bioinnovel Chapter 38 Even the CEO Needs a Reward
Chapter 38 Even the CEO Needs a Reward
Li Jianguo's ninety-degree bow almost slammed his forehead onto the polished conference table.
The fleeting sense of satisfaction he felt from crushing Academician Zhou was instantly extinguished by a bucket of ice water called "responsibility." He just wanted to be a nobody, so why was that so difficult?
He pursed his lips, not bothering to help Li Jianguo, but instead nudged Su Wanqing, who was already petrified, with his chin.
"Get the contract and the money from her."
"I'm only responsible for solving problems; don't bother me with procedural stuff."
After speaking, he stood up, put his hands in his pockets, yawned, and slowly strolled out of the conference room under the complicated gazes of the crowd.
He needs to hurry back and catch up on some sleep, otherwise this endless trouble will eventually burn out his genius brain.
~
In the following weeks, everything went strangely smoothly.
With her impeccable professional skills, Su Wanqing finalized all the details of the "Qiming No. 1 AI Optimization Service" contract within half a day. A huge advance payment, enough to make any startup founder have a heart attack, was quietly transferred into Zero Boundary Technology's account.
Under Su Wanqing's decisive and efficient planning, the company's framework was established at an astonishing speed. Departments such as human resources, finance, and legal affairs were created one by one from scratch. She even recruited several outstanding key members from her student union network to quickly fill the vacancies in various positions.
The "Qiming-1" laboratory became Bai Che's personal kingdom. The military not only provided top-of-the-line equipment but also dispatched a support team composed of experts from various fields, on standby 24 hours a day. Their sole mission was to meet any technical needs that Bai Che made.
Everything is rushing headlong into a bright and correct direction.
But Bai Che noticed that Su Wanqing was becoming increasingly difficult to see.
She seemed to have become a rapidly spinning top, with endless documents to process and meetings to attend. On one hand, there was the myriad tasks of Zero Boundary Technology's early days, and on the other hand, there were the military's ridiculously strict confidentiality regulations and coordination procedures.
She took on all the things that Bai Che considered "troublesome" and created an absolutely pure research environment for him.
Bai Che would occasionally go to the lab late at night to get something, and he would always see her office light still on. Her figure, bent over her desk, was outlined by the light and looked somewhat thin.
The coffee cups piled up on the corner of the table, and her reply speed to his messages changed from instantaneous replies to short sentences several hours later.
"receive."
"Processed."
"no problem."
Looking at these cold characters, Bai Che felt that inexplicable sense of unease begin to quietly grow in his heart again.
That day, he was in the lab optimizing Academician Zhou's messy algorithm when he casually opened the company's shared calendar, wanting to see what kind of inhumane meeting Su Wanqing had scheduled for tomorrow.
An automatically popped-up memo was pinned to the top of the calendar.
[Su Wanqing's birthday, October 26th]
Bai Che's fingertip hovered over the touchpad. He glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen.
November 26th, 10 PM.
She even forgot her own birthday.
Bai Che stared at the lonely memo, remaining silent for a long time. The image of Su Wanqing's perpetually tense face and her phoenix eyes, occasionally revealing weariness, floated into his mind.
Fine, considering how hard she works, let's just consider it a perk for an outstanding employee.
Bai Che found a perfect excuse for himself, then closed the algorithm interface, got up and walked towards the laboratory's materials library.
He bypassed the neatly arranged finished flexible batteries labeled "Military Grade Special" and went straight to a metal scrap recycling bin in the corner.
The boxes were filled with scraps discarded during the production of the Soft-8 military battery due to size discrepancies or minor defects in energy density. To those military experts, these were worthless industrial waste, their only purpose being to be melted down and recycled.
Bai Che bent down and reached inside, as if searching for treasure in a garbage dump. He picked and chose, taking out several irregularly shaped but intact thin sheets of flexible material.
In his eyes, these were not trash. They were the foundation upon which magic was built.
He returned to his individual workbench and laid out the scraps. Then, he took out a reel of programmable micro-LED optical fibers, as thin as a hair, from a drawer.
Over the next few hours, Bai Che displayed a side completely different from his usual lazy image.
His hands were steady and dexterous, precisely cutting and piecing together the flexible materials. The process didn't resemble cold industrial manufacturing; rather, it was more like a top tailor sewing a haute couture gown.
He meticulously embedded each micro-LED optical fiber into the layers of flexible material in an intricate matrix arrangement. Countless tiny points of light were brought to life under his fingertips.
"Brother Che! My dear brother! The midnight snack is here!"
Wang Tao's loud voice suddenly came from the doorway. He was carrying two large bags of barbecue and was about to barge in.
Without even looking up, Bai Che grabbed an empty parts box from the table and smashed it precisely onto Wang Tao's forehead.
"Get out."
Wang Tao covered his head, looking aggrieved. "What are you doing, Che-ge? I was just trying to be nice and brought you food... Damn, what are you doing sneaking around like that?"
His gaze passed over Bai Che's shoulder and landed on the worktable on a strange object that was beginning to take shape and looked like a piece of clothing.
Before he could see clearly, Bai Che had already rushed over, grabbed him by the back of his collar like an eagle snatching a chick, and dragged him outside.
"Don't look at what you shouldn't see, and don't ask what you shouldn't ask." Bai Che lowered his voice and warned, "If you dare to reveal a single word to Su Wanqing, I'll buy you hemorrhoid cream for the rest of your life, so you can use it until the end of time."
Upon hearing the words "hemorrhoid cream," Wang Tao's anus instantly tightened, his face turned pale, and he shook his head vigorously.
"No, no! I didn't see anything! Brother Che, you're busy, I'll get going right now!"
After saying that, he put the barbecue on the ground and scrambled away, disappearing at the end of the corridor.
The world is quiet again.
Bai Che locked the door and returned to his workbench. Looking at the nearly completed piece, a feeling he had never experienced before, a mixture of anticipation and a slight nervousness, quietly began to ferment in his heart.
This feeling is even more exciting than tinkering with an arc reactor by hand.
It was late that night, at 11:59 PM.
The light in Su Wanqing's office was still on.
She rubbed her aching temples and drank her fifth cup of instant coffee of the day. Before her lay a complex report on Zero Boundary Technology's overseas patent strategy; she needed a complete plan by tomorrow morning.
Just then, there was a gentle knock on the office door.
"Please come in." She assumed he was a security guard on duty.
The door was pushed open, and Bai Che walked in.
He changed out of his ever-present T-shirt and slippers and put on a clean white shirt. In his hands, he was carrying a huge, somewhat exaggerated gift box, wrapped in the most ordinary kraft paper, which seemed a bit out of place.
Su Wanqing looked at him with some surprise.
"It's so late, is something the matter?"
Bai Che gently placed the enormous box on her desk and pushed it in front of her. The box took up almost half the desk, blocking the pile of documents.
He didn't answer her question, but just looked at her with those always weary eyes and spoke.
"President Su, put this on."
"I'll show you something good."