King of Technology: A Fresh Start in 1983

The meeting that day ended badly when Chen Jianghe and Zhao Xiaobo couldn't reach an agreement, and Chen Jianghe finally declared "Meeting adjourned."

Zhang Wei walked towards Zhou Yuguang's office, wanting to hear his opinion on this issue...

Unexpectedly, as I approached Zhou Yuguang's office door, he had just answered a phone call…

All I heard him say on the other end of the phone was, "Yuanyuan, wait a moment."

He then beckoned Zhang Wei to sit down opposite him.

Then she pressed the speakerphone button: "Okay. Yuanyuan, where are you? What's wrong?"

Zhou Xiaoyuan said on the other end of the phone, "I'm at school. This is a public phone in the reception area. Dad, I just had a fight with my homeroom teacher."

Zhou Yuguang and Zhang Wei exchanged a glance.

He quickly asked into the phone, "Why?"

"She insisted that I study humanities and go to the humanities class."

"Yuanyuan, haven't we already discussed this issue?"

"If you want to study STEM fields, your parents will support you, but you also need to be realistic about your abilities!"

"Just because I didn't do well on my physics test this time, she concluded that I'm not suited to study science and engineering. What kind of logic is that?!"

"Perhaps the teacher thinks your way of thinking is better suited to rote memorization?"

"Is she worried that if you study STEM fields, you won't get into a good university?"

"She just thinks I'm not smart enough, that I'm rather stupid."

"But I want to study computers in the future!"

Zhou Yuguang advised, "Yuanyuan, computers will be common in the future. You don't necessarily need to study computer science to use a computer."

"Even if you study humanities, you can still use computers."

"Using a computer is different from working with computers. Dad, do you and Mom also think I'm not smart enough?"

"But I don't think Brother Zhang Wei is particularly smart. Why can others study science and engineering? Why can others work in computer science?"

Upon hearing Zhou Xiaoyuan's words, Zhou Yuguang immediately looked embarrassed and secretly glanced at Zhang Wei sitting opposite him.

At this moment, Zhang Wei's face turned bright red, and he looked so ashamed that he wished he could disappear into a crack in the ground.

Zhou Yuguang quickly changed the subject: "Yuanyuan, this isn't a question of whether she's smart or not, but whether she's suitable or not."

"If you insist on studying STEM fields, your parents have no objection!"

"But from now on, we must work hard to improve our grades in math, physics, and chemistry to prove it to our homeroom teacher."

"Dad, are you kidding me? This is my decision."

"What I study and what I do in the future is my own business. Why should I prove it to her?"

"I don't need her consent at all!"

Zhou Xiaoyuan concluded by saying, "Dad, I'm calling you to tell you that if your homeroom teacher contacts you, you have to stand by my side."

"Even if you think like her, I still won't study humanities!" she said, and then hung up the phone.

Zhou Yuguang gave a wry smile, shook his head, and hung up the phone.

He explained to Zhang Wei with a slight apology, "I'm sorry, I thought the child was having some kind of difficulty with his studies again..."

"I just happened to see you come in, so I thought I'd let you hear what she had to say and we could come up with some ideas together. But I didn't expect... Don't listen to her nonsense."

To ease the awkwardness, Zhou Yuguang quickly said, "Xiao Zhang, I'm twenty years older than you, and you're ten years older than Yuanyuan, but I've noticed..."

"Our generation's thinking is limited by certain mindsets. For example, when it comes to starting a company, we want to both fulfill Tiangong's original intentions and make money..."

"Your generation is slightly better than ours; you're able to be creative within a limited scope."

"But it doesn't look much better; the key is that they can't break out of their mindset."

"If it were Yuanyuan's generation, they would definitely say: The purpose of starting a company is to make money, and only by making money can we develop."

"Didn't Lenovo start out as a distributor of AST computers and HP peripherals? Once they've made enough money, what can't they do?"

...

At this moment, Zhang Wei completely ignored Zhou Yuguang's insightful prediction, and was even less able to grasp its profound meaning.

His mind was filled with Zhou Xiaoyuan's assessment of him over the phone earlier...

I was able to tell that a high school student I tutored wasn't particularly smart.

This made him, who always prided himself on his self-awareness, feel a sudden sense of sadness and desolation...

...

Chen Jianghe was in the laboratory, debugging an engineering sample card of [Pangu II-M].

The phone on the table rang.

He casually pressed the answer button, his eyes never leaving the oscilloscope screen: "Hello, who is this?"

Su Wanqing's voice came from the other end of the phone: "It's me. Su Wanqing."

"Mr. Su? What's up?"

Chen Jianghe was adjusting a potentiometer with a probe.

Su Wanqing pondered for a moment, then asked, "What do you usually do on weekends and holidays?"

"I'm asking about the past, when I was in the circuit board workshop at the institute..."

Chen Jianghe's attention was still on the waveform, so he casually replied, "Look at the circuit diagram, solder the board, or look up information in the library."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone: "...Anything else besides these? Nothing related to work..."

"Unrelated to work?"

Chen Jianghe finally stopped, thought for a moment, and said, "Let's go to Wudaokou to watch the video..."

What kinds of movies do you watch?

"I watched the James Bond series, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Star Wars, A Better Tomorrow, and God of Gamblers around that time..."

"Oh." Su Wanqing then asked, "With friends?"

"Yes, they're all former educated youth who returned to the city..."

Chen Jianghe was halfway through his sentence when he suddenly realized something was wrong. "Engineer Su, why are you asking this?"

Su Wanqing didn't respond to his question, and continued, "And then what happened... after you joined the 'Spark' project team?"

Chen Jianghe was even more puzzled: "They're all spending all their time in the lab!"

He paused for a moment, then said, "Engineer Su, why are you suddenly asking this?"

"no."

Su Wanqing carefully considered her words before saying, "I was just thinking... um... Farewell My Concubine seems to still be showing in theaters..."

Chen Jianghe was completely bewildered: "Farewell My Concubine? That Peking Opera-themed film?"

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.

Chen Jianghe even suspected there was a problem with the phone signal.

"Hello, hello, Engineer Su?"

"Um."

Su Wanqing's voice rang out again, "I understand. You can go ahead and get back to work."

"By the way, Jiang He, I suggest you take a look at the compression algorithm for 'Tomahawk', specifically the recent SIGGRAPH paper on vector quantization."

"Okay," Chen Jianghe breathed a sigh of relief, "thank you, Engineer Su."

The phone hangs up.

Chen Jianghe shook his head, picked up the probe again, and muttered, "That's strange... why is she suddenly concerned about what I did over the weekend?"

On the other end, in the laboratory of Institute 106.

Su Wanqing put down the phone and looked at the two consecutive numbered movie tickets for "Farewell My Concubine" that her mother had gotten for her...

She sighed softly, picked up a red pen, made a light mark on it, and then tucked it into a thick IEEE journal.