Chapter 171 Joint venture automakers are getting desperate, uniting to boycott Xinghai Auto's entry into offline shopping malls.

In front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the president's office, the setting sun was like blood, burning half the sky a deep red.

Lu Jingming leaned back in his chair, one hand tucked into the pocket of his faded jeans.

Deep within his mind.

The [Unlocking Next-Generation Energy Blueprint] emitting a faint blue light was floating quietly in the system panel.

This was not just a blueprint.

It was an ultimate weapon capable of uprooting the global century-old automotive industrial ecosystem at any moment.

Lu Jingming curled one corner of his mouth, revealing a stark white canine tooth.

"Click."

The green plastic lighter he was toying with let out a crisp snapping sound as the lid closed.

The flame went out, but the intimidating sense of pressure did not diminish in the slightest.

"Go call Xia Weiliang over."

Lu Jingming put the lighter back into his pocket, his voice casual.

"With the first ten thousand cars delivered, our reputation has completely reached legendary status. Next, it's time to expand our footprint."

His fingertips tapped rhythmically against the black solid wood desk.

"Relying solely on this dark factory won't be enough to fill the void of five hundred thousand pre-orders. We need to set up three more fully automated mecha production lines in the south."

Beside him.

Chu Xuan was happily wiping the sweat from his forehead with a tissue.

Having just watched Tesla's stock plummet, he felt like he was walking on air.

He wore that red-based leopard print shirt with the air of an emperor's robe.

"Got it! President Lu, I'll go invite Xia Weiliang to come out now!"

Chu Xuan grinned wide, "With our production capacity, it'll be our Xinghai ringing the bell at NASDAQ next year!"

He turned around, but before his hand could touch the doorknob.

The phone in his pocket suddenly began to vibrate and roar like a death-chasing demon.

The shrill ringtone was extremely abrupt in the spacious office.

Chu Xuan impatiently took out his phone.

He glanced at the caller ID; it was the regional director sent to Shanghai by the Channel Expansion Department.

"Hello? Old Li, did you negotiate the venue?"

Chu Xuan carelessly pressed the speakerphone button.

"Let me tell you, rent isn't an issue, but the location must be in the most prominent ground-floor atrium in the city center!"

On the other end of the line.

There was no good news as Chu Xuan had expected.

There was only heavy breathing, accompanied by the noisy sound of rain outside.

"Pr-President Chu..."

Old Li's voice trembled as if he had been soaked in an ice hole for a day.

"The negotiations collapsed. The three major core commercial districts in Shanghai have all kicked us out."

Just this one sentence.

The smile on Chu Xuan's face froze instantly, and then drained away completely in a flash.

His big, chubby face turned as pale as if it had been plastered with a thick layer of putty.

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting!"

Chu Xuan's wrist trembled violently, and his eyes nearly popped out.

"Our Xinghai is currently the top trend across the entire internet; we have the hype, and we have the sales!"

He roared into the microphone.

"Do they not want to make money? How dare they push away the God of Wealth?"

"President Chu, it's really not about money..."

Old Li on the other end was almost crying, exuding a sense of despair as if he had been driven into a dead end.

"I even offered to double the rent. But the boss of Wanda wouldn't even let me in the door; he had security throw me out directly!"

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly, gasping for cold air.

"What exactly is going on? Who is pulling the strings behind the scenes?"

"It's BBA! And those joint-venture giants like Toyota and Volkswagen!"

Old Li gritted his teeth, his voice filled with grief and indignation.

"They are completely desperate; they formed an anti-Xinghai alliance and are putting direct pressure on offline shopping malls and auto malls across the country!"

Hearing this, Lu Jingming finally lifted his eyelids.

A hint of mockery, as if watching a show, flashed in his deep eyes.

"Those bastards gave the malls an ultimatum, forcing them to play 'choose one of two'!"

Old Li's voice echoed through the entire office from the speakerphone.

"Whoever dares to rent even one square meter of space to Xinghai Technology to sell cars, all joint-venture brands will collectively withdraw their stores and terminate their leases tomorrow!"

"Not only that, they also threatened to use their capital connections to cut off bank loans for those malls!"

This move was undeniably vicious.

It was ruthless and directly strangled Xinghai's offline lifeline.

Joint-venture brands occupied the best and largest storefronts in major malls, paying exorbitant rent year-round.

They were the absolute cash cows and the foundation for the malls.

Even if mall owners coveted the terrifying traffic that Xinghai brought.

They would never dare to gamble with the entire mall's profits and loans.

"President Chu, it's not just Shanghai. Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen..."

Old Li's voice grew weaker and weaker.

"In all the first and second-tier cities across the country, not a single one dares to take us on. Our direct-store applications have been completely blocked nationwide!"

The call ended.

Only the "beep-beep" busy signal echoed in the quiet office.

"Pr-President Lu."

Chu Xuan's legs went weak, and he clung tightly to the edge of the desk to keep from collapsing.

He turned around, his voice cracking like a broken erhu with snapped strings.

"We can't open new factories... Our offline channels have been wiped out in one go!"

Chu Xuan, in his anxiety, grabbed the leopard-print shirt on his chest.

With a rip, he tore a hole in the collar.

"These bastards have no sense of honor! We crushed them online, so they're playing these underhanded capital monopoly games!"

He grabbed that crumpled tissue and desperately wiped the waterfall of sweat from his forehead.

"Buying a car isn't like buying cabbage. This is a major purchase worth at least two hundred thousand!"

Without offline experience stores, who would dare to place an order with their eyes closed?

Ordinary people need to touch the paint in person and sit inside to try out that trackless magnetic levitation acceleration.

"President Lu, if we don't even have a storefront."

Chu Xuan collapsed in despair onto the wool carpet.

"Even if we produce those five hundred thousand pre-ordered cars, they'll just turn into scrap metal that we can't deliver!"

"Bang!"

The solid wood door of the office was kicked open.

Xia Weiliang walked in, barefoot, swaggering confidently.

The soles of her feet were still smudged with black ash from the underground laboratory.

She had a freshly unwrapped strawberry-flavored lollipop in her mouth, the plastic stick bobbing up and down.

"You fat idiot, why are you wailing like at a funeral?"

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes dramatically and plopped onto the edge of the leather sofa.

"I could hear you shouting that the sky was falling all the way from the third basement level."

Chu Xuan slapped his thigh in anxiety.

"Xia Weiliang! The joint-venture automakers have teamed up with those malls like Wanda and blocked us!"

Xia Weiliang crunched down on the candy in her mouth, shattering it into pieces.

She sneered, her face full of that wild arrogance that defied all common sense.

"Is this trivial matter worth you shedding tears over?"

She stepped barefoot onto the coffee table.

"Boss Lu, as long as you nod, I'll hack into the backends of those malls tonight and turn all their cash register systems into garbled code."

"I'd like to see if the joint-venture brands withdraw their stores first, or if the malls go bankrupt first."

Behind the desk.

Lu Jingming leaned against the wide back of his chair, his long legs casually crossed.

He was not furious.

Nor was he in a panic like Chu Xuan.

He just slowly and methodically took out the green plastic lighter from his pocket again.

He spun it casually between his fingertips twice.

"There's no need for that much trouble."

Lu Jingming chuckled.

The laughter was casual, yet it carried an air of domineering power, as if he could devour anything and crush everything.

His thumb pressed onto the metal grinding wheel.

He rubbed it downward heavily.

"Click."

The crisp sound of mechanical friction tore through the anxious atmosphere of the office.

A cluster of faint blue flames suddenly shot up.

The firelight flickered.

It illuminated the sharp, stark white canine tooth on one side of Lu Jingming's face and the unmasked, crazy ambition in his eyes.

"Choose one of two? Joint boycott?"

Lu Jingming stared at the blue flame dancing on his fingertips.

His eyes looked as if he were watching a group of clowns trying to block a steel torrent.

"Won't rent to us?"

He lifted his eyelids, looking directly at the limp Chu Xuan on the floor.

"Chu Xuan. Who told you I was going to rent their venues?"

Chu Xuan was stunned.

He stared blankly at Lu Jingming, his mind completely unable to process this turn of events.

"N-not rent? Then where are we going to put our cars?"

Chu Xuan stammered, "We can't just set up a shed on the side of the road to sell them; that would be too tacky!"

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

The plastic casing made a crisp sound.

He slammed the green lighter heavily onto the desk.

"Go, notify the Finance Department."

Lu Jingming stood up, supporting himself on the desk with one hand, looking down at everything from a superior position.

"Mobilize all the capital brought in by those five hundred thousand pre-orders."

His voice was not loud, but it exploded in Chu Xuan's ears like a nuclear bomb.

Five hundred thousand orders, at two hundred thousand full payment each—this was a terrifying cash flow of a full one hundred billion!

Lu Jingming's eyes revealed pure madness and coldness, and the corners of his mouth curled into a cruel arc.

"If they won't rent to us, then we'll use money to smash their mouths open. Buy me those most prosperous malls in the city center directly."