Chapter 128 Nokia's Final Lament: Bankruptcy and Reorganization

The slippery plastic receiver slipped from Cook's fingers.

"Bang!" A dull thud echoed.

The receiver hit the mahogany desk and bounced twice.

The busy signal from the other end of the line, "Beep—beep—," echoed in the pitch-black office.

It sawed at Cook's eardrums like a dull knife.

His massive frame slumped into the oversized boss chair.

His chest heaved violently, as if all the air had been sucked out of him.

The cold resignation notice from the Morgan Consortium had effectively pronounced a suspended death sentence on this tech empire in California.

No components.

No foundries capable of assembly.

Even the semi-finished products, which ran hot enough to fry an egg, were being mocked across the entire internet.

Apple was being held down on the chopping block by Xinghai Technology, its blood practically drained.

But that is the cruelty of the tech world.

When the butcher's knife falls, there's not even time to scream.

Just as the eyes of the world were fixed on this behemoth, Apple, collapsing with a crash.

In another corner of the globe.

An older hegemon from the past era silently took its last breath.

Donghai City.

Xinghai Technology building, top floor office.

The air conditioner was spitting out cold white mist, set to a very low temperature.

"Bang!"

The heavy solid wood door was slammed open.

Chu Xuan stumbled in.

He was wearing a floral shirt with a red background and black squares today, his tie pulled crooked.

In his hand, he clutched a ball of tissue paper tightly.

By now, that ball of tissue had been soaked into a pulp of sludge by cold sweat.

Dirty water dripped down through his fingers.

"L-Lu, Boss Lu!"

Chu Xuan was panting like a broken bellows with a snapped string.

He rushed to the glass coffee table in a few strides.

He slammed a stack of freshly printed press releases onto the table.

The pages rustled loudly as he slapped them down.

Lu Jingming was sitting on the leather sofa.

His legs were sprawled out, crossed carelessly.

He was still wearing that washed-out black T-shirt, paired with old jeans.

His right hand was tucked into his pants pocket, rubbing that green plastic lighter.

Hearing the cracked sound of Chu Xuan's voice.

Lu Jingming looked up and tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Half of his white canine tooth was exposed.

"What's the rush? Did Cook jump off a building?"

Lu Jingming's voice was languid, laced with a frivolous sense of watching a show.

"It's not Apple!"

Chu Xuan swallowed a mouthful of dry foam, his Adam's Apple scraping painfully against his parched throat.

He pointed at the press release, his finger trembling as if it had touched a high-voltage wire.

"It's Finland! That big brother who makes brick phones has announced bankruptcy and restructuring!"

Accompanied by the "tap-tap" sound of high heels on the wool carpet.

Shen Qingqiu walked over with two cups of black coffee.

The collar of her white shirt was buttoned meticulously.

Behind her gold-rimmed glasses, her gaze swept rapidly over the press release on the coffee table.

The front page of the newspaper.

That classic "handshake" logo, which had once been popular worldwide and printed on the boot screens of countless people.

It had now turned into a deathly black and white.

It carried a desolation reminiscent of burning paper at a grave.

Shen Qingqiu placed the coffee on the table.

The porcelain base touched the glass, making a crisp sound.

"Nokia?"

She pushed up her frames, her brows slightly furrowed.

"Although their financial report from last quarter was ugly, it shouldn't have reached the point where their capital chain snapped to the extent of filing for bankruptcy directly."

Chu Xuan wiped the oily sweat from his forehead and caught his breath.

"Boss Shen, it's not a problem with the capital chain! It's that they were suffocated to death by us!"

He grabbed the black-and-white press release and shook it until it rustled.

"These Finnish old men have bones that are too hard!"

"A few years ago, they stubbornly clung to Symbian OS, and later they blindly sought medical help by hugging Microsoft's thigh."

Chu Xuan's spit flew everywhere, spraying onto the edge of the newspaper.

"Last month we released the MateBook, and Xinghai OS directly integrated PC and mobile platforms."

"Software developers from all over the world have come to write code within our ecosystem."

"That crappy system of Nokia's can't even download a usable chat app now!"

In the tech world, it doesn't matter if hardware can smash walnuts.

Once the software ecosystem becomes an isolated island without a water source.

A mobile phone becomes nothing more than a brick that can only make calls.

Lu Jingming leaned back against the chair.

He pulled his hand out of his pocket.

His knuckles tapped on the glass coffee table, making a "knock-knock" sound.

"I had the overseas department send them the open-source interface for the Pandora Protocol a long time ago."

Lu Jingming let out a cold, emotionless laugh.

"It was them who held onto the airs of a past hegemon."

"They thought our underlying code had backdoors and refused to integrate it no matter what."

Chu Xuan slapped his thigh, making a loud sound.

"Exactly!"

"Their executives even bragged to foreign media, saying they would rather let their phone sales hit zero than use a closed-loop system from Huaxia."

Chu Xuan pointed to the bankruptcy declaration on the press release.

"And the result? Global sales plummeted straight through the freezing point! Last month, they didn't even manage to scrape together 30,000 units in shipments!"

"The board of directors fired the CEO overnight and submitted an application for bankruptcy and restructuring to the court directly!"

The office fell silent.

Only the roar of the air conditioner scraped past their ears.

Nokia.

This super empire that once occupied more than half of the global market share and was worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

It didn't die in some earth-shattering multinational business war.

It just couldn't keep up with the dimension-reduction iteration speed of Xinghai OS.

Like an old elephant that couldn't keep up with the migration herd, it silently collapsed in the snow and took its last breath.

Shen Qingqiu picked up the press release.

Her slender fingers brushed over that black-and-white handshake logo.

A complex glint flashed in the depths of her eyes.

Having spent so many years on Wall Street, she had seen too many corporate rises and falls.

But a giant dying so decisively and so silently.

Even she was seeing it for the first time.

"An empire with a market value of hundreds of billions."

Shen Qingqiu sighed and tossed the newspaper back onto the coffee table.

"Gone just like that."

Lu Jingming didn't respond to her comment.

He leaned forward and opened the drawer under the coffee table.

It wasn't filled with expensive cigars, but stacked with five-dollar cans of cheap green-label beer.

He casually pulled out a can.

His index finger hooked the aluminum pull-tab.

"Ka-chick—"

A crisp sound.

The can was popped open.

White carbonated foam instantly surged out, flowing down the cold can body.

It soaked Lu Jingming's fingers.

He grabbed a tissue and wiped them messily.

He tilted his neck back, his Adam's Apple rolling violently twice.

He gulped down a large mouthful of bitter, fizzy beer.

The icy liquid smashed into his stomach down his throat.

Lu Jingming let out a burp.

He slammed the remaining half-can of beer onto the table.

"This is the tech world."

Lu Jingming stared at the pile of white foam still churning, his eyes chillingly cold.

"Jungle law, winner takes all. No one is immortal."

He turned his head.

Half of his sharp canine tooth flashed with a cold light.

His gaze fell on Chu Xuan, like two steel blades scraping bone.

"Notify the PR department, no need to issue any eulogies."

Lu Jingming pointed his finger at the black-and-white logo.

"Apple is bleeding out, Microsoft is shrinking into its shell, and Nokia has taken its last breath."

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a smile that made people's spines crawl.

"The remnants of the old era are all dead. Next, it's our turn to go dance on someone else's grave."

Chu Xuan's legs felt weak from hearing that.

He swallowed a mouthful of dry foam and stuffed the soggy tissue back into his pocket.

"Boss Lu, we've already conquered both the mobile and PC markets. Where else is there to dance?"

Lu Jingming stood up.

Under the washed-out black T-shirt, his spine stood straight as a rod.

He reached for the green plastic lighter in his pocket.

His thumb pressed onto the grinding wheel.

"Click."

A ghostly blue flame leaped up, illuminating the crazy calculation in his eyes.

Lu Jingming stared at the flame and spoke softly.

"Chu Xuan, do you think people are tired of staring at this framed glass screen in their hands all day?"

He casually extinguished the flame.

"Aren't they tired?"