Chapter 227 Cat's Eye at Night
The Zhang family has a big dinner on Wednesday this week.

Zhang Yunqi had been craving for wild rabbit meat for a long time, which was brought back by Liang the pigherd from Yunxi Village who had hunted two rabbits.

When Zhang Yunqi returned to the village before, he told Liang the pigkeeper that any delicious wild game would be welcome. Of course, forget about those protected animals. Zhang Yunqi didn't have a hobby for them, especially snakes and rats. The sight of them was creepy, but people in southern Hunan really like to eat them. Sometimes when he went out for a drink with friends and saw them ordering these things, he would resist it with every fiber of his body.

At noon, Aunt Zhang cooked the wild rabbit, stir-fried it with homemade tea oil and various seasonings and spices, then added white radish and round chili peppers, and stewed a big pot. It tasted delicious.

While eating, Zhang Yunqi received a call from Wang Guibing.

Wang Guibing told him on the phone that Hu Zhibiao told him that there were some problems with the development of the VCD player.

The assembled prototype is now available and can be used normally, but it may take some time to get the kind of machine that Zhang Yunqi wants, one with reliable quality and functional applications comparable to the model just launched by Wan Yan, because key components such as the decoding board's system control software are too difficult to get. They have not even seen Wan Yan's first generation VCD player and have no reference at all, so they have to rely entirely on their own trial and error.

Zhang Yunqi asked Wang Guibing: "Why didn't Hu Zhibiao call me and tell me about these things himself?"

Wang Guibing said, "Maybe he's a little worried and not ready yet. I'll ask him to report to you later."

Zhang Yunqi said, "How about this. Ask someone to go to the provincial capital and buy five Wanyan VCD players. Then send two to Hu Zhibiao so that he can calm down and study hard."

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Yunqi continued eating.

In fact, Zhang Yunqi didn't care much about the R&D technical issues that Hu Zhibiao had passed on to him privately through Wang Guibing, because he was not a technical person. As a boss, results are everything. Of course, although the goal set before was to produce a high-quality and fully functional prototype before the Spring Festival, he didn't force Hu Zhibiao to tinker with the VCD player by this time point, because this matter itself was a bit beyond the scope.

As far as I can remember, Hu Zhibiao and Liu Qiang were still working on their pirated Subor game consoles at this point in time, and the first Aido VCD prototype was not developed until mid-95. Now it has been two years earlier, so Hu Zhibiao's ability level must have been lower, and the technical conditions he faced were more demanding.

At present, domestic VCD technology has just started, and c-cube has not yet developed a new generation of decoding chips with higher integration. Wanyan's first generation of VCD players has only been released recently. The first batch of 1000 units was priced at 5 yuan per unit. Ordinary people naturally could not afford it, and it was finally snapped up by major manufacturers as prototypes. However, relying on its early monopoly position, Wanyan's first generation of VCD players was still invincible, with a market share of 100%.

However, within just two years, Wanyan VCD became a scapegoat in the fierce competition in the industry, with its market share shrinking to 3%. It was once "sold" to Meiling, but after getting out, it moved south again with heavy burdens. Due to government intervention, lack of funds, partners' estrangement, lack of experience and other reasons, it inevitably declined.

It can be seen from this that when to launch VCD is very critical. It is not necessarily appropriate to be the first to seize the market opportunity, because research and development is only a part of the initial investment. Many manufacturers can do it, but from the compressor to the whole machine, discs and copyright issues to market cultivation, each link is closely linked. For most Chinese people at present, they don’t know what a VCD player is, and the price is not affordable at all. The disc piracy industry has not yet become rampant, and discs are extremely expensive, often fifty or sixty yuan per disc. Not many people are willing to pay for it. Although Wan Yan is the first to try it, he not only has to educate users and dealers, but also producers and publishers.

Of course, all these tasks can be done, but the key is the huge funding problem. Wanyan died here. The initial R&D funds were burned out, and the local government did not allow joint ventures, out-of-province operations, or foreign investment. Wanyan's management was at a loss and had no solution. Then, in the turbulent VCD development history in China in the 1990s, Wanyan went from a pioneer to a martyr.

Zhang Yunqi was not in a hurry. There was no point in being in a hurry. Even if Hu Zhibiao put the VCD player prototype in front of him now, he could not start production and sell it. So he should cultivate his internal strength first. Within half a year, Hu Zhibiao would put a high-quality product on his desk.

As for being the pioneer in developing the budding Chinese VCD player market, Wan Yan would naturally take on the role, and would be eager to do so. She would be eager to give enlightenment education lessons to relevant industry players across the country. Then, after a year or two, when the piracy industry in the southeastern coastal cities became rampant and pirated disc rental stores began to appear in the streets and alleys, the spring of this emerging industry would arrive.

******
Putting the matter aside, after lunch, Zhang Yunqi and Chu Jian packed a large bowl of hot wild rabbit meat in two thermos bottles before going to school, one for Wang Xiaokai and his three brothers, and one for Yan Shi.

They are all boarding students with whom he has a good relationship in the class.

It was not easy for boarding students to study in those days. They ate bland meals from the big pot in the cafeteria, and never needed detergent to wash dishes. There was no boy who was growing up who did not go hungry. As for taking a bath, in the middle of winter, they had to carry a bucket, climb the mountain and wade through water to the boiler room behind the cafeteria to get hot water and bring it back to the dormitory to wash. Some lazy students did not even scrub their bodies for a month or so. Once winter came, the boys' dormitory was filled with the smell of pickled cabbage.

Before evening self-study in the afternoon, Zhang Yunqi gave the thermos to Yan Shi. The girl was very happy. Zhang Mazi's face was flushed and he thanked Zhang Yunqi several times.

Zhang Yunqi smiled and said, "Don't be so polite. We are all friends. By the way, the weather is too cold now. If you want to take a hot bath in the future, you can go to my store. There is a separate bathroom. Kaizi and the others take a bath there."

When he said this, Zhang Yunqi suddenly noticed that Yan Shi's cheek was a little swollen, and asked: "What's wrong with your face?"

Yan Shi was stunned for a moment, lowered her head and picked at her nails and said, "No, it's okay. It was snowing and the roads were slippery. I accidentally fell when I was returning to the dormitory last night."

Zhang Yunqi nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

Yan Shi watched his back as he returned to his seat, put the thermos, which was still a little warm, into the desk, then took out a piece of letter paper from his pocket, spread it out, picked up a pen, and slowly began to write.

Time passed little by little, until the bell rang for the end of evening self-study get out of class, Yan Shi, who was absorbed in writing, woke up. She quickly folded the letter paper and stuffed it into her pocket. As usual, she left the classroom and ran to the dormitory. She carried a plastic bucket to the boiler room and filled it with hot water from the open-air water boiler.

It was already past ten o'clock and evening self-study had just ended, but there were only a few girls getting hot water because the weather was too cold and it was snowing. Normally, students who wanted to take a shower would get hot water in the afternoon. So late at night, there were only stray cats running around, but not many people.

After waiting in line for a while, Yan Shi soon got hot water.

A bucket of hot water was not very heavy, but for a thin girl, it was definitely not an easy task to carry it from the boiler room to the girls' dormitory nearly 500 meters away and then climb four floors. Yan Shi rested four times before finally carrying the bucket of hot water back to the dormitory with difficulty.

At that time, all five roommates in Class 155 had returned.

Wu Yali, who was very famous in the school and was also the big sister in the dormitory, was sitting on the bed grinding her fingernails. She looked at Yan Shi with sweat on her forehead and asked with a smile, "Is it hard?" Yan Shi lowered his head and said, "Not hard."

Wu Yali stopped grinding her fingernails, and her pretty face smiled brightly: "That's good, Sister Hua, can you help me carry the water to the bathroom?"

When Yan Shi was fetching water to go to the bathroom, Chen Xinyi's voice came from behind: "Sister Hua, I'm so sorry. I have to trouble you to fetch me a bucket of water. After Yali finishes her shower, I also want to take a shower."

Yan Shi's hand holding the bucket stopped in mid-air. She looked at the pockmarked face in the mirror on the bathroom sink and whispered, "It's late, Xinyi, can you wash tomorrow? I'll get you some hot water tomorrow."

No reply.

But soon, a girl in pajamas appeared at the bathroom door, stared at her pockmarked face, and suddenly kicked the wooden door: "Shame on you?"

"Hey, hey, hey! Xinyi, what's wrong with you? Be gentle. What if you scare our Sister Hua?" At this time, Wu Yali's laughter came from behind: "Didn't Zhao Dong say that? Our Sister Hua has someone protecting her. By the way, Zhao Yue, what's that guy called Zhang something?"

"Zhang Yunqi."

"Oh, yes! It's Zhang Yunqi. Didn't the people in their class say last time that Zhang Yunqi stood up for Sister Hua and beat up Liao Haihua? He also threatened in front of the class, saying that if anyone dared to bully Sister Hua, he would twist off their head and kick it like a ball! Hahaha... This is really funny. I don't know where this country farmer came from, but this temperament really matches our Sister Hua..."

"do not talk!"

The dormitory suddenly became quiet.

Perhaps no one in the dormitory could have imagined that Yan Shi had the courage to interrupt Wu Yali, and they were surprised, but soon, the sound of someone getting out of bed and putting on shoes was heard in the dormitory.

Yan Shi's clenched fist loosened.

For some reason, her hands began to tremble violently. She looked up and saw the ugly pockmarked face in the mirror. She said to Chen Xinyi who was staring at her coldly, "I'll go get you some water. I'll go get you some water now."

She immediately picked up the empty bucket, rushed out of the dormitory and ran to the stairs of the dormitory building. Wu Yali's laughter came from behind: "Sister Hua, walk slowly, don't fall, wait for you to come back, we will have a good chat!"

Late at night.

The campus is cold and the snow is still falling.

There were tiny lights on the houses in the darkness.

At this time, there was no one in front of the boiler room. On such cold nights, students who had no place to warm themselves by the fire always went to bed early. Even if they couldn't sleep, they would lie in the warm bed, read martial arts novels, romance novels, and play Tetris with a flashlight. Students who wanted to take a shower would never come to this dark place to get hot water at this time.

Except for wild cats.

Every night, no matter it is windy or snowing, wild cats always appear here in groups. The garbage dump here is their paradise and their granary to resist the cold winter. They enjoy a sumptuous feast in it and make creepy noises from time to time.

When the flashlight came on, Yan Shi's figure appeared here.

Carrying a bucket of water, she walked step by step through the wild cats running around. Their huge pupils flashed strange green and red lights in the darkness. What was even stranger was that the girl was not afraid at all. Perhaps she had become numb, or perhaps compared to the cat's eyes, the human heart was more terrifying.

Coming to the water boiler, the girl placed the empty bucket under it, turned on the switch, and the water flowed down, emitting pale hot steam, rushing towards the pockmarked face.

Her eyes soon misted over.

She wiped it with the back of her hand, which was covered with chilblains and festering.

She looked at the creepy cat's eyes in the dark and felt a little cold. She turned down the water boiler, took out a piece of letter paper from her pocket, spread it out, squatted in the snow, turned on the flashlight, picked up a pen, and slowly began to write.

As I wrote, my heart seemed to warm a little.

******
Pls. Updated. I'm really sorry. The first two chapters were censored. I revised them several times in the past two days before releasing them. However, the content of those two chapters is a bit messy and fragmented.

But there is no way. Now I am a little afraid to write too deeply. I also need to think about and adjust the subsequent plots carefully. No matter what, I hope I can write what I think.

(End of this chapter)