Chapter 22

As a fan of the Red Army (Liverpool), living in 1979 was undoubtedly the happiest time, with three championships in four years. The new season had just begun, and the team was already showing a strong performance. In this era without Owen or Gerrard, there was still the eternal king of Anfield, Kenny Dalglish. In tonight's double red battle, he scored a goal and provided an assist, making the Red Devils (Manchester United) struggle by halftime.

Unfortunately, Li Xuan was a Real Madrid fan in his previous life. When he first started watching football, it was during the time when Real Madrid's Galacticos were sweeping all before them. Later, after moving to the United States, a football desert, he gradually fell in love with another sport, American football.

Now in Hong Kong, only the English First Division matches were broadcast. Every weekend evening, a group of male students who loved football would gather in the living room on the ground floor, set up beer and snacks, and watch the games together. Li Xuan's gradually fading passion for football was rekindled. Without Real Madrid, he had already switched his allegiance to Liverpool. This also revealed his nature as a casual fan, lacking the loyalty of a true fan who remains a Real Madrid supporter for life.

Under Li Xuan's constant encouragement, his roommate Lin Yuhao recently fell in love with football, which Hong Kong people call "kick the ball." Li Xuan originally thought his roommate was somewhat introverted, but after getting to know him better, he found that Lin Yuhao was actually quite outgoing.

Lin Yuhao's father, Lin Guita, was one of the few wealthy Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong. The Lin Group, under his leadership, was a large enterprise spanning the textile, real estate, and hotel industries.

Although born into a prominent family, Lin Yuhao's status in the Lin family was very awkward. He was not born to the main wife; his mother was a lowly bar hostess who became pregnant due to an accidental encounter with Lin Guita when he was drunk.

Lin Yuhao's mother later married someone else. She might have never wanted to have anything to do with the wealthy Lin family again. However, fate played a cruel trick on her. She and her husband were involved in a car accident while delivering goods, and on her deathbed, she asked a doctor to call Lin Guita, revealing the secret she had kept for nearly twenty years.

After Lin Yuhao's mother passed away, Lin Guita confirmed through a paternity test that Lin Yuhao was indeed his biological son and brought him home to raise. At that time, Lin Yuhao was already fifteen years old. He had two older brothers and a sister from Lin Guita's first wife, Liu, the youngest of whom was seven or eight years older than him.

Although Liu did not treat Lin Yuhao harshly and provided him with good living conditions, the psychological coldness and distance were the most painful. Lin Yuhao, who had grown up in a common family, found it hard to adapt to the life of a wealthy family. His two older brothers looked at him with obvious scrutiny and suspicion, making his life in the past few years very oppressive.

Originally, Lin Guita planned to send his youngest son to study in the UK after high school, like his two older sons. However, Lin Yuhao, who was not good at English, did not want to go to a strange country where he knew no one. He refused his father's arrangement and insisted on attending the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

For Lin Yuhao, going to university was like a bird being released from a cage, able to soar freely in the sky. So, every month, apart from visiting his father and nominal mother once, he did not want to return to the Lin family mansion in Clear Water Bay, where he felt no warmth of home.

Li Xuan learned these details from a gossipy classmate in the neighboring dormitory. It was said that when Lin Yuhao was first recognized by the Lin family, many Hong Kong tabloids extensively reported the story as a wealthy family gossip.

The double red battle ended at midnight, and everyone returned to their dorms to sleep. On the way back, Lin Yuhao continued to discuss Kenny Dalglish's goal in the first half with Li Xuan. He was showing a tendency to become a die-hard Liverpool fan. Perhaps because of the years of suppression at home, Li Xuan noticed that his roommate was talking more and more, almost becoming a chatterbox.

Of course, according to Lin Yuhao, he was practicing for the upcoming student council election at the United College next week. He wanted to practice more so that he wouldn't be speechless when he stepped onto the stage.

Li Xuan could only勉强accept this reason. In his heart, he was still happy for his roommate and friend. After all, to continue to be enthusiastic about life despite such setbacks showed that his inner strength was already quite remarkable.

The next day was the weekend, and the two of them slept in. After getting up, they went downstairs to the dining hall for lunch. After lunch, Lin Yuhao returned to the dormitory study room to continue reading, while Li Xuan went to visit Professor Zhao at his home in the faculty dormitory.

Professor Zhao's full name was Zhao Weiming, the deputy director of the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He taught courses such as electronic circuits, semiconductors and devices, and the principles and technology of semiconductor devices. After Li Xuan started attending his classes, Professor Zhao quickly noticed this unfamiliar face who frequently appeared in his lectures.

Zhao Weiming graduated from the University of London's Department of Electronic Engineering and later obtained a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. After obtaining his Ph.D., he worked at RCA in the United States, designing semiconductor circuits. In 1974, he received an invitation from his senior at the University of London, Professor Charles Kao, who was then the head of the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, to return to Hong Kong and teach at the university. Professor Kao, known as the "father of fiber optics," later became the president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009.

Li Xuan was currently studying electronic computing research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, but in his previous life, his major in university was microelectronics, and he obtained a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Compared to computer programming, electronics was his true expertise.

After being reborn, Li Xuan, after careful consideration, decided to return to university to study again. Besides obtaining a degree to protect the knowledge and technology in his mind that was thirty years ahead of this world, he had another important goal: to expand his network.

The circle of high-tech fields like semiconductors was actually very small and closed. There were only three universities in Hong Kong that offered electronic-related programs: the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic College. However, the Hong Kong Polytechnic College only offered a two-year honors program, which could only grant an associate degree, training only junior-level talent.

The University of Hong Kong had already established an electronics program but had not yet admitted undergraduate students, only training a few graduate students each year. Even the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which was the first to establish an electronics department in 1970, had been doing so for less than ten years.

Although Li Xuan had the advantage of being reborn, he never fantasized about achieving something great on his own. The first step in recruiting talent and finding helpers was to enter this circle.