Chapter 180: Departing in a Week
Xie Changning sat to Teacher Qin’s right. To her left was Sheng Jiaojiao, whom Xie Changning had brought from the cosmetics factory.
Sheng Jiaojiao was Teacher Qin’s daughter, so it was only right for her to be there to meet him.
Moreover, she was also a researcher at the Anong County cosmetics factory and a key contributor to Lin Province’s foreign exchange earnings. The leaders all treated her very well.
Everyone enjoyed the meal.
Due to Teacher Qin’s special status and the meetings scheduled for the next two days, Xie Changning and her group didn’t return to Anong County.
The subsequent meetings were all about moving forward with the laboratory.
Everything went very smoothly. Teacher Qin personally visited the site Xie Changning had chosen. Once he confirmed there were no issues with the location, the Lin Province leaders began construction of the laboratory.
During this time, Teacher Qin returned to Beijing to recruit talented people.
Meanwhile, Xie Changning was busy with preparations to go abroad.
With Teacher Qin handling things, she didn’t need to worry too much about the laboratory.
"You have to bring something back for us when you go abroad this time." Before Xie Changning could leave the country, however, her dear junior colleague assigned her a task.
The experiments at the cosmetics factory were nearing completion, but the production line couldn’t keep up yet. Sheng Jiaojiao needed machinery and new directions for research.
And all of this required Xie Changning’s help.
Xie Changning accepted the task and went to the cosmetics factory in person to see their successful experiment.
She also brought some of the products back for her family to use.
In reality, there were no side effects; after all, the few people in the lab had all tested the products on themselves. But Xie Changning believed that everyone’s body was different, so the results could also vary.
Sheng Jiaojiao agreed with Xie Changning, so she had her take more back and also set some aside for the factory workers to try.
Things at the cosmetics factory were moving forward, and so were the preparations for going abroad.
There were ten spots in total: Xie Changning herself, two people from her team, two people from Lin Province, and the remaining five selected from the Northeast and Northwest regions.
People from other regions felt it was unfair, but the leaders’ response was that this was, according to the current data, the strongest possible team composition.
The people from other regions saw it as a good learning opportunity.
However, the leaders’ perspective was different. This time, they had to win a decisive victory!
Learning opportunities would come later. This trip was about challenging the competition on their own turf, so of course, they had to send their strongest soldiers!
Regardless of what others thought, the matter was settled, and Xie Changning was already working on building chemistry with her team members.
"Director Xie, this ’pager’ you’re talking about... we’ve never even seen one. How are we supposed to build it?" Everyone had come with a competitive spirit, and they knew Xie Changning was brilliant.
But they truly had never seen the pager Xie Changning was proposing.
’How can we develop something we’ve never even seen?!’
Xie Changning knew this. So, she pulled a stack of blueprints from her bag. These were structural diagrams for a pager that she had designed in her ’space’ using a design table, tailored to the current era and surpassing foreign technology.
The design table would adjust the blueprints according to her requirements.
For example, Xie Changning had specified that it should not use existing foreign technology.
’This time,’ she thought, ’we’re not just going to develop it, we’re going to register the patent ahead of time and not give those foreigners any openings to exploit!’
’The money must be earned by China!’
When Xie Changning pulled out the blueprints, the discussion finally fell silent. They stared quietly at the woman before them, the excitement in their eyes impossible to hide.
A faint smile appeared on Xie Changning’s face.
"I, Xie Changning, do not fight unprepared battles!"
As soon as the pager blueprints appeared, the team members immediately went to work on their respective tasks, striving to build the device as quickly as possible.
They knew this was not just for a competition; it was an opportunity to enhance communication for the military and police!
They had to seize it!
It had to be said, these were truly top-tier talents. After working day and night, they finally succeeded in assembling the first pair of pagers a month later!
However, because the technology was not yet mature, they could only communicate within a limited range.
For now, its only function was to send an alert.
But even so, it was enough to make the research team ecstatic.
They happily shared the news with Xie Changning, who in turn naturally had to share it with the leaders.
When Xie Changning announced that her team had successfully developed the pager, the leaders couldn’t sit still. They insisted on coming to the lab to see and test the pager, even if it only had a simple alert function.
Xie Changning did not refuse.
"You’ve done an excellent job!" After trying it out, the leaders all expressed that the advent of this pager would be a huge boost to domestic communications.
They insisted that the pager must be developed with the utmost effort!
Xie Changning assured them that she would do everything in her power to develop it.
The first pair of pagers still had some minor issues that needed improvement. Drawing on her knowledge, Xie Changning told them what the problems were and what needed to be changed.
Subsequently, the pair of pagers was upgraded to be able to alert each other that someone was trying to reach them from up to a kilometer away!
This was a huge step forward!
Of course, unlike the audio alerts of foreign pagers, the device Xie Changning proposed would be message-based.
Although it could only display short text messages and pager numbers, it was still stunningly impressive.
Most importantly, their technology followed a completely different path from foreign tech.
It wouldn’t be constrained by foreign patents or limitations at all!
Everyone was incredibly excited and had a celebratory dinner that night.
During the dinner, Xie Changning announced their upcoming schedule. "As you all know, in another month and a half, we will be participating in the mechanics competition of the World Technology Games. This is the first time our country will appear as contestants at this event, and the impact it will have on our nation is crucial!"
Everyone nodded in agreement with Xie Changning’s words.
Xie Changning continued, "Therefore, not only must we win the championship in the mechanics division of the World Technology Games, but we must also secure the patent for our country’s own pager technology!"
’A technology patent!?’
In the past, that was a term the Chinese only ever heard from foreigners. If the Chinese wanted to make something, they had to pay to buy the rights.
’But the country doesn’t have the money right now...’
’Most importantly, even if the country scraped together the money, they wouldn’t be given the chance to buy it! They wouldn’t even be allowed to observe!’
’And now they had a chance to say they were going to get a technology patent of their own?’
The more they thought about it, the more excited they became.
Watching their excited expressions, Xie Changning smiled faintly. "The Anong County cosmetics factory is sponsoring our team for this competition with a variety of personal care products: shampoo, laundry detergent, facial soap..."
She announced the news piece by piece.
At this moment, the team didn’t quite understand what Xie Changning was getting at, but they knew she never did anything that didn’t benefit her cause.
"Therefore, the airfare for this trip will be covered by the Anong County cosmetics factory. We leave in one week. Everyone, take some time to rest and fine-tune our pagers. We depart in a week!"