Time flew by, and before we knew it, more than two months had passed.
The originally scorching hot weather had gradually taken on a hint of coolness.
Liu Yutong had also advanced from a sophomore to a junior.
During this period, with the successful restructuring of Wanlong Corporation and the gradual integration between departments, the massive machinery of Wanlong Group was finally able to operate more efficiently.
Previously, Liu Yutong basically had to handle everything herself, keeping an eye on every project out of fear that even the slightest thing would go wrong.
Now, with the establishment of the six business groups, she had fully delegated the decision-making authority for day-to-day operations to the executive presidents and department managers below her, only needing to oversee decisions at the strategic level. This made things much easier.
This was exactly the situation she wanted to see and had to make happen.
A truly mature business empire could not rely on her alone.
The new semester of her junior year began.
At the freshman orientation ceremony, after Liu Yutong gave a speech on stage as an outstanding alumni representative, she went straight to the company and briefly handled the matters at the group that needed her attention.
Progress at LoongCore was encouraging.
Qiu Ciyun had sent a detailed quarterly report: the 90-nanometer production line had been in stable mass production for three months, with the yield rate soaring from less than 70% at initial production to the current 92%, surpassing the industry average. This meant LoongCore had already gained a certain level of profitability.
Research into the 65-nanometer process had also already begun, with expectations for the first tape-out test to be completed by mid-next year at the earliest, or even as early as the start of next year.
At the same time, a veteran domestic color TV giant had taken the initiative to extend an olive branch, wanting to sign a long-term supply agreement with LoongCore to purchase at least two million chips per year for their set-top box and digital TV product lines.
Once this cooperation agreement was signed, along with the previous orders from Qiming Appliances, LoongCore would be able to fully shake off the stage of simply burning money and officially enter a virtuous cycle of self-sustaining revenue generation.
Over in the provincial capital, Yu Xin's mobile phone division was also making rapid progress.
That girl's leadership skills were growing by the day. In just half a month, she had integrated the technical teams recruited from all over the world, quickly negotiated parts supply channels, and established the chip design department for the mobile phone division.
The first engineering prototype was also being rapidly assembled and debugged, and in all likelihood, it wouldn't be long before they could produce a qualified "knockoff" sample device.
Why call it a "knockoff" engineering prototype? Because, apart from the phone's exterior design and an operating system deeply customized from the Android kernel, all other hardware—such as the screen, sensors, and so on—was implemented by piecing together mature, off-the-shelf public mold solutions available on the market.
There was no way around it; at this stage, the domestic smartphone supply chain was still very weak, and the accumulated technical expertise was still far from reaching the heights needed for fully independent research and development.
However, if domestic phones were to truly rise and flourish, the entire domestic industry chain would also be upgraded along with them, shaking off the less-than-glorious label of "knockoff."
The premise was that there had to be a domestic phone maker that could first survive and carve out a path to victory both at home and abroad.
If things went smoothly for Yu Xin, the first phone would be released in the first half of next year.
Aside from Yu Xin's side, there was also the Rice Company in the capital.
Lei Jobs' Rice Company was also developing its first phone at a very fast pace. Their optimistic projection was to release the first Rice phone in the second half of next year.
This pace was a full year earlier than the timeline Liu Yutong remembered from her past life.
Wanlong Aerospace also had good news.
Professor Zhou Yingpei had ultimately accepted her invitation, resigning from his faculty position at National Aerospace University and officially assuming the role of Chief Technology Officer and Chief Engineer at Wanlong Aerospace Technology.
This professor, already past fifty, said something to her over the phone that she remembered clearly:
"Chairman Liu, I didn't accept this because of the high salary you're offering. I accepted because of what you said about making the Dragon Nation's rockets fly higher and farther."
Liu Yutong really wanted to say, "That's not exactly what I said, is it? I recall it was something about being bored and wanting to go sightseeing on Mars."
But no matter what had been said originally, it didn't matter anymore.
The first thing Professor Zhou Yingpei did after taking office was to restart the liquid-oxygen kerosene staged combustion cycle rocket engine project he had been working on for years.
He also brought in some of the key members from the original project team, recruited several young technical talents from the aerospace system through his personal connections, and rented a three-story building in the suburbs of the capital, putting up a sign that read [Wanlong Aerospace Technology R&D Center].
The approval from the Defense Science, Technology, and Industry Bureau had come down, with both the launch vehicle manufacturing license and the satellite frequency band usage rights obtained. The research funding on Zhou Yingpei's side had also started trickling in in batches.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
Over at the Digital Business Group, Zhang Dalong had also submitted a progress report.
The beta version of WeiChat had been completed and was undergoing final internal testing.
This instant messaging application was different from Big Goose's QQ—the interface was more streamlined, and there were no cluttered flashing images, live-streaming gimmicks, or value-added services. Its key selling point was purely clean communication.
LoongPay was also advancing in parallel; the payment license application had already been submitted, and while the approval process would likely take some time, there wouldn't be much of a problem.
Meanwhile, monetization on Weibo had made progress, with the advertising system now live and delivering decent results.
Weibo's registered user count had surpassed 160 million, active users had exceeded 80 million, and daily active users had stabilized at 20 to 30 million.
The pace of new user registrations in recent months had visibly accelerated, thanks to the monumental success of "The Voice of the Dragon Nation." As an almost universally known phenomenon-level music variety show, when its contestants and mentors joined Weibo, it brought a massive influx of traffic to the platform.
On the other side, Pony Ma's Weibo had also been rushed online, making a big splash with a celebrity onboarding strategy from the start.
But what Pony Ma didn't realize was that QQ's social DNA and Weibo's media DNA were simply incompatible—the result of forcing them together could be summed up in one word: failure.
After QQ Weibo was launched, Liu Yutong still gave Pony Ma a call to offer her congratulations.
Until WeiChat was officially released, the relationship between the two sides remained relatively cordial.
In the afternoon, Liu Yutong met again with Wei Xiao, an ordinary member of Cloud Mountain Society.
This was Wei Xiao's second time visiting Pearl City.
The first time was when Chu Junlin came to apologize, where Wei Xiao, as a provisional member of Cloud Mountain Society, had joined Shangguan Ling'er and the others at Wanlong Society's awe-inspiring promotion ceremony.
Back then, he had toured Wanlong Society's security department with great enthusiasm, focusing on the division headed by Yun Cheng and Chu Yang.
But after the tour, he left in complete bewilderment.
Clearly, Wanlong Society's security system had exceeded anything he had imagined, leaving him utterly dumbfounded.
You'd be forgiven for thinking it was some kind of arrogant, shady criminal syndicate.
Wei Xiao had come again this time, mainly to discuss deeper cooperation between the two sides.
