pertwk Chapter 270 The Meeting in Jinan
Chapter 270 The Meeting in Jinan
February 10, 1998, 5:40 a.m.
The turbulence as the plane landed at Jinan Yaoqiang Airport jolted Ling Yun awake from his light sleep. He opened his eyes; the sky outside the window was still a deep blue, and the runway lights blurred into indistinct clusters in the morning mist.
Ling Yun found the nearest smoking area—a corner separated by glass—went inside, and lit a cigarette. The lighter flame flickered in the dim light. He took a deep drag; the nicotine entered his lungs, stimulating his nerves and dispelling some of his fatigue.
Outside Exit 3, Zhao Weiguo stood next to a black Audi. Seeing Ling Yun come out, he went forward, took the box, and put it in the trunk.
"Go straight to the company?" Zhao Weiguo got into the driver's seat and fastened his seatbelt.
"Let's go back to the apartment first." Ling Yun leaned back in the seat. "What time is the appointment with Old Ni?"
"Ten o'clock this morning, in the Xinghuo Technology conference room." Zhao Weiguo started the car, the headlights cutting through the morning mist. "Wang Jianguo's team has arrived and been arranged to stay at a nearby hotel. Old Ni said they were very nervous and didn't sleep well last night."
"It's normal." Ling Yun closed his eyes. "Anyone would be nervous."
The car entered the airport expressway. Outside the window, the sky was gradually brightening; the poplar trees along the roadside were bare, their branches slicing through the gray-white sky. Occasionally, a truck would pass by, its taillights leaving red trails in the fog.
"Is there any domestic news about the financing?" Lingyun asked.
"Several financial newspapers have written about it," Zhao Weiguo glanced at him in the rearview mirror, "but they didn't mention the specific amount, only that Xingyu completed a new round of financing. On the contrary, news about Microsoft acquiring ICQ is everywhere."
"That's good," Ling Yun said. "It's better to keep a low profile."
At 7:10, he sat down at his desk and opened his laptop. The connection took time, and the dial tone was grating. Once connected, his inbox was overflowing with unread emails.
The first email was from Fiona, timestampd as 3 PM Silicon Valley time yesterday:
"President Ling,
1. The four-party term sheet has been formally signed. The legal department has begun preparing the final agreement, which is expected to take two weeks.
2. The due diligence team will be arriving next week, and I have already made arrangements for their reception and data preparation.
3. Goldman Sachs has recommended three CFO candidates; their resumes are available in your email. One of them previously worked at Yahoo in its early days, making him the best fit in terms of experience.
4. The head of Morgan Stanley's IPO advisory team wants to speak with you next week to confirm the scope of their work.
5. Bill Gates' office contacted me again to inquire about the conference call time. I replied that I was in China and my schedule was undecided.
6. One week after the launch of the Windows version of Xingyu, user growth was 24%, but server load increased by 37%. The technical team requested additional server budget.
7. Mr. Ni Guangnan from China called to confirm today's meeting.
Take care.
Fiona
The attachment contained the CFO candidate's resume and due diligence checklist. Lingyun quickly glanced through it and marked one of the names—David Chen, of Taiwanese descent, Stanford MBA, who had served as Vice President of Finance at Yahoo for three years.
He replied, "We've scheduled an interview with David Chen next week. Everything else is proceeding as planned."
send.
The second message came from Ni Guangnan and was brief: "Wang Jianguo's team of nine has arrived, and the materials are ready. See you at ten o'clock."
The third message was from An Shiyu, sent at 11 p.m. last night: "Was your flight smooth? Take care and get some rest." There was no other content.
He replied, "Everything went well. Shall we have dinner together tonight?"
send.
He closed his email and opened another folder. Inside were project materials for the "Huaxia System"—a summary Ni Guangnan had sent earlier. The document was a scanned copy, somewhat blurry, but the main content was still legible:
Project Name: Huaxia Operating System R&D Project
Undertaking Unit: Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Project Leader: Wang Jianguo (Researcher)
Launch date: June 1995
Current status: Prototype system V0.8, based on Linux 2.0 kernel, with Chinese environment adaptation, basic driver framework, and simple graphical interface completed.
Team size: 19 people (12 researchers, 3 associate researchers, and 4 engineers)
Total expenditure: 82 RMB
Problems faced: Funding exhausted (only enough to last until the end of March), lack of hardware adaptation resources, poor user interface, and no market prospect assessment.
The document concludes with a few screenshots. The graphical interface is indeed rudimentary—the window borders are rough, the icons are heavily pixelated, and the color scheme is a jarring combination of blue and green. However, the kernel modification log shows that the team did a lot of work at the underlying level: Chinese encoding support, a printing driver framework, and simple network protocol stack optimizations.
Lingyun closed the document and glanced at the time: 8:40.
He stood up and walked to the window. The morning mist had dissipated, and the sky was a murky gray-white. Children were playing downstairs, their laughter faintly drifting in.
At 9:20, Zhao Hu knocked on the door precisely on time.
The car headed towards the High-tech Zone. The traffic on the streets gradually thickened, with bicycle bells and car horns mingling. As they passed the gate of Shandong University, Lingyun saw students coming and going in twos and threes, carrying backpacks and with the carefree look of youth on their faces.
Xinghuo Technology's office building is a five-story structure, newly built last year, with its glass curtain wall reflecting a cool light in the morning. The four large red characters "Xinghuo Technology" stand atop the building.
The receptionist on the first floor was a young woman. When she saw Ling Yun enter, she immediately stood up and said, "Good morning, Mr. Ling. Mr. Ni and Professor Wang are already in the conference room on the third floor."
The third-floor corridor was carpeted in gray, absorbing the sound of footsteps. The meeting room door was ajar, and voices could be heard coming from inside.
He pushed the door open and went in.
There were about a dozen people in the conference room. Ni Guangnan sat to the left of the head of the table and nodded to Ling Yun when he saw him. Next to him was a man in his fifties, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with gray hair, a faded gray jacket, and large knuckles. This must be Wang Jianguo.
Eight people, men and women, ranging in age from thirty to fifty, sat across the table. They were all dressed simply and looked reserved. When they saw Ling Yun enter, they stopped talking and all turned to look at him.
"Ling Yun, you've arrived." Ni Guangnan stood up. "Let me introduce you. This is Researcher Wang Jianguo. Jianguo, and this is Ling Yun, the founder of Spark Technology."
Wang Jianguo stood up and extended his hand. His palm was rough, and his grip was strong. "President Ling, I've heard so much about you."
"Hello, Teacher Wang." Ling Yun shook hands, then turned to the others, "Thank you all for coming so early."
Everyone stood up and nodded somewhat hesitantly.
"Please have a seat." Ling Yun walked to the head of the table, took off his coat and draped it over the back of the chair. "Let's get started."
"First of all, thank you all for coming to Jinan to meet." Ling Yun opened his notebook, but didn't look at it. "Professor Ni has already introduced the Huaxia System project to me. I would like to hear Professor Wang and his team's introduction first—the project's progress, technical features, difficulties encountered, and your ideas for future development."