Chapter 151 The mobile phone industry is too boring, so President Lu decides to make a big splash across the entire internet.

"Tomorrow, I want Samsung Group's display panel business to go into complete bankruptcy liquidation."

Lu Jingming's words had barely fallen.

His thumb pressed against the metal grinding wheel.

A deep blue flame flared up sharply in front of the explosion-proof floor-to-ceiling glass.

The faint firelight flickered twice.

A scent of kerosene, with a slightly acrid tang, spread through the air ducts of the air cooler.

Time, that blind bone-shaving knife, had ruthlessly hacked three months into the future.

Seoul, South Korea, the headquarters building of Samsung Group in the Gangnam District.

Outside, the early winter cold wind carried sleet.

Ice pellets pelted against the frameless glass curtain wall, scraping out a fine, rustling sound.

In the top-floor chairman's office, the underfloor heating was set to thirty degrees, making it stifling enough to choke someone.

The air was mixed with the sour smell of concentrated coffee.

Several executives in suits and leather shoes stood in a row against the wall, each with their heads bowed, staring at their toes.

No one dared to make a sound; they didn't even dare to take a full breath.

Chairman Lee slumped in the pure leather executive chair.

His hand, covered in shriveled wrinkles, gripped the plastic seam on the edge of the mouse tightly.

He used too much force.

Several strands of sticky blood seeped out from under his fingernails and smeared onto the white back of the mouse.

The blinding, cold light emitted by the computer screen hit his old face, which was covered in age spots, casting a deathly, grayish-white pallor.

On the screen was a green K-line plummeting vertically toward hell.

There was no bottom in sight.

It was the ninetieth day of the global rollout of the holographic neural bracelet.

People all over the streets wore black bands on their wrists, swiping their fingers through the air.

Who would still buy electronic trash with physical screens?

On the order books for Samsung and LG's LCD panels, the delivery figures that had originally been scheduled three years out had been kicked straight to zero by Xinghai Technology.

Not a single glowing glass panel could be sold anymore.

"This... this is impossible..."

Chairman Lee gasped for air.

His lungs felt like they had been stuffed with a rusty wire brush, aching like a saw cutting through them.

His left hand trembled as he reached for the small bottle of quick-acting heart pills on the edge of the table.

Just as his fingertips touched the slick plastic cap, a nauseating taste of rust suddenly surged from the depths of his throat.

"Pfft—"

A mouthful of dark, thick blood sprayed out, splattering onto the expensive LCD monitor.

Beads of blood dripped down the screen glass, "plop," landing in the gaps of the mechanical keyboard.

Chairman Lee's eyes rolled back.

The heavy leather chair tipped backward, emitting a creaking, miserable groan.

"Chairman!"

The executive nearby screamed, his voice cracking in terror.

His leather shoes thudded against the wool carpet as he rushed over.

Fifteen minutes later, the piercing siren of an ambulance tore through the rain curtain on the streets of Seoul.

Donghai City.

The top-floor office of the Xinghai Technology building.

The air cooler was still making that half-dead sound.

The air it puffed out carried the musty smell of old dust.

Lu Jingming leaned back in the leather swivel chair.

The collar of his faded black T-shirt was skewed to one side, revealing a portion of his solid collarbone.

The ten-dollar plastic flip-flops on his feet were suspended in mid-air, swinging aimlessly.

On the wide mahogany desk lay a global consumer electronics market share report.

The curves on it were as flat as a stagnant pool of water; there wasn't even a decent rebound arc left.

Home appliances, mobile phones, wearable devices—everything had been devoured by the Xinghai ecosystem, not even leaving the scraps of bone for the competitors.

Lu Jingming scratched his eyebrow.

A tear of physiological saline was squeezed from the corner of his eye.

He opened his mouth wide and let out a muffled yawn.

"Bang."

The heavy solid wood door was rudely shoved open with a shoulder.

The sound-absorbing pad emitted a dull thud upon impact.

Chu Xuan bustled in, his shiny leather shoes tripping on the edge of the wool carpet.

He stumbled forward half a step, nearly biting the corner of the mahogany desk.

Today, he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a green background and big red flowers.

The flesh on his belly had burst three buttons open, revealing a chest covered in sweat beads.

Having just finished lecturing a few small factory managers downstairs, he was currently feeling incredibly full of himself.

He walked with a swagger.

Chu Xuan clutched a wad of his ever-present, tattered grey tissue in his left hand, while waving a thick stack of financial documents in his right.

"Lu, President Lu! Guess what!"

Chu Xuan panted heavily.

He casually stuffed the damp tissue into his collar and wiped it around messily.

"Single month! A single month!"

He swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down with a clicking sound.

"Our holographic bracelet combined with the smart home ecosystem commission..."

Chu Xuan's voice trembled like a broken erhu with snapped strings.

"Revenue has broken through one thousand small targets! In USD!"

He slapped the documents heavily onto the glass coffee table.

The pages rustled loudly.

Lu Jingming didn't even lift an eyelid.

The flip-flops on his feet continued to swing.

His right hand reached into his worn-out jeans pocket and fished out that plastic lighter with the peeling paint.

His thumb hovered over the metal grinding wheel.

He didn't light it, just fiddling with it back and forth between his calloused fingers.

"Leave it there. Let Shen Qingqiu handle it."

Lu Jingming's voice was languid, laced with an utterly weary sense of irritation.

"All home appliances, all terminals. There isn't even a living thing left that can hop around and resist."

He flicked his wrist and tossed the lighter onto the desktop.

The plastic casing hit the explosion-proof glass with a crisp "clack."

"It's boring."

Chu Xuan was stunned.

The flattery that had just surged to his lips was forcefully choked back by those three words, making his face twitch.

He wiped the oily sweat from his forehead.

The tissue in his hand had been squeezed until dirty water was dripping from between his fingers.

"No, President Lu. You find a hundred billion USD boring?"

Chu Xuan stepped forward.

Only then did he stretch his neck to look at the giant holographic projection in front of Lu Jingming.

Just now, he had been too busy looking at the financial report in his hand to look up and examine it closely.

At this moment, the deep blue holographic beam hit his greasy, fat face directly.

Chu Xuan's eyeballs slowly bulged out, and a few red bloodshot veins appeared in the whites of his eyes.

What was floating in mid-air was not the underlying code for some electronic product, but an intricate mechanical structural diagram.

It featured heavy industrial gears, dense oil pipelines, and an iron lump of an internal combustion engine that took up a third of the volume.

Below it, the logo of a certain Japanese joint-venture car manufacturer was slowly rotating in the holographic image.

"An old antique."

Lu Jingming kicked the crossbar under the desk with his toe.

The swivel chair slid back half a meter, the wheels making a slight rumbling sound on the floor.

He pointed at the greasy engine cross-section in mid-air.

"Look at this piece of junk. It relies on exploding oil to push pistons."

Lu Jingming clicked his tongue, his face full of disdain.

"The energy conversion rate is pitifully low. And it vibrates enough to make your butt go numb."

He tapped his knuckles on the desktop twice.

"These foreigners have been building them for over a hundred years, and all they've managed to create is a farting iron tortoise."

Chu Xuan's brain buzzed.

Blood rushed up his neck to his crown, and his scalp went numb.

He caught the drift.

His calves twitched violently, and his knees went weak.

He hurriedly supported himself on the edge of the glass coffee table.

The coffee table creaked under his weight.

"No, no, no, Lu, President Lu."

Chu Xuan's tongue began to tie in knots; he even forgot to breathe.

"Why are you looking at this iron shell first thing in the morning? We at Xinghai are here to write code and build an ecosystem!"

He trembled, pointing a fat finger at the chassis diagram.

"This is a bottomless pit of heavy assets!"

"Throwing hundreds of billions of USD into it might not even make a splash—it's a money-burning pit!"

Chu Xuan stamped his feet in anxiety, his leather shoes slapping the carpet.

"The water in this industry is too deep. We don't have the experience of those old German factories in chassis tuning!"

Lu Jingming didn't take the bait.

He leaned forward, his back leaving the backrest, and retrieved the green plastic lighter from the table.

His thumb pressed against the metal grinding wheel and rubbed downward heavily.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical sound rang out.

A deep blue flame flared up, dispelling the scent of old dust blown from the air vent.

The firelight was reflected in Lu Jingming's pupils.

That half-exposed, white canine tooth glinted with a cold light that sent a chill down Chu Xuan's spine.

Chu Xuan looked at the car chassis and engine filling the screen.

His calves twitched again.

"Lu, President Lu, why are you looking at this iron shell?"

Lu Jingming extinguished the flame.

The plastic casing made a crisp clicking sound.

He lifted his eyelids, his gaze like two bone-scraping knives.

"The joint-venture cars on the road are too ugly. The smell of burning oil is too choking."

He tucked the lighter back into his pocket.

His flip-flops hit the floor, and he stood up straight.

"Chu Xuan, go buy a plot of land."

Lu Jingming curled the corner of his mouth, exuding an arrogance that wanted to overturn the old world.

"Let's build cars for fun."