Chapter 29: Public Relations Crisis of a Veteran Giant, Lu Jingming Adds Fuel to the Fire

Eight o'clock in the morning, Beijing CBD, Nokia Greater China Region headquarters.

The customer service hall was as chaotic as a wet market, with hundreds of landlines screaming simultaneously.

The customer service manager's throat was hoarse, and he looked at the constantly scrolling complaint data on the wall with a pale face.

"Another twenty thousand units have crashed! What on earth is the Technical Department doing!"

In the top-floor president's office, President Kang Peila kicked over an expensive leather executive chair.

A coffee cup smashed against the floor-to-ceiling window, and brown liquid trickled down the glass.

"One night! Three hundred thousand complaints in total!"

President Kang Peila's eyes were bloodshot as he paced the room like a crazed lion.

The computer screen on the desk glowed with a harsh green light; the moment the European market opened, Nokia's stock price plummeted by three points.

The translator in the plaid shirt huddled in the corner of the sofa, not daring to breathe too loudly for fear of being the target of his wrath.

The Technical Director pushed the door open, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

"President Kang, we've found the cause. It's a string of specific garbled text messages that directly overwhelmed the Symbian OS memory cache pool."

"Then fix it! Patch the vulnerability!" President Kang Peila grabbed him by the collar, spraying saliva all over his face.

The Technical Director swallowed dryly, his voice trembling.

"We can't fix it... This is a logical deadlock in the underlying instruction set."

He wiped away some sweat, his eyes filled with despair.

"Unless we rewrite Symbian OS, as long as the text message exists, the phone will crash upon startup."

President Kang Peila released his grip, and the Technical Director collapsed to the floor.

He gritted his teeth, his chest heaving violently.

"Issue a public statement! Muddy the waters! Say it's a malicious attack by shameless hackers from China and that we are working on an emergency fix!"

Donghai City, Xinghai Technology building.

Lu Jingming took a bite of a piping hot soup dumpling, leisurely slurping up the broth inside.

Chu Xuan sat opposite the desk, staring at his laptop, smiling like a fox that had just stolen a hen.

"Boss Lu, that old guy President Kang Peila has chickened out!"

Chu Xuan turned the screen around, pointing at the red-hot headline above.

"Nokia just issued a public statement across the web, claiming this is an illegal hacker attack and that their legal department is going to pursue it to the end."

Lu Jingming pulled out a tissue to wipe his hands and let out a cold snort.

"Pursue it? It's just a string of garbled code; he can't even trace the sender, so what is he going to pursue?"

He leaned back in his chair, his slender fingers tapping on the mahogany desk.

"The PR statement is written quite grandly, but unfortunately, the netizens are furious right now, and these few empty words won't suppress it."

Chu Xuan nodded frantically, his mouse clicking away with a clatter.

"The forums are full of people swearing! Those owners who spent thousands on their phones are now itching to tear down Nokia's specialty stores."

"Then let's add more fuel to the fire for him."

Lu Jingming slid his swivel chair over and took Chu Xuan's keyboard directly.

"Boss Lu, are you going to step in personally?" Chu Xuan's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly made room.

Lu Jingming logged into Xinghai Technology's official account.

No preamble, no nonsense.

He directly reposted Nokia's buck-passing statement and typed a stinging message above it.

"If the system weren't so bloated and backward, how could a text message of a few dozen KB easily pierce the underlying defense?"

After typing this, he paused for two seconds, a sharp, cold smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

His fingers continued to dance on the keyboard, typing the final killing blow.

"The old era should come to an end. Everyone, get ready to welcome true, silky-smooth intelligence."

Click, send.

"Brilliant!" Chu Xuan slapped his thigh, jumping up in excitement.

"You're not only stepping on their executives' faces, but you've also effortlessly given our new system an epic advertisement!"

Once this post with the official verification was released, it was like a nuclear bomb dropped into a boiling pot of oil.

The netizens who were still looking for solutions everywhere instantly found an outlet for their frustrations.

Follow-up posts were surging at a rate of hundreds per second.

"Boss Lu is hardcore at tearing down the stage! So it turns out the system is just too trash to even withstand a single text message!"

"A flagship phone bought for five thousand, killed in seconds by a few dozen KB of code? Nokia, refund the money!"

"What does 'silky-smooth intelligence' mean? Is Xinghai Technology about to release a new trick?"

The popularity exploded exponentially; in just ten minutes, the front pages of all major portal websites had changed their headlines.

Beijing headquarters, in the president's office.

President Kang Peila stared fixedly at the arrogant and domineering repost on the screen, feeling a surge of blood rushing straight to his head.

"Lu Jingming! You dirty reptile!"

He pounded the keyboard frantically, smashing the expensive monitor to pieces.

Shards of glass cut the back of his hand, and blood seeped out, but he didn't even notice.

He had originally wanted to appease the anger by shifting the blame, but Lu Jingming had pierced through the fig leaf of the Symbian OS with a single, sharp point.

This was no longer a PR crisis; it was destroying consumers' faith in Nokia!

President Kang Peila's vision went black, and a fishy, sweet taste rose in his throat.

"Pfft—"

He spat a mouthful of blood onto the carpet, collapsing to the floor as if his bones had been removed.

At the same time, inside the Xinghai Technology office.

In Lu Jingming's mind, a crisp mechanical voice exploded like a violent symphony.

[Ding! Nokia Greater China Region president's Dao heart has collapsed, consumed by rage!]

[Ding! Global Symbian OS users have developed strong doubts, the system vulnerability is revealed to the world!]

[Congratulations to the host, group defense-breaking critical hit triggered! Obtained defense-breaking value: 300,000 points!]

Three hundred thousand!

Lu Jingming's hand, holding the teacup, paused slightly, a flash of fanaticism in his eyes.

This huge sum was enough for him to redeem all the hardware blueprints that would crush this era from the system store.

Just as he was about to open the system panel for a shopping spree.

"Bang!"

The office door was kicked open, and even the solid wood door frame shook three times.

Xia Weiliang rushed in barefoot, her hair as messy as a bird's nest.

Her oversized lab coat was covered in coffee stains, and she looked like a crazy girl who had just fled a famine.

"It runs! It all runs!"

Ignoring Chu Xuan nearby, Xia Weiliang rushed directly to Lu Jingming's desk.

She was gripping an engineering test phone with a black casing, her voice cracking with excitement.

"The underlying code is closed-loop! The Tombstone Mechanism is perfectly integrated!"

Lu Jingming stood up abruptly, pushing his chair back half a meter.

"The full version of Xinghai OS, it's finished?"

"Yes!"

Xia Weiliang slammed the phone onto the table, her eyes shining like two high-voltage bulbs.

"I flashed the package using the trashiest old X86 architecture! Guess what?"

She leaned on the table with both hands, her body leaning forward, staring fixedly into Lu Jingming's eyes.

"This piece of junk hardware actually ran at a silky-smooth sixty frames per second!"

Chu Xuan gasped, swallowing his saliva as he leaned in.

"Sixty frames? Girl, are you running a fever? The best phones on the market right now only get a dozen or so frames!"

Xia Weiliang rolled her eyes and grabbed the phone on the table.

She pressed the power button, and the screen lit up instantly.

"Enough nonsense. Lu Jingming, if this thing were put out to sell, what price do you plan to set for these bumpkins?"