Starting From the Chip in 1991

Chapter 58 Dirty Work Falls to You

Sun Xihui placed a stack of documents onto Zhou Xiaohui's desk.

Originally, Sun Xihui had completed her handover with her successor Liu Hongyan before the New Year.

However, thinking about the mountain of work waiting after the holidays, she returned to the company for two extra days, personally explaining everything in detail before finally being willing to leave.

"From now on, you'll be fully responsible for Xiao Su General Manager's faxes, documents, call scheduling, and so on. No more work for the logistics department," Sun Xihui instructed Zhou Xiaohui carefully.

"These documents are early administrative records. You must keep them safe."

"Understood."

Zhou Xiaohui was extremely grateful for Sun Xihui's patient guidance and smiled:

"Sun-jie, I wish you a bright future and a prosperous career!"

Sun Xihui chuckled:

"What bright future — I'm just going to Hong Kong to do grunt work."

At that moment, Su Yuanshan's voice floated over:

"Sun-jie, who would dare treat you like grunt labor?"

Both women turned to see Su Yuanshan leaning casually against the doorframe, smiling at them.

"If not you, then who?"

Sun Xihui smiled sweetly back.

"Otherwise, why not find a couple of people to go with me?"

"I'm already going with you. What more do you want?" Su Yuanshan laughed, walking toward the sofa and lazily lying down, throwing his legs over the armrest.

He didn't even bother turning on the computer — after all, it was almost closing time.

The flight tickets were booked.

Tomorrow, Su Yuanshan and Sun Xihui would fly to Shanghai first to handle branch company business, then meet up with Pan Xiaojun before crossing into Hong Kong.

Of course, Su Yuanshan wasn't personally helping Sun Xihui establish the Hong Kong branch.

His main goal was to meet with Lin Yonggu and Senior Brother Chen Jianguo to review their work progress — and sign the necessary authorizations for the Hong Kong office.

"Forget it, even if you really came with me, I wouldn't dare keep you around,"

Sun Xihui teased as she tidied some papers:

"A young master like you — I wouldn't dare serve you."

"Haha, then I'll send Sister Xiaohui with you."

Zhou Xiaohui, who was getting braver by the day, dared to joke back:

"No way, I'm a secretary, not a nanny."

"You're not even qualified to be a nanny. Look, I'm lying here so comfortably, and not a single one of you comes to give me a massage,"

Su Yuanshan joked, pretending to sigh.

Sun Xihui rolled her eyes at him, but her heart felt warm.

In the past six months of playful bickering with Su Yuanshan, she had realized that, despite his mischievous tongue, Su Yuanshan was an extremely decent and principled young man.

"Fine, fine, I'll give you a massage — but from now on, don't bully Sister Xiaohui."

The plane took off from the provincial capital and landed in Shanghai right around noon.

After exiting the airport, Pan Xiaojun picked them up in his Jeep with Jiangyin plates.

They had a quick lunch, then toured the branch office.

Because the branch mainly handled sales and customer support, the office was small and the staff were few — all locals.

They had only heard legends of Su Yuanshan's name before.

Seeing him in person, so young, left them dumbfounded.

Since Jiangyin was close to Shanghai, Pan Xiaojun had chosen to base himself here, overseeing both locations.

His title had also changed from Sales Manager to Sales Director.

After a night's stay, the three of them boarded a plane the next day to Shenzhen.

At the airport, they were welcomed by Liang Xiaoliang, the local branch manager, along with a few others.

"Brother Xiaoshan!"

Half a year without seeing each other, Zhang Jianjun had grown rounder and even more energetic — the perfect image of a booming businessman.

"Brother Zhang, let me introduce you.

This is Yuanchip's HR Director and general supervisor — Sun Xihui."

Sun Xihui smiled gracefully:

"Hello, President Zhang."

"Miss Sun, a pleasure!"

Zhang Jianjun chuckled and shook hands lightly with her:

"Talking on the phone doesn't do you justice."

"And this," Su Yuanshan said, turning, "is Manager Liang from our Shenzhen branch."

"Manager Liang, you've worked hard."

Su Yuanshan nodded politely.

He knew Liang Xiaoliang had performed well —

adopting a grassroots, door-to-door sales strategy, aggressively visiting every new electronics factory and pushing Yuanchip's EDA software.

Now, the biggest threat wasn't big companies —

they already knew Yuanchip's EDA was the best.

The problem was with small companies.

These small electronics workshops often couldn't even afford computers.

Some vendors, desperate to sell machines, had started bundling pirated versions of Yuanchip's software.

To combat this, Liang Xiaoliang's approach was simple and effective:

First, explain that EDA was a necessary, fixed cost.

Then threaten that using pirated versions could lead to lawsuits and even blacklisting from chip suppliers and PCB manufacturers.

Combined with quality after-sales service, flexible payment plans, and heavy discounts,

this strategy managed to keep piracy from spreading widely.

Su Yuanshan was deeply impressed —

even in Shenzhen, maintaining a 50% genuine software adoption rate was almost miraculous for a high-value industrial tool.

However, today Su Yuanshan's visit wasn't just to check up on business.

...

They had lunch at the Wang Hai Building.

After the meal, Su Yuanshan and Zhang Jianjun went to a private tea room to talk.

"It's like this, Brother Zhang," Su Yuanshan got straight to the point.

"Yuanchip can't dirty its hands. Neither can Zhongxin."

"So for things like pirated VCD discs, I thought — it's best left to you."

"No problem!"

Zhang Jianjun agreed instantly.

Over the past six months, he had witnessed Yuanchip and Zhongxin's explosive growth.

He now treated Su Yuanshan's words almost like gospel.

"Good. But I did some rough calculations — setting up a disc pressing factory will cost close to two million yuan.

Do you have enough capital?"

"This..."

Zhang Jianjun mentally tallied up his resources:

"Last year Zhongxin expanded aggressively.

We didn't distribute much profit.

I've mainly been living off my salary."

"How much are you short?"

Zhang Jianjun frowned and calculated:

"About half."

"Alright. I'll send a million from the company's discretionary funds — call it a private loan," Su Yuanshan said casually, smiling:

"Interest-free."

Hearing that, Zhang Jianjun hesitated:

"That's not right. How about we make it a partnership?"

Su Yuanshan saw through his worry immediately —

Zhang Jianjun was afraid that if he owned the pirate disc business alone, it would taint his status at Zhongxin.

He shook his head and said lightly:

"No need. This is dirty work. Even if you do it, you shouldn't appear publicly — after all, you're a shareholder of Zhongxin now. Zhongxin has a bright future ahead."

Su Yuanshan's voice was steady:

"We're doing big things.

We can't leave black marks behind."

Moreover, Su Yuanshan wasn't planning to let Zhang Jianjun press discs forever.

It was just a short-term tactic to create enough demand for VCD players —

building a pirate disc market, in order to sell machines.

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