Thinking of the enormous cash flow that would be directed toward research and development with uncertain outcomes, Liu Shitang felt anxious and restless. However, years of navigating through various situations had taught Liu Shitang to skillfully maintain his supportive position without immediately rushing into the conference room to stop his son from continuing. But Liu Shitang kept watching the corridor, waiting until the meeting ended and the corridor returned to quiet before he entered his son’s office and closed the door. His son was obviously in the restroom inside, so Liu Shitang sat in a chair and waited and waited. After a long time, he finally saw his son emerge with wet hair, head down, and brows furrowed. Seeing his son in this state, Liu Shitang hesitated in his heart about whether to bring up this matter. His son surely knew that R&D investment was enormous, but as a general manager, he couldn’t show discouragement in front of others.
Liu Jun saw his father rushing to find him and asked curiously, “For the handover with Luo Qing, Dad, you can handle it entirely. You understand it better than I do.”
“I’ll handle the handover. What’s this about Donghai No. 1?” Liu Shitang finally decided to ask, as the stakes were truly significant.
“Luo Qing? That kid certainly reports fast. What did he say?”
“He said eighty percent of a year’s net profit would need to be invested in Donghai No. 1 component research and development. I’m wondering, when you calculate net profit, did you include the tax rebates from our new products? I think you should first exclude the tax rebate portion. When it comes to making you pay taxes, they don’t delay even a day, but for tax rebates, especially for companies like us that get substantial rebates, you really can’t count on timing – you can only count on it when it comes back.”
“I was just about to mention this. Dad, when you have free time in the future, help me make more trips to government offices. Those damn tax rebates are like squeezing toothpaste from a hotel tube. Dad, please push them more. As for research funding, judging from today’s meeting, even eighty percent of profits probably won’t be enough, so don’t worry – I can’t pull it off. I was just discussing feasibility with everyone, but the more we broke down the work, the more we realized this project requires the tight integration of multiple disciplines. Not only do we lack sufficient manpower, but our knowledge isn’t cutting-edge enough. To operate this, we’d need to collaborate with university professors with real expertise in different specialties. You tell me, how much would it cost to negotiate a collaboration with universities now? They all open their mouths like lions. After today’s discussion ended, everyone gave up hope, too.”
“You want to do this in your heart, don’t you?”
“Who doesn’t want to pluck the bright pearl from the crown’s peak? But you have to consider your life too. This project – if you don’t have assets worth at least a billion, don’t even think about it.”
“Talk to the Shen family about it. If they want to do it, you’d have a chance to get involved too.”
“Dongdong… sigh, those with money only want to import and absorb, while those without money want indigenous innovation.”
Liu Shitang saw that his son had considered the difficulties very clearly and hadn’t gone crazy to the point of wanting technology without regard for life, so he left with peace of mind. Liu Jun watched his father leave, feeling very frustrated inside. Regarding the path of high-precision cutting-edge new product development, he now walked it with familiarity, trying his best to secure the most policy advantages for himself to offset the enormous R&D investment. So far, he had already had several new products pass national or municipal trial production plan evaluations. After new products went into production, the returned income taxes were already substantial, creating a virtuous funding cycle environment for new product research and development.
But Donghai No. 1, besides requiring a large investment and high difficulty, also had the major problem of a long cycle. That is, for two to three years, he would only have pure investment without seeing output. He had to wait for new products to go into production and generate separate accounting for profit and taxes before tax rebates could come back. The troublesome part was that getting tax rebates within a year was already considered extremely fortunate. In other words, it would take three to four years before benefits could be discussed. But his current financial situation was already non-zero debt – money for buying land for the new R&D center and new workshop had used up loans, working capital had also used up loans, and although monthly sales were rapidly increasing, his bank loan credit hadn’t increased proportionally. Funds were already tight – where could he find huge sums to invest in Donghai No. 1 research and development? If he put all his eggs in one basket, he could only drain blood from factory production. But three to four years of bloodletting – the factory would probably transform into nothing before the time was up.
Liu Jun truly wanted it, very much wanted it, but unfortunately, an ant trying to shake a tree was a joke. There was an old saying in the industry: pursuing technical transformation leads to death, not pursuing technical transformation means waiting for death. This wasn’t empty talk, but everyone’s experience-based wisdom.
Liu Shitang had barely left when Sun Gong was dragged in by Tan Gong. Tan Gong, completely reversing his ostrich-like attitude from the meeting, suddenly became somewhat excited. Sun Gong, upon entering, immediately declared: “Little Tan says that over these years we’ve accumulated rich experience, all our bachelor’s degree engineers have learned to calculate stress in shearing, compression, torsion, and bending, and we’ve established a substantial database that can be called upon at any time. Moreover, under Manager Liu’s leadership, we’ve also done transfer function modeling – that was during the self-repair of that imported CNC machine tool. The dynamic stability was quite good. Our team already has a solid foundation.”
“Yes, Manager Liu, yes. I just thought back and realized – oh my – I overlooked an issue. Although we’re developing a component for Donghai No. 1 this time, the R&D philosophy of this system can be applied to the most sophisticated and cutting-edge machine tool design and manufacturing in our manufacturing industry. I… my blood is boiling! Manager Liu, I guarantee to you that as long as you don’t axe this project, I guarantee my portion of R&D funding will decrease by 30%. We must all work hard together to achieve our goal – this opportunity is extremely rare.”
Liu Jun could only forcibly suppress his excitement and speak calmly as a general manager. “I understand your thinking. As an evil capitalist, I would certainly be willing to pretend not to see you mobilizing personal resources to get classmates and friends to help with mathematical modeling, which would conveniently save money. But you’re an insider – this time we need to apply so much calculus, partial differential equations, numerical analysis, functional analysis, and more. Can you get all that through personal favors? We must first analyze feasibility with a scientific attitude.”
Sun Gong sighed, “During the meeting just now, Little Tan was still the most likely to retreat when facing difficulties. But it’s also him who suddenly figured out that what we want to make is the foundation for precision CNC machine tools, and he’s determined to pull me in to help. Even without Little Tan pulling me, I want to do it too. But this kind of project isn’t something our funding can solve. Our investment in R&D is already quite high – over 10% of sales.”
Tan Gong also sighed as he left, “Our company’s technical transformation environment is already quite good – we have large investments and a knowledgeable boss like Manager Liu, but we still can’t manage it, don’t dare to do it… sigh… China has no hope.”
Liu Jun stared blankly at Tan Gong and Sun Gong leaving, his heart filled with mixed feelings. He couldn’t help but call Shen Huadong for one last struggle. But Shen Huadong, after hearing just a few words, said: “Mr. Song already talked to us about this matter a few days ago. We calculated and calculated – the cycle is too long, the investment too much. My father said he couldn’t explain it to shareholders, and we need to worry about people using huge R&D expenses to manipulate stock prices. Mr. Song probably didn’t just ask us – he might have been somewhat desperate before asking you to sit in. Don’t feel pressured – I think Mr. Song doesn’t dare expect you to do it either. He can’t possibly ask you to throw all your assets into it. But honestly speaking, if you had sufficient assets, you’d be the most suitable candidate. At least with you leading, R&D expenses could be saved by half. Not like here, where I wouldn’t know if they’re dragging their feet. What a gap.”
Liu Jun finally understood that Mr. Song didn’t dare ask him to empty his pockets either. Having him sit in on that meeting was more intended to understand domestic technical conditions from his mouth. After being refused by so many people, Mr. Song himself was probably unwilling to give up. Although he was only a backup candidate, Liu Jun didn’t get discouraged and still pressed Shen Huadong: “If I lead this R&D project with us each contributing half the funding and splitting the results fifty-fifty, do you have any interest?”
“Can’t be interested. R&D involves brainpower that’s very hard to quantify. For instance, if I don’t manage but only contribute money, while you fully manage and contribute the same amount of money, that’s already unfair to you, right? Brothers settling accounts unclearly leads to breaking up.”
“True. The experience I accumulate during R&D, the data I compile – I should be able to easily apply them to other product development later. Honestly, this aspect is really hard to quantify, and I couldn’t let you use it. You couldn’t share in future unknown outputs, so you’d be at a big disadvantage. So R&D can only handle their affairs.”
“Ha, did you also lay out the ugly truths first when proposing to A’San? When you put it that way, I really would be at a huge loss. Liu Jun, I suggest you stop being so stubborn. Current priorities: seize the situation and expand your scale. There’s another matter – I’m planning to withdraw from Shi Yiji recently and enter group management. These past few days, I’ve been getting acquainted with the group, and I’m very moved. Turns out the profits I worked so hard to develop at Shi Yiji are really stupid money – such large assets, so many people, so much painstaking worry, yet the gains compared to the company’s other projects can’t be mentioned in the same breath. You need to change your thinking approach, too.”
“Don’t mention quick money. Last time doing futures made me restless and nearly caused big trouble.”
“Hehe, it’s not futures at all, doesn’t even need much risk. Want to hear? Tonight treat me at Munich Beer Bar.”
Liu Jun naturally knew where the Shen family’s money-making points were – good communication with the government, most effectively utilizing policies, making that local monopoly money. Even if he knew all the details, he had no way to emulate it. But he still met with Shen Huadong at the beer bar.
Shen Huadong had found another girlfriend. That previous female lawyer with a strong personality – when she was being difficult for a few days, Shen Huadong still found it challenging, but after more difficulty, Shen Huadong got annoyed. Women’s rights don’t mean stepping on men underfoot – he couldn’t serve such a demanding lady. So Shen Huadong switched to a beautiful host from the provincial TV station. The beautiful host was worldly and experienced, knowing when to advance and retreat. Shen Huadong was quite interested and gave gifts with a generous hand. The beautiful host reciprocated, often making time to cross the highway for dates when free. Liu Jun was seeing the beautiful host for the first time and was electrified into confusion all evening by her vivid charm. Shen Huadong proudly told Liu Jun that he saw so-called tough white-collar women at work every day that he was already aesthetically fatigued. He needed to change flavors at home – let the tough white-collar women go help weak men. But this TV host had both looks and brains – you couldn’t even say she was beautiful, but soulless. The other two friends who were called over also brought charming girlfriends, thoroughly depressing Liu Jun. Especially thinking that at his place, Cui Bingbing was still maintaining a cold war attitude with him.
Cui Bingbing received an informant call from a friend the moment Liu Jun stepped into the bar. The friend even added a footnote after the call: Such men face too many temptations outside. If you don’t hurry to make territorial concessions and reparations, do you want to wait until the man develops ulterior motives before regretting it? You should at least secure the man first and get official status before anything else. Cui Bingbing didn’t speak, but she stayed connected with her friend all evening, indirectly monitoring Liu Jun’s movements – how could she truly not be anxious? So when she heard that a single beautiful woman joined midway and got along very well with Liu Jun, Cui Bingbing wanted to abandon her pride and rush to Munich Bar. That night, she sat on pins and needles in her overtime office.
The bar was relatively close to Cui Bingbing’s home. Liu Jun, as usual, parked his car in Cui Bingbing’s parking space so he could take a taxi home after drinking. Cui Bingbing returned home upset. Seeing the Audi occupying her parking space, she was furious enough to kill. But after sitting in the car brooding for a long time, she still turned around to find a distant place to park, taking no measures whatsoever. She was being very ladylike now – she suspected Liu Jun was doing this on purpose.
Liu Jun didn’t realize until the next day that occupying Cui Bingbing’s parking space last night was a mistake – now Cui Bingbing needed to use that parking space too. He quickly sent an apologetic text message, though he didn’t expect a reply – tough white-collar women had that kind of style. Cui Bingbing indeed didn’t reply, but she was troubled by her friend’s email. The friend who had provided information last night had sobered up today and sent a structured email. The email said that for men of a certain age, marriage might not be because of love – such men’s love was too brief and too materialistic, not reliable. Men of a certain age marry for this reason: you’re not the only one, but you’re suitable, and he has the sincerity to spend the rest of his life with you – that’s all. Cui Bingbing sighed in her heart: When people reach a certain age, innocence becomes shamefully ridiculous.
Song Yunhui soon summoned Liu Jun for questioning. In a localization campaign he had led ten years ago, he hadn’t achieved very good results. Although the industry was already full of praise, as a realistic engineering technician, he was quite dissatisfied in his heart. This time, he somewhat helplessly aimed at foreign standards from the late 1980s, thinking of the country’s currently solid economic foundation, intending to pursue localization once more. He had built everything from scratch with his own hands and was too clear about how imported equipment bullied domestic inability to produce, shouting out unrefusable high prices. As someone with ideas, he couldn’t always accept defeat. But after several informal communication meetings, several items were either told that domestic machine tool levels couldn’t process them, or that domestic technical levels couldn’t yet solve such complex problems. Song Yunhui refused to be discouraged and decided to pursue it to the end, gnawing hard bones bit by bit, finding the crux of problems as much as possible, and solving difficult crux issues.
Under Song Yunhui’s questioning, Liu Jun laid out the actual problems openly. Talking with capable people was torture – Song Yunhui’s successive “whys” were like skinning, and Liu Jun couldn’t hide anything even if he wanted to, as he’d be exposed by the next “why.”
Song Yunhui questioned back and forth for over an hour before finally letting Liu Jun go. “I understand what you mean. It can be done – the key problem is funding.”
“I didn’t say it definitely can be done – I can’t guarantee it. But if there’s no funding, then it definitely can’t be done.”
“Don’t play with words. Recommend again – as far as you know, which enterprises are willing to do this and have the strength to do this project.”
Liu Jun thought for a while and wrote down four enterprises along with contact information. “No private considerations – that’s all of them. But as far as I know, they’d probably also need to collaborate with university professors. This project is a high-level integration of physics, mathematics, electronics, electrical engineering, mechanics, and materials.”
Song Yunhui accepted the paper and only then let Liu Jun leave. But Liu Jun left dejectedly – he hoped Song Yunhui would grab him and identify him as the only treasure who could complete the project, promising sufficient resources to let him experiment freely. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He thought glumly that this opportunity might have brushed past him. He was frustrated at not being able to get involved in such an exciting project.