The Grandmother in the Siheyuan

Chapter 573 The Iron Lady

Looking at the thriving River Chart runes, Liu Hua felt a surge of pride. He knew that if the US ever cut off chip supplies, the River Chart runes would step up and give the Americans a real shock.

Compared to lithography machines, 3D printers save electricity, water, and time in chip production, making the cost savings incredibly low.

Liu Hua asked President Wang with a smile, "How is the reputation of our Hetu runes in the industry now?"

"What kind of reputation could we possibly have?" Mr. Wang shook his head. "Everyone knows we make industrial chips, and those big companies don't even take us seriously. They don't even give us a second glance."

"But we've already reached 90 nanometers."

Mr. Wang smiled and said, "So what? A little bit is a lot. We are worlds apart from Intel and AMD."

“Is it this big?”

Mr. Wang shook his head: "Actually, the difference is negligible, but the prejudice in people's hearts is a huge mountain. Our main business now is industrial chips. With the addition of the word 'industrial,' we are a third-rate manufacturer in the mainstream chip market."

Liu Hua was very satisfied; this was exactly the kind of reputation he wanted. Playing dumb to fool others—it didn't sound good, but it was really satisfying.

This year is another important year for the Liu family. Liu Qiaotong is taking the college entrance examination this year. The little girl who was once so small has now grown into a young adult.

Liu Hua and Liu Feifei personally escorted her to the exam, a privilege Liu Guodong never received back then. Even Liu Guodong, who was far away in Qingdao conducting trials of seawater hybrid rice, called back the day before the exam to cheer on his younger sister.

As an outsider to the family, Rosamund Kwan joked with Liu Hua outside the examination hall: "Brother-in-law, look at you, an academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, an internationally renowned scholar, and a tech company tycoon, yet neither of your two children are willing to follow in your footsteps. Don't you feel a little regretful about your life?"

"What's there to regret? Guodong is already a well-known rice expert in China, and Qiaotong's grades are also very good. Getting into university is a sure thing. If there's any regret, it just means I'm being too dramatic."

Rosamund Kwan said, puzzled, "But you have profound research in materials science, new energy, mechanical design and semiconductors, but neither of your children are engaged in related work. Doesn't that mean there is no successor?"

"Pah, pah, pah!" Liu Feifei laughed from the side, "You jinx! What do you mean by 'no one can carry on the family line'? Nobody said that just because I do this, my son has to do it too."

Liu Hua nodded: "You don't know much about this kind of thing. I'm already very satisfied. At least my two children were able to get into university through their own efforts. There are some experts and professors' children who can't even get into key universities. Some people can't even get into university without their parents' connections. Compared to them, I'm already very happy."

"That can't be right. These people are all renowned scholars with very high IQs. How could their children be so useless?"

Liu Hua jokingly said, "Let me put it this way: sometimes the higher the parents' achievements, the more likely their children are to be disappointing. Looking at our history, if we don't look at anything else, just look at the emperors. The more powerful the emperor, the worse his children are. Very few are outstanding. And the founding emperors, if you look through the Twenty-Four Histories, none of the founding emperors who were able to conquer the country were the eldest sons of the legitimate wife. From a metaphysical point of view, this is probably because their luck has run out."

Rosamund Kwan nodded as if she understood: "Qiaotong told me before that she only had two majors to choose from when she went to university: international relations and foreign languages. What does she want to do after graduation?" "She wants to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Liu Hua said with a smile. "She admires our Premier the most. Everyone admires the Premier's heroic and valiant demeanor in handling diplomacy. Our Qiaotong wants to become a new generation of iron lady diplomacy."

"A new generation? Are there still older generations of Iron Ladies?"

Liu Hua nodded: "You didn't pay attention to these things before, so you don't know that there used to be an iron lady in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation named Wu Yi, and our Qiaotong admires her very much."

“I know,” Rosamund Kwan said with a smile. “This Iron Lady was very tough when negotiating intellectual property rights with the Americans. I’ve read the reports.”

Liu Qiaotong was admitted to the Foreign Affairs College as she wished, and Liu Hua happily held a thank-you banquet for her. This kind of banquet is just emerging now, and not every student who is admitted to university will hold one.

Liu Hua went to great lengths to invite all the teachers from the school. It was only then that these teachers learned that the little girl they were teaching was actually an academician.

Not only did Liu Hua host a thank-you banquet for the teachers, but he also prepared generous gifts, with each teacher receiving a thank-you gift package worth 10,000 yuan.

Afterwards, Liu Hua felt it was inappropriate, as it could easily foster a competitive atmosphere, but at the time he was so happy that he couldn't stop himself.

Upon learning that his younger sister had been admitted to the Foreign Affairs University, Liu Guodong specially sent her gifts by express delivery, all of which were local specialties from Qingdao.

At the end of 2005, Liu Hua and Zhou Tianxing, the two chief engineers, were invited to attend a meeting hosted by the space agency. Liu Hua originally thought it was just a year-end report summary meeting or outlook meeting for the aerospace field.

The main purpose is to review the past process and plan how to arrange the work for next year.

To Liu Hua's utter surprise, he only learned after attending the meeting that this work outlook exhibition was quite a big deal, as it was actually a discussion about the possibility of our country building its own space station.

The leader began his speech in a very angry tone: "We have applied to enter the United States' International Space Station twice, and both times we have been rejected. The reason given is that our technology is not up to par. Let's not even talk about those countries that originally built it. Countries like Canada, Japan, and South Africa can all enter. Is their space technology that advanced? These countries can all enter, but we are the only ones not allowed to enter. This is targeted."

Liu Hua said lazily, "It's not that they're targeting us, they're afraid. When we were poor and backward, we launched our own rockets and produced our own satellites. If they let us into the International Space Station, our own space station will probably be built soon. Those European and American countries know very well that there are not many areas where they can be ahead of us. If they want to maintain their myth, they can only dig a moat for themselves and keep us out."

The leader nodded: "Academician Liu is right, and it's inspiring. Since they won't let us in, I won't go in either. We'll build our own space station. Academician Liu, how many years do you think it will take us to build our own space station?"

Liu Hua held up one finger: "Ten years is enough."

(End of this chapter)