223:

After staying in the enclosed underground city of Sheshan for just one day, Shen Du stepped into the core laboratory again.

Before him were no longer the scattered base station parts from yesterday.

Instead, it was a rugged-looking, dark-gray metal box with numerous exposed copper cooling pipes and jumper wires on its surface.

Beside the metal box, a specially made, thickened data cable was tightly connected to a test phone whose casing had been violently dismantled, with an experimental chip re-soldered onto the center of the motherboard.

"Click."

Victor casually tossed a pair of pliers onto the workbench.

Meanwhile, Arthur, sitting in front of the master console, hit the Enter key heavily, completely finalizing the technical path encapsulation for this brand-new communication protocol.

"Hum—"

Accompanied by a violent roar of cooling fans inside the metal experimental box.

On the computer screen next to it, a set of red and green alternating speed curves shot up instantly.

Like a sharp sword, it pierced straight to the peak, finally stabilizing firmly at an extremely smooth peak value.

Shen Du rested his hands on the cold metal table, his gaze locked sharply on the highly conspicuous data in the center of the screen.

Maximum uplink and downlink transmission speed: 500MB/s.

Looking at this steadily jumping value, Shen Du's originally deep eyes paused slightly, and his brows furrowed tightly unconsciously.

According to his commercial understanding of traditional base stations in his mind.

He pointed at the bulky experimental box, his tone carrying a trace of obvious skepticism:

"Arthur, at such a high cost and effort."

"Is the total transmission speed of this independent experimental bench you built only capable of reaching 500MB?"

Shen Du straightened up, looked at the two, and threw out a commercial soul-searching question based on realistic considerations:

"If this is the total computing power of the entire base station, with only this much data pool..."

"If taken to cover an area and distributed among users, isn't this cost a bit too high?"

Hearing Shen Du's questioning, Arthur, who was still typing on the keyboard, was stunned for a moment.

He looked as if he had heard something incredible, quickly turned his head, and waved his rough hands repeatedly.

"No, no, no! Boss, you misunderstood!"

Arthur pointed at the steady green data line on the screen, his speech rapid due to his excitement:

"This is not the total throughput of the entire base station!"

"This is the individual uplink and downlink transmission speed received by that test phone next to it!"

Arthur grabbed the test phone with the violently dismantled casing and shoved it in front of Shen Du.

His tone carried a helplessness and frustration unique to a technical fanatic:

"Originally, according to Victor's and my plan."

"The initial top speed of this protocol was supposed to forcefully break through 1000MB, reaching a standalone download speed of 1G per second!"

"But it is 2014 now, Boss!"

Arthur struck the broken back cover of the test phone hard and complained loudly:

"Even if we managed to get the top-tier flagship phones currently on the market, forcefully swapped in the experimental chip, and flashed the underlying protocol."

"Its motherboard data channel and flash memory chips simply cannot withstand the terrifying flood of data at 1G per second!"

"As soon as it hits the peak, the storage chip of this broken phone will instantly freeze due to write overload, or even burn through the motherboard on the spot."

Arthur irritably grabbed a handful of his already messy hair and sighed deeply:

"So, to ensure stability, we had to 'wrongfully' castrate the top speed down to 500MB."

He shrugged and added with extreme certainty:

"Although this already far exceeds the current market."

"But according to the development of hardware Moore's Law."

"We believe that mobile terminals in the next ten years will sooner or later solve this physical load limit problem."

Arthur sat back in the swivel chair.

He typed on the keyboard with some unwillingness and pulled up another infrared heat map of the connection stress test.

He stared at the rough experimental box entangled with countless jumper wires and complained with extreme regret:

"It's such a pity."

"The official standard base station still needs a redesign of the motherboard wiring."

"The computing power channel of this broken box, pieced together with scrap metal, has already reached its physical limit."

Arthur pointed to the coverage simulation circle flashing with a faint light on the screen, his brows furrowed so tightly that a fly could be crushed:

"Within an effective coverage radius of one kilometer, it can only maintain full-speed operation of 500MB for just over three thousand phones simultaneously."

"Once the concurrent number exceeds three thousand five hundred, the temperature control of this experimental box will instantly collapse and it will directly overheat and crash..."

Listening to Arthur's almost Versailles-like regretful complaint, Shen Du stood in place, silent.

Although his usually calm face did not reveal too much emotion.

But deep in his lowered eyes, a stormy sea had already been stirred up.

Only Shen Du knew best.

In the current year of 2014, the most mainstream 4G networks in the world, monopolized by Western communication giants.

The standalone top speed was at most a few MB per second.

The limitations on the number of simultaneously connected devices for those expensive traditional base stations were even stricter to the extreme.

In slightly crowded business districts, network congestion would occur.

And these two madmen in front of him, having only spent one day.

A casually thrown-together, self-proclaimed "severely limited, very regrettable" defective experimental box...

Could actually guarantee that within a one-kilometer range, three thousand people could simultaneously enjoy a terrifying internet speed of 500MB/s!

This is not some communication base station.

This is clearly a monster that exceeds this era by a full ten years, enough to grind the existing communication physical architecture into powder!

Just as Arthur shook his head and prepared to throw himself back onto the keyboard, trying to forcibly modify the underlying code to squeeze out more extreme performance.

"Slap!"

A thick palm pressed unceremoniously onto the back of Arthur's hand, forcibly interrupting his typing action.

Victor had walked over at some point.

He looked down at the madman who had fallen into a technical dead end and snorted coldly:

"You idiot! The test version is good enough."

Arthur raised his head with some annoyance, only to meet Victor's extremely cold eyes.

"The most mainstream base stations in the world today cannot even reach one-tenth the performance of this broken box."

Victor mercilessly poked through Arthur's technical perfectionism and threw out a highly realistic interrogation:

"Why do we need to make it so advanced?"

"If we max out all performance in the first generation, what will we use to earn those Europeans' money?"

Looking at Arthur's stunned expression.

Victor pointed to the experimental box and threw out the iterative logic directly:

"What we need to do is to minimize its manufacturing cost, and then lock the rest of that terrifying performance completely into the underlying architecture!"

"Then, through system upgrades, carry out version iterations continuously."

Victor sneered and made a vivid gesture of harvesting:

"We want to squeeze toothpaste, making them willingly pay for the 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 versions."

"Harvest a few more waves of leeks from the old European financial tycoons."

"Instead of playing all our trump cards at once, understand?"

Awakened by Victor's bloody business logic, Arthur's eyes widened as if he had just woken from a dream.

"Oh, oh, oh! So that's how it is?!"

He scratched his beard awkwardly, then completely released his hand holding the mouse:

"Then I understand, let's just leave the test version here for now."

Watching these two geniuses who controlled technology and capital so precisely, Shen Du shrugged noncommittally.

"Hmm, let's leave it like this for now."

"To tear through the Europeans' defenses, this is already enough."

As Shen Du spoke, he stepped forward directly.

He reached out and picked up the metal experimental box, which looked rough on the outside but contained terrifying dimensional-reduction energy on the inside.

Arthur picked up the iced Americano on the table where the ice had already melted, and pointed to the box in Shen Du's hand:

"Boss, just take this machine back with you."

"At the venue, just let Lin Zimo and Technical Expert Su Hua give the Europeans a live demonstration."

Victor took a bite of the Gouda cheese in his hand and muttered along:

"At this critical moment, it's better for us not to be exposed to the public eye."

"Compared to dealing with the hypocritical politicians and tycoons outside, we prefer to stay here in this Sheshan basement."

In fact, even if they didn't say it.

Shen Du had no intention of letting these two trump cards, which were enough to overturn the global semiconductor landscape, appear in public during this sensitive period.

Sheshan, this impregnable underground fortress, was their perfect protective umbrella.

"Thank you for your hard work these past two days."

Shen Du nodded with satisfaction, steadily carrying the heavy experimental box, and turned to walk towards the heavy airtight door of the laboratory.

Watching Shen Du's departing back, Victor and Arthur looked at each other and smiled.

The two top madmen didn't say another word of nonsense.

They turned around directly.

Without looking back, they threw themselves back into that dark, sunless experimental area where they could crazily reshape the underlying foundation of global technology.

July 31st, night.

A black Hongqi sedan with no markings silently drove into the heavily guarded Shanghai State Guest Hotel.

In the back seat, Shen Du turned his head.

His gaze passed through the dark explosion-proof car window, coldly scanning the extremely spacious open-air parking lot outside the main building.

There, rows of low-key, yet suffocatingly heavy, top-tier European bulletproof sedans were parked.

Even more intriguing was.

On these luxury cars, the family crests and special license plates that should have symbolized status were all deliberately erased or covered up tightly at this moment.

Sitting beside Shen Du was Secretary Shen Hai, who was resting with his eyes closed.

Shen Du retracted his gaze, a flash of knowing coldness in his eyes.

He knew better than anyone.

The so-called "China-Europe Friendly Talks" held in this building tonight.

On the surface, it was those well-dressed political leaders clinking glasses.

But in reality.

What had truly descended upon Shanghai were those old-school aristocrats and capital tycoons hiding in the shadows, controlling the economic lifeline of Europe.

The Crimean dispute was like a meat grinder, potentially cutting off Russia's cheap energy supply at any time.

And the technological hegemony stick wielded by the United States was firmly choking the throat of advanced Lithography Machines and chips.

Without energy, even the most advanced industry was just a pile of scrap metal.

Under the desperate situation of dual strangulation, this group of proud old European foxes had been pushed to the edge of life and death.

They descended silently onto this Eastern land tonight.

They were not here to discuss any conventional trade deals.

But to find a last way out in this world's second-largest economy.

The Hongqi sedan stopped slowly, and Shen Du followed Secretary Shen Hai out of the car.

He had originally thought that Secretary Shen Hai would take him straight to the brightly lit main welcoming building.

To go through a set of tedious, conventional social procedures in those bustling banquet halls.

However, Secretary Shen Hai said nothing.

He led him directly away from the main entrance of the main building.

He turned into a quiet, secret internal corridor with no security personnel stationed.

The sound of the two people's footsteps echoed in the empty corridor.

Until they reached the end.

Secretary Shen Hai stopped in front of a heavy black door with no markings, reached out, and pushed open the heavy soundproof door with force.

Shen Du stepped in, his vision instantly enveloped by darkness.

This was an enclosed room similar to a tiered theater.

Shen Du stood at the very edge of the stage, looking down from a high position.

With the help of the faint ambient light.

He could clearly see that the layered seats were densely packed with figures in suits and leather shoes.

But under the special backlighting and dark stage lighting design, the audience area looked like a bottomless black hole.

Shen Du couldn't see the facial features or faces of any of them clearly.

He could only vaguely perceive.

In the darkness, countless gazes filled with scrutiny, vigilance, and even cold calculation were focused firmly on him.

Secretary Shen Hai stopped at the edge of the darkness.

He turned around, raised his hand, and pointed straight ahead.

Accompanied by a slight sound of electrical discharge "pop," a solitary spotlight suddenly lit up at the very center of the stage.

The pale beam of light split the dull darkness like a sharp sword, creating a glaring spot of light on the wooden floor.

Secretary Shen Hai stared into Shen Du's eyes, his voice sounding extremely serious in the dim room.

Carrying a heavy pressure that made people unable to breathe: "This is the stage prepared specifically for you."

"Standing on this today, there are no rules."

Secretary Shen Hai lowered his voice: "You can say anything, you can demonstrate however you want."

Immediately after, Secretary Shen Hai changed the subject and threw out the ultimate bottom line of this dark market transaction:

"Those sitting in the audience are all old European foxes forced into a real rage by desperation."

"Whether they will willingly bow their heads to you in the end and hand over their chips."

"It depends on whether what you show next can completely tear through their psychological defenses."

Standing high up, silently watched by countless gazes hidden in the darkness.

Shen Du truly felt the terrifying suffocating feeling brought by this "faceless home court."

Not being able to see any face.

Meant he had no way to capture the micro-expression feedback of these capital tycoons in the audience.

He couldn't judge at all whether his presentation was hitting the nail on the head or making people laugh like a clown.

This was a high-stakes psychological gamble with his eyes completely covered.

But Shen Du's cold face did not show even the slightest hesitation or cowardice.

His gaze was as sharp as a knife, he swept across the audience without reservation, and then turned around abruptly.

Shen Du was like a decisive general before a battle.

His fingers pointed like a sword directly at the two great generals who had been following behind him, hiding in the shadows of the corridor.

"Lin Zimo! Technical Expert Su Hua!"

Shen Du's voice echoed in the oppressive dim hall, without any intentional lowering or stage fright.

"The mission to ignite the era of the Internet of Everything and intelligence is handed to you!"

He pointed to the glaring spotlight: "Carry our things up, and let this group of people in the audience see clearly!"

Standing high up, silently watched by countless gazes hidden in the darkness.

Lin Zimo and Technical Expert Su Hua, whose names were called by Shen Du.

Even though a thin layer of cold sweat had already seeped out on their foreheads due to this terrifying sense of oppression.

They still gritted their teeth and strode out from the shadows in the back.

The two of them worked together to carry that black-gray metal experimental box brought out from the Sheshan underground fortress.

This semi-finished machine, which looked rough on the outside and even had exposed cooling copper pipes.

But inside, it was tightly encapsulated with a communication protocol capable of releasing a terrifying speed of 500MB/s per unit.

"Bang."

A dull thud echoed in the deathly silent hall.

The two of them bit the bullet and slammed this heavy metal box onto the very center of that pale spotlight.

Accompanied by Lin Zimo taking a deep breath and pressing the power master switch on the side of the metal box with force.

"Hum—"

A low and manic roar of internal cooling fans instantly tore through the suffocating silence in the dark room.

A row of red indicator lights on the surface of the machine turned into glaring green one after another.

A first show of 4G and the Internet of Everything, enough to completely subvert the infrastructure cognition of this group of European capital tycoons in the audience and redefine the rules of world communication.

Right in this darkness filled with crises, just as Shen Du had planned, the curtain was lifted with a bang.