Chapter 27 The Arrogance of Nokia Greater China: Who Do You Think You Are?

The sunlight was blinding. The tires of that stretched Mercedes-Benz had left a deep black mark on the red carpet.

President Kang Peila did not speak immediately. He leisurely took a pair of sunglasses from his inner suit pocket and put them on.

Through the lenses, his blue eyes scanned the factory grounds of Xinghai Technology as if inspecting livestock.

The unrenovated old workshops, the newly leveled yellow mud ground, and this group of technicians wearing lab coats.

Everything reeked of shabbiness.

President Kang Peila frowned and pulled a white handkerchief from his suit pocket, covering the tip of his nose.

It seemed as if the air here carried the sour, rotten smell of the lower class.

A translator wearing a plaid suit nearby hurriedly bent over and approached him.

"President Kang, this is that Xinghai factory that got lucky by selling drop-proof phones."

After the translator finished his obsequious laugh, he turned to look at Lu Jingming and immediately put on an arrogant face.

"Lu Jingming, right? What are you standing there stunned for!"

He pointed at the Mercedes-Benz and shouted in a shrill voice.

"This is the President of Nokia Greater China Region, President Kang Peila! He has come today to bring you a massive stroke of fortune, so why aren't you clearing the area to welcome our guest!"

This display of borrowing power to bully others instantly ignited the powder keg on the scene.

Niu Dazhuang was so angry that his eyes were round.

He clutched the lighter in his hand, the veins on the back of his hand bulging one by one.

If it weren't for Chu Xuan holding his waist tightly, this bull would have already rushed up and torn that translator's mouth to shreds.

Lu Jingming was not angry.

He didn't even look at the clown-like translator; his gaze went straight past him and locked onto President Kang Peila.

"Fortune?"

Lu Jingming had one hand in his dress trousers pocket, a playful smile curling the corner of his mouth.

"President Kang, you've traveled all this way to our backwater; I wonder how much real gold and silver fortune you've brought?"

President Kang Peila took the handkerchief off his nose and tossed it to the translator.

He raised his chin arrogantly, speaking in stiff, awkward Chinese.

"Mr. Lu, I am a businessman, and I don't like to beat around the bush."

He extended a finger and waved it in mid-air, his tone like he was bestowing charity upon a street beggar.

"Ten million, US dollars."

President Kang Peila stared into Lu Jingming's eyes, as if he had already seen the image of this young man crying tears of gratitude and kneeling to thank him.

"This money will buy this dilapidated factory of yours, as well as all the patents for that drop-proof shell of yours."

He paused, wearing an expression of bestowing a favor.

"Besides, considering you have some marketing skills, after the acquisition is complete, I can make an exception and give you the position of Manager of the East China Region for the Greater China Region."

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire scene fell into a deathly silence.

Immediately after, suppressed curses erupted from the ranks of the Xinghai Technology employees.

Ten million US dollars? To buy all of Xinghai Technology?

And to demote the founder of the dignified Xinghai Technology to work as a running-dog regional manager for their Nokia?

This wasn't coming to negotiate an acquisition; this was coming to rob them in broad daylight!

Lu Jingming didn't speak; he turned his head and glanced at Shen Qingqiu beside him.

The female financial genius understood immediately.

Shen Qingqiu stepped forward in her high heels, passing Lu Jingming.

Her cold, beautiful face was covered in frost, and the gaze behind her gold-rimmed glasses was as sharp as a knife.

"President Kang, please have your assistant read a few more financial briefings before you go out."

Shen Qingqiu's cold, clear voice echoed across the open ground, articulate and cutting to the bone.

"Our Xinghai Technology currently has daily sales exceeding one hundred million."

"The available liquid capital on our books could crush several old-school domestic mobile phone factories at any moment."

She stopped and stared coldly at President Kang Peila's increasingly stiff, arrogant face.

"You come here with ten million US dollars to act like a big spender—do you take us for beggars, or do you really think your money is worth more than everyone else's?"

President Kang Peila was left with a livid complexion after being so mercilessly exposed.

He had been a local tyrant in the Greater China Region for so many years; who didn't bow and scrape when they saw him?

Today, he had actually been humiliated in public by a young pup and a woman!

"Young lady, take a longer view."

President Kang Peila suppressed his anger, forcibly maintaining the dignity of a multinational giant.

He pointed at the group of technicians in white lab coats behind Lu Jingming, his face full of disdain.

"Don't think that just because you've made some quick money, you can actually consider yourselves a technology enterprise."

"I've had engineers look at that 'Generation One' phone of yours. Other than stuffing in a big battery and thick plastic, it has zero technical substance."

He became more arrogant as he spoke, striding onto the red carpet and closing in on Lu Jingming.

"In the communications circle, whoever controls the underlying system is the one who gets to set the rules of the game!"

President Kang Peila shouted at the top of his lungs, his blue eyes flashing with a fanatical desire for control.

"Our Nokia Symbian OS empire holds sixty percent of the global smartphone market share!"

"The few hundred thousand pieces of junk you've sold don't even count as a rounding error in our eyes!"

The translator hurriedly chimed in, looking every bit the lackey.

"Did you hear that! President Kang is giving you a price because he thinks highly of you!"

The translator pointed at Lu Jingming's nose, spit flying everywhere.

"Without Nokia's authorization and technical charity, what are you, a small domestic workshop that can't even write code properly!"

The phrase "what are you" was like a sharp knife, stabbing fiercely into the hearts of all the technicians present.

Zhou Hong had been standing behind the crowd.

Upon hearing this, the arrogant former chief engineer of a major factory could no longer hold back.

He pushed through the crowd, strode to Lu Jingming's side, and stared fixedly at President Kang Peila.

"Can't write code properly?"

Zhou Hong sneered, his bloodshot eyes filled with the defiance of a tech fanatic.

"President Kang, that Symbian OS you are so proud of—its underlying instruction set is as bloated as a junkyard."

"It freezes if you open three background processes; the memory scheduling mechanism is a whole era behind."

Zhou Hong mercilessly tore open the most fatal scar of the Symbian empire.

"Does this kind of patched-up trash even deserve to be called the standard for smartphones?"

President Kang Peila's expression changed drastically.

He didn't expect that in this crappy assembly plant, there would be someone who could see through the underlying hidden dangers of Symbian OS at a glance.

This was the highest-level technical secret of Nokia headquarters!

"Who are you! Is it your turn to speak here!" President Kang Peila roared in exasperation.

Seeing his boss get angry, the black-clad bodyguard immediately stepped forward, reaching out to push Zhou Hong.

Just as the bodyguard's hand was about to touch Zhou Hong.

Lu Jingming moved.

He turned slightly to the side, grabbed the bodyguard's thick wrist, and pressed down.

"Bang!"

The burly foreign bodyguard let out a muffled grunt, his entire arm twisted behind his back, forcing him to one knee in pain.

Lu Jingming tossed the bodyguard's hand aside and clapped his hands.

Not only was there no anger on his face, he smiled even more brightly.

Lu Jingming took half a step forward, invading President Kang Peila's personal space.

President Kang Peila was startled by this sudden movement and instinctively tried to retreat.

But Lu Jingming reached out.

This action stunned everyone.

They saw Lu Jingming gently pinch President Kang Peila's slightly crooked suit tie and slowly straighten it out for him.

As if he were tidying up a lifeless display item.

"President Kang, don't be so hot-headed."

Lu Jingming straightened his tie and casually patted his expensive suit shoulder.

"Symbian empire?"

He chuckled, his voice filled with a mockery that chilled one to the bone.

"It's nothing more than a dinosaur with a cerebral thrombosis."

Lu Jingming stared into President Kang Peila's blue eyes, which were filled with shock, enunciating word by word.

"It has a massive body and occupies the best resources, but its brain stopped working long ago."

President Kang Peila's face instantly turned the color of pig liver.

As a dignified president of a multinational giant, he had been compared to a dinosaur with a cerebral thrombosis by a young man in his early twenties!

"How dare you insult Nokia!"

President Kang Peila was trembling with rage, pointing at Lu Jingming's nose and cursing in Finnish.

"I swear, from today on, you at Xinghai Technology will never get any technical authorization in this industry!"

Faced with such a threat of a total blockade.

Lu Jingming simply withdrew his hand and calmly tucked it into his dress trousers pocket.

He turned around and walked toward the office building, waving his hand without looking back.

"Safe travels, President Kang, and please say hello to the engineers at your headquarters for me."

Lu Jingming's voice drifted over with the wind, carrying a sense of arrogant ruthlessness.

"In a couple of days, I'll send you a big gift."

"I hope that by then, your Symbian OS is still as hard as your mouth."

President Kang Peila was about to explode with rage.

He glared viciously at this group of people who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth.

He turned abruptly and dove into the Mercedes-Benz, slamming the door with a deafening "bang."

The car tires spun wildly on the red carpet, and it sped away, filled with fury.

The taillights disappeared outside the factory gate.

Chu Xuan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and approached Lu Jingming with lingering fear.

"President Lu, we have completely offended the founding father of the industry."

He swallowed hard and muttered in a low voice.

"You just said you wanted to send him a big gift; are we going to hire internet trolls to spread rumors about Nokia?"

Lu Jingming stopped, looking at the blue sky in the distance, a glint of a hunter eyeing its prey flashing in his eyes.

"Spreading rumors is for amateurs. To deal with a behemoth like this, you have to strike at its heart."

He turned his head to look at Zhou Hong, who was still immersed in the technical verbal sparring from a moment ago.

"Old Zhou, go drag Xia Weiliang out of the laboratory for me."

Lu Jingming pulled out the lighter from his pocket and lit it with a "click."

"Tell her to stop worrying about Xinghai OS for now."

"Have her take a few people and rip that Symbian OS, with its underlying code that looks like a junkyard, apart from the ground up."