Although I also think McDonald’s is quite expensive, this way of calculating is still a bit biased…”

"Two yuan is enough for the children at Lianhe Township Primary School to have vegetables and meat!" Mai Xiaomiao said.

“Xiao Miao hasn’t been in Lianhe Township for long, but she has made great progress!” Mai Mingdong said with a look of satisfaction, as he put the steamed pork intestines that Mai Xiaomiao had put in his mouth. “Being able to pay attention to these things shows that you have really grown up and matured.”

"Xiao Miao's personality is even more endearing to the children than mine. She also enjoys playing with them, just like a friend." After everyone clinked glasses and drank together, Zhou Zhi laughed and said, "Speaking of the fishponds, mushroom ponds, and stone ponds of the children in Lianhe Township, I know less about them than she does."

"But I can never find it," Mai Xiaomiao laughed. "They take me there, but when I go back a second time, I still can't find the way. Could that be why they like to take me there?"

Everyone couldn't help but laugh.

With Mai Mingdong present, the conversation quickly turned back to academics. The recent major events, of course, were the various new technologies and applications involved in the Tianxing Diwang project, such as fiber optic program-controlled switches, photoelectric conversion modules, fiber optic network supercomputing matrices, GPU computing power equipment, communication switching protocols, and so on.

It can be said that this is a completely transformed system compared to the previous verification supercomputing system, and it is also a system that many high-level officials and experts have realized is enough to enable the country's information engineering cause to achieve a true "leapfrog development".

As an academician at the forefront of teaching, design, and production, Mai Mingdong is undoubtedly one of the people in China who understands the value of this system best. Even today, he finds it incredible how the AXA Foundation's Patent Information Division could find these treasures among numerous patent inventions and collect them to work together, allowing the country to avoid decades of detours.

Patented technology is a double-edged sword, especially patents with high technological content and extremely low product substitutability. While mastering them can certainly bring considerable benefits to a company, the enormous investment or exorbitant transfer price is beyond the reach of most companies.

Even with AXA Fund's substantial resources, it's impossible to cover all the cutting-edge technologies in information engineering.

To give a simple example, the development of display technology has reached a critical point. The bulky and cumbersome CRT monitors of today will definitely be replaced by thin and light monitors in the future, and everyone can see that.

But will the mainstream trend in the future be dominated by plasma displays or LCD displays?
For example, with the burgeoning mobile phone market, should we add gaming functionality to a telephone, or add communication functionality to a game console?
Even future new energy vehicles—will they be electric-powered or hydrogen-powered? (End of Chapter)