Chapter 28

Before mobile phones became widespread, the only product that could enable two people separated by thousands of miles to communicate was the landline telephone.

Even if one bought a pager, one still had to use a brick phone or a landline to return the call; brick phones sometimes failed due to poor signal, and most ordinary pager users still had to queue to use a landline to call back.

Two years ago, Japan’s Sanyo Group launched the telecommunications industry’s first cordless telephone, but it failed to make much of a splash due to too many flaws and immature technology.

Li Dongling intended for Dongling High-Tech to launch a digital cordless telephone that offered superior sound quality, stronger confidentiality, and a wider calling range compared to ordinary cordless phones; its greatest feature was that one digital cordless phone could pair with three or even six sub-units.

Pagers would be phased out within a few years and forgotten forever, but landlines would endure; public institutions worldwide—municipal offices, hospitals, fire departments—could never phase out landlines; some emergency units required someone to remain beside the phone twenty-four hours a day, and only landlines could achieve this, ensuring landlines would persist for a very, very long time!

In the years before mobile phones became fully widespread, digital cordless telephones would maintain a steady market; even after mobile phones became ubiquitous, they would continue for many years.

If managed well, Dongling High-Tech could launch the world’s first digital cordless telephone; this business could sustain itself for many years, perhaps even ten or twenty, and if the devices could be sold overseas, wouldn’t they earn more than pagers?!

Pagers in China could only earn money from domestic customers, but if Dongling High-Tech’s digital cordless telephones could be sold overseas, that would be cutting foreign Jiucai —wouldn’t that be better than fighting domestic factories for scraps from the pager market?

The key point was that the bulk of pager profits still went to Motorola and other foreign component suppliers; domestic manufacturers only earned meager hard-earned wages.

Of course, developing a digital cordless telephone wasn’t easy; beyond technical challenges, getting foreign users to accept it would be necessary—and the latter was far more difficult than the former!

Besides the digital cordless telephone, the scroll mouse was another product Li Dongling planned for Dongling High-Tech to launch.

This product wasn’t about how much profit it could bring Dongling High-Tech; its patent and the reputation it could generate for Dongling High-Tech might far exceed its financial returns.

Imagine if the scroll mouse became standard equipment for all computers; how many computers did global manufacturers produce each year? How many mice would they need? Just patent fees alone would be enough to keep Dongling High-Tech well-fed.

And if the scroll mouse became mainstream, its greater value would lie in elevating Dongling High-Tech’s visibility, allowing the company to establish itself in the tech industry and gain user acceptance.

Li Dongling looked at the two sets of blueprints; for someone trained in design, creating these two products wasn’t difficult—but turning them from paper into reality was far from easy.

This wasn’t like satellite dishes, where you just assembled parts; digital cordless telephones and scroll mice involved precision electronic-mechanical systems, requiring genuine technology and a dedicated R&D team.

After studying the blueprints for a long while, Li Dongling packed them away with his notes into the office safe.

Recruiting technical staff and assembling a team in Pingyang, Li Dongling felt it would be difficult; Pingyang had too few technical talents in this field; if he couldn’t recruit locally, he’d have to go to the provincial capital—or even Pengcheng—to poach talent.

Creak.

A wooden door opened; Hu Zi, just returned from the train station, stared at the empty courtyard, dusty and disheveled—he hadn’t expected to come back here.

Weeds had grown thickly across the yard; Hu Zi carried his bag, pushed open the long-unopened door, and a cloud of dust surged into his face, making him cough several times.

Ignoring the dirt, Hu Zi tossed his bag inside and sat on a chair, gazing at the old house; he remembered when he’d passed the college entrance exam and, with all his worldly possessions, proudly declared he’d live in a big city and never return.

Yet now Hu Zi had returned; reflecting on the past decade, he felt it was like a dream.

Hu Zi was among the earliest to enter university; after graduating from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, he joined a state-owned enterprise in Shanghai and rose to Financial Manager; he once designed a new financial audit process for the company, greatly improving efficiency and earning high praise from management.

After several years in the SOE, as foreign enterprises flooded Shanghai, Hu Zi was poached by a multinational corporation as Deputy Financial Director; he performed exceptionally well, earning an annual salary plus bonuses totaling eighty to ninety thousand yuan—then, and even now, this was unquestionably golden-collar level income!

But then came the great rush into business; many of Hu Zi’s former classmates, SOE colleagues, and even current foreign enterprise executives jumped into entrepreneurship, some already amassing millions; this tempted Hu Zi to quit his job and dive into business himself.

Upon arriving in Pengcheng, Hu Zi used his expertise to open a financial consulting firm—essentially helping companies with import-export tax processing and tax avoidance; he made a fortune, far exceeding his foreign enterprise earnings, and within months his net worth reached nearly a million.

The higher his net worth, the more inflated his ambitions became; especially after hearing rumors from Yazhou, he couldn’t resist joining in; initially, things went smoothly—his company once owned an entire building, with a paper value exceeding eighty million yuan, just a stone’s throw from one hundred million—then, overnight, no one wanted property anymore; his real estate became unsellable, yet bank loans still had to be repaid.

Although Yazhou property prices still seemed stable, even occasionally rising, small firms like Hu Zi’s had already collapsed; sensing trouble, Hu Zi cut his losses, sold off all his properties at a loss, and fled back to Pingyang in disgrace.

Trained in finance, Hu Zi had risk awareness; though he’d lost all his earnings, he hadn’t ended up like others—buried in debt, with no chance of redemption, jumping from rooftops.

After cleaning the courtyard and spending one night in makeshift conditions, Hu Zi went out in the morning to buy breakfast and several newspapers; his remaining cash was nearly gone; dreams of a comeback—after weathering such storms—he no longer entertained; having nearly stood on a rooftop, his ambition was shattered; now, his priority was finding a job to earn a living and fill his stomach.

After scanning several newspaper job ads, Hu Zi grew increasingly disappointed; though he didn’t expect high wages in Pingyang, having once handled vast sums, a monthly accountant’s salary of a few hundred yuan felt like a crushing fall.

Hu Zi was even considering going to the provincial capital or returning to Shanghai when he spotted the Pingyang Daily; flipping through the classifieds, he paid no attention—until he saw Dongling High-Tech hiring a Financial Manager, and his gaze froze.

The next day, Hu Zi put on the foreign-brand suit and shoes he’d brought back, tidied himself up, and headed toward Changqing Road where Dongling High-Tech was located.

“Brother Li, it’s been days now, and no suitable candidates have applied for the Finance, HR, or Tech Manager positions—shouldn’t we go recruit in the provincial capital?!”

As days passed without finding suitable personnel and Dongling High-Tech couldn’t begin operations, Li Dongling remained calm, but Gao Peng couldn’t hold back.

“What’s meant to come will come!”

Li Dongling, holding a copy of the Computer Weekly, newly launched last year by Southwest University and the Chongqing Association for Science and Technology, shook his head.

As China’s earliest technology newspaper, the Computer Weekly immediately swept the nation, regarded by countless readers as the industry’s barometer.

As they spoke, the phone on Li Dongling’s desk rang: “I understand—ask the two of them to wait in the reception room; I’ll meet them in the conference room!”

Before arriving, Hu Zi had still harbored doubts; in Pengcheng, he’d seen too many frauds—but upon entering Dongling High-Tech and seeing its office environment, no worse than a foreign enterprise, he immediately relaxed; no scammer would set up such an elaborate operation in a small city like Pingyang—how could they even recoup their costs? What’s the point?

After registering at the front desk, Hu Zi was escorted to the reception room by a receptionist dressed in a white Western-style suit, typical of Hong Kong.

Entering the reception room, Hu Zi saw a tall woman seated with one leg crossed, wearing a red jacket and blue jeans.

Seeing Hu Zi enter, the woman looked up from her magazine and nodded; upon seeing her face, Hu Zi paused in surprise, then nodded back and sat on the opposite side of the room; after years of ups and downs, Hu Zi now knew precisely how to maintain proper boundaries and distance.