Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

He had originally planned to enter the semiconductor industry by starting with chip design, but ARM was dead set on ripping him off, and Chen Yansen wouldn’t stand for it.

If he had to, he would activate his Planck Clock ability for two seconds every single day. He refused to believe that Orange Technology couldn’t crack a problem that even Apple’s R&D department had managed to solve!

If ARM was courting death, then he would be happy to oblige!

Chen Yansen made up his mind on the spot. As soon as his R&D was successful, he would license the technology out at a low cost and drive ARM out of business first.

Seeing this, Wang Teng instantly understood that his boss wasn’t joking. He took a deep breath and said, ”Boss, I know what to do now.”

Meanwhile.

Inside a meeting room at ARM Headquarters, five or six staff members in charge of business negotiations were arguing in hushed tones.

”Warren, your quote is too high. I doubt Orange Technology will agree to it,” one of them, a bald, middle-aged man, said.

”Victor, you don’t understand this phone manufacturer’s position in Asia. I heard that Orange Mobile Phone’s global shipments reached 40 million units in 2012. Do you have any idea what that means?”

another man of average build, dressed in a black suit, retorted with a smile.

”I see your point, but there has to be a reasonable baseline for the price. Your quote is clearly inflated,” Victor said with a shrug.

”No, no, no! People in Asia are richer than you think. Even MediaTek could afford a price of 160 million US dollars. Are you telling me an Asian tycoon worth 50 billion US dollars can’t come up with 200 million?”

Warren waved his hand dismissively.

Victor smiled and shook his head. Just as he was about to speak, he heard a stir outside the door and quickly fell silent.

CREAK!

The door to the conference room slowly swung open. Wang Teng stood in the doorway, his eyes bright, as a faint beam of light from behind him shone into the room.

He was flanked by six staff members.

”Mr. Warren, Mr. Victor, due to your company’s extremely unreasonable quote, my company has decided to terminate the negotiations,” Wang Teng announced, his back ramrod straight.

”Well... that’s a real shame.”

Warren shrugged, looking unconcerned. He saw Wang Teng’s performance as a negotiating ploy, a feint to gain leverage.

In his view, it wouldn’t even take two days for Wang Teng to break and come back to obediently sign the architecture patent licensing agreement with ARM.

He’d seen the same tactic from representatives of Qualcomm, Apple, and MediaTek countless times.

’He’s just trying to bluff me!’

Warren scoffed to himself, then stood up and escorted Wang Teng and his team out of the ARM Headquarters building.

”Victor, want to make a bet? I say they’ll be back at our door within a day,” Warren said to his colleague, his tone certain.

”Judging by his expression when he left, it’ll take a day just for the message to get back up the chain. You’re on! I say two days,” Victor replied, full of confidence.

In 2012, ARM held a dominant position in the global chip design and manufacturing sectors. This was the source of their confidence.

But to Warren and Victor’s surprise, two full days passed without a single call from Orange Technology to schedule another visit.

They only found out after inquiring at Orange Technology’s hotel that the team had left Cambridge a day earlier.

The two men stared at each other, completely baffled.

...

...

At the same time.

Chen Yansen hung up the phone and dove into his research, starting with complex instruction sets and moving on to reduced instruction sets and explicit parallel instruction sets. He studied architectures from x86 to PA-RISC, PowerPC, MIPS, and SPARC, intending to devise a completely new CPU architecture.

His process was to first gather data, then synthesize and restructure it. Finally, he would activate his Planck Clock ability to pick the optimal technical solution from tens of thousands of possibilities.

It had to achieve higher compilation efficiency while also reducing power consumption.

He didn’t leave the office until eight in the evening, utterly exhausted. His eyelids were so heavy, he felt he could fall asleep at any moment.

”Boss, are you all right?”

In the first-floor lobby, Ye Qiuping was just about to leave work for the day when she saw Chen Yansen walking toward her, his face pale.

”I’m fine. I’ll be all right after a good night’s sleep,” Chen Yansen said wearily.

With that, he prepared to get in his car and leave.

Her heart softened, unable to bear seeing him in such a state. She instinctively raised a hand to feel his forehead for a temperature.

”Thank goodness, no fever,” Ye Qiuping breathed, relieved.

Then, ignoring Chen Yansen’s protests, she pushed him into her car.

Seeing this, the driver, Xiaoli, silently slipped into the driver’s seat and, knowing the route by heart, headed straight for Ye Qiuping’s apartment complex.

Chen Yansen leaned on Ye Qiuping’s shoulder, closing his eyes as he took in her soft, milky fragrance.

Despite his haggard appearance, he could, if he wished, unleash tens of thousands of kilograms of force with a casual wave of his hand.

Half an hour later, Chen Yansen was lying on Ye Qiuping’s bed, a small smile playing on his lips as he watched her bustle about.

”Should I make a few side dishes for you? And a bowl of dessert soup?” Ye Qiuping asked tentatively.

”Anything is fine. I trust your cooking,” Chen Yansen said, licking his lips.

Ye Qiuping, catching this small detail, immediately turned to pour him a glass of water.

Unlike the girlish innocence of Meng Jie and Song Yuncheng, Ye Qiuping was like a ripe honey peach, exuding a sweet fragrance.

Her domestic skills were maxed out; not only was she a master in the kitchen, but she could also wash President Chen’s socks and underwear without batting an eye.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he vaguely heard Ye Qiuping calling his name. He slowly opened his eyes to see her holding a bowl of sweet, fermented rice soup with brown sugar.

”Do you want me to feed you?” Ye Qiuping asked with a gentle smile.

Chen Yansen opened his mouth, his intention obvious.

Ye Qiuping scooped up a spoonful of the sweet soup and brought it to his lips, as if caring for a small child.

In no time, Chen Yansen had finished the entire bowl.

When he came out to the living room, he found that Ye Qiuping had already prepared four dishes and a soup. They were all simple, home-style dishes, yet they were exquisitely plated and smelled incredible.

As soon as Chen Yansen sat down, Ye Qiuping handed him a bowl and chopsticks.

”A gift for you.”

Before they started eating, Chen Yansen pulled a key from his pocket and tossed it to her.

”The key to your place?” Ye Qiuping asked, clutching the key as a look of joy bloomed across her face, as radiant as a peach blossom.

”Sort of. The house is in Luzhou, and it’s still being renovated,” Chen Yansen replied.

”How many did you buy?” Ye Qiuping asked out of the blue, silently slipping the key into her pocket.

”Just one,” Chen Yansen said with a straight face.

’Don’t ask. The answer was always ”just one,” no matter who was asking.’

”Thanks.” Ye Qiuping didn’t believe him for a second, but she didn’t call him out on it.

Some things were better left unsaid. It was better for all three, four, or maybe even five of them that way.

”Don’t thank me. It’s just a key,” Chen Yansen teased.

The implication was clear: Ye Qiuping had the right to live there, but not the right of ownership.

”Did you have to spell it out? Couldn’t you have just let me be happy for a few seconds?” Ye Qiuping said, rolling her eyes in a huff.

”When have I ever not made you happy for two hours?” Chen Yansen retorted, raising an eyebrow and giving her a playful look.

”Then you’d better eat up,” Ye Qiuping urged suddenly, her own thoughts a mystery even to herself.

Chen Yansen chuckled. He was only mentally exhausted, not physically incapacitated.

Somehow, in that moment, even the lights overhead seemed to grow much softer.

「The next day at dawn, as the sky began to lighten.」

Chen Yansen got out of bed feeling refreshed and clear-headed. Outside, the world was a blanket of white, with a fine layer of snowflakes dusting the balcony.

It wasn’t even December, yet Xucheng had already seen its first snow.

The cold wind howled past, leaving a low roar in its wake.

Using the Planck Clock for a full three seconds was still a great strain on him. Even though his constitution had surpassed a score of 47, it was just enough to allow him to remain clear-headed and energetic after deactivating the ability.

He now had a general direction for the instruction set design. All that was left was to follow the plan, step by step.

At nine in the morning, Chen Yansen returned to the office. After handling his work emails, he began working on the basis of RISC’s features. He threw out all of ARM’s fixed-length instructions, general-purpose registers, and conditional execution rules, opting instead to use delay slot technology to replace conditional execution.

...

...

”Klock Limited Technology Company? Chang Wei?”

On November 28th, Cheng Wei learned of Chang Wei’s existence for the first time.

DiDi Bike had a new rival!