Soul Returns to Hong Kong: From Tailor Shop to Richest Woman

December 28th, Shenzhen.

Three long queues stretched from the main entrance to the other side of the road outside the Shenzhen Science Park International Conference Center. Lin Ying stood in the crowd, wearing a baseball cap and an ordinary black down jacket, blending into a group of reporters and tech media, and no one noticed her.

The large screen at the press conference displayed the words: Huaxin Communications - New Generation Portable Mobile Phone Terminal.

Lin Ying looked at the line of text. Almost half a year had passed since she pressed the first dial button at D6 in July, and now she was standing in this venue watching her work being officially released.

As the host stepped onto the stage, a flurry of flashbulbs went off from the audience.

A middle-aged man walked onto the stage. Lin Ying didn't recognize him; he was probably the head of Huaxin Communications. He was wearing a dark suit and holding something in his hand: a mobile phone.

It's barely the size of a palm, less than four centimeters thick, with a short antenna tucked into the top, and a dark gray engineering plastic casing.

The audience erupted in cheers instantly;

"Is this a cell phone?!"

"So small?!"

"Can I make a phone call through this?"

The middle-aged man brought his phone close to the microphone and pressed the dial button; a clear dial tone came from the speaker, and the call connected, accompanied by a female voice: "Hey? Received! Good signal!"

All the reporters in the audience stood up.

The middle-aged man began to introduce the specifications: weight 320 grams, standby time 48 hours, talk time 3 hours, supports SMS sending and receiving, and the built-in phonebook can store 200 numbers.

Lin Ying listened from below. The data on the battery was even better than she had initially estimated. Lao Fan and his team had optimized it again later.

Then there's the price.

Retail price: 6666 RMB; Network access fee: 200 RMB.

The moment those words were spoken, the entire atmosphere in the hall changed.

You should know that the cheapest mobile phones on the market now start at 25,000 yuan, and the network access fee ranges from 6,000 to 10,000 yuan; all together, a mobile phone costs 30,000 to 40,000 yuan.

Flip-style pocket phones are more expensive; the Motorola one costs 28,000 yuan, and it doesn't have as many functions as this one.

6666 plus 200, less than 7,000 yuan.

A self-employed individual, a small business owner, or even a white-collar worker with a higher salary can afford it by gritting their teeth.

The press area was in an uproar; people were practically reaching their arms to the ceiling to ask questions.

Lin Ying stopped watching and left the venue through a side door.

The air outside was cold, and the December wind in Shenzhen carried a hint of the sea. She stood by the roadside for a while, and a black sedan stopped in front of her. Li Xiao leaned out from the driver's seat and said, "Comrade Li Hua, get in the car."

Lin Ying opened the back door and sat inside.

There was a cardboard box on the back seat, containing five mobile phones neatly stacked inside, each one wrapped in a velvet bag.

"Professor Meng asked me to bring these to you." Li Xiao looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Secretary Zhou also gave instructions, saying that these five are specially approved commemorative project machines, numbered in the first fifty, and have collectible value."

Lin Ying took out a phone, pulled it out of the velvet bag, and held it in her hand.

It weighs 320 grams, almost 100 grams lighter than the prototype she held in the lab; the shell also feels better than the prototype, with rounded edges.

"Can it be used in Hong Kong?" Lin Ying asked.

"It's not available for now," Li said with a smile. "There are no base stations built in Hong Kong yet, so the signal doesn't cover the area; however, I heard that the agreement is already under negotiation, and it should be operational in the first half of next year."

Lin Ying put the phone back into the velvet bag, and then put it back into the cardboard box.

Five mobile phones.

Professor Meng was referring to "commemoration".

She spent nearly a year and a half at D6, working her way up from cathode materials for lithium batteries to chip fabrication and system integration. She participated in every module and solved every problem. Yet her name never appeared in any public setting, in any news reports, or on that middle-aged man's PowerPoint presentation.

It was Li Hua who appeared.

Lin Ying leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a while.

She has no regrets.

Li Xiao drove for a while, then glanced at her again in the rearview mirror: "Comrade Lin Ying, how did you feel about going to the press conference today?"

"How did you feel?" Lin Ying opened her eyes. "I just thought their presentation was pretty ugly."

Li laughed out loud.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

It was already evening the next day when they returned to Hong Kong; Lin Ying carried the cardboard box into her home in Taikoo Shing, where Lin Lanying was cooking soup in the kitchen.

"You're back? Was Shenzhen fun?"

"I went to a product launch event." Lin Ying placed the cardboard box on the coffee table in the living room.

He Dazhu poked his head in from the balcony: "What press conference?"

"A cell phone." Lin Ying opened the box, took out a phone, and handed it to He Dazhu. "Old Dou, take a look at this."

He Dazhu took it and examined it for a long time, turning it over and over: "This is a telephone too? It's not much bigger than your mother's pager!"

"It can make phone calls and send text messages."

He Dazhu pressed a few keys, and the screen lit up, displaying a line of small green text.

"How much is it?"

"Six thousand six hundred and sixty-six yuan."

He Dazhu exclaimed, "Over six thousand RMB?! Last time I looked at mobile phones in Luohu, the cheapest one cost twenty-five thousand!"

That's why I said it's cheap.

Lin Lanying leaned closer to take a look: "Can we use this?"

"Not at the moment, there are no base stations in Hong Kong yet."

"Then why did you buy it?"

Lin Ying didn't answer the question. Instead, she took out all five cell phones and placed them on the coffee table: "One for Grandpa and Grandma, one for Uncle and Aunt, one for Older Brother and Mommy, and one for each of you; I'll keep the last one myself."

"If you can't send it, what should you send it to?" Lin Lanying didn't understand.

"They can be used in the future; moreover, these numbers are early and have commemorative significance."

He Dazhu held the phone up to the light for a closer look, muttering, "This little thing can really make calls? Is it just a toy?"

"It's not a toy; the call was made on the spot at the Shenzhen press conference."

He Dazhu clicked his tongue: "The person who invented this thing must be really smart."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

In the following days, news about this phone flooded the internet.

Lin Ying was watching TV in her living room in Taikoo Shing. TVB news was broadcasting: "China's first domestically developed portable mobile phone has been officially released, priced at only a quarter of similar products, causing a stir in the global telecommunications industry; it is reported that the product uses brand-new lithium-ion battery technology and a self-designed baseband chip, with many core patents being the first of their kind in China..."

The scene then cuts to a report from a foreign news agency, showing a blonde female reporter standing at the entrance of the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, holding up her phone and speaking a long passage of English to the camera.

Lin Ying listened for a few minutes, and the gist of it was: the technical specifications of this product have reached or even surpassed those of similar products currently on the European and American markets, but the price is only one-third.

The TV then cut to a clip of an analyst being interviewed: "...What we are most concerned about is their battery technology. The energy density and cycle life of their lithium-ion batteries are leading globally. Patent searches show that the inventor of the core patent is a researcher named 'Li Hua,' but there is currently no publicly available information about this person's background."

Lin Ying looked at the words on the TV screen: Li Hua.

She pressed a button on the remote and changed the channel; He Dazhu poked his head in from the balcony: "Why aren't you watching the news?"

"I've finished watching it."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

A week later, Su Zhiming called, "Aying, you've seen the news about that phone, right?"

"I've seen it."

"A friend of mine has worked in the telecommunications industry for twenty years. He mentioned this to me while we were having dinner yesterday. He said the entire industry is asking who this Li Hua is; Motorola and Nokia have already sent people to Beijing to investigate."

Lin Ying held the phone without saying a word.

"I just wanted to let you know." Su Zhiming paused for a moment on the other end of the phone. "You've been studying over two years there, have you heard of this person?"

Lin Ying: "Never heard of it."

"That's true, researchers are usually very low-key." Su Zhiming didn't press further. "By the way, there's one more thing: the Hong Kong government signed a memorandum of understanding with the mainland for network cooperation, and Hong Kong will be able to use that new network in the second half of next year; at that time, this phone will be able to make calls in Hong Kong."

"Understood, Uncle."

After hanging up the phone, Lin Ying put the receiver back on the landline and sat down at her desk, looking out the window.

The whole world is looking for Li Hua, but Li Hua doesn't exist.

The phone rang again; this time it was Claire.

"Lynn! Have you seen the news? That new Chinese phone!" Claire exclaimed excitedly. "Our analysts have already released a report saying the battery patents behind that phone are worth at least a billion dollars! If Li Hua held those patents personally, he'd be rolling in licensing fees!"

Lin Ying leaned back in her chair: "You called just to tell me this?"

"I wanted to ask you if you wanted to buy some shares of Huaxin Telecom if they go public."

"Buy it."

"Lynn, why aren't you excited at all? This is something that could change the entire industry!"

Lin Ying paused for two seconds: "Maybe I'm just not that interested in phones."

Claire chuckled on the other end of the phone: "I'll never understand what you're thinking."

After hanging up Claire's call, Lin Ying picked up the commemorative phone from the coffee table and turned it over in her hand.

320 grams.

From zero to mass production, it took two years.

One-twentieth of hers will be counted starting this month.

Lin Ying put the phone back in the velvet bag and stuffed it into the cabinet.

In the living room, He Dazhu was still flipping through the newspaper, the entire page filled with news and reports about that phone's failure.

"Sister!" He Dazhu suddenly called out to her, "The newspaper said the first batch of 5,000 of these phones sold out in two hours! Now scalpers are selling them for 12,000!"

"Um."

"Who is this inventor? The newspaper says his surname is Li, and his name is Li Hua, but I've searched for ages and can't find him," He Dazhu muttered to himself, looking at the newspaper. "He must be rolling in money!"

Lin Ying was pouring water when she paused. "Who knows?"