Chapter 161 Su Yuanshan Also Has His Cowardly Moments
"No, Old Sun. This setup you've got is way too clunky and primitive," Su Yuanshan said, crossing out some calculations and frowning. "This entire block of circuitry could be replaced with a single small audio chip. You're still stuck at the crystal radio stage..."
When Sun Guoqiao heard himself being compared to the crystal radio stage, he became a little indignant. "Audio chips are simpler, sure, but they're expensive!"
"This is a device aimed at the future. Who cares about cost at this stage? Listen to me—integrate wherever possible. What do the textbooks say? Large Scale Integration! High integration! The higher the integration, the better you control costs—especially in assembly line production, where the installation and soldering time for components is extremely precious. If you have dozens of resistors, capacitors, and inductors scattered like this, it wastes a ton of time..."
Hearing this, Sun Guoqiao paused for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I didn't fully think it through."
"Exactly. You can cross out that section first. Speaking of which, this is going to be a real headache. You'll need to program an operating system for the microcontroller, and I think you'll need a 16-bit MCU at least," Su Yuanshan said with a smile. "You'll have to tackle this yourself. If you get stuck with the microcontroller programming, you can ask my dad's graduate students for help. Honestly, if you manage to pull this off, you won't have to worry about your graduation project—this would be enough for a master's thesis, even."
Sun Guoqiao nodded absentmindedly but then lifted his eyes to look past Su Yuanshan.
Seeing Sun Guoqiao staring past him, Su Yuanshan turned around instinctively.
And there he saw Ye Ruda standing there, lips pressed together, her eyes curved like crescent moons, sparkling brightly like stars.
"How long have you been there?" Su Yuanshan picked up his backpack and patted the seat next to him, signaling for Ye Ruda to come sit.
Ye Ruda smiled and moved to sit beside him. She greeted Sun Guoqiao first, then turned her head slightly and smiled sweetly, "Guess."
"Five minutes," Su Yuanshan said immediately.
He knew her guessing games—if it was less than ten minutes, she would ask him to guess. If it was more than ten minutes, she would say she'd been there "a while," and if it was over half an hour, she'd say "a long time." Unless she was in a particularly good mood, then she might still make him guess after a long wait.
"Hehe, I just arrived. As soon as I entered, I saw you two whispering," Ye Ruda said. She glanced at Sun Guoqiao's circuit diagram and smiled. "Senior Sun is building a player, right?"
"Yeah... it's pretty cool," Su Yuanshan said. "Come on, let's not disturb him."
He grabbed his backpack and handed it to Ye Ruda. "Let's go for a walk."
Sun Guoqiao: "..."
Ye Ruda instinctively took the backpack but hesitated. "I wanted to do some studying..."
"Uh... I'm heading to Shanghai tomorrow."
"Oh... then okay."
Ye Ruda lifted the backpack without further protest.
Su Yuanshan turned back and smiled at Sun Guoqiao. "Old Sun, see you later."
Sun Guoqiao: "…Have fun, you two."
...
Since there was no rear exit in the lecture hall, Su Yuanshan and Ye Ruda had to walk out past everyone, attracting no small number of glances.
As they passed Yu Shuyun, she made a little cheering fist motion at them.
The September night breeze was already a little cool, and the air carried the distinct smell of ripe ginkgo fruit.
Ye Ruda carried the backpack. From its lightness and the rustling sounds, she guessed it was full of snack packaging.
They slipped away from the crowd and entered a quiet pathway.
"What's inside?" Ye Ruda lifted the bag under a dim streetlight, her bright eyes shimmering.
Su Yuanshan smiled mischievously at her. "Guess."
Ye Ruda shook the bag lightly and, thinking back to how this guy once stole Professor Xi's snacks to give to her, laughed helplessly. "It's not snacks again, is it?"
"Yep, all your favorites."
Ye Ruda unzipped the backpack, peeked inside, and indeed found it packed with her favorite snacks. She laughed again, shaking her head in mock exasperation.
"Xiaoshan-ge, eating too many snacks will make me fat."
"No worries, it's good to put on a little weight. You've gotten too thin lately," Su Yuanshan chuckled.
Instinctively, he raised his hand, wanting to touch her cheek.
But halfway up, he suddenly froze... and let his hand fall awkwardly.
Ye Ruda bit her lower lip, eyes wide and shining like stars. She stared at Su Yuanshan, her heart pounding.
Again... This guy always acted so naturally around her, as if... deep in his heart, he already considered her either his girlfriend or... his little sister. So familiar, so unguarded, so natural.
She stared stubbornly at him, waiting.
And then... she saw Su Yuanshan, after a brief daze, slowly lower his hand, his eyes filled with that same gentle warmth.
Ye Ruda's racing heart slowly calmed down—but she also felt a slight twinge of disappointment.
This guy... wasn't going to confess? Was he waiting for her to make the first move?
Su Yuanshan also slowly steadied his breathing.
At that moment, he had almost reached out.
But suddenly, he had lost his courage.
He exhaled lightly, looked at her, and smiled wryly. "I suddenly felt nervous."
Ye Ruda pressed her lips together, smiling.
So he had moments of cowardice too... she thought, her earlier disappointment instantly melting away.
She sneaked a glance at his side profile and matched her steps to his.
The two of them walked side by side in silence, their footsteps naturally falling into rhythm.
An invisible bond of understanding slowly spread between them.
This was nice, Ye Ruda thought to herself.
...
The next day, Su Yuanshan and Chen Jing flew to Shanghai together.
Waiting for them at the airport were Yuanxin's two major leaders—Li Mingliu and Jiang Tao.
"You two came together?" After Chen Jing shook hands with them, Su Yuanshan greeted them with hugs and backslaps.
Li Mingliu's team was currently the busiest in all of Yuanxin. Almost all the new hires had been assigned to him, swelling his group to two hundred people.
"Since you and President Chen both came, of course, we both had to show up," Li Mingliu laughed.
"Originally, some government officials wanted to come too, but Tao and I managed to convince them otherwise."
Su Yuanshan grinned. "How did you convince them?"
Jiang Tao, laughing nearby, said, "We told them you were bringing your mistress and didn't want government officials spying."
Pfft—
Chen Jing almost couldn't hold back her laughter.
Su Yuanshan shot Jiang Tao a glare. "Senior Brother Jiang, don't talk nonsense."
"He's not lying... that's exactly what we told them, and they actually believed it," Li Mingliu said, roaring with laughter.
Chen Jing joked light-heartedly, "It's fine. I'll just pretend to be your secretary."
"Better not," Su Yuanshan said. "You're my sister—and they're both my elder brothers. Let's go back to the company first. I want to check on the project progress before we start charming the government."
Since Su Yuanshan and Chen Jing had traveled together, it was natural that Su Yuanshan would personally inspect the technical team.
After all, cache technology was one of the core components of CPU design.
Meanwhile, Chen Jing would focus on land acquisition negotiations and signing, since she was the CEO.
If Chen Jing couldn't seal the deal, then Su Yuanshan would step in to sweet-talk them.
Although this might slightly undermine Chen Jing's position, it was already an open secret in the industry that Su Yuanshan was Yuanxin's real controller—and the government's investment offices were even sharper at sensing power dynamics.
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