Chapter 157 This streamlined car body broke the world record for drag coefficient.

Paul's cracking, broken voice...

...echoed back and forth several times along the empty steel roof trusses of the convention center.

It was so loud it made everyone's eardrums buzz.

The DSLR lenses of the hundreds of reporters below the stage...

...all swiveled with a "whoosh," locking onto his pale face.

A barrage of white camera flashes erupted in unison.

The blinding light forced Paul to squint, squeezing a couple of physiological tears from the corners of his eyes.

His chest heaved violently.

His lungs felt as if they were stuffed with a rusty wire brush, and he panted heavily like a bellows.

His finger pointed at Lu Jingming on the stage, trembling as if he had been hit by high-voltage electricity.

"Y-You, speak! What is the drag coefficient?!"

Lu Jingming stood beneath the intense glare of the spotlights.

The air was baked somewhat hot, carrying a slightly earthy smell of burnt dust.

He raised his right pinky finger and casually cleaned his ear.

The ten-yuan plastic flip-flops on his feet...

...scuffed half an inch against the wooden floor, making a dull "clack" sound.

"So noisy."

Lu Jingming curled his lip and stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his faded jeans.

He didn't even spare a glance at the red-faced old German man.

"Physics experience?"

Lu Jingming curled his lips, revealing a glimpse of his sharp, white canine teeth.

"Today, I'll teach you what it means to be crushed by computing power."

He raised his left hand.

His thumb and middle finger rubbed together.

"Snap."

A crisp snap of his fingers boomed through the microphone.

The hidden holographic projector directly above the stage powered on instantly.

"Hum—"

A low-frequency hum of electrical current scraped past everyone's scalps.

In the center of the stage...

...a blinding beam of eerie blue light burst without warning over the roof of the silver-gray SU1.

The cold light instantly flooded the entire venue.

A few executives in the front row recoiled in fright, their heads bumping against the leather backrests.

The massive wind tunnel test data...

...was suspended vividly in mid-air in a three-dimensional holographic form.

There was absolutely no need for a giant screen.

Inside the holographic image...

...countless white light lines representing turbulent air currents, like a raging flood...

...slammed head-on into the low-slung nose of the SU1.

There were no swirling eddies splashing in all directions.

Instead, those lines followed the curve of the fastback...

...sliding past effortlessly like loaches slipping into tofu, with unreasonable smoothness.

They clung tightly to the car paint as they flowed.

Following the rear spoiler, they slipped off cleanly and decisively.

Around the entire car body...

...not a single dead angle that could trap air could be found.

It was so smooth that it made cold sweat break out on people's backs.

In the venue of eight thousand people...

...not even a single cough could be heard.

The air solidified like a block of cement.

The pitch-black giant LCD screen behind the stage...

...lit up with a "whoosh."

No specifications were written on it.

It only displayed a glaring number in bold, blood-red characters.

0.17 Cd.

A collective gasp echoed from the front-row VIP section.

Cold air rushed down wide-open mouths, choking their lungs.

Quite a few people couldn't hold it in and began coughing violently.

Spittle sprayed onto the backs of the suits in front of them.

Paul's head buzzed.

Blood rushed straight to his crown, making his scalp tingle.

His legs gave way.

He missed his seat entirely, slipping off the chair and onto the wool carpet.

"P-Paul!"

Beside him, Old Henry, the R&D director of Mercedes-Benz, hurriedly reached out to grab him.

Old Henry's palms were covered in clammy cold sweat, and his hand slipped, failing to catch him.

His own knee banged against the corner of the coffee table, making him wince in pain.

"Zero point one seven?"

Paul sat on the floor, gasping heavily for air.

The whites of his eyes looked as if a nest of red poisonous spiders had burst inside them.

"This—this is impossible... Even concept cars in laboratories can't achieve this figure!"

He clenched his back teeth, the metallic taste of blood seeping from his gums.

"What about the back row?! You pressed the streamline so flat, people sitting in the back would have their necks snapped!"

In the backstage control room...

...the air cooler was whirring, blowing out white mist.

Xia Weiliang sat barefoot, crouching on a spacious gaming chair.

The hem of her dirty white lab coat dragged on the floor, covered in a layer of dust.

She was chewing on half a peeled ham sausage—the perfect instant noodle companion.

"What is this foreigner shouting about?"

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes dramatically.

She bit off a piece of the sausage with a loud snap, chewing noisily.

"I wrote the computational fluid dynamics model, and he's trying to compare his rusty pig brain with mine?"

Chu Xuan stood nearby.

He was tugging at the collar of his short-sleeved shirt, which featured a leopard-print pattern on a purple background.

In his hand, he tightly clutched a crumpled, smelly tissue.

"M-Weiliang."

Chu Xuan wiped the greasy sweat from his forehead with the tissue, his hand shaking as if he had been electrocuted.

"Can a drag coefficient of 0.17 really run on the road? Won't the car float?"

"Float, my foot."

Xia Weiliang kicked the computer case with her grease-stained toes.

"The chassis's magnetic levitation motor has gravity compensation. It will cling tightly to the asphalt even when cornering at 180 kilometers per hour."

On the main stage...

Lu Jingming stood beside the car.

His old sneakers stepped on the wooden floor as he leaned slightly forward.

He stared at Paul, who was sitting on the floor, and let out a cold snort.

"Snap their necks?"

Lu Jingming tapped the silver-gray car roof with his knuckles.

Two dull "tap-tap" sounds echoed.

"When you build cars, you still rely on welding steel tubes one by one to make load-bearing beams."

He curled his lips, his eyes filled with an uncompromising, overbearing arrogance.

"When welding a door seam, you leave a gap so wide you could almost stick a finger in."

Lu Jingming ran his finger along the car body.

Not a single redundant seam or joint could be found.

"This car shell..."

He stared at the pale-faced foreigners.

"...was stamped out in one go using Xinghai's integrated ten-thousand-ton die-casting machine."

Old Henry swallowed hard.

His Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty against his dry throat.

"A t-ten-thousand-ton die-casting machine?"

He stammered, his tongue tying itself in knots.

"And carbon fiber composite materials."

Lu Jingming stuffed his hands back into his pants pockets.

"The outer shell is bulletproof-hard, and its thickness is only one-third of your crappy steel plates."

He looked down at Paul.

"With a thinner shell, the interior space is naturally freed up."

"Who told you that a streamlined design requires sacrificing the back row?"

Lu Jingming sneered.

"Playing around with sheet metal joints? That's manual labor for repairing boilers from the last century."

Old Henry slumped in his leather chair.

The bespoke shirt on his back had long been soaked through with cold sweat.

It clung tightly to his skin, freezing cold.

He had been holding a Montblanc fountain pen to take notes.

His fingers lost their strength.

"Clack."

The pen dropped onto the carpet, rolling all the way to Lu Jingming's feet.

He didn't even have the strength to bend down and pick it up.

A drag coefficient of 0.17...

...combined with an integrated lightweight carbon fiber body.

Old Henry's mouth was wide open, his breathing heavy.

As these parameters ran through his mind, his heart felt as if it were being squeezed hard by someone.

"My God..."

Old Henry's lips trembled, his voice fluttering.

"A drag coefficient of 0.17... Just how low could the energy consumption be?"

When this car runs on the highway...

...even if it drags a battery weighing hundreds of pounds...

...the power loss caused by drag would be negligible.

This wasn't building a car; this was building a missile that flies close to the ground.

Lu Jingming paid no attention to the pen on the ground.

He fumbled around in his pants pocket with his right hand.

He pulled out a plastic lighter that had lost a layer of green paint.

He pressed his thumb against the metal spark wheel...

...and flicked it down hard.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical sound rang out.

A faint blue flame suddenly leaped up.

Carrying the pungent smell of cheap kerosene, it danced under the spotlights.

The firelight reflected off the pitch-black privacy glass of the car window...

...and also illuminated Lu Jingming's infinitely arrogant face.

"The outer shell is just sheet metal."

Lu Jingming stared at the flame, his sharp canine teeth gleaming coldly.

He casually snuffed out the lighter.

The plastic casing clicked shut.

"We're done looking at the outside."

He curled his index finger and tapped twice gently on the car window.

"Now, let me show you the inside."