Starting From the Chip in 1991

Chapter 69 The Greatest Traitor

Chen Jing buried herself into the warmth of the hotel bed. Once her body and mind were completely relaxed, she grabbed the bedside phone and, following the instructions for international dialing, called her brother's mobile.

"Brother, the problem's been solved."

"Yes, young Su General Manager fixed it alone. Yes, you were right, the magic boy's reputation is well deserved."

A smile curved on Chen Jing's lips as she thought of Su Yuanshan nearly collapsing earlier from low blood sugar due to exhaustion and skipping dinner. Shaking her head, she laughed: "But he's way too obsessed with technology."

Her brother's hearty laugh rang out from the other end of the line: "What scientist isn't obsessed with technology? This kid has a bright future — young, rich, and obsessed with engineering. He might end up being a real-life Iron Man."

"Iron Man?"

"Yeah... a superhero from comics, Iron Man. You don't read comics, so it's hard to explain. Anyway, he's the rich, tech genius type."

"Pfft! Like Kamen Rider?"

"...Not messing around with you anymore. Go get some rest. When are you coming back?"

Chen Jing bit her lip, remembering Su Yuanshan's half-joking, half-serious invitation before they parted, and said softly: "The day after tomorrow. He said he'll write a correction report tomorrow for me to take back."

After hanging up, Chen Jing turned off the lights and gazed out the window at the night sky.

He had invited her to join Yuanchip? How could he even have such an idea?

The next day.

Su Yuanshan took Chen Jing on a tour around Yuanchip, treating it like a casual visit for a potential partner. After one circuit around the company, Su Yuanshan immediately sensed something was off — even Zhou Xiaohui, when handing him documents, whispered: "President Chen has such poise, like an actress straight out of a Hong Kong TV drama."

Su Yuanshan paused his pen for a moment, looked up, and saw Chen Jing sitting quietly on the guest sofa, reading a book while holding a cup of coffee. She appeared focused, calm, intelligent, and graceful.

"President Chen."

Chen Jing looked up: "Hmm?"

Putting down his pen, Su Yuanshan smiled: "Since you're not leaving until tomorrow, could you help me with something today?"

Chen Jing blinked, her eyes immediately sharpening as she smiled playfully: "Please, go ahead, Su General Manager."

Seeing her expression, Su Yuanshan immediately understood — she must have thought he was going to take advantage of her somehow, and was probably already thinking about how to politely refuse. Clearing his throat, he smiled: "Have you seen our new electronic product yet?"

Chen Jing gave him a meaningful look: "You mentioned it before, but you never said exactly what it was."

"I forgot last time. I'll show it to you later. And after that, could you help by making a quick appearance on camera? Just read a short script in English and Chinese."

Chen Jing quickly caught on: "You want me to film an advertisement for you?"

"Yeah — you're not camera-shy, are you?"

Chen Jing stared at Su Yuanshan for a few seconds. Seeing the bloodshot veins in his eyes, she thought about how he had stayed up late solving her problem without even asking for payment, and her initial impulse to refuse softened.

"Don't try to goad me. I'll give it a shot. But I've only hosted school events back in junior high — don't expect too much."

"No worries. Looks are all that matter."

"..."

With the coming of spring, the calendar flipped to April.

The long-awaited Las Vegas International Broadcasting Convention finally arrived.

By late March, Su Yuanshan had already arranged for fifty VCD players to be exported through customs disguised as video recorders. They were shipped to San Francisco first, then securely stored in a Las Vegas warehouse — leaving only one demo unit for Silicon Valley. Given the strict copyright laws in the West, the sample disc they prepared was just a collection of music and dance performances from China's Spring Festival Gala, no full programs.

Even so, when the Xinghai team saw a small device, no larger than an Oxford dictionary, plus a tiny disc, capable of playing video quality rivaling that of VHS tapes, they were blown away.

"There's another disc in here." Qin Si pulled a burned disc from the case.

"Let me finish watching the skit first," Yang Yiwen said, clutching the remote as she laughed at a classic comedy sketch from Zhu Shimao and Chen Peisi, "Brother-in-law and Little Brother-in-law."

"It's a commercial produced by Yuanchip," Qin Si said, inserting the other disc.

The screen flashed, and a standard corporate elite woman appeared. As she fluently spoke English, high-tech images of chip circuits unfolded behind her — representing the advanced technologies Yuanchip used in the VCD. These circuits then transformed into particle streams, assembling into the shape of the VCD device. Countless clips from news, TV shows, and movies floated upward, all compressed into a tiny disc. Finally, a television dropped from the sky, bringing the VCD crashing down onto clumsy, bulky VCRs below, smashing them to pieces.

"Not bad. The model looks good, and her English is solid," Qin Si commented first. "Is she from Yuanchip?"

"Probably hired a professional actress," Yang Yiwen guessed, but she focused more on how it would be perceived by ordinary people: "Some of the technical terms sound complicated. Regular folks might not understand."

Lying on the sofa, Xi Xiaoding chuckled: "Obviously, this wasn't made for TV broadcasts. It's just for the exhibition. Who else but a big spender would produce a full two-minute ad?"

Yang Yiwen remembered how Su Yuanshan had insisted on producing a TV drama to avoid paying for advertising airtime and couldn't help but laugh: "True. As long as it plays continuously at the booth, it's fine."

"Yiwen, prepare a guest room. That guy is arriving tomorrow to 'inspect' our work," Xi Xiaoding said, his lips curling into a smile. "He also said he wants to hire a professional expert — honestly, I wouldn't mind."

...

The next day, Su Yuanshan flew directly from Beijing to San Francisco.

The exhibition would be held from April 11th to 14th, but he arrived three days early. He planned to stay for about half a month to help Xi Xiaoding sort out Silicon Valley operations before returning.

After landing, he gave Xi Xiaoding a big hug, then shrugged toward Yang Yiwen: "Sister-in-law, I was thinking of bringing Senior Brother along too, but since he'll be getting his PhD offer in July, I decided to wait."

"No worries. I'll be heading back to China around that time too," Yang Yiwen said, holding the car keys as she slid into the driver's seat. "You two chat, I'll drive."

The car sped along the highway toward Santa Clara Valley. Sitting together in the back, Su Yuanshan and Xi Xiaoding immediately started discussing work.

The biggest concern was still EDA. Not long ago, Synopsys and Mentor had announced a merger, while Cadence had acquired Protel. Several smaller companies simply folded — some employees joined Xinghai, but most went to the two giants.

In terms of functionality, these two merged entities now had incredibly clear domain divisions — and no one believed they had split it up without backroom deals.

"All indications suggest that Sematech, the semiconductor alliance, directly intervened — Synopsys has reportedly passed the review phase."

"You have to realize, previously no pure software company had ever been admitted into Sematech."

Xi Xiaoding glanced at Su Yuanshan: "The good news is that so far there's been no direct administrative interference. Academic circles here are still relatively free. Plus, thanks to the last expo, the developer forum has become much more active. Several valuable plugins have emerged. Your open-source plugin has been heavily modified and now supports almost all microcontrollers — an unexpected bonus."

"Those brats. I originally released that plugin just to advertise our microcontrollers," Su Yuanshan chuckled, then turned serious. "But it's still too slow. That's why I came early this time."

"If we had no competition, we could grow slowly. But since we do have competitors, we can't afford to move slowly anymore. We need to hire a professional, and pay big."

"Who?"

"Carly Fiorina."

Su Yuanshan smiled as he calmly said the name of a woman — a woman who, later in life, would be called the greatest traitor in Lucent's history.

(End of Chapter 69)

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