Chapter 172: How to Relieve Worries, Only by Drawing Cakes

The "Old Zhou" in Guo Jingyun's mouth was a thin, tall, thirty-something man who looked like a scholar. Hearing Guo Jingyun's words, Zhou Zhinong shook his head modestly. "Those are just empty names given by peers out of love; they cannot be taken seriously!"

The Zhou Zhinong before him was known as one of the five great programmers in the mainland and was one of the first batch of big-name technical personnel in the country. Others included the "Three Gentlemen of Zhongguancun," and the Boss Qiu who founded Kingsoft was also one of them.

Being honored by peers in the Jianghu with titles like the "Three Gentlemen of Zhongguancun" and the "Five Great Programmers," these people's technology was absolutely top-notch, the kind of character who could hand-craft a set of software alone.

Zhou Zhinong was best known for developing a "Natural Code" input method. The Microsoft double-pinyin input method in his past life was improved after Natural Code was authorized.

This input method was simpler than the Wubi input method and had higher accuracy than the current Pinyin input method. Blind typing could exceed 100 characters per minute. This efficiency was simply a mythical existence now; even Wubi might not have such efficiency.

But everything has its pros and cons. This input method was too expensive—300 yuan per set. That's right, 300 yuan for a set of input method systems!

Those who could afford this input method were mainly companies in the laser typesetting, printing, and other industries. Others were some users who were not short of money and were already accustomed to this input method. As for new users, they had never heard of this input method at all.

But the Natural Code input method had indeed been brilliant a few years ago, and its sales were once considered quite good. But just like the common problem in the software industry now, there was too much piracy. Kingsoft sold a dozen or so ten thousand sets of genuine software, which was already considered high sales, but there were more than a million sets of pirated software in use. Natural Code was the same; the encoding of this input method had long been "borrowed," and there was a pile of pirated copies, so it couldn't be sold for a price anymore.

And for Zhou Zhinong, the most critical thing wasn't the issue of piracy and poor sales. He was currently busy with lawsuits over the patents and copyrights of Natural Code, and he had already invested quite a bit of savings into it.

Because he was exhausted by the lawsuit and his savings were almost exhausted, plus the copyright of Natural Code was also in dispute, Zhou Zhinong agreed to Guo Jingyun's invitation without much thought.

But at the last moment, Zhou Zhinong was reluctant to give up the Natural Code he had built with his own hands. For a while, he was hesitant. He had truly put all his heart and soul into this input method. Even in his past life, when Natural Code was no longer the mainstream input method, he kept updating versions for those few old users.

Today, Zhou Zhinong also came to Hanxi with Guo Jingyun to see Li Dongling, but after arriving at the door, he was a bit discouraged.

When Kingsoft PS was almost completely defeated by Microsoft Office software, Kingsoft still didn't give up. Boss Qiu was not a patient person, but he was quite patient in developing software, not hesitating to push PS to rebuild, spending several years rebuilding Kingsoft.

Seeing Zhou Zhinong's hesitant expression, Guo Jingyun said directly, "Old Zhou, when we see Li Zong later, I will plead with him to help. Let Dongling Gao Ke's Legal Department help you with the lawsuit. Are you still afraid you won't be able to get back the copyright of Natural Code?

Now the two sides are in court, and this lawsuit has been dragging on for more than a year. Zhou Zhinong was exhausted by it, and his savings were almost gone.

Zhou Zhinong was the founder of Natural Code, but a few years ago, he and two others established a company called Chaoxiang together. This company started by selling printers, but it couldn't compete with Sitong at all. Later, it transformed into producing and selling Natural Code. When things were at their best, it could earn more than 2 million a year.

As the inventor of Natural Code and one of the founders of Chaoxiang, he couldn't get R&D funding, and Zhou Zhinong was kicked out of the management team. He couldn't bear it, and Zhou Zhinong, no matter how good his temper was, couldn't bear it anymore. He publicly bombarded Chaoxiang Company in the newspaper, demanding the recovery of the Natural Code copyright. Chaoxiang Company relied on selling this thing to make money now, so how could it let go? The two sides were spraying each other endlessly.

After Tianya Net acquired the Pinyin input method from Wang Xiaolong and Zhu Shoutao, Guo Jingyun saw Zhou Zhinong's lawsuit with Chaoxiang Company and immediately found Zhou Zhinong, wanting him to serve as the person in charge of the Pinyin input method project under Tianya Net!

At this moment, Zhou Zhinong came to the Yuhe Leisure Resort. He knew that as long as he stepped into the gate before him and became the supervisor of the input method under Tianya Net, then perhaps his fame would be even louder than before, and he might even have the same fame as Wang Yongmin, the founder of the Wubi input method, and his salary would be much higher than before.

Those who could hand-craft a set of software alone were all stubborn people. Zhou Zhinong was like this, and Kingsoft's Boss Qiu was the same.

If it continued like this, then perhaps Chaoxiang would really have the opportunity to become an existence like Wangma Company, which sold Wubi input methods. But just like Ni Guangnan at Lenovo, Zhou Zhinong, who was also a technician, encountered the same encounter at Chaoxiang Company.

Now the most critical thing was Tianya Net's input method project. This was a project requested by Li Zong. As long as you did it, the lawsuit with Chaoxiang Company wouldn't count for anything at all, and even Natural Code would have the opportunity to live again!"

Hearing Guo Jingyun's words, Zhou Zhinong finally nodded in agreement. Seeing this, Guo Jingyun finally breathed a sigh of relief, dragged Zhou Zhinong, and entered the Yuhe Leisure Resort.

Like Chen Tao, Lü Wenhua, and others, Guo Jingyun also came from Hanxi Jiaoda. After graduating from Hanxi Jiaoda, he chose to go to Yanjing for graduate school. Afterward, he entered a foreign software company, and in less than a year, he doubled the revenue of that foreign company in the country!

Guo Jingyun understood technology and marketing, and his personality was smooth and his popularity was excellent. He had some friendship with a host of big-name domestic technicians. After Dongling Gao Ke's Internet Business Department was established, they dug up Guo Jingyun to serve as the General Manager of the Internet Department.

Li Dongling came from Hanxi Jiaoda. Inevitably, he would use more people from Hanxi Jiaoda. Many graduates of Hanxi Jiaoda who didn't choose to enter municipal units and state-owned factories made entering Dongling Gao Ke their first choice. It could be foreseen that in the future, the number of people from Hanxi Jiaoda at Dongling Gao Ke would become more and more, and Hanxi Jiaoda might become one of the largest factions within Dongling Gao Ke!

The Yuhe Leisure Resort was still under construction, but after entering, the scale inside still made Zhou Zhinong a bit surprised, especially the swimming pool, resort hotel, and other facilities that were still under construction, which clearly cost quite a bit.

Guo Jingyun took Zhou Zhinong straight to the gymnasium of the Yuhe Leisure Resort. The gymnasium, restaurant, and gym were some of the buildings completed in the resort now.

The five-story gymnasium included a modern basketball court on one floor, as well as table tennis, badminton, roller skating, tennis, bowling, and other venues. These things were considered rare in Pingyang now.

After entering, Zhou Zhinong saw that there were quite a few people inside, especially the basketball court, table tennis, and roller skating venues, which were surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside, with quite a few people, and there were cheers and shouts.

Most of these people were employees of various departments of Dongling Gao Ke. This leisure resort was open to all employees of Dongling Gao Ke, and they were allowed to bring their families to play. The charges inside were only at cost, used to maintain equipment and pay wages to resort personnel.

Plus bowling, tennis, etc., which were unique in Pingyang, so even if it was a drive away from the city, many Dongling Gao Ke employees would still bring their families over on their days off to experience the facilities here. For this reason, Dongling Gao Ke also specially transferred several buses, and the bus fare was charged at market price. These bus lines were quite popular.

Now the Yuhe Leisure Resort, although nominally only open to Dongling Gao Ke employees, some personnel from Pingyang municipal units still ran in under the name of cooperating with Dongling Gao Ke. This kind of thing could not be avoided. However, no matter which unit or department people came from, they had to pay for consumption. If it were free, the Yuhe Leisure Resort wouldn't be able to hold on for long.

Guo Jingyun took Zhou Zhinong to the top floor. The top floor was the bowling alley and tennis court. Today, there were clearly fewer people here. On the one hand, the cost of these two venues was high, and on the other hand, the person using this place today was Li Dongling.

The supervisor of the logistics department of Dongling Gao Ke, who was responsible for managing the Yuhe Leisure Resort, knew that he had to leave the venue even if he didn't have any sense.

Arriving next to the tennis court, Guo Jingyun saw Li Dongling playing against Yao Luoying on the court. Both of them were slightly sweating, clearly having played for a few minutes.

Seeing Guo Jingyun coming over, Li Dongling stopped his racket and walked toward the side of the court. Guo Jingyun handed two towels to Li Dongling and Yao Luoying, then smiled at Yao Luoying. "Mrs. Chairman, did I disturb you?!"

"What nonsense are you talking about!" Yao Luoying's face turned red, and she looked at Guo Jingyun with a straight face, but her gaze couldn't help but look at Li Dongling, and she didn't feel angry in her heart.

Guo Jingyun didn't have any fear. He and many executives within Dongling Gao Ke supported Yao Luoying becoming the wife of Dongling Gao Ke's leader. Having someone who knew the roots and the bottom line become the wife of Dongling Gao Ke's chairman was always better than someone who popped out without knowing the roots and finally turned Dongling Gao Ke upside down. Many companies died from the infighting of the founder's couple.

"It's a matter of time!" Guo Jingyun said with a smile.

Hearing Guo Jingyun's words, Li Dongling just looked at him, but didn't show too much expression. Yao Luoying said to the few people, "You guys talk first, I'll have the restaurant prepare the food!"

"Mr. Zhou, welcome to Dongling Gao Ke. I have heard of your big name for a long time!"

Li Dongling stretched out his hand to Zhou Zhinong. This was not empty talk. As one of the first batch of big-name technicians, people like Boss Qiu had amazing influence in the industry, otherwise, they wouldn't have recruited characters like Lei Busi.

"I hope I won't let Li Zong down. Natural Code has already failed!" Zhou Zhinong said with a bitter smile.

Li Dongling looked at Zhou Zhinong, feeling that Natural Code was almost becoming his inner demon, making him unable to walk out for a long time.

"Wubi input method is not the end of input methods, and Natural Code won't be either. New input methods will constantly appear, replacing the original ones. In the future, there may even be internet input methods, voice input methods, artificial intelligence input methods, etc. Perhaps new technology will appear. Input methods can turn text into language, or turn language into text, or even turn into dozens of dialects, foreign languages, automatic translation..."

Input methods might spark different fires with the internet and even artificial intelligence. Natural Code can not be abandoned, but even more so, one should not abandon the stars and the sea!" ===== CHAPTER 173 =====