Yan Fei didn’t lack computers, but the ones he had were all picked up incidentally and weren’t exactly presentable, so he still needed to buy one.
As for what Yan Fei planned to do with the computer he was buying, Yang Xing vaguely had so guesses. So, he fully supported Yan Fei’s decision, to the extent that when Ren Fei ca over to make small talk after they got off the plane, Yang Xing couldn’t even be bothered to respond.
At this mont, the mories in Yan Fei’s head were extraordinarily valuable, and Yang Xing didn’t know that Yan Fei had already recorded those mories. He was still worrying that with every second passing, Yan Fei might forget one more formula.
A formula from a scientific experint might sotis be discovered and validated by pure chance, but more often, it requires countless trials and an unknown amount of manpower and resources to deduce.
Considering this, Yang Xing, who had remained calm all along, showed urgency for the first ti—being outside ant too many uncertainties. Now that they were ho, the precious mories in Yan Fei’s mind could finally be secured. Of course, Yang Xing was anxious.
"Let drive!" Afraid that Yan Fei might waste more ntal energy on driving and forget sothing, Yang Xing eagerly snatched the driver’s seat for himself.
After grabbing the seat, he felt a little awkward and said, "Uh, I’ll give your nice car a spin, alright?"
Yan Fei laughed helplessly, reminding him, "Did you bring your driver’s license?"
"No problem, my ID card and work badge should do," Yang Xing replied casually. "It’s sothing that can be checked easily anyway. If we run into soone overly strict, we can just give the research institute a call, right?"
This was the eccentricity of an old-school intellectual. Normally, Yang Xing was a rule-abiding person, but now he believed the task he was doing was right, and it was a major benefit to the nation and society. For the sake of saving ti and minimizing losses, bending the rules slightly was entirely acceptable.
They sped all the way to the technology market, where Yang Xing and Yan Fei headed straight to a computer brand store and bought three laptops in one go.
There was a small episode in the middle: since the pair made the purchase so decisively, the shop owner thought they might be buying on behalf of an organization and subtly hinted at kickback opportunities.
Yan Fei adeptly responded that the kickback should be higher. "It’s our first ti doing business together, Boss. If you make too much profit on us, we won’t co back next ti." Living near the technology market, Yan Fei often went in to buy small items and was quite familiar with these tactics.
For example, on his current computer, he had replaced two mory modules. And these were pretty aweso—64MB mory sticks in total. Don’t laugh, mory modules these days were still asured in MB; GB-level ones were a few years away.
After buying the laptops, they also purchased a desktop. Yan Fei used an internal market pricing sheet he had picked up from a trash bin to negotiate the price down to the lowest. The desktop was ant for personal use at ho for convenient upgrades. His current ho computer was barely functional. Nowadays, 128MB mory modules weren’t rare in the market, but the computer had to be able to handle them. A lousy old machine with just one mory module wouldn’t fly no matter what.
In addition, they bought a "portable hard drive"—which was essentially just a standalone hard drive.
The commonly used floppy disks of the ti were honestly too small, so small that so people might not believe it—only 1.44MB of storage space. That much could barely hold so docunts and the simplest of images. Images with a slightly higher resolution? Forget it; too large, they wouldn’t fit.
And there weren’t USB drives, those magical little things, yet. So at that ti, people often used "portable hard drives," which referred to removing a regular hard drive and carrying it around. When needed, they plugged it into a computer. After all, anyone ssing with computers back then knew how to open a chassis to plug in a hard drive!
Of course, more advanced devices existed, but everyone knew that the latest, most cutting-edge things ca with the latest, highest prices. While Boss Yan had money, there was no need to waste it. Electronics updated so fast that even if you bought the best, it would drop in price within days and leave you regretting it.
With the shop owner’s help, the three of them loaded all the equipnt and accessories into the car. The shopping trip was complete.
Not long after driving off, Yan Fei suddenly said, "Teacher Yang, I’ll drop you off at your place and then head back to the Provincial City. I’ll type out everything once I get ho—it won’t waste ti, but it’s a bit inconvenient here."
Yang Xing was stunned. He had always thought Yan Fei would jot everything down here. But now, he couldn’t argue too much and could only urge, "Don’t rush; take your ti. Write down as much as you can rember first, and then try recalling more later to write down additional stuff."
This contradictory advice mirrored his conflicted mood. But Yan Fei had no choice—he felt it too. After they left the tech market, soone had been surveilling him constantly.
After dropping Yang Xing off, Yan Fei drove away while dialing ng Si’an’s number.
The mont ng Si’an picked up, he burst out laughing. "So, how was this trip to Arica? Thrilling? Exciting?"
Evidently, ng Si’an must’ve seen the news. The string of incidents in Arica was impossible to hide from him.
Yan Fei replied irritably, "Don’t even talk about it. Who would’ve thought Arica’s public safety would be such a ss? I spent a few days there and didn’t even get to look around properly. Now that I’m back, I’m calling to let you know—I’ve got urgent business and need to head ho first. I didn’t get to go out much, so I didn’t bring you any gifts. Next ti you go, make sure to learn from this: Don’t go empty-handed, and don’t co back empty-handed either."
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