Chapter 148 Searching Anew

“I never thought there would actually be a returnee in this world willing to give everything for the motherland. I thought this kind of person had gone completely extinct!” Chen Shoufu sighed with deep emotion as they walked out of Chen Jin’s laboratory.

“Indeed, Chairman. We must find a way to help Professor Chen; he is truly so great!” Even Leng Zhiwen, who was usually stingy with praise, offered heartfelt admiration at that moment.

Yet, no matter how deeply the two of them sighed, Huang He remained completely silent. Ever since he heard the two words "Hanxin," he had essentially assumed this expression. He quickly fabricated an excuse to cut his conversation with Chen Jin short and left the laboratory directly.

“Chairman, do you feel unwell?” Seeing Huang He’s demeanor, Chen Shoufu asked cautiously.

“Not really, I’m just feeling a bit emotional!” Huang He let out a long sigh, a deeply complicated expression on his face.

“Alas, ever since my rebirth, everything has been smooth sailing. Believing I held twenty years of memories in my hands and could see right through everyone in this world, I never imagined I would still end up being deceived!” Huang He lamented inwardly.

Indeed, the reason Huang He felt so distressed was that he realized he had almost been thoroughly and completely conned. If Chen Jin hadn’t let slip the name Hanxin at the very end, Huang He probably would have already been racking his brains to secure ten million US dollars in funding for Chen Jin to use.

Although Huang He loved browsing various news stories and considered himself well-versed in numerous business tales—especially after reading through urban web novels that practically covered every domestic business story—he believed he could see through all the tycoons. However, when he encountered people whose names he hadn't retained, he was completely blind.

Take this Chen Jin, for instance. At first, Huang He had no recollection of who he was whatsoever. It wasn't until he mentioned Hanxin that Huang He understood this fellow was the mastermind behind the most notorious chip scam in history.

Historically, this big returnee, Chen Jin, relied on generic chips imported from the United States, scrubbed off their original markings, and had someone engrave the "Hanxin" logo on them instead, publicly claiming they were independently developed chips.

Even so, what was even more miraculous was that later on, more than ten experts verified these chips and passed them with a 100% approval rate, confirming they were independently developed. In an instant, Hanxin’s fame spread far and wide, and Chen Jin successively secured 1.1 billion RMB in various funds designated for subsequent research and development.

It wasn't until 2006 that the scandal finally broke, becoming one of the biggest jokes in the history of Chinese scientific research.

If it were merely a joke and some wasted money, it might have been tolerable. The true disaster caused by Hanxin, however, was that it destroyed the path of independent chip research in China.

Before Hanxin, many domestic teams were actually engaged in independent chip research. It was just that their chips either hadn't taken shape yet or lagged far behind Hanxin's fabricated data. Once Hanxin emerged, those projects lost their justification for existence and further development, leading to the cancellation of original chip projects one after another and resulting in massive losses.

By the time Hanxin was exposed as a fraud, there were no longer any other research companies or enterprises developing chips domestically. Furthermore, because of the Hanxin incident, the very notion of "independent chip research" became a universally reviled concept in China. At the time, international suppliers also guaranteed an open and unimpeded supply of chips, making domestic research seem entirely unnecessary.

Consequently, the country all but abandoned independent chip research projects until the establishment of a company named HiSilicon years later, prompting China's chip industry to start over from scratch. But by then, it was all too late; the golden decade had been completely squandered, leaving China with no choice but to grit its teeth and endure chip-related extortion.

Huang He had also seen this news in his past life, but he had only remembered the name Hanxin. As for the name Chen Jin, he had completely forgotten it—after all, it was just a news story he had glanced at once or twice, and having no inkling of his own future rebirth, who would bother memorizing such a name?

"No, I must bring this Chen Jin down and crush Hanxin, otherwise China will miss out on a whole decade!" Huang He made up his mind internally, though he also understood that trying to take Chen Jin down right now was impossible.

First of all, Chen Jin was embedded within a university, and Huang He’s secular tactics couldn't touch him there.

Secondly, Huang He could not expose Chen Jin’s fraudulent behavior at this stage. Chen Jin had not yet officially unveiled Hanxin, meaning no fraud had actually been committed yet. To the public, he was still a returnee talent working diligently with a large group of graduate students on scientific research—the future hope of China’s chip industry. Exposing him now without any solid evidence would achieve nothing and simply cause others to dismiss him as a mere rumor-monger.

In fact, Chen Jin’s facade was exceptionally well-constructed. Look at the graduate students working overtime under him day after day, listen to his rhetoric filled with devotion to the motherland, technology, the future, and selflessness... Without concrete evidence, a person like this simply could not be brought down.

Even if Huang He produced evidence of Chen Jin commissioning him to purchase Motorola's data, it would do no good. It might even backfire and help promote Chen Jin’s fame, with people praising him for discarding his own reputation solely to serve the nation's technology.

All in all, after pondering every angle, Boss Huang realized that until Chen Jin actually produced the so-called Hanxin product, there was literally nothing he could do to him.

If that was the case, he shouldn't alert the enemy just yet. It was better to let Chen Jin play his part until the moment of his complete exposure.

Having thought this through, Huang He’s expression finally returned to normal. He turned to Leng Zhiwen and said, "Zhiwen, tomorrow you and Teacher Chen will go see this Boss Chen again. Tell him that our funds are currently extremely tight and we cannot scrape together the ten million US dollars. I will find another way later, apologize to him, and express my deepest regrets!"

"Ah!" Leng Zhiwen froze for a moment, then couldn't help blurting out, "Chairman, we certainly can afford ten million US dollars! Let's help Boss Chen out!"

"Little Zhiwen really is just a tender shoot fresh out of university, completely devoid of worldly experience. She was so easily deceived by Chen Jin!" Huang He sighed inwardly, entirely forgetting that if not for his future memories, he would probably still be racking his brains to gather that ten million for him right now.

Huang He knew Leng Zhiwen’s personality quite well. He knew that issuing a direct command would never truly convince her. With a smile, he said, "Zhiwen, you're right. We can indeed pull together ten million US dollars, but doing so wouldn't be helping Professor Chen—it would thoroughly ruin him instead!"

"I know Professor Chen harbors pure intentions and is willing to sacrifice his personal reputation, but we cannot be party to that. Once the truth comes to light in the future, Professor Chen wouldn't just lose his reputation, honor, and achievements; he might even end up locked behind bars. Tell me, if we helped him commit such an act, wouldn't we be the ones completely destroying him?" Huang He said.

"So that's how it is. Brother-in-law, I was wrong. I was thinking too narrowly!" Leng Zhiwen lowered her head, offering a rare and sincere admission of fault.

"Mhm, just do as I say. You should also try to persuade Professor Chen to abandon this dangerous path. We still have time, and our Jiangnan company has money. As long as he can produce results, Daqian can cover all the expenses. Tell him not to worry about money and to focus entirely on his scientific research!"

"Okay!"

After a night of tossing and turning, it was already around one in the morning by the time they reached the hotel. Lying alone in bed, Huang He found himself restless and unable to fall asleep.

Huang He could no longer touch the Hanxin affair, as he was waiting to expose the scam. However, his plan to manufacture chips had now returned to square one.

"Should I just buy foreign server clusters first?" Huang He thought to himself, but quickly shook his head. Since he had already decided to step into the semiconductor field, he could not back out. Otherwise, the five small targets he had boasted about to Pineapple Beer would probably remain a joke for the rest of his life.

Boss Huang was genuinely determined to achieve those five small targets.

"I refuse to believe that not a single chip expert can be found domestically!" Huang He tossed and turned in bed for an hour, still unable to sleep and unable to conjure up a new path. Ultimately, he decided to put his clothes back on, leave the hotel, and head straight to a nearby internet cafe to go online.

Fortunately, this was the core district of Shanghai, where internet cafes were in no short supply. In an average city, finding one at this hour would have been genuinely difficult.

Of course, Boss Huang wasn't going online to play games. Instead, he opened a search engine, typed in keywords like "chip expert," and tried to track down specialists in the semiconductor sector online.

Yet after searching, the results still heavily favored Chen Jin. Aside from him, there were only a handful of obscure experts, none of whom triggered any memories for Huang He, meaning they likely hadn't achieved any notable breakthroughs in future history.

Still, Huang He didn't give up. He began continuously changing his search keywords, though the results remained less than satisfactory—until he stumbled upon an article titled: *Ark Chip Faces Massive Returns; Ni Guangnan States That We Still Need Time!*

"Ni Guangnan!" The name exploded like a thunderclap in Huang He's mind. Right, how could he have forgotten about this grandmaster!

At that very moment, Huang He's heart surged with an uncontrollable wave of excitement.

His initial knowledge of Ni Guangnan came from a web novel he had read in the past titled *Instant Noodle Richest Man*, which told the story of a protagonist reborn in 1990 who eventually became the richest man in the world.

Although the scope of that novel was grand, the writing was utter trash, overly padded, and terrible at handling romantic subplots—altogether a very bad book. However, the many ideas, creative concepts, and historical figures it mentioned had left a profound impression on Huang He, and chief among them was this very Ni Guangnan.

In that novel, the protagonist relied on this great master Ni Guangnan to build everything from scratch, taking about fifteen years around 2005 to propel China's chip industry and lithography machine business to a world-leading level.

Note that it was world-leading—far ahead of everyone else, in a class of its own.

If even 1% of that novel's plot had any basis in reality, then this Ni Guangnan was entirely worth seeking out!