Chapter 18

Shenhai City Qiaoyu Electronics Co., Ltd.

Tian Qiaoming shoved a piece of bread into his mouth, chewing vigorously as he washed it down with water. After glancing at his wife, who was fast asleep on the sofa, he stood up and headed toward the workshop. Bread had been his standard dinner for a long time. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford better food—he simply didn’t have the time to waste on eating.

Previously a technician at a foreign-owned electronics factory, Tian Qiaoming had now invested over a hundred thousand yuan in starting his own business, Qiaoyu Electronics Co., Ltd., and the pressure was immense. His wife, Song Xiaoyu, used to be a salesperson at the same foreign electronics company and had maintained valuable customer contacts, giving the couple the confidence to strike out on their own.

It wasn’t that Song Xiaoyu wasn’t attentive to her husband’s needs. She was, in fact, even more exhausted than he was, often drinking with clients until she returned home intoxicated and sick. She would usually collapse on the office sofa, spent. Tian Qiaoming felt for her deeply, but there was nothing he could do.

The problem wasn’t a lack of business—Song Xiaoyu’s skills meant she could secure even large orders. The real challenge was that Tian Qiaoming couldn’t meet the technical demands from clients. Despite his background as a key technical member at his former job, Tian Qiaoming struggled to fulfill the endless requests that poured in. Running a small company meant he couldn’t offer the high salaries necessary to attract top technical talent. Even when someone agreed to join, their skills usually fell short. Most of the design and R&D work landed on Tian Qiaoming himself.

Given enough time, he could gradually implement these features, but the pace of business didn’t allow it. Clients, with their own deadlines, couldn’t wait forever. Missed deadlines would mean losing clients, which was out of the question, especially considering the sacrifices his wife was making for the business.

Fortunately, Tian Qiaoming’s brother, Xiaoguang, had recently been assigned to Shenhai City’s First Prison. Through his connections, Tian Qiaoming was able to arrange for prison labor to handle some product processing, helping him cut costs.

Today, a batch of products processed in the prison had just arrived, which was a huge relief. With a couple more days to assemble the units, they would be ready to deliver to the client. Tian Qiaoming knew this design had flaws that would cause issues later, leading to costly after-sales support. But with the client demanding delivery, he couldn’t afford to delay further.

The company’s chief quality inspector, Engineer Zhao, was supposed to have finished testing this batch. When Zhao didn’t report in, Tian Qiaoming’s anxiety grew. Had something gone wrong?

Despite the label of “factory,” their setup was just a small, 200-square-meter workshop. Zhao’s workstation was next door. Opening the door, Tian Qiaoming found Zhao hunched over the workbench, intently focused.

“What’s going on, Zhao?” Tian Qiaoming asked cautiously.

“Tian Qiaoming, I was just about to come find you. You have to see this!” Zhao sounded unusually excited, prompting Tian Qiaoming to walk over at once.

Zhao had wired up a complete test circuit. As he pressed various buttons, a series of green lights lit up one after another. When all the lights glowed green, Tian Qiaoming’s eyes widened.

Their test circuit featured over twenty indicator lights. Green meant no issues; red indicated a fault. Ordinarily, at least 10% would light up red due to minor defects. But this time, every single light was green!

“What happened?” he asked.

“Take a look at this board!” Zhao handed Tian Qiaoming the modified board and started testing another one.

Looking over the board, Tian Qiaoming’s eyes widened further—it had at least six jumper wires, altering the original circuitry. He quickly pulled out the original design diagram to compare, mapping out the jumpers’ placement and realizing why Zhao had taken so long with this inspection.

The rewiring was skillfully done, far surpassing anything he or Zhao could match. The soldering, too, was impeccable, rivaling machine precision.

“This is brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this?”

After hours of analysis, Tian Qiaoming leapt to his feet, marveling at the ingenuity behind the modifications. He and Zhao had spent over two weeks designing this board, yet someone had reverse-engineered the circuitry and made precise improvements with nothing more than the final product to work from. This was astounding.

Without the original schematics, deducing the entire functionality from the circuit alone would require an extraordinary understanding of microcontroller design and electronic components. Even a professional team with the right equipment would take time to accomplish this—much less make improvements.

The prison had only received the circuit boards a day or two ago! For someone to manage this in such a short time was incredible—this person was a master, perhaps even a genius.

“What’s wrong, Tian Qiaoming?” Song Xiaoyu had woken up and came in to check on him.

“Xiaoyu, we’ve made a huge discovery! Take a look at this!” he said, showing her the board.

Though she flipped it over in her hands, the technical details were lost on her. Sales were her forte, but electronics not so much.

“This board came from the First Prison’s workshop. Someone in there fixed all the design flaws! It’s genius!”

“Really?” Her eyes sparkled. If this batch met client expectations, their follow-up workload and costs would decrease significantly.

“I wish we could bring this person into our company. But he’s a prisoner—bringing him here is impossible.”

“Don’t give up yet,” she said. “Why not ask Xiaoguang? He might have a solution.”

“You’re right! I’ll go see him first thing tomorrow and see if there’s any way he can help,” Tian Qiaoming said, deciding on his course of action. He couldn’t let talent like this slip by. Even if the person couldn’t join the company directly, maybe they could assist with designs or offer consulting on improvements—a golden opportunity for the business.

“About this batch, should we rework it?” Zhao asked.

“No, we can’t afford that. The client is in a hurry; delaying is out of the question,” Song Xiaoyu replied after a moment’s thought. “Let’s deliver this batch as-is, then make improved boards and upgrade their systems later as part of our after-sales service. The client will be pleased.”

“Good thinking!” Tian Qiaoming said, grateful for her resourcefulness.

Meanwhile, in cell 232, An Xiaohai frowned. After enduring a tiresome session of chatter with Xu Tianyou, he was left exhausted, sensing that something about Xu seemed off. Though hard to pinpoint, Xu appeared to be suppressing a barely-contained aggression that seemed ready to boil over.