bacchusnovels Chapter 35 The Start
Chapter 35 The Start
On the morning of April 10th, Zuo Cheng and Chen Hao entered the Lanwan Communications Procurement Center and signed the first major contract since the establishment of 402 Technology.
Contract No. LW-TQ-2017-0042. Party A: Lanwan Communications Co., Ltd.; Party B: Huaxia 402 Technology Co., Ltd. Subject Matter: Development of signal processing software module for the Tianqiong Constellation ground intelligent terminal. Contract Amount: RMB 980,000.00. Construction Period: 120 days.
Zuo Cheng's hand was very steady when he signed.
Chen Hao's hand was also very steady—but Zuo Cheng noticed that after he finished signing, he put the pen cap back on a beat slower than usual, as if he was processing some kind of unreal feeling.
The contract was made in quadruplicate, with each party holding two copies. When the purchasing center representative handed over the stamped contract in a document bag, they said, "The down payment is 30%, and it will be credited to your account within 15 working days after the contract takes effect."
Thirty percent, or 294,000 yuan.
This is the largest sum of money that will soon appear in 402's bank account.
Emerging from the procurement center, the two stood under the porch of the Blue Bay Communications Building. The April sun shone brightly, and the fountain in the square stirred up a fine mist in the breeze.
Chen Hao suddenly said, "Brother Cheng, I was thinking about something when I was signing the papers."
"What?"
"Last September, when we were pooling our money in the dorm to buy a server, the four of us emptied our pockets and managed to scrape together 3,200 yuan. Now we've signed a contract for 980,000 yuan." He looked at the file folder in his hand, "Only seven months have passed."
Zuo Cheng smiled.
"Let's go back to the meeting. The 980,000 wasn't taken for nothing; the 120-day delivery period starts its countdown today."
At 2 PM, there will be a meeting for all staff in room 402.
The office was crammed with six people—Zuo Cheng, Chen Hao, Fang Ze, Zhang Lei, Liu Wei, and Han Lu, who was participating as a project consultant. Shen Yue was absent due to class, but she was listening in live in the group chat.
Zuo Cheng drew a project breakdown diagram on the whiteboard.
"The Sky Dome ground terminal signal processing module has four core functions: signal reception and synchronization, demodulation and decoding, channel estimation and prediction, and beam management interface. Channel estimation and prediction is the most challenging aspect, but also our strength, and I was in charge of it. Chen Hao was responsible for the signal reception and demodulation modules; this part has a lot of reusable code from our previous base station projects. Fang Ze was responsible for the beam management interface—"
He glanced at Fang Ze. Fang Ze looked up from behind his laptop and nodded.
"Fang Ze was also responsible for the overall architecture, compilation optimization, and performance tuning of the embedded platform. Zhang Lei was in charge of building the test framework and designing automated test cases. Liu Wei continued to monitor other clients' projects; they couldn't afford to lose smaller clients just because of a big project. Han Lu was responsible for business coordination and milestone acceptance documentation during contract execution."
"The division of labor is clear." Han Lu quickly jotted down notes in her notebook. "And the milestones?"
"The contract stipulated three milestones. The first was day 45, delivering a working version of the signal reception and demodulation module. The second was day 75, delivering a working version of the channel estimation and beam management module. The third was day 120, completing full module integration testing and delivering the final version and complete documentation."
"Twenty percent will be paid upon successful completion of each milestone, and the remaining ten percent will be paid after the three-month technical support period ends," Han Lu added to the contract's payment terms.
Zuo Cheng nodded and turned to Fang Ze: "Blue Bay Communications has sent over the selection document for the embedded platform. Have you looked at it?"
"I've seen it." Fang Ze adjusted his glasses. "The platform they specified is a custom board based on the ARM Cortex-A72, running a trimmed-down Linux system. The hardware performance is a level weaker than the 5G base station platform I worked on before, but it's sufficient. The main challenge is memory—only 512MB. Our algorithm needs a lot of optimization to run under this memory constraint."
"512MB?" Chen Hao frowned. "The channel prediction module alone consumes a lot of memory for its state buffer, not to mention the buffers for signal reception and demodulation..."
"So we need to implement memory pooling management," Zuo Cheng continued.
At this point, a clear intuition suddenly surged into his mind—it was the "feel" brought about by the integration of technology and the blades.
"It's not just about memory pooling." He walked to the whiteboard and drew an architecture diagram. "When running real-time signal processing on an embedded platform, the worst thing you can do is dynamic memory allocation—every malloc and free operation can cause memory fragmentation, which will slow down or even crash the system over time. The traditional approach is to pre-allocate a large block of static memory, but static pre-allocation is too wasteful under the 512MB limit."
He drew three layers on the diagram.
"My solution is a three-tier memory architecture. Tier 1: All critical data structures used in the core algorithms are statically pre-allocated to a fixed size, never dynamically allocated. Tier 2: Non-critical temporary buffers use a circular memory pool, the size of which is dynamically adjusted based on the current load, but the adjustment granularity is coarse-grained—evaluated every five seconds to avoid frequent fluctuations. Tier 3: Low-priority functions that are rarely used share a compressed memory area, which is decompressed when needed and reclaimed when not in use."
Fang Ze stared at the whiteboard for five seconds, then slowly nodded.
"This architecture can keep peak memory usage below 350MB, leaving 160MB of headroom for the system and other processes." His tone held a hint of admiration. "Cheng, when did you become so knowledgeable about embedded memory management?"
"I did some research during my internship," Zuo Cheng said without changing his expression.
The value of technological integration was fully demonstrated at this moment—the three-level memory architecture wasn't something he "learned," but rather a solution that naturally emerged from the collision of the channel prediction algorithm characteristics and the hardware constraints of the embedded platform in his mind. Someone who only understands algorithms but not embedded systems, or someone who only understands embedded systems but not algorithms, wouldn't have thought of this design.
The meeting lasted until 6 p.m., and everyone received their first week's tasks.
Before leaving, Zhang Lei turned back and asked, "Brother Cheng, now that the down payment has arrived, shouldn't we start paying everyone's salaries?"
"No rush," Zuo Cheng said. "Retain 70% of the initial payment as project execution funds—server rental, testing equipment purchase, and travel expenses will all come from here. The remaining 30% will be distributed according to job positions."
"So Comrade Zhang Lei will still have to pay for his own milk tea this month?" Liu Wei interjected from the side.
"Company money isn't for drinking bubble tea," Zuo Cheng glanced at Liu Wei, "but after the project passes its first milestone acceptance, I'll treat the whole team to a good meal."
"Got it!" Zhang Lei and Liu Wei said in unison.
Chen Hao and Fang Ze exchanged a glance and both smiled.
At eight o'clock in the evening, Zuo Cheng was alone in his office, writing the detailed design document for the channel estimation module. The ginkgo leaves outside the window had fully unfurled, casting a fuzzy green shadow under the streetlights.
My phone rang. It was a message from Lin Zhiyuan.
"Zuo Cheng, two things. First, your graduation thesis defense is scheduled for May 15th. The list of the defense committee has been finalized, and I've sent it to your email. Second—"
The second message arrived more than ten seconds later.
"The results of the provincial outstanding graduation thesis selection are out. Your thesis has been selected."
Zuo Cheng looked at the screen, a slight smile playing on his lips.
For an undergraduate student, receiving the provincial-level outstanding graduation thesis award is one of the most prestigious honors on their academic resume. Combined with the top-tier journal article already published, his academic background has already reached the pinnacle among his peers.
He replied with two words: "Thank you."
Lin Zhiyuan sent another message: "Don't thank me, you earned it yourself. Also, your application for the Engineering PhD has been approved by the college, and you'll officially register at the beginning of next semester. Congratulations."
Zuo Cheng put down his phone, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
Provincial-level outstanding dissertation. Doctor of Engineering. Contract worth 980,000 yuan. Technological integration.
Only ten days into April, he already had twice as many cards in his hand as at the beginning of the year.
The light screen flickered silently in my consciousness.
[Side Quest: Academic Summit: Completed!]
[Achieved dual honors: Provincial Excellent Graduation Thesis and Top Journal Publication; Evaluation: Exceeded Expectations]
[Reward: 12 points, unlock the "Academic Writing and Review" leaflet]
Current points: 95
Current number of blades: 11 (including 1 fusion-class)
Ninety-five points. Eleven blades.
Five more branches are needed for the next evolution of the tech tree—he currently only has one. The road ahead is long, but the direction is clear.
Zuo Cheng closed the panel, reopened the design document, and continued writing.
When I got to page twelve, my phone rang again.
News about Yu Ying.
Are you busy?
"I'm writing a document. What about you?"
"I'm looking at your thesis. Professor Lin asked me to check the technical parts of your defense presentation slides, saying he was worried you might be too busy to review them."
Zuo Cheng paused for a moment. He hadn't even started preparing his presentation slides yet.
"...I haven't made the PowerPoint presentation yet."
"I know," Yu Ying sent a helpless emoji. "So Professor Lin asked me to 'urge' him on. His exact words were—'Zuo Cheng is obsessed with his company right now, so please keep an eye on him and make sure he gets his thesis defense done.'"
Zuo Cheng laughed out loud.
Lin Zhiyuan, as a mentor, manages his students in even more detail than the homeroom teacher.
"Okay, I'll do it this weekend. I'll send it to you for review when it's done."
"Okay." Yu Ying paused for a moment, then added, "By the way, I heard about your provincial award. Congratulations."
"Thank you, Teacher Yu."
"And you call me Teacher Yu."
"What's that called?"
Yu Ying did not reply to the question. After a few seconds, she sent a completely unrelated message.
"Zuo Cheng, have you noticed—we've known each other for almost eight months now."
As Zuo Cheng looked at these words, something stirred slightly within him.
Eight months. From a window seat in the library until now.
He thought for a long time, typed a line, then deleted it. He typed another line, then deleted it again.
Finally, he sent out: "Hmm, time really flies."
After saying that, he felt like a piece of trash.
A thirty-six-year-old soul, with the experience of two lifetimes, responded to a young woman's probing with, "Time flies."
Yu Ying did not reply to the message.
Zuo Cheng put down his phone, rubbed his face, and brought his attention back to the design document.
But for the next half hour, he didn't write a single word.
His mind was filled with Yu Ying's words, "We've known each other for almost eight months"—he understood the subtext of those words better than anyone else.
Not now. But soon.
He wants to deliver the first milestone of the Sky Dome project first.
Then, he will give himself and Yu Ying an answer.
The spring breeze outside the window rustled through the ginkgo leaves.
Zuo Cheng took a deep breath and began to write again.