Chapter 159 A Giant Refrigerator and a Color TV? Li Xiang Takes Frantic Notes at the Press Conference

The Toyota Vice President's cracked, screeching roar was still reverberating against the steel rafters of the empty venue, making everyone's eardrums buzz.

In the third-row VIP section, Li, the CEO of Li Auto, was hunched over.

Sweat beads were rolling down his nose, hitting the back of his hand with a "plop."

He wiped it away haphazardly with his sleeve.

A thick, black, hard-cover notebook was spread across his lap, and he gripped a signing pen tightly in his hand.

"Old Wang, open your eyes wide for me."

The CEO nudged his technical partner beside him with his elbow.

He swallowed dryly, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty.

"When these internet companies cross over to build cars, they don't understand the chassis, so they're bound to pull stunts with the interior."

Partner Old Wang pushed up his black-rimmed glasses.

"L-Li, CEO. Do you mean they're going to stuff home appliances into the car?"

"Nonsense!"

The CEO lowered his voice, grinding his teeth.

"What else can these new car-making forces do? Isn't it just big fridges, big color TVs, and a big massage sofa?"

He tapped the paper with his pen cap, making a "tut-tut" sound.

"We're here today to copy their homework. As long as he dares to stuff it in there, we'll find a supplier to get the dimensions tomorrow."

The CEO tensed his shoulders, his pen tip hovering over the paper.

His eyes were glued to the interior footage on the big screen, waiting for Lu Jingming to pull a double-door refrigerator out of some hidden corner.

Under the spotlight on stage, Lu Jingming sat in the driver's seat of the silver-grey xinghai su1.

His washed-out black T-shirt was a bit wrinkled.

His left wrist rested casually on the steering wheel, and his eyelids were drooping.

The Toyota Vice President's earlier clamor that "the space is a pile of shit" was clearly transmitted into the car cabin via the microphone.

Lu Jingming curled the corner of his mouth, revealing half of a sharp, white canine tooth.

"The space is too small?"

His voice was languid, exuding an arrogance that trampled on the laws of physics.

"Fine. I'll make some room for you."

He raised his right hand.

With his index finger, he casually swiped across the floating, eerie blue holographic panel.

There was no mechanical clicking sound of physical buttons.

Nor was there the teeth-grinding sound of motor gears rubbing against each other like in traditional car seats.

"Hum—"

A low-frequency electromagnetic vibration rippled across the floor of the cabin.

Even the wooden floor of the venue outside hummed with a slight tremor.

In the close-up on the big screen, the four leather seats in the cabin moved without warning.

The CEO lunged forward.

His mouth hung open so wide that his dentures nearly knocked against his lower lip.

"O-Old Wang. Why is the sound of the seat slide rail so quiet?"

His eyes bulged, and bloodshot veins instantly crawled across the whites of his eyes.

Old Wang didn't answer.

He gripped the back of the front seat so hard his knuckles turned a deathly pale white.

"CEO... that damn thing doesn't even have a slide rail!"

Old Wang's voice cracked completely, like a rooster with its neck stepped on.

The camera zoomed in.

In the eight-thousand-person venue, a collective gasp of air rang out.

The cold air rushed into their lungs through their open mouths, triggering a series of violent coughs.

The cabin floor was clean, covered in a layer of matte suede.

The ugly metal slide rails that should have been welded to the chassis simply didn't exist!

The four leather seats were hovering directly in mid-air, two centimeters above the floorboard!

The magnetic levitation module on the chassis was running wildly, supporting these heavy objects weighing hundreds of pounds, moving as smoothly as a curling stone gliding across ice.

"This... this is impossible!"

The CEO's legs went weak.

His knees hit the armrest of the seat in front with a dull thud.

He couldn't even bother to rub them.

His wrist trembled.

With a "squelch," the tip of the pen in his hand pierced straight through the thick pages of the notebook, stabbing through a dozen sheets of paper.

The black ink cartridge burst.

Sticky ink leaked out along the pen barrel, covering his hand.

A pungent smell of low-quality ink spread.

He didn't even notice that a plastic shard had cut a bloody gash in the web of his hand.

"What about the wire harness! Where did the wire harness for the seat heating go!"

The CEO gasped for cold air, his chest heaving violently like a bellows.

"A car has kilometers of wiring! If it moves while floating like that, won't the wires snap!"

In the backstage broadcast room, the air cooler was puffing out white mist.

Xia Weiliang was barefoot, the soles of her feet stained with black dust, standing directly on the edge of the leather gaming chair.

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

"Country bumpkins. So noisy."

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes and kicked the computer case next to her with her toe.

"I covered the entire roof with microwave wireless power supply modules."

She crunched the candy loudly.

"Who needs a wire harness? Those crappy wires should have been thrown in the trash long ago."

Chu Xuan stood nearby.

He tugged at the collar of his purple leopard-print short-sleeved shirt, clutching a ball of foul-smelling, rotten tissues in his hand, frantically wiping the oily sweat from his forehead.

"W-Weiliang, you're too ruthless."

Chu Xuan stuttered, his legs shaking uncontrollably.

"With this space folding trick, Lu Jingming has left those car companies that just do interior renovations with nothing left to hide."

On the big screen, Lu Jingming didn't stop.

He tapped the holographic panel twice more.

The steering wheel, like a deflated ball, made two "click" sounds and retracted into a hidden compartment under the dashboard, leaving it as flat as a chopping board.

The four seats hovering in mid-air had their backrests automatically reclined.

Following the magnetic levitation field, they slid and rearranged themselves in the cabin like a game of Tetris.

In two seconds, the front and rear seats were locked together, seamless.

The entire cabin was transformed into a two-meter-long, flat, soft bed.

The microwave modules on the roof automatically dimmed the ambient lighting.

There was no big fridge, no eyesore of a color TV hanging in the middle.

Even the cup holders were folded and hidden inside the door panels.

Lu Jingming had taken the underlying logic of a smart home and brute-forced it into this metal shell through the sheer power of physical reconstruction.

The Toyota Vice President slumped in the first row.

His face was as green as a moldy winter melon.

The voice recorder in his hand dropped onto the carpet, and he didn't even have the strength to bend down and pick it up.

"Is... is this damn thing even a car?"

He gritted his teeth, his gums oozing a sour, metallic taste.

"This is basically an alien capsule with wheels!"

Li, the CEO in the third row, was soaked through with cold sweat.

His high-end dress shirt clung to his back, freezing cold.

A cold breeze blew, and he shivered three times in a row.

Ink mixed with sweat dripped from between his fingers.

"Drip," "drip."

It fell onto the wool carpet, blooming into black spots.

He looked at his punctured notebook.

The memos he had originally filled with "refrigerator dimensions" and "color TV resolution" were now all smudged into a blob of black garbage.

"No piling on specs..."

The CEO's voice cracked completely, like a broken erhu with a snapped string.

"He relies purely on underlying physical reconstruction and computing power to control the space..."

He turned to look at Old Wang beside him, his eyes filled with desperate fear.

"Old Wang... how are we supposed to copy this?"

The CEO held his head in his hands, fingers digging into his hair stiff with hair gel.

"There's no way to copy this! Even if we took the car apart piece by piece, we couldn't figure out that magnetic levitation and microwave power supply system!"

On stage, the white spotlight baked the silver-grey car body.

Lu Jingming pushed open the frameless door.

His old sneakers hit the threshold with a "plop."

He stepped straight out.

He didn't walk off the stage.

With one hand in his washed-out jeans pocket, he pushed off with his feet, actually stepping directly onto the edge of the hood.

In two strides, he was up on the roof of the xinghai su1, which was as smooth as mercury.

He stood brazenly on the silver-grey roof, looking down from above at the group of shivering foreign executives in the first row.

The cold air in the venue blew past.

His washed-out black T-shirt clung slightly to his firm waist and abdomen.

Lu Jingming pulled a green plastic lighter from his pants pocket with his right hand.

He pressed his thumb against the metal grinding wheel and rubbed it down hard.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical sound tore through the silence of the venue.

A deep blue flame flared up instantly, carrying a pungent smell of kerosene.

The firelight reflected in the shards of explosion-proof glass, illuminating half of Lu Jingming's sharp, white canine tooth and the unreasonable arrogance in his eyes.

He casually snapped the flame shut.

The plastic casing made a sharp, crisp sound.

"You've seen the toy."

Lu Jingming stared at the Toyota Vice President's pale face.

His voice was languid, yet it exuded a murderous intent that felt like he was about to devour them alive.

"Now, it's time to settle the bill."