Chapter 218 One Million, Hand It Over
Since they had already bumped into each other, no matter how busy he was, Su Xinghe could spare half an hour to wait. He even instructed someone to send a Yuanxin business vehicle over.
"Professor Su, the notification's been sent. The car is on its way. Now that the highway is fully open, it should make it in time," Fu Zhenhua said after hanging up the phone, rubbing his hands and smiling. "My mistake. If I'd known, I would've driven the business car directly."
Su Xinghe waved it off. "Not your fault. It's Xiaoshan's for not mentioning it earlier."
Su Yuanshan shrugged. "How is it my fault? It's the school leadership that's careless, not me! Second place in the world, and they just send two teachers to pick them up?"
"Don't talk nonsense. If the leadership didn't care, would the regional qualifiers have been hosted by our university?" Su Xinghe chuckled. "It's better to stay low-key. Celebrate properly on campus later. Make too big a fuss here, and it might not be good for the students."
Su Yuanshan paused, thought for a moment, and smiled. "Well put. Honestly, it's more appropriate to celebrate their honors within the school community."
Father and son chatted casually outside the airport. Fu Zhenhua called again to hurry the driver, and finally, half an hour later, a Yuanxin business vehicle arrived.
At the same time, the flight from Beijing landed.
...
"Professor Su, you really didn't have to," said Teacher Huang Yan from the electronics department. She and Teacher Zhang Xiuyun were colleagues, and she was quite familiar with Su Xinghe. When she saw him at the airport, she hurried over to greet him.
"Hehe, I just happened to land around the same time. Thought I might as well catch a ride with you all back to campus," Su Xinghe said as he shook her hand, then turned to the lead teacher, Mr. Zhou. "Mr. Zhou, thank you for your hard work."
"It was nothing," Zhou replied with a calm smile. "The students prepared thoroughly and worked very hard. That's how we managed to take second place."
"Hmm! I heard only Shanghai University made it into the top ten this time, and Tsinghua didn't even make the cut?"
"They weren't well-prepared and didn't take it seriously enough," Zhou said, smiling politely. "Besides, our team members were all top winners from the National High School Programming Contest—Special Prizes and First Prizes—so their skill level was significantly higher."
At his words, a boy standing next to Ye Rudai looked slightly uncomfortable.
His name was Wen Zitao, a Special Prize winner from the second year of the competition. Having competed in his senior year of high school, he enrolled at the same time as Ye Rudai—who had earned a First Prize a year earlier and had "wasted" a year finishing high school.
However, even his Special Prize couldn't quite match Ye Rudai's capabilities—let alone the top winner from the first year.
Still, Su Xinghe made sure to warmly shake hands and encourage each of the students before ushering them into the business vehicle.
"Dad, I'll ride with my classmates," Su Yuanshan said, following behind like an outsider, sneaking occasional glances at Ye Rudai. Their eyes met briefly, then quickly averted.
As everyone headed toward the parking area, Su Yuanshan naturally took Ye Rudai's suitcase from her. She wanted to protest but finally gave in and retracted her hand.
Professor Su Xinghe noticed their small interaction but simply smiled and said nothing, leading the teachers toward the Mercedes.
Su Yuanshan climbed into the business van last. The strange atmosphere made him a little awkward, so he chuckled dryly and said, "Congratulations on your triumphant return."
The two male students exchanged glances. Finally, Wen Zitao smiled and said, "If Senior Brother had competed with us, we would have taken first place for sure."
During their trip to Phoenix, everything had been arranged by Xinghai—from Tang Wenjie and Yang Yiwen's help to Qin Si's coordination. If they didn't realize Su Yuanshan's true identity by now, they'd have to be blind.
"No, no, I might have dragged you down instead," Su Yuanshan said awkwardly. What made it worse was that Ye Rudai just giggled silently at his embarrassment without saying a word...
So he shut up, pulled out his notebook from his briefcase, and started flipping through his research notes.
With the flash memory and CPU teams now on track, Su Yuanshan finally had time to organize his ideas about graphene.
During the Spring Festival, he had been designing a method to build graphene-based Hall devices. He initially considered using a lithography machine, but ultimately decided that following predecessors' paths—using an etching machine—would be safer.
At the wafer fab, he had already consulted several etching engineers about relevant techniques.
Now everything was ready—except for countless failures needed to accumulate experience.
Su Yuanshan, lost in his formulas, quickly entered a working trance.
Ye Rudai blinked, quietly watching his focused expression, then sighed softly.
When the van pulled up to the tech park's entrance, Su Yuanshan snapped out of his deep concentration.
Apologizing to Ye Rudai, he said, "I'll head back and organize my thoughts first. I won't be seeing you off."
"Mm, go ahead," she replied.
"Come intern with us this summer. Senior Brother Xi has just set up a Pandora Lab. The official requirement for joining is a PhD or equivalent, but for interns, the bar will be set at world-class programming competition results," Su Yuanshan said, closing his notebook. He turned to the two wide-eyed boys and smiled. "You're welcome to apply too."
...
Su Yuanshan watched the van slowly pull away, waving at Ye Rudai through the open window, then dragged his suitcase alone toward the dorms.
Once back in his room, he eagerly pulled out his notes to finalize his graphene project draft.
Just as the sky darkened and he was about to head out for dinner, his phone rang.
Chen Jing's cheerful voice came through the speaker.
"One million yuan. Hand it over."
"Huh?" Su Yuanshan was momentarily confused. Then he immediately realized what she meant, jumped up excitedly, and shouted, "The Thailand deal went through?"
"They're very interested. We're staying here a bit longer. Send the Mobile Communications Equipment Division to bring over a demo set of base station gear," Chen Jing said, then paused and added, "A bit unfortunate though—AIS already signed a 2G agreement with TOT. But getting in touch with True Corp now isn't too late..."
"Mm-hmm! Not too late at all!" Su Yuanshan laughed gleefully into the phone.
Thailand's telecom landscape, much like China's future one, had three major operators. AIS was the dominant player, DTAC second.
True Corp had only just obtained its mobile communications license.
Most importantly, Su Yuanshan knew: True Corp was a true private enterprise—in the future, China Mobile would pay 5.5 billion yuan to acquire an 18% stake, becoming its second-largest shareholder.
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