Cutting-Edge Technology R&D Center

Chapter 33: Awe and Determination

“This is unbelievable,” Chu Tian said, his eyes wide with disbelief. But he immediately became excited—this was nothing short of a game-changing app. If he could really promote it, every single Android user would surely want to use it... “Contact the developer of this program right away to see if they’re willing to sell it. Remember to be polite. Also, if they refuse to sell, negotiate an exclusive deal with them.” After observing the program running on several phones, Chu Tian made his decision immediately. Few business owners are fools. The idea of trying to force a purchase the moment you see something valuable is simply unrealistic—the other party isn’t a fool, especially in today’s era of platform-driven, transparent markets. He knew that even if all the platforms publicly rejected the offer, they would certainly send representatives to negotiate behind the scenes. Moreover, with an app like this, the other party simply couldn’t refuse—their platform wasn’t very large to begin with, and they desperately needed the traffic that promoting this app would bring. Chu Tian had even already thought of a way to collaborate. Wang Hao headed into the mountains with Lan Wei, accompanied by Sun Yan and Zhao Chun, as well as the man who had previously carried the camera—though this time, instead of a camera, they were carrying books. Sun Yan had originally wanted to film and conduct interviews, but Wang Hao rejected the idea without a second thought; he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself. By the time they reached Lanjia Village, Sun Yan and Zhao Chun both felt as if their legs weren’t their own. Sun Yan was growing increasingly astonished—this was actually the route Wang Hao walked every weekend. The two cameramen fared better, though; since they were used to carrying camera equipment, their physical condition was still decent. After arriving in Lanjia Village, Wang Hao didn’t linger. Instead, he set off again with Lan Wei, heading deeper into the countryside. Further in, there were a few more villages with very few residents and, naturally, far fewer children—only about a few dozen households in total. He hoped to deliver all these books sooner or later so he could focus on developing his trash cleanup app. Sun Yan and the others, however, were simply too exhausted to continue, so they stayed in Lanjia Village. Sun Yan curiously went around the village, but since few people there spoke Mandarin, she couldn’t understand a word. She could only gather a rough idea of the situation from what the villagers told her. Yet even this limited information stirred a pang of sympathy in her heart—she felt for Wang Hao, who had shouldered such a heavy burden at such a young age. “Still haven’t gotten through?” Chu Tian looked frustrated. It had been several hours since he discovered the app, but it seemed the other party had given him a fake number—he’d been calling for hours without success. “No, I’ll try calling again. Maybe it’ll go through this time…” Li Fan shook his head with a wry smile. Over the past few hours, the two of them had conducted in-depth testing on the phones and tablets, and the results were astonishing. Wang Hao was walking through the mountains and forests. At that moment, he was carrying only a laptop bag—he had already given away all his books—when suddenly his phone began beeping incessantly as if startled. These were incoming calls and text messages. Since there was no signal in the mountains, the notifications had been held back until he emerged from the mountain range, where he regained reception, and they all came flooding in at once. “Who is this person who’s called me so many times?” Wang Hao didn’t have any contacts saved on his phone; with his Level 6 memory, he could memorize any phone number after seeing it just once. But this number wasn’t any of the contacts he recognized. He was about to call back to find out what was going on—why someone had called him over a hundred times in a row. Just as he was about to call back, the phone suddenly rang again. He glanced at the screen and picked it up without thinking—it was the same number that had called him over a hundred times. “Hello,” Wang Hao said, sounding a bit puzzled. “Hello, this is BlackBerry. You uploaded a piece of software to our platform. Would you mind if we talked to you about it?” Li Fan spoke cautiously—he didn’t want to be hung up on as a scammer after finally getting through, and Chu Tian also looked a bit nervous. “Tell him to set a time to meet—we’ll come see him,” Chu Tian said after a moment’s thought. After all, it was hard to explain everything clearly over the phone; it would be better to discuss it in person. Wang Hao thought for a moment and immediately realized he had indeed submitted something to BlackBerry. He’d submitted his work to all the major platforms, and BlackBerry was one of the few smaller platforms he’d chosen. “What a quick response…” A glint flashed in Wang Hao’s eyes. He hadn’t expected the other party to react so swiftly—he’d uploaded the material this morning, yet they’d already taken action by the afternoon. “Sure, how do you want to talk?” Wang Hao replied softly. “Let’s go to your city and talk in person,” Li Fan said, following Chu Tian’s instructions. “Alright, I’m in Gancheng. When will you arrive?” “Tomorrow.” “Alright, I’ll call you when we get there.” Wang Hao hung up the phone. He wasn’t particularly surprised that a platform had reached out to him; on the contrary, he was very impressed by BlackBerry’s response. Sun Yan, Zhao Chun, and the two cameramen all looked at Wang Hao with a mixture of awe and astonishment. Sun Yan had heard some rumors beforehand, but it wasn’t until she experienced it firsthand that she realized the other party actually possessed such a deep sense of dedication. What shocked her even more was that Wang Hao was actually the mentor of Lan Wei, last year’s provincial top scorer—a revelation that made her feel as if her entire worldview had collapsed. Zhao Chun, on the other hand, had a completely different reaction. He never imagined that an eighteen-year-old boy could possess such spirit, which only strengthened his determination to get Wang Hao into Yan’da University. He vowed to do whatever it took to secure Wang Hao’s admission there. Tomorrow was the deadline for submitting college applications. From Wang Hao’s casual remarks, Zhao Chun had already surmised that Wang Hao was heavily leaning toward Yan’da University, so he had to stay the course at this final hurdle. Sun Yan and the others had their own car, so Wang Hao rode back with Zhao Chun. Sun Yan, too, was beaming with delight—she’d gotten the footage she wanted. Although Wang Hao had persuaded them not to bring a video camera, their high-definition cell phones, while not as sharp as a professional camera, were more than sufficient for taking photos and recording short videos. Lan Wei didn’t show up, but Wang Hao and Lan Wei made plans to travel to Yanjing together in a month. “Bro, you’re finally back. Take a look at our skills—see if we’ve improved.” Wang Hao had already called Zhang Xin and Zhang Nan beforehand, and the moment he stepped into the house, he caught a whiff of a delicate fragrance. “Are you sure you made this? Or did you buy it from Shiwei Xuan downstairs?” Wang Hao walked closer to take a whiff… and said teasingly. “You saw right through it but didn’t call me out on it—it’s no fun when you do that, bro,” Zhang Xin said, her cheeks flushing slightly. “Haha.” After dinner, Wang Hao looked at the two assembled drones in his hands. After thinking for a moment, he took out a chip programmer he’d built himself. Since buying one was simply too expensive, he’d had no choice but to reverse-engineer a broken, secondhand chip programmer, find some replacement parts, and fix it up. He’d always thought chip programming was a weak spot for Hua Guo—a field long monopolized by foreign countries—and the prices were simply too high. With no other choice, he’d bought a broken one and figured out how to fix it; even so, it had cost him over 10,000.