jdhmnovel Chapter 490 A New Journey
Chapter 490 A New Journey
On the day the Xinghuo Center was completed, it was snowing lightly in Jinan. The snowflakes were as fine as crushed salt, melting as soon as they landed on someone's shoulder. This building, forty-six stories high, was the result of three years of meticulous design work by Sun Guofu and his elite Sun Real Estate team. The glass curtain wall shimmered with a pale blue light in the snow. From the top floor, one could see the Yellow River to the north and the continuous Taishan Mountains to the south. Ling Yun still remembers the first time he discussed the design with Sun Guofu. Sun Guofu asked him what kind of building he wanted, and he said he wanted a place where he could see into the distance.
After the ceremony, Ling Yun stood alone by the floor-to-ceiling window of his top-floor office. Snowflakes drifted obliquely outside, offering a panoramic view of the entire High-tech Zone—the first Xinghuo Internet Cafe had long been demolished, replaced by a commercial complex; the two-story building near the north gate of Shandong University remained, now the Xinghuo Entrepreneurship Memorial Hall, where people came daily to take photos. Twelve years ago, when he first walked into that rented building, his mind was solely focused on how to get the internet cafe up and running, ensuring that the 270,000 yuan wouldn't go down the drain.
He pulled the platinum cufflinks from his pocket; the engraving on the inside was still there—L&Y 1998.5.20. The engraving was faint, worn down by the cuffs for over a decade, and some strokes were only visible when held up to the light. On May 20, 1998, the day he and An Shiyu registered their marriage, An Shiyu had pinned these cufflinks to his shirt cuffs, saying that from now on, every shirt he wore should have cufflinks, so that no matter where he went, he would remember that someone was waiting for him at home.
He clutched his cufflinks in his hand, turned, and walked to his desk. On the desk lay a photograph—a drawing by his daughter titled "Daddy at Work," a crooked little figure sitting behind the desk, with the word "Daddy" written beside it. He had framed it and placed it in the most prominent position. Next to the frame was another photograph: backstage at the 2006 Macworld conference, he and Steve Jobs were fist-bumping at the camera. Jobs later told him in an email that he had printed two copies of that photo, one in the Apple office and one on his bedside table at home.
Zhao Hu knocked and entered. "President Ling, the car is ready. This afternoon we're going to Beijing to meet with leaders from the Ministry of Information Industry to discuss the implementation plan for 5G standards."
Ling Yun nodded, fastened his cufflinks again, and picked up his coat. As he reached the door, he paused, glancing back at the paper framed on the office wall. The paper was yellowed, the edges slightly curled, and on it were his ten goals written in fountain pen in 2004—each item already checked off. He took a marker from the pen holder, uncapped it, and wrote a line in the blank space of the paper. The sound of the pen nib gliding across the paper was soft, like sand slowly flowing across glass.
"In 1996, I was reborn into this era. At that time, all I wanted was to make some money and make life easier."
"Later, I saw hundreds of laid-off workers fighting tooth and nail for a cleaning job at the gate of an electronics factory. I thought to myself, could we allow more people to work with dignity and live with respect?"
"Later, we were held hostage by the United States. Only then did I truly understand that if your lifeline is in the hands of others, no matter how big you become, it's just a castle built on sand. So we started making operating systems, chips, databases, and cloud computing. Not because these things can make a lot of money, but because with them, Chinese people can truly stand up and speak for themselves in the information technology era."
"This is a long road. It may take ten, twenty, or thirty years. But someone has to start walking it."
He put down his pen. Outside the window, the snow was falling heavily, swirling and swirling, enveloping the entire city in white.
"Twelve years ago, we started this journey. Today, we are still on it. There is no end to this road. Each generation must do its part well."
He capped the marker with a click. Zhao Hu pressed the elevator button, and the doors opened. The sound of young engineers arguing about technical solutions drifted down the corridor. One raised his voice, saying, "Look, this is one way to solve this problem!" Another slammed his fist on the table, saying, "No, no, that will break the modular architecture!" The sounds of keyboard clicks and laughter mingled and spilled out from an open conference room.
The elevator doors closed. The floor indicator lights ticked down one step at a time.
Ling Yun stepped out of the building. The snow had stopped, and sunlight filtered through the clouds, shimmering on the wet pavement. Zhao Hu opened the car door. As he bent down to get in, his phone beeped. It was a text message from An Shiyu: "Our daughter says she misses you. Come home early for dinner tonight. She learned a new dish at school today and insists on making it for you—don't be picky."
Ling Yun smiled after reading the message. He replied, "Okay, no overtime today."
He put his phone back in his pocket and got into the car. The moment the car door closed, the sunlight outside the window shone directly onto the glass curtain wall of the Xinghuo Center, reflecting a soft blue light. In the distance, the lights were still on in the R&D center building; Wang Jianguo was probably arguing with Jiang Feng about some technical solution again.
"Let's go," he said to Zhao Hu. "To Beijing. Come back early tonight; my daughter learned a new dish."
As the car drove out of the park gate, the car radio was playing financial news. The female anchor announced in standard Mandarin: "This morning, Spark System Technology, a subsidiary of Spark Group, officially pushed out Spark OS version 5.0 to developers worldwide. Industry insiders commented that this marks China's independently developed mobile operating system entering the world's top tier..."
Ling Yun leaned back in his seat, gazing out at the streets of Jinan. Twelve years had passed, and he recognized every single tree along this road. Some had been moved, others remained, their branches several times thicker than twelve years ago. Sunlight filtered through the branches, casting dappled shadows on the windshield. The road ahead was still long.
In 2008, the subprime mortgage crisis was brewing across the ocean, and the global industrial chain was about to undergo a dramatic reshuffle. New challenges and opportunities lay ahead: chip manufacturing processes needed to advance from 65 nanometers to 45 nanometers; Noah's Ark's baseband chip still had a year of compatibility testing to complete; Apple's iPhone 3G was rapidly eroding the global market; and Google's Android had already attracted more than thirty mobile phone manufacturers. Spark had just gained a foothold in the global high-end market, and the North American market had not yet truly opened up.
But those are things for tomorrow.
Today, all he wants to do is go home and have dinner.