Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

half a month later.

In the large computer lab of the School of Architectural Engineering at a regular public second-tier university in Guangdong Province.

The air here can no longer be described as murky; it's practically a biological weapon that could explode at any moment.

Hundreds of junior and senior male students, shirtless with towels draped around their necks, were frantically typing on keyboards in front of rows of old, bulky CRT computers.

The entire computer room was filled with a strong stench of sweat, feet, and the despairing smell of hundreds of buckets of fermenting pickled cabbage noodles.

Half a month has passed since Yaosheng Pictures invested a million-dollar deposit. During this half month, the entire School of Architectural Engineering has been completely engulfed in a frenzied mass production campaign.

The Mediterranean professor personally took charge and broke down the tens of thousands of square meters Maoshan Tianshi Mansion complex into hundreds of sub-projects.

From the steel reinforcement arrangement of the eighteen underground hells, to the load-bearing base of the towering statue of the Three Pure Ones in the main hall, and then to the drainage system of the Tai Chi Square...

Everyone was working like a tightly wound machine, day and night.

"No, this data needs to be recalculated!"

The old professor, holding a thick stack of printed papers, his eyes sunken, roared in a hoarse voice, "The main hall's span is too large."

"Without modern steel beams, relying solely on traditional mortise and tenon structures and wood, the seismic resistance of shear walls would definitely not meet the level eight standard."

"You bunch of bastards, re-run the stress simulation test on the wood!"

"Mentor...it's not that we don't want to do it!"

Li Qiang, a senior student, pointed at the computer tower in front of him, which was making a tractor-like roar, with bloodshot eyes and a look of utter despair.

"This crappy computer can't handle it at all. The blueprints are too complicated. This is a real palace complex covering tens of thousands of square meters."

"Even a slight drag of the mouse causes the screen to freeze like a PowerPoint presentation; during a stress test, the motherboard temperature gets so high you could fry an egg on it, and it keeps crashing with a blue screen!"

"Buzz—"

As soon as Li Qiang finished speaking, the screen of the computer in front of him flickered twice and then turned into an extremely glaring dark blue with a snap.

"Holy crap, I spent all morning drawing the basement drainage pipes, and I didn't save it!!!"

Li Qiang clutched his head with both hands, letting out a heart-wrenching scream as if he had lost his wife, and slammed his head against the computer desk. Immediately afterwards, a series of groans echoed through the computer room.

"Mine broke too!"

"My graphics card is fried! I can smell it burning!"

"This job is impossible. The blueprints are too damn detailed. Our school's crappy computers, which were only issued two years ago, simply can't handle these epic engineering drawings worth tens of millions!"

Hundreds of exceptionally talented individuals are currently being held back by the bottleneck in hardware.

Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice; it's like asking you to carve a masterpiece with a rusty butcher's knife.

The old professor stared at the computer screen filled with blue lines, slumped into his chair in despair, and painfully tugged at his already sparse hair.

"Even if it's just a month of drawing, this amount of complex drawings is already pushing the limits of human capability."

"With the current infrastructure lagging behind, are ordinary universities destined to be unable to handle this overwhelming wealth?"

The entire computer room fell into a deathly silence and despair.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, on Victoria Peak, at Yiu Shing Estate.

Compared to the grueling, demanding work environment in mainland China, Lin Yao's life at this moment remains simple, unpretentious, and monotonous.

In the spacious underground entertainment room, Lin Yao, dressed in a silk robe, was sitting in front of an extremely retro arcade machine, frantically shaking the joystick.

On the screen, Lin Yao's character unleashed a rising dragon punch, instantly knocking out the opponent at full health.

"It's boring, there's not a single one who can fight."

Lin Yao let go of the joystick listlessly, yawned, and Qiu Shuyi obediently handed him a glass of chilled watermelon juice, then used a soft towel to wipe the light sweat from his forehead.

Over the past two weeks, Lin Yao has truly taken enjoyment to the extreme.

ASML's team of Dutch scientists has fully moved into the New Territories plant, burning through cash every day, working closely with Lu Qiu's team behind closed doors to develop lithography machines.

Meanwhile, on Asia Star TV, three variety shows are incredibly popular, and they're making money hand over fist every day.

Chiang Tin-sang's Hung Hing triad also began to completely whitewash itself, patrolling various film sets and factory areas every day in black suits.

The sudden loss of challenge in his life left Lin Yao feeling somewhat empty.

"Ring ring..."

Just then, the satellite phone next to him rang. Lin Yao picked it up casually, and Wang Pangzi's signature raspy voice came through.

"Boss, something's gone wrong!"

Fatty Wang was panting heavily on the other end of the phone, "The blueprints for that university in mainland China are stuck!"

Lin Yao frowned slightly and took a sip of watermelon juice: "What, a ten million bonus isn't enough to keep them working themselves to the bone? It's been half a month already, and they can't even meet the deadline of submitting the drawings within a month?"

"It's not that they're not working hard, boss. Those students are insane. They haven't slept much for half a month. I heard some of them even urinated blood from their liver."

Fatty Wang quickly explained, "It's a hardware issue. The palace setting for our movie is too grand, and the complexity of the blueprints far exceeds our expectations."

"An old professor from the mainland said that drawing and simulating the mechanics of such a large building would require at least a month of computation."

"As a result, the crappy computers in their school's computer lab simply couldn't handle that amount of data, and they all crashed with blue screens and burned out their motherboards."

"I thought it was some kind of catastrophe."

After hearing this, Lin Yao rolled his eyes, his tone filled with deep contempt.

"Wang Sanri, you've been with me for a while now, how come you still can't shake this poor, stingy mindset?"

"If your computer can't run the blueprints, then go buy a computer that can. Is it really worth bothering me with a phone call for something as trivial as this that can be solved with money?"

Fatty Wang was almost in tears on the other end of the phone: "Boss, this isn't an ordinary computer. To run these architectural-level engineering drawings, you need a top-of-the-line graphics workstation."

"The most advanced workstations on the market right now are the latest batch of professional-grade workstations from IBM in the United States; each one costs tens of thousands of US dollars!"

"Besides, it's not easy to buy from the mainland now; we have to import through channels in Hong Kong. And if the quantity is small, they might not even allocate the goods to us!"

"Is tens of thousands of US dollars a lot of money?"

Lin Yao seemed to have heard a very funny joke. He stood up from the sofa, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the beautiful view of Hong Kong. His tone was as calm as if he were buying cabbage at the market.

"Have Chen Zheng handle this. Contact IBM's Asia Pacific president directly and tell him that no matter what means he uses, he must immediately provide me with 500 of their company's top-of-the-line graphics workstations."

"Then charter three large cargo planes for me and airdrop them onto the sports field of that university in Guangdong Province overnight."

Lin Yao's voice suddenly rose an octave, radiating an undeniable, savage power of money: "Tell that old professor, I want the most perfect blueprints. If the tools aren't good enough, I'll get them the best tools in the world!"

"Oh, right."

Lin Yao paused, then, remembering those college students whose livers caused them to urinate blood, added another sentence.

"Also, have the logistics department purchase a batch of the best health supplements, such as century-old wild ginseng, premium dried abalone, and imported deep-sea fish oil. Send them ten truckloads of these."

"I'll have the school cafeteria chefs keep making nourishing soups for these students 24/7. I need the blueprints, not their lives. If these geniuses die from overwork while making my movie, who the hell will build my skyscrapers?"

Wang, the fat man on the other end of the phone, was stunned, his entire body trembling violently.

That's incredible! This is what real poverty alleviation looks like! If you think your computers are slow, we'll just buy 500 of America's top-of-the-line professional workstations and airdrop them in your faces.

I'm afraid you'll die from staying up all night, so I'll just bring ten truckloads of ginseng and abalone to feed you!

"Boss, you're awesome! I'll go inform General Manager Chen right away!"

Fatty Wang let out a loud shout of excitement, as if he could already see the shocking scene of those college students in the mainland being overwhelmed by money.

The next day at noon, in a typical public university in Guangdong Province, the entire School of Architecture was still shrouded in gloom and despair.

In front of a few computers that could barely be turned on, Li Qiang and his colleagues were carefully cutting up the blueprints, trying to continue their unfinished mission in this extremely slow and inefficient way.

"At this rate, let alone a month, we won't be able to deliver a complete set of blueprints for laying the foundation in six months..."

Li Qiang rubbed his eyes in despair.

The old professor squatted at the door, smoking his pipe in silence. He knew that these kids had done their best. This was an epic order worth tens of millions, and the gap in hardware couldn't be bridged by enthusiasm alone.

Just when all the faculty and students were preparing to give up in despair.

"Boom—!!!"

A loud roar suddenly came from the sky, followed by the extremely piercing sound of police sirens clearing the way outside the school gate.

"Beep beep! Beep beep!"

The entire school of students and teachers was alarmed and rushed out of their classrooms.

Outside the school gate, a full twenty heavy trucks, escorted by several police cars, drove in like a long steel dragon into the campus, a place that even leaders rarely visit.

The heavy trucks drove directly to the front of the School of Architecture building, lined up in a row, opened the doors, and a group of burly men in black security uniforms jumped out and quickly lifted the waterproof tarpaulins on the trucks.

"Bang!"

As the rear cargo area was lowered and sunlight streamed into the compartment, all the architecture students and professors watching felt as if their eyes were about to be blinded by the glare.

Those rows and rows, neatly arranged, were none other than the world's most advanced and expensive professional graphics workstations, all bearing the IBM logo.

The metal chassis gleaming with a cool, technological light, and the oversized, high-resolution professional monitors were like a sight to behold for these students who usually only knew how to draw lines on broken computers. It was as awe-inspiring as a caveman suddenly seeing an alien spaceship.

"What...what's going on?!"

Li Qiang swallowed hard, his legs going weak. Just then, Fatty Wang jumped off the passenger seat of the first truck, holding a megaphone, and shouted triumphantly.

"Students and faculty of the School of Civil Engineering, wake up and let's have a party!"

Fatty Wang raised a megaphone, his voice echoing throughout the campus: "Our boss, Mr. Lin, heard that your computers crashed. These five hundred top-of-the-line IBM graphics workstations were chartered overnight from the United States by Mr. Lin, and he's giving them all to you."

"Didn't you want to calculate the seismic resistance coefficient of the shear walls, and paint a picture of the eighteen levels of hell underground? If these machines are even a second slower, I, Yaosheng Capital, will lose!"

boom!

The entire front of the architecture school building erupted in a deafening roar of exclamations. Five hundred top-of-the-line workstations, all given away?

In mainland China in 1987, this was an astronomical sum of money that was impossible to estimate. Just how rich was this Hong Kong boss that he was burning US dollars like paper?

However, the shock was far from over. Fatty Wang pointed to the trucks behind and continued to shout, "Boss Lin also said that seeing how hard you guys were working all night, those ten trucks behind are all loaded with century-old ginseng, top-quality abalone, and bird's nest that were airlifted from Hong Kong."

"From today onwards, all your meals in the cafeteria will be provided. You'll drink ginseng stewed chicken like water every day. The boss said, as long as you don't die, you're to work your butts off!"

"Within a month, deliver the complete blueprints for 'Maoshan Celestial Master's Mansion' perfectly, and let those Hollywood devils see what a Chinese infrastructure miracle looks like!"

"Awoooooo!!!"

Upon hearing these words, Li Qiang and the others, who had been in despair, suddenly had their eyes blaze with a wolf-like green light, their blood boiling with fervor.

The old professor was so moved that tears streamed down his face. He smashed his pipe on the ground and roared hoarsely, "Brothers, the boss has risked his life for us. If we still can't get the blueprints done, we might as well jump off this building!"

"Everyone in the hospital needs one. Move computers, install systems. Even if we hammer away until the keyboards are smoking, we have to render that magnificent image of the Three Pure Ones!"

"Fuck him!!!"

Hundreds of college students, like Spartan warriors on steroids, charged madly towards the trucks.

Expensive workstations were moved into the computer room. With the support of this batch of top-notch equipment, and the life-saving effect of century-old ginseng soup, the computer was greatly enhanced.

This previously unknown university in Guangdong Province has now been completely transformed into a frantically operating infrastructure engine.

Hong Kong, Victoria Peak.

Lin Yao listened to the report from Fatty Wang on the phone, and heard the deafening cheers on the other end of the line. Satisfied, he hung up the phone.

"The happiness of the rich is often so dull and unpretentious."

Lin Yao stretched and yawned. The blueprint issue was resolved; now all that was left was to wait for the project to be completed in a month.

With this set of world-class real-world blueprints, they could spend billions to rent a mountain in mainland China and build the Celestial Master's Mansion. Just thinking about it is exciting.

"However, during this month of waiting..."

Lin Yao stroked his chin, a hint of boredom flashing in his eyes.

The Qian family is dead, Shao Baichuan is half-dead, and the technology department is still in seclusion. It seems that there's nothing left for him to enjoy in this tiny place like Hong Kong.

It seems it's time to make those foreign bigwigs, who haven't even realized what's happening yet, feel a little uncomfortable.