Chapter 133 Setting Industry Standards: This is the Hegemony of the Star Sea

"Swish, swish, swish."

President Ma finished signing the last character.

That expensive Montblanc fountain pen slipped from his hand.

It landed on the glass coffee table with a "clack."

It rolled around twice before hitting the edge of the coffee table and stopping.

He stood up.

The back of his high-end custom-made shirt had long been soaked through with cold sweat, sticking tightly to his skin.

It was freezing.

President Ma didn't say another word and walked out the door as if he had lost his soul.

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly.

He dug a crumpled tissue out of the pocket of his purple leopard-print short-sleeved shirt.

He wiped the oily sweat off his face haphazardly.

"President Lu, your knife cut is too vicious."

Chu Xuan's legs were trembling.

"When President Ma left, his knees were shaking."

Lu Jingming leaned back in his leather executive chair.

He reached his right hand into the pocket of his worn-out jeans and pulled out that one-yuan green plastic lighter.

He pressed his thumb against the metal grinding wheel.

"Click."

A faint blue flame shot up.

Illuminating half of his sharp, white canine teeth.

"Vicious?"

Lu Jingming casually extinguished the flame, and the plastic casing made a crisp sound.

"In the future, they'll be begging me to make a few more cuts."

Over the next three days.

Donghai City was plagued by persistent autumn rain, which lashed against the glass curtain wall.

The top-floor office of Xinghai Technology turned directly into a signing room for domestic internet tycoons.

Outside in the hallway.

Those giants, usually worth hundreds of billions, stood honestly in a long line.

President Zhang of Ali, President Li of Baidu, as well as the actual controllers of major video platforms and food delivery apps.

Everyone held a copy of the "Xinghai OS Global Developer White Paper."

No one dared to speak loudly.

The air was filled only with the rustling of turning pages and suppressed breathing.

Inside the office.

The air conditioner was blowing out white mist with a hum.

President Li of Baidu sat in front of the glass coffee table.

He pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, sweat beads from his forehead rolling down along the frames.

"President Lu, is this 30% commission a bit too harsh?"

President Li wiped his sweat with a handkerchief, his voice wavering.

"Even Apple didn't dare to charge such high road tolls in the country back then."

Shen Qingqiu stood by the side.

The collar of her white shirt was buttoned meticulously.

Her high heels made muffled tapping sounds on the carpet.

"President Li, Apple collects protection money; Xinghai collects a computing power fee."

Shen Qingqiu's voice was as cold as a blade pulled from an ice cellar.

Her slender fingers tapped on the appendix of the white paper.

"By integrating with the Pandora underlying protocol, you can save more than half of your server expenses."

"With this 30% Xinghai tax, you are guaranteed to make a profit."

President Li's back teeth ached.

Of course, he had done the math; the savings in server costs could indeed cover the commission.

But what he felt pained about was another rule.

"Then there's this privacy isolation clause..."

President Li swallowed, pointing to one of the open pages of the document.

"President Lu, if we internet companies don't collect user behavioral habits, how can we push precise advertisements?"

He tried to bargain.

"You are locking down the permissions for the microphone and photo album directly at the system level."

"This is equivalent to doing business with our eyes covered."

In the corner.

Xia Weiliang was barefoot, curled up in a large gaming chair.

The hem of her dirty white lab coat dragged on the floor, picking up a ring of dust.

She was biting on a watermelon-flavored lollipop, the plastic stick bobbing up and down.

"Stop trying to confuse the issues here."

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes and stepped on the edge of the chair with her bare feet.

She tapped on the mechanical keyboard with both hands a few times.

She projected a background monitoring screen directly onto the large screen.

"How many dirty codes for waking up the microphone are buried in your Baidu app? Don't you have a clue?"

Xia Weiliang kicked the computer case next to her with her toes.

It made a muffled "thud."

"The moment a user talks about wanting to buy a cup in the room, you push a thermos advertisement to their homepage immediately after."

She crunched the lollipop loudly.

"Do you call this kind of low-class peeping technique 'precise push'?"

President Li was exposed to his face.

His old face turned bright red.

He opened his mouth, but his throat felt like it was stuffed with sand, and he couldn't squeeze out a word for a long time.

Lu Jingming took his leg off the edge of the table.

He leaned forward slightly.

Under his faded black T-shirt, his muscle lines were tense.

His gaze, like two bone-scraping steel knives, was nailed straight onto President Li's face.

"On my turf, there is only one rule."

Lu Jingming curled his lips, his voice filled with a domineering air that could pierce the sky.

"User data belongs to the user."

"Xinghai OS doesn't steal it, and don't you dare touch it either."

He knocked his knuckles twice on the glass coffee table, making a "tap-tap" sound.

"Anyone who dares to use dirty code to steal recordings or scan photo albums without permission again..."

Lu Jingming stared into President Li's shaky eyes.

"I will not only kick him out of the ecosystem."

"I will also make all of his applications become dead links forever and disappear completely from this Earth."

President Li's brain buzzed.

Blood rushed to his head, and his scalp went numb.

He knew the current mobile internet landscape too well.

Not entering the Xinghai ecosystem was equivalent to being forcibly formatted by over 80% of smartphone users.

This was a real, physical annihilation.

"I'll sign."

President Li grabbed the signature pen, his hand shaking as if he had touched a high-voltage wire.

He signed his name with a few quick strokes and stumbled out the door.

Next.

The tycoons waiting in line walked in one by one.

Bowing their heads, signing, and leaving.

The chaotic era of the domestic mobile internet, characterized by barbaric growth and everyone carving out their own territory to harvest leeks.

Was abruptly cut off by this Pandora sword in Lu Jingming's hand.

Completely unified.

This is the absolute hegemony belonging to Xinghai.

From hardware to system.

And down to the most fundamental computing power rules and privacy bottom lines.

Everything was firmly welded into an iron cage by Lu Jingming.

By evening.

The autumn rain outside the window fell even more densely.

Rainwater lashed against the explosion-proof glass, washing out crooked water streaks.

The office quieted down.

Only the air conditioner continued to tirelessly blow out white noise.

Chu Xuan held a financial terminal tablet.

He stared fixedly at the numbers on the screen.

His legs were shaking violently.

His knees went weak, and he almost knelt on the wool carpet.

His floral shirt had long been soaked through with sweat, emitting a sour smell.

"Presi-President Lu."

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly, his Adam's Apple rolling up and down with difficulty.

He handed over the tablet, his hand shaking so much that the edge of the tablet kept knocking against the edge of the table.

Making a faint "tap-tap" sound.

"Just the licensing fees for these few days, and the first installment of the Xinghai commission prepaid."

Chu Xuan's voice cracked, sounding like a broken erhu with a snapped string.

"The money in our company's US dollar account..."

He gasped for air.

"Is so much that I can't even count how many zeros there are!"

Shen Qingqiu stood by the side without speaking.

She picked up the cold coffee and took a sip, masking the ripples in her eyes.

The money-making speed of this printing press had completely shattered the cognition of Wall Street tycoons.

Lu Jingming did not take the tablet.

He stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

His back was straight.

He looked at the misty rain scene of Donghai City outside the window.

The car lights on the overpass stretched out into long red light trails.

Appearing somewhat blurry in the rain curtain.

Lu Jingming reached out and tugged at the collar of his slightly wrinkled T-shirt.

"The money is coming in too slowly."

He didn't look back, his voice languid without a hint of fluctuation.

Chu Xuan gasped.

Cold air choked his lungs, and he almost started coughing violently.

Still too slow?

At this rate of income, even if you wore a mask and robbed the Federal Reserve, you wouldn't be able to keep up!

Lu Jingming turned around.

He stuck his right hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out that green plastic lighter again.

His thumb hovered over the grinding wheel.

"Chu Xuan."

Lu Jingming's face was half-hidden in the dim shadows, making it impossible for people to see what he was calculating.

"Notify the whole company: stop work tomorrow."