Xing Baohua rode his black scooter, attracting attention as it sputtered along. Especially notable was that he was riding the scooter while simultaneously holding onto a bicycle with one hand.

Sometimes it even wobbles and loses its balance. There are many bicycles on the road, and they all give way when they hear noise; the exhaust pipe is better than the bell.

After finally arriving at the repair shop, my arms were so sore from exhaustion that I had to shake them off after getting out of the car to relieve the soreness.

"Hua Zi, when did you get this little motorcycle? It's making quite a racket. A brand new one like this must have been expensive, right?" The speaker was Niu Jishan, Xing Baohua's classmate from night school. Niu Jishan was a decent mechanic, and the two were quite close in school, so Xing Baohua had him work at the shop.

Therefore, Niu Jishan's father somehow managed to get a leg of lamb and delivered it to Xing Baohua's house that evening.

"It's not brand new, it's a used bike, someone else doesn't want it anymore. I'll leave it here for now and ride it when I get back from get off work," Xing Baohua said, parking the bike in front of the repair shop.

“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on it for you. You didn’t even buy a lock. Fine, I’ll buy one for you in a bit. By the way, Hua Zi, the repair shop job is good, but there’s not much business. We can’t just sit around doing nothing all day! Why don’t you transfer me to the workshop? I don’t need to train you on welding or anything.” Niu Jishan said, scratching his head.

"You stay here for now. I'll teach you some skills later. I have a big job that will pay more than you can at the factory," Xing Baohua said in a low voice.

"Really?" Niu Jishan immediately thought of the foreign exchange Xing Baohua earned from making audio equipment, assuming he'd share in the profits since Xing Baohua was also manufacturing audio equipment. Didn't he see Xing Baohua had bought a small motorcycle?

"Why would I lie to you? I'm going back to the factory now." After saying that, Xing Baohua rode his bicycle back to the factory.

He'd spent the last two days running around handling paperwork. Production in the workshop was up and running, but he still had to keep an eye on it. Mainly, Xing Baohua wasn't entirely at ease with his two deputies!

The defective boards have been mostly found; a total of over eighty have been identified. This is after Liu Quan screened them on the production line, and the quality inspection team conducted a second screening.

As for whether there were any that slipped through the net, that's hard to say. At the time, nobody knew how many defective boards were left; it was all a matter of probability. Xing Baohua estimated there were only a few, and they might not even be detected in the random inspection.

With the little donkey, it's much more convenient for him to get from the factory to Shangguzhuang. It also saves time; although the donkey isn't fast, it's still much better than a bicycle.

The news of Xing Baohua buying a car was circulating among many people in the factory, who all assumed it was a new car. After all, it looked brand new after being cleaned. And Xing Baohua had the money and the ability to buy it.

But Mr. Xing wanted to talk to his son. He hadn't handed over any of his earnings, and now he wanted to buy a car? Money shouldn't be spent recklessly! Plus, he'd been borrowing money from relatives lately, leaving him penniless. No, his savings were gone. Mrs. Xing had already argued with him several times.

When Xing's father arrived at the fifth workshop, he called Xing Baohua out. The two found a secluded spot and squatted down. Xing's father spoke first, saying, "You didn't even discuss the car purchase with the family."

"It's no big deal! There's no need to discuss it. It's not expensive." Xing Baohua said so casually, which did indeed cause Xing's father to misunderstand.

The cigarettes and bike repairs only cost a little over seventy yuan, two months' salary! Who wouldn't be happy? It's cheaper than buying a used bicycle. Where's the expense?

But Xing's father thought that with his large sum of money, buying a car worth a thousand or so yuan was nothing unusual. But that's not how you spend money.

“It can’t be cheap either! Money! You have to save it, you can’t spend it recklessly. You can’t become a spendthrift. Go home tonight and give the rest of your money to your mother so she can save it for you. You’ll need it a lot in the future. Dowries for getting married are high these days.” Mr. Xing patiently persuaded him, somehow bringing up the topic of marriage.

Xing Baohua has some money left that he can still use, so why should he hand it over? Even getting married wouldn't cost that much!

"Dad, don't worry about me. I still need that little bit of money," Xing Baohua said.

"What else do you want to buy? What's the use? You can't spend it. Give it to your mother when you get home tonight!" When Xing Baohua said that the money was still useful, Xing's father thought he was wasting money. He became a little anxious and raised his voice.

"No, I need to have some capital, right? I don't even have enough capital, really."

"You still want to do speculative business? I'll beat you up..." Xing's father was also anxiously looking for something, and when he couldn't find it, he took off his shoes.

Seeing the situation was bad, Xing Baohua ran away. He felt a shoe hit his back and thought, "Being too big isn't good either! It covers too much ground."

When Xing Baohua returned to the workshop, he was also thinking about whether or not to tell his father that he owned a factory.

After thinking about it, I decided not to tell him for now. After all, his father is a bit old-fashioned and will definitely be unhappy about his departure from the factory. He'll have to do a lot of work on him then, and that'll be a real headache.

Xing Baohua used the factory's resources to start researching and designing products for his own factory.

Fortunately, a powerful section chief named Shen provided him with some gadgets, which were basically various types of chips available on the market. Both domestic and imported chips were available, which was much better than Zhang Xuebao getting him three or four chips for a little over a hundred yuan.

Moreover, the factory provides the chips for free. Most of these chips are domestically produced, which he categorizes one by one, and there are even high-quality counterfeit 8080 chips.

The price is low, and the performance is no worse than the genuine product; the only problem is the low production volume. Currently, such a high-end chip is not used in the products designed by Xing Baohua.

He now uses embedded low-power microcontrollers the most.

Recording a phone call is actually not complicated at all; all you need is a cassette recorder and a telephone. The only difference is that you need to shrink the cassette recorder to the size of an interview recorder, and use small-sized cassettes.

Products like this don't need to be manufactured in our own factory; we can just place an order with a tape recorder factory and have them assembled there. These things are basically for workers to practice on.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!