[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-reborn-starting-from-1993":3,"chapter-reborn-starting-from-1993-reborn-starting-from-1993-chapter-33":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Reborn Starting from 1993",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2357017,4611,"Chapter 33","reborn-starting-from-1993-chapter-33",33,"\u003Cp>Two guards from Li Dongling High-Tech’s Security Department stood at the entrance to the Li Dongling High-Tech laboratory building; Li Dongling High-Tech was not a state-owned enterprise and had no security division, but it had established a Security Department.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All personnel in the Security Department were handpicked by Yang Zhi, mostly individuals with military experience, and some had even seen combat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dongling formed the Security Department primarily to protect the laboratories; domestic companies today had little awareness of confidentiality regarding product development—whether patents or technology—even when they genuinely developed new products, these were often “borrowed” by foreign firms, and sometimes even had their patents preemptively registered by competitors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dongling did not want to make this mistake; the digital cordless phone and the scroll mouse were, in fact, ideas more than technologies—their technical specifications did not greatly surpass existing products; the difference lay in who broke through that thin window first, who registered the patent first, and who launched the product first!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Upon entering the laboratory, the one built by Li Dongling High-Tech certainly could not match top-tier labs, but within its means, Li Dongling had brought the lab to its best possible state—certainly surpassing the hygiene standards and protocols of the vast majority of domestic company labs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao was undoubtedly capable; though he had wasted several years in the original research institute, he had not abandoned his professional skills or let his foundation slip.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Currently, the laboratory was divided into two projects: Chen Tao led a group of researchers focusing on the scroll mouse, which he considered the “easiest” to develop, while another group of technicians worked on the digital cordless phone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao’s plan was to finish the scroll mouse project first, then lead his team to tackle the digital cordless phone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Master Li… Director Li!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As soon as the words left his mouth, Chen Tao immediately corrected himself; back at Hanxi Jiaotong University, he likely wouldn’t have cared at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But years of stagnation in the research institute had tempered his temperament; he now knew what to say in what setting—even though he and Li Dongling were fellow alumni and Li Dongling held him in high regard, in public, Chen Tao still knew how to address Li Dongling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Director Li, this is our first prototype mouse casing!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao proudly presented to Li Dongling the experimental mouse casings he and his team had developed over these days—this efficiency was already astonishing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The expected praise did not come; Chen Tao noticed that since he had seen Li Dongling, the man’s usually gentle face, often lit by a warm smile, visibly darkened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What is this?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I requested a scroll mouse designed with ergonomics—not a plastic shell that hurts your hand!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not only Chen Tao, but every member of the scroll mouse project team stared in shock at the furious Li Dongling; this Li Dongling was nearly unrecognizable from his usual self.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“How long is this mouse? It’s clearly over 117 millimeters—I need a standard household and office mouse size, absolutely no more than 100 millimeters!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao, stunned by the reprimand, stammered, “It’s just a few millimeters more…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“In my company, there is no such thing as a margin of error—I demand the standard, the most ergonomic mouse possible, one that users will instantly recognize as exactly what they need, one that makes them feel clumsy without it, one that gamers treasure as a relic and find their games dull without it!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The material also needs improvement; the current material feels too cheap and plasticky—develop and test several alternative mouse materials.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Also, any new materials or technologies discovered during development must be recorded!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dongling instructed Chen Tao, pointing out flaws in the mouse: fingers and palm must fully conform to its shape, the total weight must be around 90 grams, neither too light nor too heavy, and so on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The technicians beside him recorded every point Li Dongling made; Chen Tao felt as if he had been berated by a tech tyrant, questioning his very life—but after being scolded, he also felt Li Dongling’s points made sense, though he couldn’t explain why, as if reality itself had been twisted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If we continue developing like this, the budget will far exceed limits!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao snapped back to reality and voiced his concern to Li Dongling; according to Li Dongling’s demands, they would need endless experiments and trial-and-error, even developing new materials and designing new mouse sensors—costs would skyrocket. In the research institute, Chen Tao had encountered this before: projects halted mid-development due to lack of funding, eventually abandoned; thus, he was hypersensitive to budget issues.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You tech team don’t need to worry about the budget—that’s my responsibility. Your job is to develop exactly what I require; I’ll handle all other problems!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After speaking, Li Dongling transformed back into the mild-mannered man with the warm smile, leaving Chen Tao and the others with the illusion that the tech tyrant had been a hallucination—yet it had undeniably happened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I know the development schedule is tight, and many of you may need to work overtime this Chinese New Year; so this year, anyone willing to stay and work overtime in the lab will receive an extra two months’ salary.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Additionally, upon successful development, every technician in the mouse development team will receive a bonus of no less than ten thousand yuan.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The mouse industry will forever remember your names; as long as people still use it, no one will forget—you’ve developed a great product!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dongling told Chen Tao and the other technicians; he could be a tech tyrant, but he must also hand out carrots—and if he added a bit of Jitang , the effect would be even better. Don’t ask how Li Dongling knew this—he’d been fed plenty of that toxic Jitang  himself in his past life at the design bureau.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Upon hearing Li Dongling’s words, the technicians instantly became energized; even Chen Tao, who had just been scolded, felt no resentment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>People of this era believed in that kind of Jitang , especially regarding honor—whether personal or collective—and if one could truly leave a name in the annals of science and technology, even without pay, Chen Tao would endure any hardship!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After Li Dongling left, the design team for the mouse project revised their design according to his requirements and produced a new experimental prototype; the designer couldn’t help telling Chen Tao, “Chief Chen, the product designed according to Director Li’s requirements seems… better.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Chen Tao looked over; even though it was only a sketch, as a researcher, his instinct told him that some things could be judged good or bad at a glance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stared for a long while, then finally said to everyone, “Start building it!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a former genius of Hanxi Jiaotong University, Chen Tao had his pride; he wouldn’t easily admit someone was better than him—but he had to admit that some people truly had talent—the kind born with a silver spoon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Competition for satellite dishes came faster than Li Dongling imagined; before month’s end, four or five brands of satellite dishes appeared on the Pingyang market, all launched by local state-owned factories.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When those satellite dish brands hit the market, Pingyang’s local satellite dish prices immediately plummeted; within just a few days, average prices dropped below 300 yuan per unit from an average of 350 yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even so, those satellite dish manufacturers kept producing and even lowered prices further, because the profit margins far exceeded their expectations—they didn’t care about market conditions, only about producing as much as possible; as long as they could sell, price cuts didn’t matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In contrast, the Guanxing satellite dish, unwilling to follow the price cuts, saw its local sales in Pingyang nearly halved; but by then, Yuanqi Factory’s focus had shifted to the southern market, frantically producing satellite dishes for export there, preparing to make one final profit before withdrawing—its interest in Pingyang, Hanxi, or even the northern market had become negligible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, after much delay, Xicheng Wireless Factory No. 1 had once again become bustling—the color TV production line it had purchased was finally ready for operation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Liu Jiande, in charge of production, was not happy; he glared at the head of the production department and snapped, “What do you mean, the workers refuse to come back to work?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The production department head sighed helplessly, “Manager Liu, you know as well as I do—when our factory shut down, everyone was transferred to Yuanqi Factory to produce satellite dishes; now they offer better benefits, while we’re still withholding wages—why would they want to come back here?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Previously, workers from Wireless Factory No. 1 had drifted to Yuanqi Factory and other plants; Xicheng Wireless Factory No. 1 had known but pretended ignorance, even hoping they’d all leave.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because the factory couldn’t pay wages—if workers protested, the factory couldn’t handle it; if they went elsewhere and got paid, they wouldn’t cause trouble, and the leadership was happy to be rid of them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But no one expected they’d refuse to return; Liu Jiande slammed his fist on the table, “I don’t care what your reasons are—tomorrow, city officials will attend the opening ceremony of the color TV production line. You must get them back. If they won’t return, transfer their employment records and make them pack up and leave—we’ve been feeding them for years for nothing!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hearing Liu Jiande’s words, the production department head felt helpless; he knew taking this action would earn him public scorn, rotten eggs thrown at his windows, and possibly even a beating in the dark alley with a dump of foul water—but under Liu Jiande’s pressure, he had no choice.\u003C\u002Fp>",1607,"2026-06-21T04:42:08.057Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","60d87eca4a82eec9a9b77686355da772846fc74f436fcedd8ef7cd28ffb2503d","reborn-starting-from-1993-chapter-34","reborn-starting-from-1993-chapter-32",989,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Freborn-starting-from-1993-cover.jpg"]