yournovel Chapter 346 Insomnia
Chapter 346 Insomnia
At nine o'clock in the evening, Ling Yun lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
The room was dark, with only the light from the streetlamp filtering through the curtains, casting a thin strip of light on the wall. He turned over, then back over; he couldn't fall asleep at all.
It wasn't just a matter of time difference; Lingyun's mind was racing. Fiona's words from that afternoon kept replaying in his head: patents, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, HP, Dell, Eric.
Ling Yun sat up and leaned against the headboard. The digital clock on the bedside table showed 21:17 PM. He took out a photo album from the drawer and started flipping through it. After a long time, he stopped at a particular photograph.
That photo was taken in March 1997, the day Xingchen Technology moved into its new office building. There are about a dozen people in the photo, standing behind the reception desk, huddled together, all grinning. Eric is standing on the second row, on the left, wearing that faded blue plaid shirt, his hair a little messy, his glasses reflecting the light.
Lingyun remembers what happened that day.
After moving in the afternoon, he went to the supermarket that evening and bought several cases of beer, carrying them back to the company. Everyone sat on the floor to drink, without even glasses, just chugging straight from the bottle. Eric, having drunk too much, became quite talkative, pulling Lingyun aside and chatting for a long time.
"Boss, you know what? My lousy company hasn't paid salaries for three months." He shook his bottle. "My wife said if you don't find a job soon, we'll be homeless on the streets."
Ling Yun was leaning against the wall, and he was quite drunk. "So now you've found a job, and it's a very promising one."
"Yes," Eric said, holding up the bottle, "so this bottle is for you."
He took a big gulp, then remembered something, "By the way, boss, can you bring all seven of my people over? They're all very talented. We've worked together for years and we're already very well-matched. They can start working right away; there's no need for adjustment or training."
"Yes, you can bring them into your project team."
"Okay." Eric took another sip. "From now on, you can do whatever you want."
Ling Yun later learned that Eric had paid out of his own pocket to keep three of the seven people on the job. He had given them his last two months' salary and hadn't taken a single penny for himself.
Lingyun continued flipping through the pages.
In August 1997, in the photo, Eric is squatting next to a server rack, holding a network cable and pressing it to his face. Several people are standing around, pointing at him and laughing. The server crashed that day, and Eric worked through the night troubleshooting, finally finding the problem at four in the morning. When Ling Yun arrived at the company in the morning, he found Eric lying asleep on the floor, covered with a coat.
At 2 a.m. in February 1998, only Ling Yun and Eric remained at the company. They were debugging the first official version of the Starry Sky System. They had been working on it for three days and three nights, but they still couldn't find a bug. Eric pushed the keyboard away, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling.
"Damn it, where did I go wrong?"
Ling Yun also stared at the screen, checking for problems one by one.
After a few minutes of silence, Eric suddenly sat up. "I understand."
He typed a bunch of code, pressed enter, and a long log ran across the screen, the last line being a green "Success".
Ling Yun looked at him, and Eric looked at him too. Neither of them spoke. There was no satisfaction in solving the bug, only a deep weariness.
In May 1999, on the eve of Xingchen Technology's IPO, everyone was working overtime. Eric's office light stayed on until 5 a.m. Ling Yun only found out the next day that it was his daughter's birthday that day, and he hadn't gone home at all.
Ling Yun threw her phone on the bed and closed her eyes.
When was the Porsche bought? Last month? Or the month before last? How much did it cost? Two hundred thousand? Three hundred thousand? Lingyun knew Eric's salary. A little over two hundred thousand a year after tax. With stock options, it's quite a lot, but to cash them out, they have to wait for the IPO. It's only been six months since the IPO, and the stock options haven't expired yet.
What does his wife do? She's a housewife. Where did that car come from?
Ling Yun opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling again.
A scene flashed through her mind. It was winter in 1998, also in the early morning, and it was just the two of them. Lingyun had worked late that day, and when she went to the break room to get coffee, she saw Eric on the phone as she passed his office. His voice was low, his back to the door, and one hand was covering the receiver.
Ling Yun didn't pay any attention and continued walking. When he returned after pouring the coffee, the phone call had already ended. Eric sat in a chair, staring blankly at the screen.
This happened a few more times. Late at night, when Eric's phone rang, he'd glance at the caller ID and hang up. Or he'd take the phone outside and answer it in the hallway, his voice very low. Ling Yun saw this a couple of times but never asked. Everyone has their own private matters.
But now Lingyun started to wonder who made those calls.
In September 1999, at the final technical review meeting before the release of Star System 2.0, Eric gave a two-hour presentation, covering the architecture, performance, and future plans. Afterwards, Lingyun privately asked him where the idea for the newly added "inter-process communication optimization module" came from. Eric said it was his own idea, developed after extensive research.
Lingyun later had Li Mo check the code for that module. It was indeed well-written, a significant improvement over Eric's previous work. Li Mo said that some of the algorithmic ideas were very similar to an internal Microsoft patent. Lingyun didn't take it seriously at the time; in technology, different paths often lead to the same goal.
Now he remembered the patent number; he had checked and it was applied for by Microsoft in 1998.
It was 2:15 AM. Ling Yun got out of bed, walked to the window, pulled back a corner of the curtain, and looked outside. The parking lot was empty, with only a few cars. The black Ford under the streetlight was still parked there. Fiona had said that someone was following her that afternoon—was it this car?
He drew the curtains, walked back to the bed, and sat down.
His mind started racing again. How much core code had Eric handled in the past three years? All of it. He was the head of the operating systems department; he could see every single line of code, from the kernel to the drivers. If he really… no, he couldn't. Three years, three years.
But what about Porsche? What about those phones? What about that patent?
Ling Yun stood up, walked to his desk, and opened the drawer. Inside were several sheets of white paper and a pen. He took out the pen, wrote a few words on the paper, and stared at them for a long time. Then he folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
It was three in the morning. Ling Yun lay back in bed and closed his eyes. He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. The images kept replaying in his mind. He truly couldn't accept Eric's betrayal. After fighting side by side for so long, Ling Yun still hoped they could continue to be comrades.
Ling Yun opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling; it was still dark.