Chapter 10: Competitors Start Hiring Online Trolls to Smear Me? Just What I Want

10:00 PM, Huaqiangbei "Jinbi Huanghuang" Bathhouse.

In a top-tier VIP suite, steam filled the air.

Liu Jin, the boss of Jinshi Mobile, was wearing a silk bathrobe. He irritably crushed his cigar into the ashtray.

"This kid is seriously wicked!"

Liu Jin slapped the coffee table, making the iced beers on it rattle.

"In less than half a day, ten thousand units were sold out!"

"Thirty percent of our orders for next month have been cancelled!"

Brother Biao sat opposite him, the gold chain around his neck stained dark by sweat.

He had just had a check thrown in his face by Lu Jingming earlier that day, and he was gnashing his teeth so hard they felt like they might shatter.

"Boss Liu, we can't let that little brat keep hopping around."

Brother Biao picked up his draft beer mug and took a huge gulp, his eyes sinister.

"That 998 price tag of his is basically digging up our ancestral graves!"

Liu Jin sneered and lit another cigarette.

"Don't worry, I've already found some friends on the street."

"Isn't he hyping things up online? We'll deal with him using online methods."

Liu Jin pulled a black USB drive from his bathrobe pocket and tossed it onto the glass tabletop.

"This is called an internet troll army."

"I've dropped 500,000 to hire three underground PR companies."

Brother Biao was stunned for a moment.

"Trolls? Insulting him online?"

"Insulting him? That's letting him off too easy."

Liu Jin blew a smoke ring, his face full of malice.

"What are common people most afraid of these days? Death!"

"Tomorrow morning, I want the whole internet to know that Xinghai Mobile doesn't just leak electricity, its radiation also exceeds the limit!"

"It might even explode!"

After hearing this, Brother Biao's triangular eyes lit up.

"Brilliant, Boss Liu! Once this dirty rumor is splashed on him, he'll be guilty in everyone's eyes regardless of the truth!"

The two looked at each other and smiled, clinking their beer mugs together.

The glass mugs made a crisp clinking sound.

It was as if they could already see the miserable sight of Xinghai Electronics Factory closing down for good.

The next morning, Xinghai Electronics Factory.

Lu Jingming was sitting at his desk, looking over the renovation blueprints for the new factory building.

"Bang!"

The office door was pushed open.

Chu Xuan, with his hair looking like a bird's nest, was clutching a bulky laptop as he scrambled in.

"Boss Lu! It's a disaster! We're being smeared!"

He was moving so fast that he tripped over his own feet and almost fell to his knees in front of Lu Jingming's desk.

Following close behind was Niu Dazhuang, carrying a pipe wrench.

Dazhuang was panting heavily, his eyes red with rage.

"Those bastards who were born without assholes! Young Master, someone is insulting us online!"

Lu Jingming put down his pen and raised an eyebrow slightly.

"What are you panicking about? If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up."

"Put the computer on the desk, let me see."

Chu Xuan hurriedly placed the laptop heavily on the desk; the screen was currently on the homepage of Jifeng Forum.

Just a few hours ago.

Posts that were originally full of praise for the bulletproof and durable nature of Xinghai Mobile had been instantly flooded.

The screen was filled with scarlet, exclamation-mark-heavy headlines.

"Deadly Machine! xinghai generation 1 charging leaks electricity, almost electrocuted my second uncle!"

"Revealing the truth behind the 998 price: Uses second-hand, inferior batteries, could explode at any time!"

"Internal employee leak: Xinghai Mobile radiation exceeds standards by ten times, pregnant women will miscarry if they use it!"

The posts were also accompanied by a few blurry photos of charred motherboards.

The comments below were being manipulated, creating a chaotic mess.

"Holy shit, is this real? I just snatched one yesterday!"

"With a battery capacity this big, if it blows up, the power would definitely be comparable to a grenade!"

"Cheap goods are never good, everyone hurry up and return them for your own safety!"

"Scammer Lu Jingming, get out of the tech circle!"

Chu Xuan looked at those posts, nearly crying with anxiety.

"Boss Lu, starting from six this morning, hundreds of these posts suddenly appeared on all major forums on the internet."

"And they all hit the trending searches at the same time."

"This is definitely organized and premeditated black PR!"

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"The customer service lines are almost being blown up."

"They're all demanding refunds, and some who have been agitated are even cursing on the phone."

Niu Dazhuang slammed his pipe wrench against the door frame.

"It must be those bastards from Huaqiangbei!"

"Young Master, let's call the police! Arrest these rumor-mongers!"

Lu Jingming stared at the computer screen for a few seconds.

He didn't fly into a rage as the two had expected.

Instead, he leaned back in his chair and let out a low laugh from his throat.

The laughter grew louder, eventually turning into applause and hearty laughter.

Chu Xuan and Niu Dazhuang looked at each other in confusion.

"Boss Lu, you... don't get so angry you make yourself sick."

Chu Xuan swallowed nervously.

"If this isn't handled well, the reputation we just built will be completely ruined."

"Ruined?"

Lu Jingming stopped laughing, his fingers tapping lightly on the desk.

"Chu Xuan, you're in marketing, do you think web traffic is expensive right now?"

Chu Xuan was stunned for a moment, then answered honestly.

"Expensive. Buying a recommendation spot on the homepage costs tens of thousands a day."

"Then that settles it."

Lu Jingming pointed at the sea of red-flagged smear posts on the screen.

"Someone spent hundreds of thousands to push our product right in front of internet users nationwide."

"With such massive exposure, and it didn't cost us a penny."

"If this isn't competitors doing charity work, what is it?"

Chu Xuan's brain buzzed.

This logic was just too bizarre.

"But Boss Lu, this is negative traffic. Is 'black fame' still fame?"

Lu Jingming stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the trucks busy shipping goods downstairs.

"As long as the product is solid, black can become red."

"Look at this picture."

He pointed to a photo of the so-called "explosion" in the post.

"This charred motherboard clearly has Samsung memory chips."

"Our xinghai generation 1 uses recycled junk from Huaqiangbei; how could we afford such high-end parts?"

"The trolls didn't even do their homework before smearing us with their eyes closed."

Chu Xuan leaned in to take a closer look and gasped.

"It really is! This flaw is too obvious!"

"Boss Lu, then I'll immediately issue a clarification announcement and post this evidence to slap them in the face!"

"Issue an announcement, my ass."

Lu Jingming slapped the back of Chu Xuan's head, interrupting his plan.

"Nobody likes reading dry, text-based explanations; netizens only like watching the drama."

"What you need to do now isn't to clarify."

"It's to find people to add fuel to the fire for me."

Chu Xuan rubbed his head, completely bewildered.

"Add fuel to the fire?"

"Yes."

Lu Jingming's eyes became as sharp as knives.

"Go spend some money and hire a batch of 'undercover' trolls among the trolls."

"Blow the gimmick of the electric leakage and explosion even bigger."

"It's best if you say our phone can electrocute birds within a ten-mile radius the moment it's turned on."

"Hype it up to the sky for me, let the whole internet discuss the Xinghai Mobile explosion!"

Niu Dazhuang stomped his feet in anxiety.

"Young Master! You're playing with fire!"

"The bigger the fire burns, the higher we can fly on the wind it creates."

Lu Jingming snorted coldly.

He turned to look at Chu Xuan and began giving orders.

"First, after the fire is stoked, go contact big websites like Tencent and Sina."

"Tell them that Xinghai Technology is going to host a live stream online tomorrow."

"Yes, the kind of online live broadcast room where netizens can send real-time comments and interact."

Chu Xuan hurriedly took out his notebook and scribbled furiously.

"Second, spread the word that I, Lu Jingming, will be responding to the explosion rumors head-on."

"And I'm inviting netizens nationwide to be the judges."

"Third, Dazhuang."

Lu Jingming turned his head to look at the bewildered strongman.

"Go to the warehouse and pick out ten brand-new xinghai generation 1 units."

"Then buy a set of the most professional disassembly tools—screwdrivers, crowbars, even a chainsaw—get it all ready."

Niu Dazhuang's eyes widened.

"What are we doing with these?"

Lu Jingming rested his hands on the desk, the corners of his mouth curling into a cruel sneer.

"Didn't the competitors say we use inferior batteries inside?"

"Then I'll conduct an unprecedented violent teardown competition in front of millions of netizens nationwide."

"We'll tear our phone, as well as Wave and Jinshi's phones, to pieces!"

"We'll expose the flying wires, shoddy cotton, and inferior glue inside to the sunlight for everyone to see!"

Once these words were spoken.

The air in the entire office seemed to freeze.

Chu Xuan felt his scalp tingle, a jolt of electricity shooting straight up his spine.

Too ruthless.

This was going to completely tear off the competitors' underwear!

This tactic of violent teardown was absolutely dimensionality-reducing in 2007.

Everyone usually treated their phones like ancestors; who would dare to take them apart to see what was inside?

Once opened, the shady, hidden dealings of those copycat phones would be instantly exposed to millions of people.

This was a one-sided massacre!

"Boss Lu, your move... is simply a scorched-earth strategy!"

Chu Xuan's voice was trembling with excitement.

"As soon as they're opened, their lies will crumble without a fight!"

"And the competitors' ugly true colors will be watched by the whole internet!"

"I'm going to contact the video websites right now!"

Chu Xuan hugged his laptop and rushed out of the office like he'd been injected with adrenaline.

Niu Dazhuang also grinned, swinging the pipe wrench in his hand with a swoosh.

"Alright! I'm going to prepare the chainsaw! I'm definitely going to saw the faces off those bastards!"

After both of them had run off.

Lu Jingming sat back in his chair leisurely and lit a cigarette.

The system panel in his mind was jumping happily.

That Wave of troll attacks, while causing a bit of trouble, had also slightly increased his Defense-Breaking Value.

However, the real main course was still to come.

Lu Jingming exhaled a puff of blue smoke and looked at the dazzling sunlight outside the window.

The landline on his desk suddenly rang.

He picked up the receiver casually.

"Hello?"

On the other end of the phone came Chu Xuan's panting voice.

"Boss Lu, the website is set! We'll start broadcasting at 2:00 PM tomorrow!"

"But there's one thing."

Chu Xuan lowered his voice, his tone filled with undisguised excitement.

"Just a moment ago, Liu Jin's side also released word."

"He said he's going to hold a rumor-debunking press conference at the same time tomorrow."

"And at the press conference, he's going to personally smash our Xinghai Mobile!"

After hearing this, Lu Jingming couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He flicked the ash off his cigarette and threw a sentence toward the receiver, slow and steady.

"That's perfect. Remember to prepare a nice stretcher for him; tomorrow afternoon, I'll make sure he gets carried out on it."