Chapter 132 Mr. Ma's Compromise: WeChat Must Adapt to Xinghai OS

The deep blue flame danced restlessly in the cold air conditioning breeze.

It illuminated the sharp canine tooth on one side of Lu Jingming's face.

President Ma's fingers tightened sharply around the paper cup.

His knuckles turned a deathly, pale blue.

The paper cup deformed under the pressure, and the warm water nearly spilled out.

Lu Jingming casually snapped the lighter shut.

With a crisp "snap," the flame instantly died.

The sound was not loud, yet it felt like a small hammer striking President Ma's heart.

"Show him something."

Lu Jingming lifted his chin slightly, his gaze sweeping toward the corner.

A soft, fragmented chewing sound came from there.

Xia Weiliang was barefoot.

She shuffled over, dragging that yellowed, dirty white lab coat behind her.

Her bare feet made not a sound as they stepped onto the wool carpet.

Her hair was a messy bird's nest.

She had the last half of an instant-noodle-companion sausage hanging from her mouth.

"Crunch."

She bit off a piece of meat from the casing and mumbled incoherently.

"You sure know how to boss people around."

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes dramatically.

"I just finished writing the redundant interface for Xinghai Cloud computing power allocation, and I haven't even had a sip of water."

She walked over to the glass coffee table.

She turned the xinghai matebook in her hand halfway around.

The screen faced the restless President Ma sitting on the sofa.

"Here. The privilege you wanted."

Xia Weiliang kicked the leg of the coffee table with her toe.

"Look closely. This is a communication software demo I whipped up in a morning."

President Ma froze for a moment.

He adjusted his rimless glasses, his gaze falling on the screen.

The interface was clean.

It lacked all those flashy pop-ups and redundant code.

Xia Weiliang didn't waste any words.

She swiped her finger on the touchpad and opened a test account.

"Watch closely. A ten-gigabyte high-definition video file."

She slammed her finger down on the Enter key.

The progress bar didn't even appear; the file simply showed as sent successfully.

President Ma's eyelids twitched violently.

He subconsciously leaned forward, his nose nearly touching the screen.

"This defies common sense. Server relay takes time."

His throat felt dry, and his voice sounded weak.

"Relay, my ass."

Xia Weiliang spat the last bit of the sausage's plastic casing into the trash can.

It made a soft sound.

"The Pandora Protocol has taken over the low-level scheduling."

Xia Weiliang wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

"This uses a dedicated channel through Xinghai Cloud, with computing power redundancy pushed to three hundred percent."

She stared straight at President Ma. "Can your WeChat do that?"

President Ma felt a chill run down the back of his neck.

He knew WeChat's current major flaws all too well.

To keep users trapped, it was stuffed with too many mini-programs and junk code.

Any random group chat history could eat up tens of gigabytes of the user's memory.

On old phones, it ran as slowly as a tractor.

Xia Weiliang opened a multi-threaded video call.

Three hundred high-concurrency connection windows instantly popped up on the screen.

The image didn't stutter at all, and the frame rate was as steady as a flatline.

What was even worse was that, in the resource monitor on the side, this software occupied a pitiful few dozen megabytes of local memory.

The bulk of it was all eaten up by Xinghai's cloud computing power.

President Ma's face twitched uncontrollably.

He swallowed dryly, his Adam's apple struggling to move down his tight throat.

It made a muffled "gulp" sound.

"Director Xia."

President Ma forced a smile, trying to make excuses.

"Our code is complex to ensure real-time message pushing; background wake-ups are inevitable..."

"Pushing, my ass."

Xia Weiliang cut him off directly, showing no mercy.

"Once in the Xinghai system, message pushing uniformly goes through the Pandora low-level channel."

She stood barefoot on the floor. "If you dare to wake up and occupy local computing power without permission, I'll kill one every time I see one."

President Ma stopped talking.

The warm water in his hand had long since gone cold.

"This was just a morning's practice work."

Lu Jingming leaned back in his boss chair, his fingers interlaced over his lower abdomen.

"President Ma, if we can't come to an agreement,"

he pulled up the corners of his mouth, revealing a predatory ferocity.

"tomorrow I will have Weiliang lead the team to perfect the code."

Lu Jingming leaned forward.

His eyes were like two steel blades scraping bone.

"Xinghai currently has an eighty-five percent hardware market share."

"I will forcibly pre-install this social software on every device that leaves the factory."

He stared at President Ma's pale face.

"Tell me, would users rather use a WeChat that takes up tens of gigabytes of memory and runs as slowly as a tractor,"

"or would they rather use a new gadget that sends files in a second and never lags?"

Chu Xuan, listening from the side, grimaced.

He quickly dug the crumpled tissue out of his floral shirt pocket.

He frantically wiped the greasy sweat seeping from his forehead.

President Lu was holding a knife to the man's throat, forcing his hand.

"Oh, President Ma."

Chu Xuan, holding the damp tissue, leaned in to smooth things over.

"Don't be stubborn. Look at this fluidity; Xinghai is actually helping Penguin save on server costs."

This flattery was clumsy, but the logic held up.

President Ma clenched his back teeth until they ached.

His gums even began to bleed slightly, a faint metallic taste filling his mouth.

Not integrate with Xinghai OS? Not pay that thirty percent toll?

That would be pure suicide.

Back in the PC era, Microsoft didn't dare to touch Penguin.

It was because Microsoft didn't understand the social gene.

But Lu Jingming understood.

He didn't just understand.

He also held the big stick of technology capable of dimensional strikes.

In the face of absolute low-level system hegemony,

Penguin's hundreds of millions of users were no moat at all.

As long as Xinghai cut off your interface, those hundreds of millions of users could collectively move elsewhere tomorrow.

Shen Qingqiu stood by the coffee table.

Her high heels shifted half an inch on the carpet.

She adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses, a cold light of an actuary flashing behind the lenses.

"President Ma."

Shen Qingqiu's voice was cold and hard, entirely in a professional tone.

"The rules in the white paper are set for the entire industry to see."

"If Penguin doesn't sign, Alibaba and Baidu are lined up waiting to sign. They are dying for you to cede your territory."

President Ma's back was completely soaked with cold sweat.

That high-end custom shirt clung tightly to his skin, freezing cold.

He felt like a fish thrown onto dry land.

"Plop."

He placed the paper cup on the glass coffee table, and a few drops of water spilled out.

He gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently.

In the business world, whoever has the biggest fist makes the rules.

Penguin was indeed big.

But Xinghai was now the one creating the Earth.

President Ma picked up the black signature pen on the table.

His fingers were still trembling slightly.

He opened the "Xinghai OS Global Developer White Paper."

He flipped directly to the last page.

Chu Xuan leaned over from the side, holding his breath.

He was afraid that if he breathed too loudly, he would scare away this god of wealth.

"Swish, swish, swish."

The signature pen swept across the paper, the force pressing through to the back.

President Ma signed his name, his hand pressing so hard he nearly tore the paper.

He threw the pen down.

The pen holder clattered against the glass surface and rolled twice.

Lu Jingming didn't touch the agreement.

He reached into his pocket again and fished out his lighter.

With a "click," he flipped it open.

The flame lit up again, illuminating his indifferent profile.

President Ma stood up.

His legs were a bit weak, and his knee bumped against the edge of the coffee table.

He swallowed dryly, his Adam's apple moving violently.

He stared fixedly at Lu Jingming, his voice raspy with the realization of defeat.

"I've signed it."

He straightened the hem of his wrinkled suit.

"All Penguin applications will begin low-level adaptation tonight."

President Ma took a deep breath.

"But President Lu, your knife cuts too deep. You have to leave some soup for others to drink."

Lu Jingming casually snapped the flame out.

The plastic casing made a crisp sound.

He didn't even look at President Ma, his gaze passing directly over him.

"Chu Xuan, go call President Zhang of Alibaba up here."

Lu Jingming's canine tooth flashed with a chilling light.

Carrying an arrogance that could pierce the sky.

"Since President Ma feels the knife cuts too deep,"

Lu Jingming sneered.

"why don't you go out and ask the people waiting downstairs if they are afraid of pain?"