Chapter 19: The Great Tank War

  In response to Zhang Tiejun's questioning, neither Yang Yun nor Zhao Yongping answered.

  Yang Yun used a small folding knife on his keychain to pry open the yellow plastic casing in front of everyone, and held the circuit board in his hand for observation.

  The Little Emperor and Cort learning cards have a Chinese-English character system, requiring the display of both Chinese and English characters. Therefore, the main circuit board contains approximately 2M bytes of Chinese character ROM, with character mapping stored in about 1K of independent RAM. The circuit board is also soldered with many external capacitors, making it look very bulky.

  However, this four-in-one game card is completely different. It only has an operating system and four games. Only fixed information needs to be displayed, without typing and programming human-machine interfaces, so the circuit board is much simpler, similar to ordinary memory sticks in later generations.

  Yang Yun's heart cried out in alarm, precisely because of its simplicity, the production speed must be extremely fast. Once the three games of Little Emperor are cracked, they can be mass-produced. Moreover, this circuit board contains Nintendo's Super Mario and Little Emperor's Tetris, which are currently the most popular classic games on the market, no wonder it sells so well!

  Zhao Yongping's face was also unpredictable, and there were only two explanations for this incident: either the game card of Xiaobawang had been cracked by someone, or someone inside had directly leaked the source code.

  "Zhao Yongping asked: 'When will this card be listed? When will the distributors start returning goods?' Ma Kechang, Mao Daxin and others said..."

  Sales Director Ma Dayout said: "The four-in-one product was reportedly put on the market the day before yesterday, which is the day you just left. Mao Dashen made a big fuss and came to return the goods the night before last, but couldn't find you. He sat in our sales department all night, and the next day he brought his wife and brother-in-law, gathered a group of people to block the door and not let us go to work, forcing us to settle the payment with him."

  Zhao Yongping and Yang Yun exchanged a glance, slightly relieved.

  The bean-eating game was perfected three days ago, Yang Yun organized the game code and handed it over to Zhao Yongping along with other materials prepared for declaration. The next day, he left the company early in the morning to take a train to Yang City, and the two were together all the way without separating.

  The burned recording integrated three games of Little Emperor Learning Card, and three days ago, ten test boxes were made, all of which were taken away by Zhao Yongping, brought to Beijing, left four boxes at the Patent Office, sent two boxes to Huang Pingsheng, sent one box to the driver, and the remaining ones were all brought back by Zhao Yongping, with accurate quantity, not a single box was lost.

  "Has the third version of the cartridge gone into large-scale production?"

  Production Department Head Ma Dazhong, who is the elder brother of Sales Department Head Ma Dayong, shook his head and said: "Without your signature, the second batch of production has never stopped."

  Yang Yun suddenly had an epiphany: "When Shen Gong improved the process flow, did he try making cassette tapes?"

  Shen Jun smiled triumphantly: "I knew Director Yang would try to splash dirty water on me! But sorry, you're disappointed. I haven't started the production line yet, and even the trial production of cassette tapes requires signing for materials with Director Ma. I'm a clever wife who can't cook without rice!"

  "It definitely wasn't me who leaked the secret! If it wasn't Zhao Yongping, then only a few of you are suspicious! Is it really that coincidental?"

  Yang Yun swallowed a sentence, not saying it out loud. His thoughts turned to other places again. If Shen Jun didn't have the opportunity to secretly make a copy of the game, then there was only one possibility: an insider had leaked the game's source code. The Xiao Tiancai company directly used the source code to burn copies, without even needing to reverse-engineer or crack it, making it easy to produce.

  If so, who would have leaked the source code?

  Yang Yun looked at his subordinates one by one, while Zhao Yongping also looked at all the developers, finally fixing his gaze on Yang Yun, and fell into contemplation with a puzzled expression.

  Zhang Tiejun had already asked others present, now he looked at Yang Yun and asked coldly: "Director Yang, you just said that you handled some private matters in the capital?"

  Yang Yun's expression didn't change: "En, met a few friends, took a look at the 938 factory where I used to work. If there was going to be a leak, it definitely wouldn't be me. When we arrived in Beijing, it was the day before yesterday afternoon. According to your words, by that time, Xiao Tiancai's four-in-one had already been made."

  Shen Jun said gloomily, "That's not necessarily true. Mao Daxin came over at night and didn't say whether he got the quadruplet in the morning or afternoon. Besides, with phones now, it would only take a dozen or so minutes to read out several thousand lines of program code. You had plenty of time after arriving in Beijing to call the technical personnel of Little Genius."

  Yang Yun retorted, "Shen Gong, if I were the one who leaked the secret, why would I give these game programs to the factory to sell? Wouldn't it be more convenient for me to deceive Director Zhao or jump ship to Xiaotiancai and write programs for them?"

  Shen Jun shook his head: "How would I know? Maybe that little genius gave you a large sum of money, who knows?"

  Yang Yun was speechless for a moment, this is indeed a very frightening guess, and it's highly likely, because he simply had no way to prove his innocence.

  For a moment, it seemed like everyone believed this speculation, the atmosphere on the scene was filled with conspiracy, and everyone stared at Yang Yun as if they were looking at a traitor.

  Zhang Tiejun said, "Although I don't want to believe it was Yang Kechang who leaked the secret, Yang Kechang's private outing to meet friends at this critical moment is indeed very suspicious! Can Yang Kechang provide strong evidence, tell us about your entire day's schedule, and find witnesses to prove your innocence?"

  Yang Yun cannot prove, the itinerary he also listed unclear, he is even more impossible to tell everyone, he was in consultation with Alexei, he was negotiating with the Japanese, he was shuttling between Nintendo, the world's largest game manufacturer, and Sega, the second-largest game manufacturer, he was talking about tens of millions of dollars worth of business, his vision has always been on the global arena, rather than this small four-in-one cartridge.

  So he simply gave up and shook his head: "I have no way of producing a travel itinerary, nor can I find anyone to vouch for my innocence."

  If there is any suspicion, Zhao Yongping's suspicion is also very great. He holds a complete set of documents in his hand and it would be more convenient to inform Xiaotian.

  Moreover, four other R&D personnel under Yang Yun are also suspected, and his test machine retains the full set of code, which can be called out for viewing by anyone with a mind to do so.

  Shen Jun is also suspected, with his skills, a little movement of hands and feet, reverse compilation, stealing source code, are all easy to do.

  But Yang Yun did not question others one by one because it was meaningless.

  Doubting Zhao Yongping or doubting Shen Jun would only make him appear guilty in the eyes of the high-ranking officials. If Yang Yun dared to question others, it would be seen as a desperate last-ditch effort, like a dying man's struggle.

  Because Yang Yun refused to reveal his itinerary, it led to more and more suspicion from the higher-ups.

  It's not that he doesn't want to say it, but rather that he can't say it, and this is where his problem lies.

  This is a dead knot.

  Personnel Director Feng Wan Sheng was displeased: "Director Yang, if you can't prove your innocence, then we'll have to assume it's you who leaked the secret."

  Yang Yun burst out laughing: "Even if I leaked the secret, Director Zhao has already applied for a patent! Can't have me submitting documents to the national patent office ahead of time, can we? And what's with you guys being so tense? It's just three games, it's just a four-in-one cartridge. If some short-sighted distributors come to return goods, that's their own loss. Today they offend us, tomorrow don't even think about getting supplies from us again. Besides, if I make a few more games for you guys, better than this four-in-one, and Zhu Gong and Zhang Gong figure out a way to encrypt the program, Director Zhao strictly guards the code... won't you guys think I'm telling a tale of fantasy?"

  This remark left everyone stunned, as if developing hit classic games like Greedy Snake and Tetris was no more difficult for Yang Yun than eating and drinking.

  The company is so tense about the game, it's just that they don't want to give up on Greedy Snake and three other games, and they don't want others to easily imitate them, so they proactively apply for patents, intending to use the law to protect their interests.

  But since the leak has already happened, they can't do anything about this little genius card, everyone is copying each other, and it's unclear how long the lawsuit will drag on, being able to guarantee exclusive operation for a period of time is good enough.

  No matter who leaked it this time, it's already irreversible. What can be done now? Everyone learns from the experience and remembers to take precautions next time.

  Yang Yun spoke up and continued to take out several classic games. Zhang Tiejun immediately became interested: "Director Yang, you're not kidding, are you?"

  Zhao Yongping also asked in a low voice beside him: "Yang Yun, what game can have the standard of Tetris?"

  Shen Jun then grasped and didn't let go: "Yang Kechang, are you preparing to offset your mistakes with achievements?"

  "What's the big deal? It's just writing a few programs, what's so difficult about that? And as for sales, if it weren't for my game, would our learning cards have sold so well? Go ahead and doubt me all you want, I don't care!"

  Yang Yun didn't even look at those faces, but instead looked at his other four subordinates and smiled: "The timing I mentioned last time has arrived. This time we will jointly develop a classic game and write your names on it. Hmm... let me think, which game should it be? How about... Tank Battle?"