A balding middle-aged man, dressed in a custom-tailored suit, greeted Jing Mingqiu enthusiastically.
"Student Tang Mingqiu, please excuse my intrusion."
Jing Mingqiu paused, quickly racking his brain, and confirmed he hadn't met this person before. "And you are?"
The middle-aged man smiled and replied, "My name is Jing Guohao, Jing Rou's father."
Jing Mingqiu had a vivid impression of the name Jing Rou, not just because she had a dance-off with Mo Ruixue during military training, but more importantly, she was also one of the most well-endowed girls in the class.
"You're looking for Jing Rou, aren't you? She's rehearsing inside. I'll call her out for you."
"No, no, no," Jing Guohao waved his hands repeatedly. "I'm not here to see Rou'er this time. I've come specifically to see you."
Jing Mingqiu recalled Feng Weiguo's specific instructions and silently raised his guard. "What do you want with me? If I recall correctly, this is our first meeting!"
"It's like this..."
Jing Guohao quickly explained his purpose.
It turned out his daughter had posted a video of herself rehearsing a stage play on her social media, which he had seen.
He was immediately captivated by the lively little animals. After inquiring with his daughter and learning that these were mechanical creations by Jing Mingqiu, he realized this was a great opportunity to make a lot of money.
Jing Guohao intended to collaborate with Jing Mingqiu to mass-produce these mechanical animals and sell them to people who wanted pets but, due to certain objective reasons, couldn't keep them.
"There's no need to look for me," Jing Mingqiu scratched his head. "Mechanical pets have been around for a while. If you think you can make money selling them, why don't you just make them yourself?"
Jing Guohao smiled broadly. "The mechanical pets on the market nowadays, while branded as intelligent, are very stiff and rigid in their movements. They completely lack the liveliness and charm of your creations."
"Student Jing Mingqiu, if you agree to cooperate, I can immediately give you ten million yuan and a ten percent stake in the technology!"
Ten million yuan was an astronomical sum for an ordinary person. For Jing Mingqiu, it was merely a number.
Although his bank account didn't even have five figures, only three to five thousand yuan for living expenses, the equipment he used in the laboratory, and the raw materials consumed, included imported equipment worth hundreds of millions and special alloys that cost more than gold.
If he wanted to buy the latest flagship phones, luxury cars, or villas, Jing Mingqiu could directly ask Feng Weiguo for money. Not to mention, one or two hundred million would be no problem.
It was just that Jing Mingqiu couldn't think of any use for the money. He wasn't interested in luxury cars or villas.
Flagship phones?
Forget it. Although the system upgrade progress was stuck, preventing him from directly modifying phones, by modifying components separately, Jing Mingqiu's phone had several times the performance of experimental machines from major manufacturers that madly stacked specifications.
On the principle of rather doing less than more, Jing Mingqiu waved his hand, ready to refuse, but then remembered Feng Weiguo's advice.
If he encountered something strange, something that didn't seem like something a normal university student would experience, he shouldn't rush into a decision but should discuss it with them first.
Normally, an ordinary university student wouldn't be approached by someone wanting to collaborate on product development and offer equity in exchange for technology.
After careful consideration, Jing Mingqiu decided to adopt a strategy of delaying. He would try to fool them for now and make a decision after discussing it with the principal and others.
"This is a big matter, and I can't make the decision myself. I need to go back and discuss it with my parents. I'll give you a decision in a few days."
"Yes, yes!" Jing Guohao nodded repeatedly. "This is indeed something that needs careful consideration. If you have nothing else, I'll be going now."
"If you have any questions, you can ask Rou'er directly. She's my only daughter, and I've always trained her as my successor. She knows all about the factory's operations."
After Jing Guohao left, bowing and scraping, Jing Mingqiu also left, returned to his dormitory, took out a satellite phone from under his pillow, and called Feng Weiguo.
"Principal, the situation is like this... I don't know what his purpose is in coming to me. I neither agreed nor refused!"
"You did very well," came Feng Weiguo's steady voice from the other end of the line. "Unsolicited favors often hide malicious intent. He is very likely sent by foreign powers to investigate you."
"Ten million is not a small sum. Your family background is ordinary. If you had directly refused, it would have indicated you had something to hide. If you didn't refuse, they could use it as an excuse to infiltrate your laboratory."
"I will contact the higher-ups immediately and have them arrange for people to investigate Jing Guohao. In the meantime, let me ask you one more thing. Did the mechanical animals you made for the club use any epoch-making technology?"
Jing Mingqiu flipped through the system's historical records. "Probably not. Most of it is existing technology. If there's anything epoch-making, it would be the chips. These little animals all use integrated chips with two-nanometer precision."
Hearing this, Feng Weiguo breathed a sigh of relief. "It's just chips, so it's not a big problem. We were already planning to showcase a scaled-down lithography machine at the World Technology Expo this month."
"Bringing it out for use now can actually send them the wrong signal, making them think we've already developed a two-nanometer precision lithography machine and are already using it extensively internally."
"This way, their suspicion that the lithography machine is related to you will be even lower, especially since it's been at most a year since you were discovered as a genius, while researching and surpassing a national treasure like the lithography machine would take at least ten years!"
Jing Mingqiu was stunned by this explanation. "There's actually that kind of reasoning?"
"In any case, you don't need to worry about this for now," Feng Weiguo reassured him. "Continue preparing for the stage play. The investigation should be completed by tomorrow, and we'll contact you then."
Since someone else was handling it, Jing Mingqiu didn't want to waste any more brain cells. After shoving the satellite phone back under his pillow, he put on his custom-made electric roller skates and quickly returned to the anime club, continuing to rehearse the stage play with a group of beautiful girls of various types.
"Everyone, put in some extra effort!" Xu Tianhe shouted, holding a megaphone and sweating profusely. "This is the last rehearsal. Everyone rest well tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, at three in the afternoon, we will have our official performance at the East Grand Theater."
"Hooray!"
"That's great!"
"So soon? I'm not ready yet!"
Some cheered, while others were nervous. The classroom where the anime club was located suddenly became lively.
Mo Ruixue was also a little nervous, gripping Jing Mingqiu's arm tightly. "A'qiu, what if I forget my lines during the official performance!"
"Don't be afraid," Jing Mingqiu patted Mo Ruixue's small head. "I've prepared for this. If you forget your lines, just shout, 'My dear, save me!' That will be enough."
Mo Ruixue's eyes widened, and she looked at Jing Mingqiu with a dazed expression. "Huh? This line isn't in the script..."