Chapter 1

Qilin Electronics Factory is one of the countless small electronics factories in Shenzhen, mainly engaged in contract manufacturing of circuit boards for clients.

With the rapid development of the industry, competition has become increasingly fierce. The old equipment, coupled with a bunch of lazy old hands, has led to low efficiency and high costs, causing the factory's business to dwindle.

The old factory manager died in a car accident, and Cao Mang had to return to the country to take over the business. However, he passed away from excessive grief during a banquet.

This gave the穿越者 (time traveler) Cao Mang a chance.

In October 2001, Cao Mang fired most of the lazy old hands in the factory and obtained a 50 million yuan loan from the bank through a mortgage.

It took three months to upgrade the equipment and train the new employees with the help of the factory's experienced hands.

Qilin Electronics officially transformed from a contract manufacturer to a producer of its own brand of computer motherboards and graphics cards, among other products.

Cao Mang planned to carve out a niche in the market dominated by Taiwanese brands.

The DIY market was almost monopolized by brands like ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and Elitegroup.

Cao Mang personally handled the motherboard circuit design, as a time traveler, he had already mastered some skills when he traveled through time.

For sales, Cao Mang offered high salaries to poach two channel managers from Qixinghong Trading and Yangcheng Maipu.

These two companies were the domestic general agents for ASUS and Gigabyte, respectively, and Qixinghong Trading had not yet started producing its own brand of products at that time.

Cao Mang spent a lot of effort to poach these two individuals.

...

"Do you know what the most powerful weapon in the world is?" Cao Mang asked the two men in the teahouse.

The two men looked at Cao Mang with confusion.

Brother, what are you trying to do?

Planning to threaten us with a knife?

"Exactly, it's a patch." Cao Mang continued, looking at the two men who were silent.

"The emergence of XP has ushered in a new era for computer systems, but it also came with many issues, such as blue screens, crashes, restarts, and various trojans and viruses."

"However, we at Qilin Electronics have already solved all these problems. I personally led the development of a software that fixes all the vulnerabilities and bugs in XP and can eliminate 99% of trojans and viruses on the market."

"Imagine if this software could only be used on Qilin motherboards, and customers would get Qilin Computer Manager for free when they buy a Qilin motherboard."

"If a computer with a Qilin motherboard doesn't crash, doesn't blue screen, and doesn't get infected by trojans or viruses, how would consumers make their choice?"

The two men looked at Cao Mang with bewilderment, as if they were looking at a fool. They had never heard of such a thing, and even Microsoft couldn't achieve it. How could a small electronics factory like Qilin do it?

If it weren't for the fact that they had already checked Cao Mang's background, they would have suspected he was involved in a pyramid scheme.

"Mr. Cao, are you joking with us? If there's nothing else, I'll leave." Zhou Kai from Qixinghong Trading took a sip of tea and put down the cup, and Lin Dongze from Maipu Technology also planned to leave.

Although they were competitors, they were also good friends in private. Sometimes, business competitors are good friends in private.

For example, salespeople from AMD and Intel are often good friends. (Don't disbelieve it; if you have friends working in these companies, you can ask them.)

"You can try it out first to see if I'm lying. By the way, the activation codes on the discs can only activate one computer." Cao Mang took two discs from his pocket and handed them to the two men.

"Alright, Mr. Cao, we'll leave then." Zhou Kai and Lin Dongze put the discs in their pockets and left.

...

"Old Zhou, do you think this thing is as powerful as that young man said?" Lin Dongze took out the disc and teased.

"Do you think it's possible?" Zhou Kai sneered and threw the disc into the trash.

They had been in the industry for so many years and had a good understanding of software.

Firstly, this software can be categorized as an antivirus program. In this era, knowledgeable people wouldn't install antivirus software on their computers.

Why is your computer slow?

Why does it crash and blue screen?

Those who know would say it's mostly because of antivirus software.

In this era, antivirus software is like a fool. It consumes a lot of CPU resources and often deletes files randomly, causing the computer to blue screen due to the deletion of system files.

Although not installing antivirus software can still cause blue screens and crashes, the probability is at least doubled when antivirus software is installed.

Moreover, don't try to fool Zhou Kai; he graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science.

The two men had to go back to work, so they parted ways.

"Damn broken computer." Lin Dongze returned to the office, and his computer inexplicably blue-screened again after a short while.

It's frustrating to lose work in the middle of a task.

However, the probability of blue screens and crashes in XP is much lower than in Windows 95.

"Should I try it?" Lin Dongze looked at the disc on the desktop while restarting the computer.

Curiosity killed the cat.

In the end, he couldn't resist the temptation and put the disc into the computer.

"What the hell is this? It's almost 2GB in size." Lin Dongze's eyes widened.

He didn't know that Cao Mang had worn out several keyboards while developing this software. This software is essentially a patch that fixes most of the vulnerabilities and bugs in XP and integrates various chip drivers. Blue screens are often caused by driver issues.

After installing Cao Mang's software, the system is as stable as XP from ten years later, with a significant improvement in stability, and it eliminates the troubles of blue screens, crashes, and trojans and viruses.

This is Cao Mang's trump card to carve out a niche in the DIY market.

The entire installation process took 30 minutes...

After restarting, Lin Dongze was thoroughly shocked. The boot-up speed had improved several times over.

Cao Mang's universal driver is more advanced than the original drivers, with performance optimization reaching its peak.

Lin Dongze checked the system thoroughly and found no abnormalities. The only change was a small icon in the lower right corner.

[Qilin Computer Manager]

Everything else was the same as before, except that the C drive usage increased from 1GB to 4GB. He had no idea what had been added.

"How can it be so fast?" Lin Dongze was puzzled.

Isn't this supposed to be an antivirus software?

Why did the speed increase so much after installation?

This is completely unscientific; even Turing would be baffled.

This software, which appears to be a program, is actually a patch. It is fully integrated into the system and does not consume any memory when not running.

The icon in the lower right corner serves only one purpose: to be seen. Clicking on it has no effect.

Surprisingly, there were no issues throughout the day. Before leaving work, Lin Dongze picked up the fixed-line phone on his desk.

"Old Zhou, come to our company later. That young man's thing is really something special."

"You installed it?"

"Yes, I don't know how to describe it. Just come and see for yourself."

"Got it."

Lin Dongze then called his wife to tell her he wouldn't be home for dinner.