Chapter 71 No lithography machine? Then let's start with a hand-made lithography machine.

The sky over Donghai City was just beginning to brighten.

Several blinding high beams tore through the morning mist, and the roar of military jeep diesel engines made the ground tremble.

The large iron gate of Xinghai Technology hadn't been fully opened yet.

The lead off-road vehicle's tires screeched against the ground, bursting with acrid white smoke, and forcibly pushed half of the iron gate against the wall.

Lu Jingming walked down the steps while yawning; the morning breeze poured into his collar, feeling chilly.

The car door was kicked open.

Chen Guoan was draped in a wrinkled military overcoat, with a cotton slipper on one foot, while the other foot was surprisingly wearing a black leather shoe.

The old man didn't even look at Lu Jingming; he pushed aside Dazhuang, who was blocking his way, and bolted toward the laboratory building.

Behind him, seven or eight gray-haired old men crowded together. One of them was running too fast and dropped his thermos, which smashed against the concrete floor.

Hot water splashed everywhere.

"Little Xia! Xia Weiliang, you pig-headed wild girl!"

Chen Guoan's voice cracked as he started roaring from far away.

Lu Jingming rubbed the corners of his eyes and followed slowly behind Dazhuang.

The laboratory corridor was filled with the chaotic footsteps of these old academicians.

With a dull "bang" sound.

Chen Guoan didn't bother with the door handle and simply slammed his shoulder into the glass door of Laboratory No. 1, forcing it open.

The smell of fermented pickled cabbage noodles mixed with the cloying sweetness of Red Bull rushed out.

The old man slipped, nearly stepping on the cans scattered all over the floor and falling flat on his face.

Xia Weiliang was slumped in a swivel chair, her head hanging low.

There were traces of dried, dark red blood on the collar of her white lab coat.

Chen Guoan's eyes immediately turned red, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.

He reached out his withered hand, wanting to touch his female disciple's face, but stopped in mid-air, not daring to let it fall.

"Oh my… you reckless girl…"

Tears welled up in the old man's eyes.

The fat old man who followed behind shoved Chen Guoan aside, his gaze fixed intently on the computer screen.

"Old Chen, move! Don't block me from seeing the constant nodes!"

The fat old man couldn't even catch his breath, his hands pressing against the greasy edge of the table.

Incomplete code was flickering on the screen, still running.

Chen Guoan sniffled and wiped his face haphazardly with his sleeve.

His sadness didn't last more than three seconds before he turned and stared intensely at the monitor.

"This is the compensation path for multiple diffraction… those Americans actually left a backdoor in this formula!"

The old man stripped off his military overcoat and threw it on the floor.

"Old Liu! You calculate the X-axis offset! Old Zhao, pull out the interference terms for the light wave refraction for me!"

Several old men, whose combined ages were nearly five hundred, pounced on the spare computers in the corner like madmen.

The laboratory instantly exploded into chaos.

The sound of keyboards clacking was like a torrential downpour hitting a tin roof.

Lu Jingming leaned against the doorframe, holding an unlit cigarette in his hand.

Old Zhou huddled in the corner, his legs trembling as he watched these leading authorities, whom he usually only saw in textbooks.

"Um… Elder Chen, the first set of variables seems a bit off?"

Old Zhou swallowed hard and interjected in a low voice.

"Shut up! Stop trying to apply that garbage logic from your big company to this formula!"

Chen Guoan didn't even turn his head, his ten fingers creating afterimages on the mechanical keyboard.

"This girl's previous deduction is correct! The lithography algorithm doesn't need to copy the curvature of ultraviolet lenses at all!"

The fat old man coughed while typing code, his face turning purple.

Sweat dripped from his graying temples onto the table.

"Old Zhao, hurry up! Have you pulled up the function library yet?"

"Stop rushing me! This server is lagging like crazy!" Old Zhao shouted at the top of his lungs.

National-level computing power erupted in this cramped room.

The final ten percent that Xia Weiliang had calculated until she vomited blood.

With these founding fathers of semiconductors taking over the relay, the progress bar began to inch forward.

Outside the corridor, Chu Xuan poked out half of his center-parted head.

He looked at Lu Jingming and pointed inside the room.

"Boss Lu, these old gentlemen won't break our computers, will they?"

Lu Jingming tapped the cigarette against his knuckles, ignoring him.

The room was filled with a pungent smell of old-man sweat.

"Beep—"

A long, drawn-out system notification sound tore through the sound of keyboard clacking.

The progress bar on the screen surged forward and stopped at the finish line.

A deep blue, complete micro-fabrication layout, like a menacing monster, leaped onto the screen.

All the code lines closed in a perfect, seamless loop.

Chen Guoan took his hands off the keyboard, leaving them hovering in mid-air, trembling.

His chest heaved like a broken bellows.

"It… it's done…"

The old man's Adam's apple bobbed as he stared fixedly at the complete mask layout.

The fat old man slumped to the floor, causing several empty Red Bull cans to roll away.

"Without relying on the Americans' underlying authorization… we've created a 28-nanometer architecture layout ourselves…"

Several old academicians supported each other, some covering their faces and sobbing loudly.

Old Zhou stumbled toward the screen.

He reached out to touch the monitor, his face smeared with tears and snot.

"Perfect… these traces are simply a work of art! The power consumption can definitely be kept to the minimum!"

Old Zhou sniffled, wiped his nose, and turned to look at Lu Jingming.

The fervor in his eyes hadn't faded, but his mouth suddenly drooped.

"But Boss Lu…"

Old Zhou wiped the tears from his face, his voice sounding deathly dry.

"The blueprints are complete, and we have the layout. But what are we going to use to build it?"

This sentence was like a bucket of icy cold water, dousing the heat in the room.

The fat old man stopped wailing and sat on the floor, stunned.

The flush on Chen Guoan's face faded completely.

The old man took off his reading glasses, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes sagging.

Lu Jingming changed his standing posture and bit on the cigarette.

"Old Zhou, is your tongue tied? Keep talking."

Old Zhou slapped his thigh, stamping his feet in anxiety.

"Young Master, we don't even have a foundry in our country capable of running 90 nanometers!"

"This is a 28-nanometer precision process!"

He pointed at the complex circuits on the screen, his fingers trembling.

"This isn't something you can do with a soldering iron! If it's off by one nanometer, the wafer is immediately scrapped!"

Chen Guoan sighed, his aged body leaning against the computer desk.

"Little Zhou is right."

The authority's voice was filled with helpless exhaustion.

"This blueprint is a gold brick that could crush someone to death. But our industrial foundation in China currently can't even build a furnace to fire the gold brick."

The fat old man clutched his thinning hair, his face full of bitterness.

"Even a clever housewife can't cook a meal without rice. We have the blueprints, but we can't just hand-craft a chip, right?"

The laboratory fell into a dead silence.

The "buzzing" sound of the computer cooling fans was annoying to listen to.

Xia Weiliang, lying in the swivel chair, moved her fingers.

She groggily opened her eyes a slit, a weak smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Old man… *cough*, is it finished?"

Chen Guoan hurried over and used his dirty sleeve to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth.

"It's finished. You wild girl, stop talking and save your energy."

Xia Weiliang turned her head, her gaze passing over Chen Guoan's shoulder.

Through the murky air, she stared straight at Lu Jingming at the door.

"Boss Lu… I've finished the work. What do you intend to trade it for?"

Lu Jingming took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped it gently against his knuckles.

He didn't light it.

The draft from the corridor caused the hem of his black T-shirt to sway slightly.

He didn't look at Xia Weiliang, his gaze sweeping over the few national treasure-level academicians who looked devastated.

A look of undisguised nonchalance tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Hand-crafting chips is so much effort; I'm the type of person who hates trouble."

Lu Jingming stuffed the cigarette back into his pocket.

Chu Xuan squeezed half his body in from outside the door, his face full of confusion.

"Boss Lu, no one in China can build it, and the Americans just issued a supply cut-off order. Doesn't that make these blueprints just scrap paper?"

Old Li also walked over, looking distressed.

"That's right, Young Master. Qualcomm has put the word out; no one in the world dares to take our orders."

Lu Jingming chuckled.

The laughter sounded exceptionally harsh in the stifling laboratory.

"Qualcomm says no one dares to take it, so no one dares to take it? Who does that Paul think he is?"

Lu Jingming walked over to the workbench and reached out to tap the layout file on the screen.

"Since we have the blueprints, we naturally need to find the best foundry in the world."

Old Zhou was stunned, his brain unable to keep up.

"The best foundry? The Americans won't let those companies in South Korea take the job!"

Lu Jingming ignored him and turned his head to look at Shen Qingqiu standing outside the door.

The female god of wealth stepped forward in her high heels, holding a folder in her hand.

She hadn't interjected while the old men were arguing in the room just now.

"How much foreign exchange cash flow do we have now?" Lu Jingming asked.

Shen Qingqiu pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses and opened the file.

"We made a huge profit from shorting Soros. After deducting miscellaneous expenses, there is still over 15 billion US dollars in the account."

Chen Guoan swallowed hard as he listened from the side.

The annual budget of the Chinese Academy of Sciences wasn't even as much as the spare change in this kid's account.

"That's enough."

Lu Jingming put his hands in his pockets, his chin slightly raised.

His gaze revealed a dark, calculating intensity where capital crushes everything.

"Money makes the mare go—that principle applies all over the world."

Old Zhao muttered from the corner.

"Young man, having money alone is useless. In the semiconductor industry, once the Americans speak, no one dares to offend Silicon Valley for money."

Lu Jingming turned his head and looked at the old academician.

"That's because they didn't throw enough money at it."

He took a step and walked toward the door.

Niu Dazhuang quickly turned sideways to make way for him.

Lu Jingming stopped next to Shen Qingqiu.

The pale light of the corridor hit his profile, outlining sharp features.

"Qingqiu, go make a call now."

Shen Qingqiu closed the file and looked up.

"Who should I call?"

Lu Jingming patted her shoulder, his fingertips radiating heat through the fabric of her shirt.

His gaze passed through the glass window of the corridor and looked toward the distant southeast.

"Contact TSMC in Taiwan."

Old Zhou gasped.

"TSMC? They are a core member of the technology alliance led by the Americans!"

Lu Jingming tilted his head and scoffed coldly.

"What core member? They're just a high-end assembly line working for others."

Chu Xuan leaned in and lowered his voice.

"Boss Lu, will they even bother with a sanctioned private company like us?"

"That's why we have to throw money at them."

Lu Jingming turned around, leaning his back against the white wall of the corridor.

His tone was unquestionable.

"Tell them I'll pay the foundry fee at a 30% premium over the market price."

"As long as TSMC dares to take the order, I will pay the full amount in one lump sum."

Shen Qingqiu bit her lower lip and turned to walk toward her office.

"I'll go look up the direct line for their Greater China Region business president right now."