Chapter 154 The mockery of traditional automakers: What do mobile phone manufacturers know about chassis tuning?

"Clang!"

Half of a thick Porsche metal connecting rod slammed onto the anti-static concrete floor.

In the fourth basement level of the parking garage,

a dull echo bounced back and forth several times, making people's eardrums buzz.

The pungent smell of engine oil that hadn't fully dissipated in the air...

...was whipped up by the draft from the falling scrap metal, making it even thicker.

It bored straight into one's nostrils.

Xia Weiliang was barefoot, her feet covered in black soot.

She casually rubbed the soles of her feet against the hem of her dirty white lab coat.

She seemed to have stepped on some sharp iron shavings, causing her to gasp in pain.

Her toes curled up as she shrank back.

"Pah."

She spat the thoroughly chewed plastic lollipop stick in her mouth onto the concrete floor.

"Chassis tuning?"

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes so hard she could practically see the back of her head.

With two grease-stained fingers, she pointed at the shock absorber spring on the ground that had just been snipped by hydraulic shears.

"Are these Germans still using such primitive physical shock-absorbing springs to rip people off?"

She kicked the piece of scrap metal with the tip of her toe.

"When they hit a pothole, they just rely on the spring to take the brunt of it, and a couple of bounces is all they get. How is that any different from a horse carriage from the last century?"

Chu Xuan stood two paces away.

Today, he wore a loud, white-dotted purple floral shirt.

He tightly clutched a ball of sour-smelling, crumpled tissue in his hand.

His collar was open, revealing a chubby neck covered in beads of sweat.

"W-Weiliang, sister, please tone down the cursing a bit."

Chu Xuan swallowed hard, his Adam's apple scraping painfully against his dry throat.

He raised the tablet he had been holding in his left hand.

The screen glowed with a cold light.

"The entire internet is flaming us right now, saying we don't know anything about chassis."

Chu Xuan wiped hard at the greasy sweat running down the bridge of his nose with the crumpled tissue.

The sweat stung the corners of his eyes, making him blink rapidly several times.

A short video was playing on the tablet screen.

On the screen was a chubby man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a flashy racing suit.

That was "Lao Liu Talks Cars," a top-tier car reviewer in the domestic circle with over ten million followers.

Lao Liu was leaning against the hood of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

He was tossing a greasy suspension shock absorber strut in his hand.

"My friends, we have to talk about science."

In the video, Lao Liu's spit was flying everywhere.

"Making phones is just stacking chip computing power—plug it in and it runs."

"But building cars? Is that even the same thing?"

He slapped the hood, making loud slapping sounds.

His greasy, powdered face was filled with disdain.

"The stiffness of the chassis, the body roll support during cornering..."

...that's the result of veteran engineers from joint-venture factories spending dozens of days and nights on the Nürburgring!

"It's physical experience literally felt out with their own butts!"

Lao Liu sneered repeatedly at the camera.

He pointed aggressively with his finger.

"Xinghai's car is, at best, a giant smartphone with four wheels attached."

"It's passable in a straight line. But if you try to take a sharp turn at a hundred kilometers per hour?"

He spread his hands and shrugged.

"It'll definitely flip over into the green belt. I, Lao Liu, am putting my word on it. Whoever buys it is a guinea pig."

Chu Xuan tapped the screen, pausing the video.

"M-Mr. Lu."

He turned to look at Lu Jingming, who was leaning back in a worn-out swivel chair, his legs trembling.

"The traditional car manufacturer alliance has really gone all out this time."

"They've bought off dozens of these big influencers and plastered smear campaigns all over the internet. The tide of public opinion has completely shifted."

Chu Xuan slapped his thigh in anxiety.

"The general public now thinks that the cars we build will fall apart the moment they hit the highway!"

"Several small factories that originally wanted to invest in our supply chain withdrew their capital and ran overnight."

Lu Jingming didn't reply.

The faded black T-shirt he wore was stained with some plaster dust.

His legs were casually crossed.

The ten-yuan plastic flip-flops on his feet dangled in the air, swaying back and forth.

They made a faint rubbing sound.

He didn't even lift his eyelids.

He simply rested the back of his head against the headrest of the swivel chair.

He slowly closed his eyes.

His consciousness sank instantly.

He plunged straight into that deep blue system's intermediate "Break Defense" exchange mall.

In front of his retinas, a holographic panel unfurled with a faint, cold glow.

Physical experience? Butt tuning?

Lu Jingming curled his lips in his mind.

His gaze skipped directly over those messy exterior part blueprints.

He locked his eyes onto a dark gold icon in the underlying dynamics architecture.

[Smart Digital Chassis and CDC Hydraulic Magnetorheological Algorithm].

Below it, a line of small explanatory text glowed with a dangerous red light.

Note: Completely abandon mechanical damping tuning. Computing power forcibly takes over the arrangement of iron powder in the hydraulic chamber. Millisecond-level road surface scanning, smoothing out physical bumps.

Lu Jingming's breathing skipped half a beat, turning slightly heavier.

It felt as if a fire had been lit in his lungs.

What is hydraulic magnetorheological?

It meant that the shock absorber strut wasn't filled with ordinary oil, but a special liquid mixed with magnetic iron powder.

Once the electromagnetic valve was energized,

the iron powder would instantly solidify.

If you wanted it soft like riding a boat, you cut the power.

If you wanted it stiff like a supercar, you turned on the power.

The transition time between soft and stiff was less than one millisecond.

Coupled with the advance scanning and prediction of the xinghai bracelet and LiDAR,

if there was a pothole ahead,

before the wheels even rolled over it, the chassis's central brain would have already calculated how to soften up to absorb the bump.

The car body would remain so stable that not even a cup of water would spill.

This was a fucking dimensional reduction strike.

"Exchange."

Lu Jingming gave a firm command in his mind.

The overflowing Defense-Break points on his account were instantly deducted.

"Buzz—"

A dull roar rumbled deep inside his mind.

A massive amount of magnetorheological equations and chassis dynamic scanning algorithm codes...

...flooded in like an opened sluice gate,

squeezing violently into his neurons.

His temples throbbed wildly,

as if someone were poking them with two red-hot iron skewers.

Wave after wave of soreness washed over him.

Lu Jingming abruptly opened his eyes.

A fierce, wolf-like savagery flashed in his dark eyes as if he had just tasted blood.

He leaned forward, the wheels of the swivel chair rolling half a turn on the floor with a rumble.

He pulled out a black-gold USB flash drive from his worn-out jeans pocket.

He plugged it directly into the terminal port of the nearby workstation.

He hard-burned the data stream from his mind into it via the basement's intranet.

"Click."

Three minutes later, he pulled out the hot USB drive.

With his right hand, Lu Jingming pulled out a plastic lighter that had lost a layer of green paint.

He pressed his thumb against the metal flint wheel

and flicked it down hard.

*Click.*

The crisp sound of mechanical contact echoed in the underground garage.

A faint blue flame suddenly leaped up.

The sharp smell of kerosene instantly overpowered the surrounding smell of engine oil.

The firelight reflected on the glossy paint of the nearby Porsche,

also illuminating half of Lu Jingming's sharp, stark white canine teeth.

He flicked his wrist.

The black-gold USB drive drew a sharp arc in the air.

"Smack."

It landed precisely in Xia Weiliang's arms,

dropping onto the edge of her dirty white lab coat pocket

with a dull thud.

"Ouch."

Xia Weiliang was knocked back half a step.

Stepping barefoot on the iron shavings, she gasped twice in pain.

She quickly lifted her foot and rubbed the sole with her hand.

"Boss Lu, you might as well just kill me."

She grabbed the cold USB drive, her face full of the frustration of being overworked.

"What on earth is this thing now? Are you ever going to let me sleep?"

Lu Jingming casually snapped the lighter shut, extinguishing the flame.

The plastic casing clicked shut with a crisp sound.

The light was instantly snuffed out.

"Those old relics talk about physical experience."

Lu Jingming stared at the metal car parts scattered all over the floor and let out a cold snort.

His voice was filled with an uncompromising dominance.

"Let's show them what absolute computing power crushing means."

Chu Xuan listened from the side, completely bewildered.

But he was all too familiar with Lu Jingming's ferocious expression, which looked ready to devour someone.

Whatever was on this USB drive would definitely slap those car reviewers' faces into oblivion.

He tucked the tablet under his armpit,

clutching that ball of crumpled tissue with both hands.

"M-Mr. Lu,"

Chu Xuan stammered, his legs still shaking.

"Then... then what do we do about our new car launch event?"

He took half a step forward,

his leather shoes slipping slightly on an oil stain.

"Should I have the PR department write up a PPT outline right away?"

"We can take your concept of computing power crushing, add some special effects,"

"and hype it up for hundreds of pages!"

Lu Jingming slipped one hand back into his pants pocket.

His flip-flops clicked against the concrete floor as he turned around.

"Why write a PPT?"

His eyelids drooped, exuding a laziness that was arrogant to the bone.

"That's just a fake trick to deceive venture capitalists. I'm not short on cash."

Chu Xuan was stunned.

His mouth fell open, and his dentures almost fell out onto his shirt collar.

"No PPT? Then what are we going to show at the launch event? Just talk to thin air?"

Lu Jingming walked out, his back perfectly straight.

He didn't even look back.

"Next month,"

he knocked his knuckles against the door of a stripped-down Mercedes-Benz nearby.

*Thud, thud.* Two muffled sounds.

"We'll drive the actual car..."

Lu Jingming curled his lips, "...straight onto the stage."