Father sat upright, frowning, his eyes fixed on the TV screen, like a statue.
He didn’t even glance at Zhang Zhipeng.
Zhang Zhipeng, while eating, was contemplating how to ease the tension with his father.
"Dad, I’m thinking about enrolling in the self-study program for Mechanical Automation at Xi'an University of Technology," Zhang Zhipeng said with a smile.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Qingmin gave his son a sideways look and said, "Do whatever you think is best. I can't control you."
At that moment, his mother happened to bring a cup of water and placed it in front of Zhang Zhipeng.
Hearing Zhang Qingmin's response, she said disapprovingly, "Isn't it a good thing that our son wants to improve himself?"
"Your son is discussing something serious with you. Can’t you at least act like a father?"
Zhang Qingmin's attitude softened.
"What did I do? Didn't I say already? He's an adult now. His own matters, he should decide for himself!"
Zhang Zhipeng smiled and said, "Dad, I know. I've done a lot of foolish things in the past and let you down. But your son has matured now, and I’m ready to take responsibility."
"Rest assured! From now on, I will cut ties with my old self!"
"I’ll study hard, work diligently, and strive to make you and Mom proud!"
Zhang Zhipeng spoke with determination.
This was a stark contrast to his previous demeanor.
Both Zhang Qingmin and his wife were visibly moved. Their son had never said anything like this before.
Was he truly ready to turn over a new leaf?
There’s a saying, “A prodigal son who returns is worth more than gold.” Although their son had been mischievous, he was always filial and had never done anything too outrageous. The troubles he got into in the past were mostly due to loyalty to his friends.
Zhang Qingmin felt a mix of surprise and joy.
But his face remained expressionless. He said, "Zhipeng, I don't expect you to achieve great success or bring honor to our family."
"As long as you live with integrity and carry yourself with dignity, your mother and I will be satisfied."
Zhang Zhipeng noticed the change in his father's attitude. He smiled and said, "It doesn’t matter how much I say now."
"Dad, just watch how I perform from now on."
Zhang Qingmin nodded and said, "Alright! I hope you won’t let your mother and me down again."
The tension in the room finally eased a bit.
After eating a little more, Zhang Zhipeng went to wash the dishes and then washed up himself.
He said goodnight to his parents and returned to his room.
By this time, it was already past 10 p.m.
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Naturally, Zhang Zhipeng wasn’t ready to sleep yet.
He glanced at a small bookshelf in his room, where there was a copy of *Cihai*.
This dictionary was just a reference book, probably bought by his father when he was in junior high school.
Zhang Zhipeng leaned against the bed and began flipping through the large dictionary.
Dictionaries have their own search systems.
What Zhang Zhipeng needed to grasp was its indexing system and search rules.
As he expected, the reverse engineering system in his mind began to kick in.
A progress bar appeared in his mind.
As he flipped through the dictionary, summarizing rules and familiarizing himself with search principles, the progress bar began to speed up. At the same time, a solution for input method word and phrase combination retrieval using programming algorithms emerged in his mind.
He didn’t finish the dictionary, but his proficiency in applying Chinese language knowledge had reached an intermediate level.
"Congratulations, Host! Your proficiency in Chinese language application has reached the professional intermediate level!"
Zhang Zhipeng breathed a sigh of relief. Achieving an intermediate level in Chinese language application was already quite impressive.
He checked the time—it was already past 2 a.m.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, followed by a soft knock.
It was his mother’s voice: "Xiaopeng, you’re still up?"
"What are you doing? Do you know what time it is?"
Zhang Zhipeng quickly replied, "Mom, I was reading for a while. I didn’t realize I got so absorbed. I’ll sleep now."
He put down the *Cihai*, turned off the light, and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
His mother returned to the bedroom, nudged her husband, and said, "Our son is working so hard now. He’s still reading at this hour."
Zhang Qingmin turned over in bed and said irritably, "He's probably reading martial arts novels!"
"The moment he picks up a serious book, he falls asleep. Don't I know him by now?!" Wang Yuqin replied, "As long as he enjoys reading, it's a good thing! We'll have Zhiling sit down and chat with him later, maybe tutor him a bit, and hopefully, he can get into a good school!"
...
For several consecutive days, Zhang Zhipeng had been focused on improving himself.
He left early and returned late every day. When no one was in the computer room, he would work on programming by himself.
After more than ten days, his programming skills had improved to the level of an advanced programmer. He could proficiently use languages like C, C++, SQL, and assembly language for programming. This was probably the magic of the system.
Of course, besides programming, he also disassembled and reassembled several computer cases and monitors by hand when the computer room was empty.
This gave him a deep understanding of computer hardware, reaching the level of a senior hardware engineer. But honestly, even so, his understanding of deeper computer hardware was still just scratching the surface.
In fact, there's not much inside a computer case.
The most important components are the CPU, motherboard, memory, and hard drive. These are the core technologies of the computer; everything else is auxiliary.
Among these, the CPU is the most crucial.
It is the computer's processing and control center, responsible for interpreting computer instructions and processing data from computer software. A computer's performance is mainly determined by the CPU.
This is the core technology of a computer.
The CPU is a highly integrated circuit, commonly known as a chip.
The CPU is one type of processor chip. There are also graphics processing units (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), and microcontrollers (MCUs), among others...
Ultimately, chips are the most fundamental and core technology products in information technology!
Currently, the entire set of high-end core technologies for this thing is entirely in the hands of the Western countries led by the United States.
So, chips really are the core of the core.
However, at this point, Zhang Zhipeng didn't dare to dismantle the CPU chip inside the computer. Because once it's taken apart, it would be difficult to restore.
So, this was truly a regret.
While Zhang Zhipeng was fully committed to improving himself, he had no idea that he had already stirred up a storm in the Aeronautics Engineering Department.