DreamersGN Chapter 228 Why
Chapter 228 Why
1:50 PM.
Su Chen was still standing on the stage.
At that moment, a reporter stood up. He raised his hand. His name tag read "Caijing".
"Academician Su Chen," he said, "please allow me to ask a question that may be somewhat inappropriate."
Su Chen glanced at him and nodded.
"You are twenty-eight years old this year," the reporter said. "Today you were elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. You are Liang Ying's representative in the field of modern education. Vilan is currently valued at 30 billion yuan. Based on your shareholding in Vilan, your personal equity has exceeded 2 billion yuan."
He paused for a moment.
"But you just announced that all of Vilan's net profits over the next eight years, after deducting operating and employee compensation, will be reinvested back into the industry." He looked up. "You also personally announced that you will invest the first 50 million into the 'Seed Project Cultivation Fund'."
"What I want to ask is," he said, "why?"
He stopped.
"You can absolutely choose a different life," the reporter continued. "Twenty-eight years old, two billion yuan on paper, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. You can put that money in a trust. You can buy houses, cars, yachts, islands. This is the reward any entrepreneur deserves after hard work."
He paused.
"You've invested it all back into the industry," he said. "I'm not questioning the decision. I'm asking—why?"
The audience was silent.
The 3,100 people in the audience were waiting for this answer.
Meanwhile, waiting for this answer on the internet were 4.3 million online viewers in Youku's live broadcast room, 2.1 million real-time comments under the text and image live broadcast on Xinchao Portal, and red pop-ups pushed to 18 million mobile phones by the Goose News client.
Su Chen put down the microphone.
He lowered his head. He was thinking.
He thought for about ten seconds.
He picked up the microphone again.
"That's a question," he said. "I'd like to answer it with a memory from my own experience."
He looked up.
"I've been an engineer for eight years," he said. "I've met four types of engineers."
He paused.
"The first type is the one struggling to make ends meet," he said. "Right after graduation, earning three to five thousand a month, renting an apartment in a first-tier city, and working overtime until 11 pm every day. This type of engineer's goal is simply to avoid a rent increase next month."
Someone in the audience chuckled. It was a bitter laugh.
"The second type is the 'safe period'," he said. "Working for three to five years, earning 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a month, having some savings, and starting to consider buying a house, getting married, and having children. This type of engineer's goal is to avoid being laid off."
A few people in the audience gave a wry smile.
"The third type is the achievement stage," Su Chen said. "After working for eight to twelve years, you start leading teams and working on projects, and you can produce one or two representative works that you can put on your resume. This type of engineer pursues the next project to be more difficult, larger, and more visible in the industry."
He paused.
"The fourth one," he said.
He paused for a moment.
"The fourth type of engineer strives to create something that his colleagues don't have to do again."
The audience was silent.
"I've met some fourth-type engineers," Su Chen said. "I met one in the lab at Shanghai Microelectronics. I met two in the corridor of the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. I met one in the algorithm department of BGI Genomics. I met one at the GELON Electronics site. I saw one's paper in TSMC's process documentation."
He paused.
"Of these six, five are still on duty today," he said. "One is not here."
He didn't say his name. But some people in the audience understood.
"Of these five," he said, "I asked three of them the same question: 'What's the most painful part of doing this?'"
He paused.
"The three answers were highly consistent," he said.
The first person said, "The most painful thing isn't the technical difficulty. It's that even after I've built it, the next generation of engineers have to do it all over again. Because what I made is running on a platform that doesn't belong to us."
The second person said, "The most painful thing isn't being stuck. It's when I'm in a meeting with a client, and the client asks me: 'Can your solution run in Ansys?' I say no. The client says: 'Then it won't work.'"
The third person said, "The most painful thing isn't not having money. It's that I developed the solution, published it at an international conference, and three months later, I saw a foreign company buy my algorithm and then sell it back to our company for twenty times the cost I estimated in my paper."
He looked up.
"These three sentences," he said, "I've remembered them for eight years."
He paused.
"The reporter from Caijing magazine just asked me why I invested all my money back into industry."
He glanced at the reporter.
"Because the two billion I have on my books," he said, "can't buy me these three sentences from being said again."
He stopped.
"But enlightenment is possible."
The audience was silent.
There was silence for about eight seconds.
Then a clapping started.
The applause was slow. It started from the front row and moved backward. By the time the applause reached the fifth row, all twenty-one engineers had stood up.
They clapped. They didn't say anything.
The engineer from Huada Jiutian in the fifth row had red eyes when he clapped.
CCTV's cameras captured the fifth row.
The shot paused for seven seconds.
In seven seconds, the whole country saw those twenty-one engineers.
In the Youku live stream chat room, 13,000 comments scrolled by in seven seconds.
The first rule is: "I am also an engineer."
The second one is: "Me too."
The third point is: "My father is."
The next twelve entries read, "My colleague's paper was bought."
The following text reads, "In the previous project, we used Ansys. It was the client's requirement."
The next line is "I cried."
This was followed by a series of "I cried".
In the real-time comment section of the Tencent News app, the push speed increased from eight comments per second to seventy-two comments per second within seven seconds.
The top trending topic has been replaced.
The top trending topic changed from "#Enlightenment#" to "#The Fourth Type of Engineer#".
The number of views exceeded two billion within two hours.
On the stage.
Su Chen hadn't finished speaking yet.
He waited for the palm strike to stop.
"That reporter just asked me another question," he said, "What else do I have besides Qiming?"
He paused.
"There are many more," he said. "Let me list them."
He raised his hand to count.
"First, materials. The Institute of Basic Materials will be established this year. The first batch of research directions includes: advanced photoresists, ultra-low dielectric constant materials, third-generation semiconductor substrates, and engineering of two-dimensional materials."
"Secondly, equipment. The joint laboratory of the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences is already underway. The next step is to add five more companies: Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment, North Microelectronics, AMEC, ACM Research, and Sinyuan Microelectronics. Together, we will build a three-axis integrated debugging platform for 'equipment-process-simulation'."
"Third, talent. Under the Liangying brand, we launched the 'Seed Program'. Each year, we will provide comprehensive training for 1,000 undergraduates, 500 master's students, and 100 doctoral students. After completing the training, they will not be bound by any contracts and can go wherever they want. We hope that some of them will be willing to come back."
"Fourth, standards. Starting in the second half of this year, we will promote the establishment of the 'China Industrial Simulation Standards Association'. We will write the interfaces, file formats, and parameter systems in our chain into China's own standards. This is something that one person cannot do alone; it requires an association, an alliance, and the industry."
"Fifth." He paused for a moment.
"I'd like to save the fifth point for last," he said.
He looked up.
"Let me first explain why I listed these five things."
He put down the microphone, paused for two seconds, and then picked it up again.
“1996,” he said. “The year the Wassenaar Arrangement came into effect, I was thirteen. My dad was an engineer at a research institute in Shanghai. I remember that year we got an imported oscilloscope. My dad was happy for a week.”
He paused.
"That oscilloscope had a glass cover," he said. "The cover was locked. The maintenance engineer came from overseas. When he was doing maintenance, my dad had to leave the machine room and stand outside in the hallway. The maintenance engineer operated it inside. My dad stood in the hallway."
He looked up.
"I was thirteen years old that year," he said. "I went to the research institute with my dad that day. I was standing with my dad in the corridor. I watched that door close."
"My dad said something to me." He paused.
He said, "From now on, we'll open these doors ourselves."
The audience was silent.
"My dad is sixty-eight years old this year," Su Chen said. "He's been retired for nine years. He had a stroke two years ago. Now his speech isn't very clear."
He paused.
"He didn't know I was on stage today," he said. "He's at home in Shanghai, probably taking a nap."
He looked up.
"But what I'm saying on stage today," he said, "is on his behalf."
The audience was silent.
In the next row, the seventh row, stood an elderly man with gray hair, wearing a hearing aid. He was looking down. He was wiping his eyes. He wasn't Su Chen's father. He was another veteran engineer. He had worked in instrumentation for forty years.
The person next to him was also there.
The one next to him is the same.
The seventh row was filled with retired engineers. They were invited.
They all understood.
They were wiping their eyes.
The live stream chat on Youku is completely choppy. The backend shows that the push rate is reaching 11,000 messages per second. The system is throttling traffic.
Su Chen was still talking.
"I listed those five things," he said. "The core of it is one sentence."
He looked up.
"I hope that the next thirteen-year-old child won't have to stand outside in the corridor when he goes to the research institute with his father."
He paused.
"This is my fifth thing," he said, "and that's why I put the two billion back into the bank."
"Because two billion on paper can't buy this one sentence," he said. "But Qiming can. Basic materials can. Equipment can. Talent can. Standards can."
"Put them together." He looked up. "Yes."
The audience was silent.
There was silence for about twelve seconds.
Then a clapping started.
The applause passed from the front row to the back. When it reached the seventh row of senior engineers, they didn't clap. They were crying.
When the applause reached the twenty-one engineers in the fifth row, they didn't clap. Instead, they stood up and bowed towards the stage.
CCTV's cameras captured that bow.
That bow was seen by the whole nation.
The People's Daily app push notification at 11 p.m. that evening had a six-character title:
"Open the door for your father."
That post garnered over six billion views within 24 hours.
6 PM. Shanghai. Vilan Headquarters. 32nd Floor. Lin Wei's Office.
Lin Wei stood in front of the glass window.
Outside the window is the Huangpu River bathed in the light of six o'clock in the afternoon.
She had no more paper.
Her phone rang. She picked it up and looked at it.
It was sent by Su Chen.
Su Chen sent a message:
"He didn't know I was on stage today. But I spoke for him."
Lin Wei stared at it for a long time.
She replied with one word:
"it is good."
She put down her phone.
She turned around. She went back to her desk. She picked up the pen from the desk.
She wrote another line on the back of the "Enlightenment" folder.
This line was written below the line she wrote last night, "She's gone."
This line is:
"Open the door for him."
She closed the folder.
She looked up at the window.
The lights of Shanghai outside the window are coming on one by one.