Chapter 1: The Ultra Cow Doctorate

  A dimly lit room, with only a desk lamp emitting a faint yellow glow, three small insects flying around the bulb, making a hissing sound. It was early August, the hottest season of Jianghai, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius.

  A young man with his upper body exposed, hair slightly disheveled, and a messy beard, bowed his head under the lamp's glow, his thick eyebrows and big eyes staring intently at the 108 IC chips in his hand, densely packed together, almost overlapping each other.

  "Liu Meng, you can do it!" The young man muttered to himself.

  One hand held the soldering iron, and with a touch of rosin, a burst of white smoke erupted. The fine sweat on his forehead gradually gathered into large beads, which he occasionally wiped away with his arm, while his back was already drenched in sweat.

  Drip... The phone nearby made a slight vibration, but the young man remained still, staring at the dense needle and soldering bit by bit.

  Drip... Drip..., a mobile phone nearby rang softly one after another.

  The young man remained focused on his work, completing the welding of a whole circuit board and starting to test it on his own small experimental platform. The function was good, the loaded program ran stably, and his furrowed brow finally relaxed, with a satisfied smile at the corner of his mouth, he said softly: Finally completed this crucial step.

  I picked up my mobile phone and took a look. I had received five messages, the earliest of which was sent more than three hours ago by my girlfriend Zhao Linlin.

  I didn't expect that this debugging session would take four hours again.

  Took out the phone, opened the message, and quickly read one by one.

  "Brother, are you still debugging the circuit? Don't be too tired, pay attention to rest."

  "It's the weekend and I can only stay at home waiting for my brother. A great movie has just been released, I really want to go watch it together."

  "I just called home and felt very sad, brother, is everything okay on your end? Let's have dinner together."

  "A person lies in bed, thinking a lot, trying hard not to think wildly, brother, come on!"

  "Brother, I really can't bear it anymore. I've been looking forward to the beautiful future you mentioned, but those fantasy scenes are like castles in the air, distant and blurry, out of reach. These days are so hard to get through."

  In the end, the young man's eyebrows slowly furrowed again, and he sighed in his heart. Such scenes had repeated many times in the six years they were together. This time, he didn't take it to heart either, probably because Zhao Linlin had been waiting for too long, and her spoiled and temperamental display of dissatisfaction was not surprising.

  Come on, Linlin. As long as this product is developed successfully, I can earn my first pot of gold and give you the home you've always wanted. The young man muttered to himself in a low voice, but his tone was exceptionally firm.

  Make a quick phone call over there.

  "Ling, I just finished debugging over here. Didn't expect it to be so late already. This debugging was very successful, we're not far from truly completing the product now. Happiness is right in front of us, let's go get some midnight snacks together." Liu Meng said with a deliberately casual tone.

  On the other end of the phone was complete silence, with only faint sobbing sounds, Liu Meng felt a growing sense of unease in his heart, this time was vastly different from before.

  After a moment of silence.

  "My parents have always disagreed with us being together, now that we've both graduated, our classmates are buying houses and getting married, I'm not young anymore, being with you means I can only hold onto the so-called beautiful future you promised, waiting and waiting, it's really tiring, let's just break up."

  After finishing speaking, Zhao Linlin hung up the phone.

  The phone rang again and went through, but there was only a prompt tone, "The number you dialed is powered off, sorry..."

  Sorry, Liu Meng slammed his old HTC G4 phone onto the bed with a loud thud, and it slipped under the bed from one corner. He didn't care, just staring blankly at the circuit boards and testing instruments on the table.

  A wave of dizziness and fatigue suddenly struck, having just concentrated for four hours, initially immersed in the excitement of success without feeling it, suddenly suffered a blow, and immediately erupted.

  It was a bit difficult to move to the bedside, and it wasn't until I lay down on the bed that I felt a little more comfortable.

  Looking at the ceiling, his nose slightly sour, trying hard to calm his breathing.

  Since the two have been together, they have always been filled with contradictions between reality and dreams.

  Liu Meng, a child from an ordinary family in Suishui City, a relatively underdeveloped area in the central region, relied on his unyielding spirit to overcome obstacles and eventually became a Ph.D. student, finally settling down in Jianghai, this international metropolis.

  His father's dark face with deep wrinkles was all smiles, proud of him, and would boast to anyone he met that he had a son who stayed in the big city.

  Since making up with Zhao Linlin, he learned that her parents did not agree, Liu Meng knew that the two would eventually face the pressure of reality. From then on, apart from studying, he worked harder, tirelessly reading domestic and foreign literature, thinking about ways to start a business and make money.

  Ph.D. program, 6 years of accumulation, a total of 18 papers were published, 10 SCI-indexed and 8 EI-indexed, fruitful results, and the graduation thesis was evaluated as one of the top 100 excellent doctoral dissertations in China.

  Not only that, but also the new energy two-way conversion technology and wind-light storage technology of amateur research have applied for 20 national invention patents. With a small amount of subsidies accumulated over time, instruments and equipment were purchased to set up a small personal laboratory, which is currently developing an electric vehicle power recovery utilization system.

  He believed that as long as this 99.7% efficient product development was successful, he would definitely make a fortune, solve his housing problem, and then be able to propose to Zhao Linlin, with every detail of the proposal carefully thought out during his exhausting research days.

  Unfortunately, the results obtained and the time invested are always in direct proportion. Einstein once said that success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

  Zhao Linlin often found herself in situations like today, waiting anxiously for Liu Meng, enduring the pressure from her parents and tolerating the neglect from her busy boyfriend, all alone in this vast unfamiliar city.

  Liu Meng could very well understand Zhao Linlin's feelings and didn't blame him in his heart at all.

  You just take 200,000 from home, and I'll ask my parents for 200,000. Add that to my savings over the past two years, and we can buy a small house together. This is a plan that Zhao Linlin has proposed to Liu Meng many times. In order to alleviate Liu Meng's pressure, Zhao Linlin found a job as soon as she graduated from college, even though she had wanted to continue her studies at the time.

  However, his parents' income was not high, and in a small city, accumulating 200,000 yuan was simply impossible. After making several phone calls, Liu Meng still couldn't bring himself to ask how much money his family could raise.

  He can only work harder to develop the product, day and night, often staying up all night, but developing a high-tech product alone is a long process, and time is exactly what Liu Meng lacks.

  He wants to use these years to work hard and make up for the accumulation of several decades by others' parents, how easy is it?

  Buying a house and getting married rely on myself, never reaching out to family for help. This is Liu Meng's ambition, and he has emphasized this point to Zhao Linlin more than once.

  Zhao Linlin is also a rare sensible little girl, although she is a bit mischievous in her daily life.

  The two met in the campus library, and they had a good relationship. After Zhao Linlin graduated from college, she successfully passed the civil service exam. In the past two years, whenever they went out to eat, watch movies or go shopping, it was always her who paid, and she also sponsored Liu Meng's development and research projects without hesitation.

  She also has a beautiful vision, cherishing this potential man, silently expecting to be the woman behind a successful man, through thick and thin, hand in hand until old age.

  An only child, spoiled by his parents, had always wanted a place of his own, but this simple wish was now something Liu Meng could not fulfill no matter what.

  Recalling the past, Zhao Linlin carefully prepared for her birthday and gave herself a lovely water cup as her first gift, which is still placed on her bedside table. Although it's old now, Liu Meng has been using it to drink water all along.

  A wave of heartache, he had been strong since childhood, even if he had knocked out a few teeth, he didn't make a sound. At this time, tears were swirling in his eye sockets. Before that, Liu Meng thought he would never cry, and he didn't know what it was like to cry.

  Now he understood, tears streaming down, flowing into his mouth a little bitter.

  He is a typical Capricorn and has never been a sentimental man.

  Soon, Liu Meng calmed down and felt a surge of courage spread throughout his body. I, can't just give up like this! I've never been one to easily give up.

  Took a bath, changed into some slightly old but neat clothes, carefully put on shoes, and made myself as good as possible. The more urgent it is, the calmer I should be. After so many years and countless exams, my mindset has long been mature.

  He wants to find Zhao Linlin, it can't end like this, he will not let himself regret because of a moment's emotion. Brothers and sisters,