Chapter 4 Yuanxin Technology
Su Yuanshan carried a box of floppy disks into his father's office. Professor Su Xinghe had five graduate students under his supervision, two of whom were part-time, and three full-time.
"Xiaoshan, you actually dared skip class?" joked senior brother Tang Wenjie, a chubby, bespectacled young man whose warm smile made people feel at ease.
"I'm just running errands," Su Yuanshan replied with a grin. He walked over to Qin Weimin, who was frowning at his work, and handed him two floppy disks. "Senior Brother Weimin, Dad asked me to bring these to you."
Qin Weimin was drawing a circuit schematic in Protel. He glanced up when he heard Su Yuanshan, asking, "What did your dad say?"
With a mischievous smile, Su Yuanshan answered, "Dad said that after three years of grad school, Senior Brother Weimin still writes programs full of bugs. Our dear Senior Brother..."
A voice interrupted from the doorway: "I never said that."
It was Su Xinghe, walking in with a roll of documents, smiling as he lightly tapped Su Yuanshan on the head. "Your senior brother's major is integrated circuit design. He doesn't have time to polish his programming skills."
Su Xinghe then turned to the three students. "However, from now on, I'm assigning you a new software development project as your graduation design."
The three students looked at each other in surprise.
Qin Weimin's face showed clear shock. His graduation project had been well underway since last year—a video-related integrated circuit design, already more than halfway complete. This sudden change meant he would have to start all over again.
As for Tang Wenjie and Chen Jianguo, both second-year grad students, they hadn't even started their projects yet. Hearing about a ready-made project, they actually looked quite excited.
But all three were puzzled. Their major focus was integrated circuit design. Switching to software development felt like a big deviation.
After a moment's hesitation, Qin Weimin asked, "Professor, I'm almost done with my previous project."
Su Xinghe nodded, a little apologetic toward his prized student. He wasn't the type to hold back students for no reason. However, among his students, Qin Weimin was the most reliable. Thinking carefully, Su Xinghe said, "Weimin, your previous project doesn't involve any patents, so you can put it aside for now. This new project—developing integrated circuit design software—will count toward your graduation. You won't be delayed."
Qin Weimin froze, exchanging glances with the others. "EDA?"
If it really was EDA software development, then it was still somewhat related to their specialty. But that stuff… could a few of them really pull it off?
"Let Xiaoshan explain," Su Xinghe smiled and patted his son on the shoulder. "Don't underestimate him. His C++ skills are better than mine now."
The three graduate students froze, unable to believe it.
Claiming your own son was better was a normal parent's behavior. But coming from Professor Su Xinghe—a man renowned as one of the university's top programmers—this was almost unthinkable.
Besides, Su Xinghe wasn't the type to brag idly.
"I have a meeting to attend. Xiaoshan, you assign tasks," Su Xinghe said, turning to Qin Weimin. "Weimin, about your code—I didn't touch a single punctuation mark. It's all Xiaoshan's work. You can check and compare."
After Su Xinghe left, Tang Wenjie and Chen Jianguo immediately gathered around. Qin Weimin, trying to remain composed, copied the project onto his computer.
Su Yuanshan chuckled, "Forget about the EDA for a second. Let's look at Senior Brother Weimin's code first."
Qin Weimin opened the C++ program, loaded the project, and immediately noticed the loading speed had improved significantly. He quickly ran through the operations and found everything exceptionally smooth. Then he checked the source code and saw that many parts had been commented out.
Five minutes later, Qin Weimin looked up at Su Yuanshan, his expression changing from disbelief to shock to a resigned silence.
Su Yuanshan shrugged: "Just streamlined the code a little. Hope you're not mad, Senior Brother."
Qin Weimin smiled bitterly: "You brat, I'm convinced. You must have been programming since you were in the womb."
Tang Wenjie took a deep breath, glanced at the doorway, and teased, "Must be. Su Professor's gene shot definitely contained pure programming power."
Su Yuanshan coughed awkwardly.
Tang Wenjie grabbed one of the floppy disks. "Hehe, let's see what kind of EDA software this is, and how we can help."
"I've already designed the interface framework. You'll just need to code according to the engineering documents. I also wrote an engineering library; it'll be essential during future program development." As he spoke, Su Yuanshan distributed the floppy disks. "Senior Brother Weimin will coordinate the schedule. Let's aim to finish the main framework within a month."
Qin Weimin was stunned: "And what about Professor Su? And you?"
"My dad will handle the electrical component database. I'll handle the input tools."
The three of them exchanged glances, their faces full of shock. They knew very well: for an EDA suite, the tools and database were the real heart of the system.
"You..."
"Don't ask. Just accept it—I'm a genius," Su Yuanshan sighed. "I can't help it if programming feels simple to me. Should we just send me to the Chinese Academy of Sciences for dissection? See how much my brain weighs?"
The three senior brothers couldn't help laughing, while Qin Weimin shook his head: "You little rascal... Fine! Let's see just how capable you are."
One month later, Jiangdu Building.
This 34-story tower, funded by the provincial government and built by the Second Construction Group, was born with a halo. It wasn't just the tallest building in the entire western region; it was also a landmark of the province's opening-up.
The bottom three floors were a mall for external leasing. Floors four to fifteen were office spaces. Above that were hotels and business centers. During the May Day holiday, the mall would officially open.
Su Yuanshan walked into the mall and saw his uncle, Zhang Ke, directing a team of construction workers.
This roughly one-hundred-square-meter storefront had been rented for selling pagers. Right now, mobile phones—commonly called "big brothers"—were still under the strict control of the postal and telecommunications bureau. Pagers, however, had already opened up to private partnerships. As for establishing a private paging station, that would have to wait until 1992.
Pagers—an industry underestimated by many—would peak at 80 million users by 1998, generating nearly 100 billion yuan over a decade. Su Yuanshan had no reason to abandon this golden opportunity. More importantly, it would fit perfectly into his larger plan for mobile communications.
"Xiaoshan." Upon seeing his nephew, Zhang Ke quickly came to greet him.
"Uncle, can it be ready before May Day?" Su Yuanshan looked around at the bustling workers and smiled.
"No problem," Zhang Ke patted Su Yuanshan on the shoulder. "Xiaoshan, while I trust your technical vision, I still feel a little uneasy."
Su Yuanshan smiled.
After Zhang Ke invested the money, Su Yuanshan had rented not only the storefront on the ground floor but also the entire ninth and tenth floors as office space.
Frankly, in this era, except for the overheated real estate markets of Hainan and a few coastal cities, commercial property rents were dirt cheap.
Even a landmark building like Jiangdu only charged three yuan per square meter for open storefronts and forty cents per square meter for office space upstairs.
But Zhang Ke really couldn't understand why they needed so much space.
"Uncle, trust me. In business, you're smarter than me."
Zhang Ke grinned proudly.
"But in technology and communication, you have to look at trends and the speed of innovation. Trust me."
Su Yuanshan leaned close to his uncle and whispered: "After our EDA is finished this summer, we'll immediately start working on a Chinese-character pager — one that can actually leave messages in Chinese."
"What the heck!" Zhang Ke almost jumped up in excitement. "Are you serious?"
As a seasoned businessman, Zhang Ke understood what that meant.
At the moment, pagers could only transmit numbers. Users had to memorize a "code sheet" where, for example, 520 meant "I love you," and 530 meant "I miss you."
"Of course! Once the government opens up private paging stations, you'll be counting money until your fingers cramp."
"Fantastic! But wait, how long will it take to develop the Chinese pager?"
Su Yuanshan squinted and held up one finger.
"One year?"
"One month."
Honestly, even a month was generous.
Because, in his past life, Su Yuanshan's undergraduate thesis had been precisely about the design of a Chinese-character wireless pager transmitter and receiver.
The elevator stopped at the ninth floor. Su Yuanshan looked at the words "Yuanxin Technology" on the glass door and took a deep breath.
He had originally wanted to call the company "Yuan Dai Technology" after Ye Rudai.
But realizing it would be hard to explain to his father and uncle, and that it sounded awkward, he decided on "Yuanxin" instead — meaning "far-reaching ambition."
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