Starting From the Chip in 1991

Chapter 51 Good News from Zhongxin

When she realized that the young man before her was the expert who had solved her BUG, Ye Rudai suddenly became extremely nervous, feeling a strong emotion as if she had been caught red-handed. But she quickly understood that Su Yuanshan had no such intentions.

Because Su Yuanshan's gaze was gentle and kind. He even wrote down his name and said he was happy to meet her.

Ye Rudai slowly put down her hand, took a few deep breaths, gently bit her lip, and under Su Yuanshan's handwriting, she also wrote:

"Hello, my name is Ye Rudai, very happy to meet you too."

Distant mountains like ink.

Watching Ye Rudai write her name side by side with his, Su Yuanshan recalled the first time they climbed a mountain together.

The two of them, both science students, walked on fallen leaves in autumn, joking about wasting the beautiful scenery. Until Su Yuanshan, looking at the mountains under the sunset, had a sudden inspiration and said, "The distant mountains should be like ink."

At that time, Ye Rudai thought hard for a long while, her eyes wandering everywhere, until she saw the flourishing perilla by the mountainside and continued, "Perilla leaves always know autumn."

They both laughed, thinking they had mastered the subtlety of poetic couplets.

...

Father and Su Yuanshan walked across the campus.

The award ceremony had ended around three in the afternoon. Besides officials from the Ministry, provincial science association leaders also attended the event, creating a lively and harmonious scene before the cameras. The morning's incident had already been spun into a lighthearted anecdote by the experienced officials.

It was early winter, and Su Yuanshan pulled his coat tighter, gazing silently at the cooling campus.

Su Xinghe glanced at his son and joked, "What's wrong? Feeling down because the young lady left?"

"Not at all." Su Yuan shook his head with a smile, "I was just thinking that by next year at the latest, we'll need to set up a branch in Hong Kong, but finding a good person to manage it is proving difficult."

Su Xinghe, hearing his son talk about work, also stopped walking, thought for a moment, and smiled wryly: "Our Yuanchip Group is full of tech people, but we really lack capable business leaders."

"Exactly." Su Yuanshan sighed, "Look at Senior Brother Xi — he went to Silicon Valley but needed two beauties to help him manage things. Hong Kong is far more complicated than Silicon Valley."

"How about discussing it with your uncle?"

"I'll think about it. Lately, my uncle has his hands full with many projects; he might not have anyone available."

Chatting like this, the father and son made their way home. Su Yuanshan immediately handed the certificate to his mother, to stop her from constantly nagging him about his studies — his mother, born into a scholarly family, with a professor husband, always complained that his father's earnings didn't match his uncle's, but deep down she never believed her son needed to follow her brother into business.

...

On December 16, Yuanchip finally received an official invitation letter from UMC.

Negotiations had been ongoing over the phone for a week, discussing the obligations and rights of both parties through several rounds until a mutually satisfactory agreement was reached.

On the 18th, the wafer fab engineers who had been stationed at Yuanchip for more than ten days, along with the EDA engineers led by Chen Jianguo, officially departed for Hong Kong. There, with UMC's guidance, they would step into a new chapter, becoming the first group of domestic engineers to enter the international field.

After seeing the team off at the airport, Su Yuanshan rushed back to the office without resting.

Over the past two months, riding the momentum from their stunning success at the Las Vegas show with Yuanchip's EDA tools, their recruitment efforts had been unprecedentedly smooth. In just two months, they recruited nearly a hundred new employees from across the country.

The software department grew the most, expanding to a hundred people, forcing Su Yuanshan to move them to the newly renovated 10th floor and also relocating the finance department there. Finally, Yu Yuru and her colleagues had their own offices and no longer needed to work under others' roofs.

Turning on his computer, Su Yuanshan opened his email client — he had finally given in to reality and spent a lot of money to connect his computer to the .cn domain server and mail server hosted at Karlsruhe University. Through an indirect connection with Xi Xiaoding, he could finally send and receive emails, though that was all he could do.

Inside his inbox lay a fresh email from Xi Xiaoding.

Xi Xiaoding reported that Xinghai had already recruited over a hundred employees, and the initial staff training had been completed. They had already entered major cooperative fabs, including giants like AMD and TI. Of course, to avoid unnecessary trouble, all the stationed engineers were local hires. Chinese nationals, especially mainland Chinese students, stayed behind at the company for software development and EDA promotion.

Howard's team was also progressing quickly, and within a month, they would enter the chip design stage. Xi Xiaoding had given them a goal to complete tape-out by May of next year.

As for Qin Si and Yang Yiwen, although they had invested in various small projects worth twenty or thirty thousand US dollars each, they hadn't found another gem like Howard's team — it seemed luck was still essential.

Xi Xiaoding himself, following Su Yuanshan's suggestion, had already begun leading a team of Chinese and overseas students to develop a CRM — Customer Relationship Management system.

...

"Little Su, a fax from Jiangyin — it's good news." Sun Xihui, dressed in a business suit and high heels, wrapped in a fragrant breeze, walked into the office. As the logistics manager, she had personally promoted the wearing of professional outfits among Yuanchip's administrative female staff, turning them into a striking presence throughout the entire Jiangdu Building.

"Mm, I'll look at it later." Su Yuanshan glanced away from the monitor and leaned back on the sofa, smiling at Sun Xihui.

This thirty-year-old woman, thanks to her professional attire and makeup, exuded an extra layer of elegance, entirely different from the typical women of the 90s.

Sun Xihui, puzzled by his laughter, lowered her head to check if her clothes were stained, then raised her eyebrows: "What are you laughing at?"

"I'm a little reluctant to let you go." Su Yuanshan sighed.

"Eh?" Sun Xihui was about to joke back as usual but immediately realized Su Yuanshan wasn't joking this time.

She sat down hesitantly on the sofa and stared at Su Yuanshan: "You're not asking a high school graduate like me to go abroad, are you?"

"Not abroad." Su Yuanshan grew serious, opened a drawer, and handed her a document: "By the Spring Festival at the latest, we need to set up a branch in Hong Kong as a bridgehead for our electronic products across Southeast and East Asia. This branch is critical... After discussing it with my father and uncle several times, we realized you're the only one suitable."

Sun Xihui, halfway through reaching for the file, froze for a second, then breathed heavily and took the file with trembling hands.

She had started purely in logistics, managing the company's daily sanitation, office supplies, and consumables. As Yuanchip grew, the tasks became increasingly complex. Under Su Yuanshan's mentorship, she transitioned from logistics to handling documents and external communications.

Over a few months, she had become Su Yuanshan's capable assistant.

Bright, cheerful, and attractive, she perfectly fit the aesthetic of the middle-aged Su Yuanshan.

"Think about it. It's up to you." Su Yuanshan rubbed his temples and said solemnly, "But I must be honest — Hong Kong is tough. I'll have Pan Xiaojun help you set things up initially, but after that, whether you can hold your ground will depend on you."

Sun Xihui took a few deep breaths: "I need to discuss it with my family. My son is about to start elementary school, and my parents are illiterate..."

Su Yuanshan nodded. He knew Sun Xihui was divorced and raising her son alone, with the child currently left in the care of her parents.

If the domestic market weren't so lacking in modern enterprise management talents, he would truly have been reluctant to lose Sun Xihui just as she was becoming competent.

Opening the fax folder, Su Yuanshan picked up Jiangyin Zhongxin's transmission.

At the top of the fax, the words "GOOD NEWS" were especially eye-catching.

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