Professor Personally Invites You, and You Won't Go? (Please Keep Reading)

Professor Personally Invites You, and You Won't Go? (Please Keep Reading)

After receiving the bank card, Luo Yao had no intention of touching the money.

He only had five hundred thousand yuan now. By ordinary standards, anyone with that much spare cash would definitely want to invest it, usually with only two options: funds or stocks.

He could predict that stocks in the chip industry would rise before long, but that was not important, because he knew the core technologies he possessed were worth far more.

Rather than being a retail investor, he would rather be the one controlling the market. Luo Yao naturally wanted the most efficient way to make money.

Luo Yao also had more than three thousand yuan he had saved up over time. Since the Luo family had only just arrived in East City, he planned to keep the five hundred thousand yuan on the card for emergencies.

It was only seven o'clock. Luo Yao decided not to return to the dorm yet and headed straight for the library.

The assignment Xia Qing had left was extremely simple for Luo Yao. It was like having the ability to build skyscrapers but being asked to make bricks instead.

Luo Yao ignored the IP Core assignment. Following his own plan, he continued typing out his code.

The library was convenient in every way, except that he could not set up a development environment on a public computer.

The only issue now was setting up a reliable development environment.

If he merely wrote code without building a development environment, he would not be able to use crucial tools such as compilers, debuggers, unit testing, and automated testing.

Besides, developing EDA now required decent computing power. The library computers were fine for writing code, but once distributed simulation or place-and-route modules were involved, these computers would lag so badly it would make him question his life choices.

Luo Yao realized he needed to find a new place to develop his EDA.

East University of Technology was a research-oriented university, so there should be quite a few majors that required powerful computing resources.

Luo Yao searched online and, sure enough, found that the school had a Supercomputing Experiment Training Center. He picked up his phone and sent Xia Qing a text.

Professor Xia, I would like to apply to use the school's supercomputing system.

When Xia Qing heard the text notification, she did not pay attention at first.

These days, people who used text messages were either running e-commerce businesses or scams.

Xia Qing usually could not be bothered to look.

But soon, the text notification sounded again.

Something stirred in Xia Qing's mind. She picked up her phone and saw Luo Yao's two messages.

Professor Xia, I would like to apply to use the school's supercomputing system.

I'm Luo Yao.

It was Xia Qing's first time encountering a student who texted her, and Luo Yao had immediately made an unusual request.

She remembered the assignment she had given. At their level, they should not have needed supercomputing resources.

Why was Luo Yao applying for them?

Could Luo Yao be about to give her another surprise?

Xia Qing had actually wanted to bring Luo Yao into one of her research projects so he could gain practical research experience. If he started with the basics, he would improve faster than if he simply remained at school.

After a few seconds of silence, Xia Qing readily sent Luo Yao her account and password, taking the opportunity to ask about his intentions.

You can use three hundred hours for free each month. That should be enough for you.

Also, are you interested in joining your teacher's research project? The research direction is general-purpose chips and foundational software.

After receiving the message, Luo Yao thought that Xia Qing's research direction was indeed good. But without question, they were all isolated areas of research and could not bring qualitative change to the chip industry.

What he was developing now was a complete EDA suite, something that could affect the entire chip industry chain. Which mattered more was obvious at a glance.

If he joined Professor Xia's project now, Luo Yao knew his role would definitely be doing miscellaneous work.

Joining the project was possible, but he would never go there to do grunt work. So Luo Yao quickly replied.

Not for now.

Before reading the message, Xia Qing had assumed Luo Yao would agree. She had not expected him to refuse.

Countless students wanted to join her projects, and she was not even willing to take them. Yet when she personally extended an invitation, Luo Yao refused.

For the first time, Xia Qing had been rejected by a student. She found it both amusing and helpless.

It seemed Luo Yao was still too young to understand what this meant.

Xia Qing had actually just reached a preliminary agreement with Huaji today to develop EDA Software.

Huaji was currently facing a difficult situation. Several major foundries working with Huaji were being constrained by foreign EDA vendors.

One day, they would use a software upgrade as an excuse to restrict access. The next, they would claim there was a problem with the activation code system and make the software unusable. Huaji's chip foundries were being led around by the nose.

Domestic research focused on wafers and lithography machines, while relatively little had been invested in EDA research. That was what had led to Huaji's current passive position.

Once chip foundries shut down, Huaji, as a downstream customer in the chip industry chain, would be affected one hundred percent.

Mature EDA Software was now concentrated in Ugly Nation. If Ugly Nation's EDA vendors started causing trouble and refused to authorize Huaji's foundries to use EDA Software, Huaji would obviously have no chips to use.

At the bottom of the food chain, it could only be controlled by others.

That was precisely why Huaji wanted to begin independently developing a complete EDA Software suite.

Developing a full EDA Software suite was not something that could be resolved overnight, but getting started was progress.

Establishing a new research institute meant recruiting people, and Xia Qing planned to announce the recruitment decision within the school.

That evening, Xia Qing released a notice saying she would recruit one to three outstanding first-year microelectronics students into her new project. The requirement was to complete her most recent course assignment.

As soon as the news came out, students from all three departments of the microelectronics major became excited.

Microelectronics Major Group Chat.

"Yefeng Yiye: Getting into Professor Xia's project means a smooth road ahead after graduation!"

"Calcium-Deficient Wangzai: I want to go! But the latest assignment is so hard. We have to design an IP Core!"

"Dazha Hai: Is your assignment also an IP Core?"

"Calcium-Deficient Wangzai: It looks like all three departments have the same assignment. The competition just got intense!"

"Dinosaur Against the Waves: More than two hundred people are fighting over those few spots. How lucky would you have to be to get picked?"

"Tank 6: What's an IP Core?"

While everyone was discussing it heatedly in the group chat, Luo Yao went alone to the school's Supercomputing Experiment Training Center and began his formal development work.

It had to be said that Xia Qing's guidance today had benefited Luo Yao greatly. He now had a deeper understanding of the technology provided by the system.

The modules in EDA—graphical user interfaces, circuit modeling, layout design, timing analysis, simulation, verification, and so on—were laid out before him with perfect clarity, like puzzle pieces marked with numbers.

Now, all he needed to do was place the puzzle pieces one by one in numerical order.

Soon, it was nine-thirty. When Wu Tianming saw that Luo Yao had not returned to the dorm, he called to ask what was going on. Luo Yao checked the time and decided to head back first.

To make it easier for research groups at the school to work on their projects, the Supercomputing Experiment Training Center was actually open all night.

Luo Yao naturally wanted to stay up all night developing EDA, but he was not a robot and could not go without sleep. So he planned to go back and rest, then come early the next morning.

When he returned to the dorm, Wang Ye eagerly told Luo Yao that Xia Qing would select one to three first-year students to join her project.

Wang Ye could tell that Luo Yao admired Xia Qing somewhat. Otherwise, when Xia Qing had guided Luo Yao alone today, Luo Yao would never have listened with such complete focus.

He had thought Luo Yao would be interested after hearing about the selection, but to his surprise, Luo Yao said, "Mm, I know. Professor Xia told me."

Wang Ye froze in place, his eyes widening. "Professor Xia told you personally?"

"Tianming, look at this treatment! We only learned about it through a mass notification, but Professor Xia actually told him separately!"

Tianming was still holding the Integrated Circuit EDA Technology textbook. Hearing that, he immediately sighed.

"Santuo is better at self-study than we are. Professor Xia will definitely take him. By the way, Santuo, when are you joining the project?"

"I never said I was going."

"What?!" Wu Tianming and Wang Ye were both dumbfounded. The professor personally invited you, and you were not going? Had you lost your mind?!

Wang Ye walked up to Luo Yao and, while Luo Yao was not paying attention, reached out and placed his palm against Luo Yao's forehead.

"This kid doesn't have a fever. Why is he talking nonsense?"

Unaccustomed to it, Luo Yao pulled his head back slightly and said expressionlessly, "I was never sick. What I want to do now is more valuable to me than joining Professor Xia's project, so not going is the correct choice."

"Hey, you're young, but you sure talk big. It's fine to say that in front of us, but don't say it outside. Otherwise, someone might report you to Professor Xia, and she'll be unhappy."

Professor Xia would be unhappy?

That piqued Luo Yao's interest.

"Why would Professor Xia be unhappy?"

When ordinary people asked that question, they would seem at least a little foolish. But Wu Tianming and Wang Ye knew that Luo Yao genuinely did not understand.

For someone whose mind was filled only with knowledge and academics, there was no reason to spend time understanding the complicated feelings of someone being belittled by a student.

"It's like your mother making a whole table of dishes, then we go over to eat and say they taste bad. Your mother would definitely be unhappy after hearing that."

Wu Tianming used the simplest, clearest example he could to explain it to Luo Yao.

After hearing that, Luo Yao thought for a while, then nodded. "All right, I understand. I won't say that in front of Professor Xia."

After saying that, Luo Yao prepared to wash up and go to sleep.

Wang Ye gave Wu Tianming a look, then said to Luo Yao, "Santuo, there are some things about IP Cores that I don't understand. Could you explain them to me?"

Luo Yao was about to go to the balcony to get his toiletries. Hearing Wang Ye, he turned around and asked, "You only don't understand a small part of it?"

Wang Ye chuckled and shamelessly said, "I don't understand any of it."

Luo Yao felt that he had truly never seen anyone so unapologetic about not understanding anything.

"Santuo, I don't understand it very well either." Seeing that the opportunity could not be missed, Wu Tianming hurriedly followed Wang Ye's lead and began acting pitiful in front of the younger boy, who was two years his junior.

P.S. This story is entirely fictional and unrelated to reality.