Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

189: Chapter 189 The ”Spring Festival Expeditionary Force” in EuropeFebruary 23

At 4 PM, the temperature in Xian was only 3 degrees, and the cold wind was biting.

Su Chen and Lin Wan rented bicycles and rode slowly along the ancient city wall.

The wall was wide enough for horses to run on, paved with blue bricks, and after six hundred years of wind and rain, it remained majestic.

”Are you cold?” Su Chen asked.

Lin Wan’s nose was frozen red, but she shook her head: ”Not cold, the scenery is too beautiful.”

She pointed inside and outside the wall: on the inside were the flying eaves and bracket sets of the Muslim Quarter, with wisps of cooking smoke curling up; on the outside were modern high-rise buildings, their glass curtain walls reflecting the setting sun.

Ancient and future converged here.

Su Chen stopped his bike, took off his scarf, and wrapped it around Lin Wan.

”Don’t catch a cold.” Lin Wan wanted to take it off.

”I have thick fat.” Su Chen held her hand down, ”Look over there—”

He pointed to the southeast, where there was a construction site with many tower cranes.

”Our chip factory is right next to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda,” Su Chen said. ”I’ve seen the design drawings; it’s a modern building, but it uses Tang Dynasty elements—flying eaves and upturned corners, blue tiles, and white walls. To blend into this ancient city, it can’t be too abrupt.”

Lin Wan looked in the direction he pointed: ”You said last year that you wanted to build a base in Xian.”

”It has already started construction,” Su Chen said. ”Xian has many universities and abundant talent resources. Plus, its geographical location is good, and it has enough strategic depth. If something happens on the coast, this place will be the backup.”

The wind blew across the wall, carrying the whimpers of history.

Lin Wan suddenly asked: ”Are you afraid?”

”Afraid of what?”

”Afraid of failure, afraid of Xinghuo falling, afraid that everything you’ve done will become a bubble.”

Su Chen was silent for a while.

”Afraid,” he admitted honestly. ”Every night when I lie down, my mind is thinking: Can the chip yield rate be improved by another 1%, will the European cooperation change, what will America do next? Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.”

He held Lin Wan’s hand: ”But even if I’m afraid, I have to do it. Because if I don’t, China’s chip industry might be choked for another ten or twenty years. Our cars might never be sold to Europe, and our engineers might always be working for the people of America.”

”Then what about your life?” Lin Wan looked at him, ”How long has it been since you had a good rest? How long since you accompanied your family? How long since you... lived like a normal person?”

Su Chen smiled: ”That’s why I’m here now, riding bikes with you, watching the sunset, eating paomo. I need these moments to remind myself why I started.”

The sun set, dyeing the city wall gold.

The two pushed their bikes and walked slowly.

”When Xinghuo stabilizes,” Su Chen suddenly said, ”I want to start a school. Not teaching test-taking, but teaching real scientific thinking and engineering practice. Let more children fall in love with technology, so they don’t have to walk the difficult path we did.”

Lin Wan’s eyes lit up: ”I’ll help you. I can teach physics and experiments.”

”Okay.”

At night, the Grand Tang Ever-Bright City was brilliantly lit.

The two walked hand in hand, walking through the crowd to watch the float parade. Actors wearing Tang-style clothing danced on the floats, music blared, and tourists cheered.

Lin Wan bought a rabbit lantern and swung it back and forth in her hand.

Su Chen took photos of her, with the brilliant lights and antique architecture in the background.

”Look, it’s just like the prosperous Tang Dynasty,” Lin Wan said, ”nations coming to pay tribute, a prosperity like a dream.”

”But the prosperous Tang Dynasty also declined,” Su Chen said softly. ”So what we need to do is not to recreate the prosperous Tang, but to create a more lasting, fairer, and more sustainable prosperity.”

Lin Wan looked at him; in the lights, his eyes were as firm as ever.

She knew this was the man she loved—he had ideals but was not a dreamer; he had ambition but was not selfish; he changed the world but never forgot the fireworks of everyday life.

Su Chen and Lin Wan continued their hard-won trip, but the battlefield in Europe had just begun.

Munich · Infineon Design Center · February 16

Germany time, 8 AM, Infineon Design Center.

Hans Muller, a 42-year-old chip architect, stared at his computer screen, his brows knitted tightly together.

On the screen, the interface of the Electronic Design Automation tool was entirely in Chinese.

”Why is ’Layout & Routing’ called this?” He pointed at the four square characters on the button, ”Why isn’t it ’Layout & Routing’? And this—” he pointed at another button, ” ’Timing Optimization’, I recognize the characters, but when I click in, it’s all Chinese documentation!”

His French colleague Isabella beside him was also going crazy: ”I click this button, and it pops up a window with nothing but square characters on it! Am I trying to crack alien code?”

Throughout the design center, over two hundred European engineers were experiencing the same pain.

Over the past ten days, the Xinghuo expert team helped them restore the design environment, but only provided basic training. Now the Xinghuo people were on holiday, and they had to use this all-Chinese tool by themselves.

”Email! Send an email and ask!” Hans said.

Emergency help emails flew like snowflakes to Shenzhen—but Shenzhen was on holiday, and the automatic reply was: ”Spring Festival holiday, normal work will resume on March 1.”

”It’s over,” the Italy engineer Marco wailed, ”I have to submit the Mercedes-Benz chip design next Monday, and now I can’t even understand the tool!”

The design center was filled with an atmosphere of despair.

Shenzhen · Xinghuo Chip Internal Group · February 17 (Second Day of the Lunar New Year)

At 2 AM, Luo Qinghe was woken up by a distress call from Europe.

After hearing the situation, he laughed.

”These foreigners, they can’t work without us,” he said to the other end of the line, ”Wait, I’ll organize people immediately.”

After hanging up the phone, he opened the internal group of Xinghuo Chip.

Group members: 8532 people, all chip-related engineers, designers, and testers.

Luo Qinghe typed:

[Urgent Notice]

Urgently recruiting 500 people for the technical support team to Europe

Task: Go to Munich, Germany, Paris, France, and Milan, Italy, to teach European partners one-on-one how to use the Electronic Design Automation tool

Time: 3-6 months (can be extended depending on the situation)

Requirements:

Proficient in the entire process of the Electronic Design Automation tool

Fluent in English; German/French/Italian is a plus

Patient, able to teach

Compensation:

Domestic salary x 5, paid in Euros

Company covers room and board (Standard: single apartment, meals according to domestic cafeteria standards)

Additional monthly subsidy of 10,000 rmb for family members

Priority for promotion after returning to the country, double bonuses

Sign up: Reply in a thread, deadline is 24:00 tonight

After the message was sent, the group was quiet for three seconds.

Then, the thread started to flood the screen.

Chen Xin (Leader of the EDA tool development team): I sign up, I know German and English, three years of EDA development experience.

Wang Minghao (chip design engineer): I sign up, English major band 8, have taught newcomers.

Li Xiuying (Test engineer, single mother): I sign up, for my daughter’s tuition.

Zhang Wei (23 years old, fresh graduate): I sign up, want to see the world.

Zhao Jianguo (52 years old, packaging expert): I sign up, my old bones can still move.

The thread refreshed at a speed of ten messages per second.

Luo Qinghe looked at the screen, his eyes a bit hot.

These kids, having just received generous year-end bonuses, could have spent the New Year well. But as soon as there was a task, they stepped up without hesitation.

At 3 AM, the list of 500 people was confirmed.

The youngest was 23, having just joined for half a year. The oldest was 52, one of the first batch of old employees of Xinghuo Chip.

Luo Qinghe posted in the group: ”Thank you all. You are the backbone of Xinghuo. When you get to Europe, stay safe, eat well, and sleep well.”