Take Hold of Both

Having figured out his future direction, Han Yang immediately began working on both fronts, trying to clear away the obstacles to his further development.

When it came to acquiring knowledge, Han Yang no longer intended to rely entirely on his current method: searching for information online to teach himself while asking Professor Zhang Dong and the others questions.

He had already realized that this way of learning was too fragmented and not deep enough to form a coherent system. As his research into CPU manufacturing technology went deeper, the areas he needed to cover were becoming increasingly numerous.

Mathematics, physics, chemistry—none of them could be neglected.

Mathematics alone was divided into countless subfields, such as algebra, geometry, set theory, category theory, probability theory, discrete mathematics, topology, abstract algebra, group theory, statistics, and so on.

Chemistry, for example, included analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, inorganic and organic chemistry, nanotechnology, synthesis, computational chemistry, theoretical chemistry, and more.

Physics went without saying; it involved even more areas.

Chip manufacturing was a field that drew upon the strengths of countless disciplines. No subject could be left out. This problem-solving approach only let him know how things worked, not why they worked.

If he wanted to go further in chip manufacturing, Han Yang would have to make up for nearly every discipline in the scientific system from the ground up.

That required systematic learning, rather than the fragmented learning he was doing now.

"Now that my income has increased dramatically and I have more cash on hand, I have the means for systematic learning. It's time to get started."

Han Yang thought to himself, Hmm... What about building a learning website? Invite teachers, experts, professors, and lecturers from all industries and levels to teach online through the site? With my current computing power, I can listen to ten teachers giving online lessons at once while keeping the boosting business running normally.

That would lay the foundation for Han Yang's complete knowledge system.

Many of the courses he studied now might not be useful in the next few years. But one day, this knowledge would prove immensely valuable.

"Hmm, there's no need to cut off contact with Professor Zhang Dong directly. I can walk on two legs. I can use the learning website to study other subjects and build a foundation, while Professor Zhang Dong handles urgent problems. I need to keep a grip on both. Besides, when Professor Zhang Dong and the others have free time, they can make courses for the website too."

After thinking it over, Han Yang became increasingly convinced that it was feasible and made up his mind.

Han Yang had wanted to build his own Q&A website for a long time. A Q&A website and an online learning website seemed fairly similar.

"At the start, I can use an invitation-only system and invite teachers from different industries to teach online. The courses can also be customized."

Thinking about how the online learning website he built might one day have tens of thousands of active accounts, all attending classes taught by tens of thousands of different teachers at the same time—only for every single account to be one of his alts—Han Yang found it rather amusing.

Once his computing power became high enough, it would not be impossible to attend lessons from tens of thousands of teachers simultaneously.

Having made up his mind, Han Yang immediately contacted Li Hu and told him to register a brand-new company so they could launch the online learning website.

As for the website's architecture, since he had no plans to make it public at the beginning, it would be fine to just use some random template.

Once he had more money and computing power in the future, he could slowly upgrade it.

As for servers, he could make do with a cloud server for now. He would not even need to buy any equipment.

Having settled on his future path for learning, Han Yang began considering materials.

"Let's look around the market first."

There were plenty of online shops selling cables, transistors, and similar items. Han Yang began asking them one by one.

"Hello, do you have cables, transistors, and components in these specifications? No? All right, thank you."

"Hello..."

Over the course of a day, Han Yang made more than two hundred calls. Every merchant gave him the same answer: "Sorry, we don't have them."

Han Yang finally realized that the things he needed might genuinely not exist on the market.

"Then I can only have them custom-made."

Han Yang gritted his teeth and decided to be taken for a ride just this once, spending more money to custom-order a batch.

He began contacting various manufacturers.

But unexpectedly, Han Yang was met with rejection after rejection. When he raised the price to a thousand times the normal rate and was still rejected for the hundredth time, Han Yang finally could not take it anymore and shamelessly asked why.

The merchant was somewhat helpless as well. "Boss, we really can't produce them. Yes, the price is quite high, but you only want one hundred thousand transistors. Normally, these things cost at most a thousand yuan. Even at a thousand times the price, that's only one million yuan. But if we want to manufacture them, we'd have to upgrade the entire production line. Do you know how much that would cost? At least five million.

And that doesn't even include the cost of training workers.

Also, after upgrading the production line, its performance would be higher, but output would be lower and energy consumption greater. If we went back to producing ordinary models afterward, we would have no competitiveness at all. It would practically become a useless production line. One million yuan simply can't cover all those losses."

All right, then.

Han Yang hung up the phone dejectedly.

He knew there was no need to ask anyone else. He would get the same answer everywhere.

He could not buy them directly. He could not have them custom-made either.

"If all else fails, I'll customize the machines and produce them myself!"

Han Yang gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and began consulting machinery manufacturers instead.

In Han Yang's view, since his production model would not be assembly-line manufacturing but manual customization, and demand would not be high, the requirements did not need to be so demanding. He did not need to pursue automation; anything that could be done by hand could be done by hand.

He only needed to buy the four or five most critical machines. At most, it would cost one million yuan. He could double that to two million, or even three million if necessary. Surely he could buy them then.

But unexpectedly, Han Yang once again encountered the same situation as when he tried to customize cables and transistors.

No manufacturer was willing to take the order.

The closest he came to success was when an equipment manufacturer offered to build machinery that fully met Han Yang's requirements for five hundred thousand yuan, but required a minimum order of one hundred sets. The other manufacturers simply refused outright.

One hundred sets meant fifty million yuan. Even if Han Yang were killed, he could not come up with that much money at this stage.

"Can't you just adjust the parameters? Why do I have to order at least one hundred sets? I only need one. Would three million work?"

Han Yang felt like crying without tears.

Han Yang was miserable, but the salesperson on the other end complained even more bitterly than he did. "Boss, it really isn't that simple. We have to make molds, prepare materials, conduct research and development, train workers, and deal with all sorts of things. It's very complicated.

But those aren't even the most complicated parts.

No matter how complicated those things are, the three million you're offering could barely cover the costs. The biggest problem is the production planning adjustments, worker training, scheduling, and all the people involved in every aspect. It's too troublesome. Unless company executives step in, nobody can coordinate it all. And for such a small profit—or even no profit at all—asking company executives to personally coordinate it? That's unrealistic."