Chapter 633: The joys and sorrows of people are not interconnected

Xishan Meishuguan.

At 8:00 PM, the moon was exceptionally bright, its milky light spilling onto the snow, adding a touch of tenderness and tranquility to the cold winter night.

Xu Qingzhou pushed the door open, exhausted, and exhaled into his hands. Returning to a familiar environment always brought an unprecedented sense of relaxation.

Song Yao was not in the living room; only the little good-for-nothing, Er Miao, was patrolling its territory. He went upstairs and saw Song Yao in the study, head bowed, writing her thesis.

Song Xiaohua had already changed into her pajamas. Her face was charming, her skin cold and fair; even without makeup, she remained fair and beautiful. A few loose strands of hair swayed in front of her forehead, but she quickly tucked them behind her ears with her hand.

Seeming to sense someone watching her, Song Yao looked up.

Xu Qingzhou leaned against the doorframe and asked with a smile, "Do you want to take a bath together?"

"No."

The other party ruthlessly rejected your invitation.

Xu Qingzhou shrugged, turned around, and ducked into the bathroom with clean clothes.

After a hot shower, most of his exhaustion vanished. Too lazy to go to the living room, he returned to the study and sprawled out on the sofa, pulling out his phone to check the situation online today.

It was much as he had predicted; the internet was bustling and filled with heated discussion.

In truth, the popularity wouldn't have been so high; after all, he hadn't hired reporters for special coverage, and the research institute's official blog only had a few hundred thousand followers.

He didn't need popularity to attract investment, unlike some institutions that held press conferences every few days, spending all their money on reporters' travel expenses.

However, the authorities had reposted the relevant announcement.

"I bought my plane ticket home for the New Year? Going home on January 23rd."

Song Yao typed for a while with a clatter, moved directly from her chair to the adjacent sofa, and curled up on Xu Qingzhou, intending to rest while holding a human-shaped pillow.

"The 23rd. Hmm, the New Year is in January, earlier than last year."

Xu Qingzhou pulled the girl into his arms. "Distance makes the heart grow fonder; if I stay home too long, I'll be looked down upon by Wang Nushi."

"She looks down on you, not me," Song Yao retorted.

"Just a plastic mother-in-law-daughter-in-law relationship."

Wang Nushi and Song Xiaohua were already two veteran actors.

"Pfft, you're just jealous."

"With the successful announcement of the superconducting thin film, the next phase is when things get truly busy—various collaborations, purchasing equipment, building production lines. How much money do we have left in our account?"

"1.5 billion."

"Still that much left?"

"Much? You don't know the cost of living until you're the one running the household. Researchers' salaries and experimental material consumption have already reached 20 million per month. Buying another piece of equipment or something else will cost hundreds of millions again."

"Besides these, there's the depreciation of large-scale equipment, such as the magnetron sputtering machine and the spherical aberration electron microscope, with an annual average allocation of 5 million to 8 million."

"Stop."

Xu Qingzhou sighed, twirling Song Yao's hair with his fingers, and said, "I'm still better suited to being a hands-off manager; these numbers give me a headache."

Doing experiments is just burning money.

Especially battery-related experiments; the funds required by ordinary university laboratories are usually between 100,000 and 1 million USD, and national-level projects reach millions to tens of millions of USD.

Domestically, CATL's R&D expenses in 2020 were 3.569 billion RMB. Calculated, they invested over 100 million directly in R&D every month, and that didn't include the cost of building factories.

"What would you do without me?"

Song Yao leaned against Xu Qingzhou's chest, a pleasant, fresh scent wafting from under her pajamas.

Ding~

A message notification sounded from the phone on the table.

Xu Qingzhou reached out, took it, glanced at it, and said, "An email from Ma Ersi, probably related to our superconducting thin film."

He put the phone down, waiting until tomorrow to send a formal reply to Ma Ersi.

Buying technology like last time was impossible, but perhaps there could be other collaborations.

"The Xia Nation Ministry of Science and Technology is also in contact with us, planning to form a negotiation team in advance. There will be no shortage of dealing with foreigners in the coming period."

Song Yao said with her eyes closed.

Xu Qingzhou nodded, his gaze dropping to the girl in his arms, and he said in a deep voice, "I've thought of a more important matter."

"Hmm?" ===== CHAPTER 634 =====