Chapter 290 - 290: A Change of Heart

It was a full day of training.

As evening approached, Zhang Kai and the other new employees finally got off work.

The surface of the strait glittered under the setting sun.

Zhang Kai and the others had no mind to admire the beautiful scenery. Their eyes were glued to the new phones in their hands, a small perk from the company.

It was a newly manufactured "Pineapple" phone. The company was clearly parodying Apple; even the logo was a pineapple with a bite taken out of it.

The phone had a conventional design: a large notched screen, front and rear cameras, and an ultralight aluminum alloy casing.

Zhang Kai's was space gray. He opened the settings page and looked at the phone's specs.

[Pineapple Model 1 Civilian Phone.

Processor: Xingdao Semiconductor General-Purpose Chip No. 7, 100 exaflops, 64 threads, 500GB RAM.

Storage: Xingdao Semiconductor General-Purpose Chip No. 21, 200TB capacity, 20 GB/s read speed.

Screen: Sea Snail Factory No.14—Colorful Butterfly Photoelectric Technology structural screen, 20nm resolution node.

Lens: Aoyama Glass Factory No.22—Aurora Lens.

Battery: Chiang Mai Power Plant No.7—Ternary composite safety battery, 2000 mAh capacity.

Speakers...

System: Homo sapiens—Fuxi architecture, hexadecimal (compatible with binary).

Software: Phone Assistant, Settings... ]

After reading the phone's hardware specs, Zhang Kai had an 'as expected' look on his face. 'It's clear Homo Sapiens Company has no intention of using any parts from outside the company.'

He used the phone for a while and found no major issues with its operating speed, software responsiveness, or system functions.

After all, the hardware was more than adequate. Homo Sapiens Company already had a foothold in the software sector, so it was a simple matter of deploying software prepared in advance by its various subsidiaries and porting it to the new phone.

Zhang Kai put his phone away and turned to an old colleague, joking, "America is really shooting itself in the foot!"

"They thought we couldn't get by without them, but they never expected the company to be so well-prepared." The colleague laughed relaxedly.

On the ferry, the Xingdao Semiconductor employees were all smiles, teasing America, Samsung, and TSMC.

After all, their recent experience of being suddenly fired left them with little fondness for their old employers.

The thought that Xingdao Semiconductor and Nanyang Electronics might one day defeat Intel, Texas Instruments, Samsung, and TSMC filled them with a vengeful, triumphant pleasure.

In reality, with 620 million employees and its markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Homo Sapiens Company didn't necessarily need the markets in Europe and America or East Asia.

They disembarked at the ferry terminal.

Zhang Kai hurried home to take his family—young and old—out to eat at a restaurant boat on the Johor Strait.

The floating restaurants, converted from cruise ships, had been transferred from the Luzon Branch in the Mishan Islands a few days ago. These restaurant boats were actually part of Fengrao House and primarily served the small islands and coastal towns of the Mishan Islands.

Later, as undersea tunnels in the Mishan Islands opened one after another, the expansion of the restaurant boat fleet was halted.

Currently, Fengrao House had a total of 17 restaurant boats. They normally operated on a rotating circuit between the various islands, but in special circumstances, they could be converted into temporary disaster relief and supply vessels.

Since the Xing Island government owned over 80% of the land, and its real estate market was dominated by public housing, Homo Sapiens Company was actually very grateful to the Li Family for this.

However, Xing Island still had a considerable number of private enterprises, and the restaurant industry was almost 100% privately owned.

This was not a situation Homo Sapiens Company wanted to see.

Private restaurants had all sorts of problems with hygiene, raw materials, pricing, and wages. Since Homo Sapiens Company had to consider its employees' well-being, it naturally wouldn't tolerate the existence of such establishments.

But simply shutting down all private restaurants would be a bit too crude and heavy-handed.

Therefore, Homo Sapiens Company "democratically" respected the free market and decided to let everyone compete on that basis.

Since there wasn't enough time to build a large number of new restaurants, Homo Sapiens Company had Fengrao House transfer over 10 restaurant boats and 200 container-van restaurants, in addition to the 73 new restaurant locations that were gradually being renovated.

Fengrao House began to hunt its competitors.

With its mature operational system, Fengrao House was far beyond the capabilities of such a disorganized rabble.

Holding his advance salary and employee card, Zhang Kai's family boarded the restaurant boat *Dart*, a restaurant specializing in eel and seafood.

"Waiter, we'd like to order!"

"Hello, what can I get for you?" the waitress asked, holding a small notepad.

Zhang Kai ordered decisively, "Five large eel-over-rice, two small eel-over-rice, a winter melon and crab soup, and a large order of garlic water spinach."

"Of course. Please wait about ten minutes," the waitress said before heading to the kitchen.

Zhang Kai's father shook his head. "We could have just gotten takeout boxes. This kind of restaurant is too expensive."

But Zhang Kai thought nothing of it. Back when he worked at Intel, he had also been a big spender.

Even though his previous income was 12,000 Xingdao Yuan a month, he hadn't actually saved much money.

The cost of living on Xing Island was not low, with the median monthly income at around 4,500 Xingdao Yuan.

A takeout box or a McDonald's hamburger on Xing Island cost about 10 Xingdao Yuan, and a 330ml Coke was 2 Xingdao Yuan. Food and drink were still affordable.

The problem was that kindergarten on Xing Island cost 1,000 Xingdao Yuan a month, a private international English elementary school cost over 20,000 a year, and housing prices were around 15,000 Xingdao Yuan per square meter.

Zhang Kai had three children: one in high school, one in elementary school, and one in kindergarten.

If it weren't for his wife also having a job and his parents having some savings, it would have been very difficult to live so freely.

He had been studying Homo Sapiens Company's internal rules for the past few days, and the more he learned, the less he wanted to leave.

Even though the salary from Homo Sapiens Company seemed tight—a technician like him only made 7,500 Jin Yuan, all told—the other benefits were incredible.

The company covered most of the expenses for children before they reached adulthood, and he didn't have to worry about his parents' retirement or medical costs either.

It also provided low-cost rental housing for about 1 Jin Yuan per square meter.

More importantly, the personal income tax threshold at Homo Sapiens Company was 100,000 Jin Yuan, meaning ordinary employees didn't have to pay taxes.

This was on top of all the other miscellaneous subsidies and internal discounts.

And then there were the low prices for goods within Homo Sapiens Company.

With his salary of 7,500 Jin Yuan, Zhang Kai could afford to travel, eat out, and have fun every so often without having to worry about other things.

Before, an ordinary person on Xing Island would never dare to spend like this. At places like a Japanese restaurant for eel-over-rice, or a high-end Western or Chinese restaurant, a meal for one started at 100 Xingdao Yuan. Even for a high-earner like Zhang Kai, eating like that every day would have been unsustainable.

But now, Zhang Kai really could afford to eat like this every day.

Today, for his family of seven, seven orders of eel-over-rice plus the winter melon and crab soup and the garlic water spinach came out to only 49 Jin Yuan.

He and his wife had a combined monthly income of over ten thousand Jin Yuan. They planned to apply for a 150-square-meter subsidized rental apartment and would still have a large surplus each month to spend on food, drink, and entertainment.

Zhang Kai thought to himself, 'Even if someone offered to let me immigrate to Australia right now, I wouldn't be the least bit interested.'

'Working at Homo Sapiens Company is just too comfortable.'

'The company provides everything. For someone like me without huge ambitions, this is practically heaven on earth.'

As for all the recent attacks on Homo Sapiens Company online, Zhang Kai only had one thing to say: 'When the Free World can provide these kinds of benefits to everyone, then you'll have the right to criticize Homo Sapiens Company.'