Chapter 35 Is this a cell phone? This is clearly a handheld computer!

Chu Xuan stared at the long string of tracking code on the screen, a chill running down his spine.

"Silicon Valley? An Apple with a bite taken out of it?" Shen Qingqiu put down her coffee cup, her brows knitted tightly together.

Lu Jingming had walked into the control room at some point.

He was holding a stainless steel thermos, slowly blowing on the tea leaves floating on the surface of the water.

"Old Qiao is getting desperate."

Lu Jingming took a sip of tea, his tone laced with a carefree nonchalance.

"One hundred thousand units—that's more than enough for their entire hardware department to use as dissection specimens."

He looked at the screen, a hint of mockery flashing in his eyes.

"They're afraid we'll seize the overseas market, so they're buying them early to do reverse engineering."

Chu Xuan was so anxious he scratched his center-parted hair and jumped up from his chair.

"Mr. Lu! Then we should hurry up and cancel this order for one hundred thousand units!"

"Cancel it? Why would we do that?"

Lu Jingming closed the lid of his thermos with a crisp click.

"They've paid two hundred million in hard cash. We're running a business; there's no reason to push away the God of Wealth."

Shen Qingqiu approached in her high heels, the gaze behind her gold-rimmed glasses filled with concern.

"But if they crack the underlying architecture, Xinghai OS's trump card will be exposed."

Lu Jingming chuckled and turned to walk out.

"Let them dismantle it. Xia Weiliang added eight layers of hard encryption to the motherboard."

"By the time those Silicon Valley engineers finish cracking it, my third-gen phones will have already sold all over the world."

He waved his hand, leaving the two behind.

"Notify the logistics department: one million units in stock, ship them out overnight."

That night, on the ring expressway around Donghai City.

Hundreds of heavy trucks emblazoned with "Shunfeng Express," hazard lights blinking, rumbled in a grand procession toward every corner of the country.

The next morning, the sun was shining brightly.

In a male dormitory at a university in Yanjing, Xiao Lin, sporting dark circles under his eyes, poked his messy head out from his bunk.

The dormitory auntie's broken megaphone was screaming wildly downstairs.

"Lin Zihan from 302! Your Shunfeng Express package! Get down here and pick it up!"

Xiao Lin jolted awake, scrambled out of bed, and even put his shoes on the wrong feet.

This was the xinghai gen 2 he'd stayed up all night to snag, spending 1,999 big ones.

He hugged the black and gold cardboard box and ran back to the dorm, his hands shaking as if he had Parkinson's.

His roommate across the room was texting on a bulky Nokia, the buttons clacking loudly.

"Linzi, did you really buy that glass lump? You believe the hype online?"

The roommate curled his lip, looking completely disdainful.

"One thousand nine hundred for a toy without even physical buttons? Your brain must be waterlogged."

Xiao Lin ignored him, picked up the utility knife on the table, and carefully sliced open the seal.

The box had good damping, sliding open slowly.

A dark blue, double-sided glass phone lay quietly in the black foam.

Xiao Lin held his breath and tore off the matte protective film on the screen.

"Rrrrip—"

Sunlight hit the Corning glass, refracting a warm, translucent glow.

It lacked the cheap feel of plastic frames; it felt cool and solid in his hand, like a piece of natural craftsmanship.

His roommate stopped typing, his eyes fixed on the device.

With such looks, it instantly made his Nokia look like an artifact just dug up from the dirt.

Xiao Lin pressed the power button.

The screen lit up, skipping the tedious animations and entering the starry sky desktop.

He extended his thumb and tentatively swiped left on the screen.

The screen shifted as if pulled by invisible silk threads, sliding smoothly to the second page.

There was no ghosting, not a hint of lag.

"Holy shit..."

Xiao Lin blurted out, his voice trembling.

His roommate dropped his Nokia and crowded over without even putting on his shoes, his chin nearly hitting Xiao Lin's shoulder.

"Does this screen have eyes? How does it keep up with your finger so perfectly?"

At this very moment, similar exclamations were ringing out across the country.

10:00 AM, Douyu streaming platform.

The internet-famous digital influencer "Tech Ape" was sitting in his review studio.

He was a notorious fence-sitter; just a few days ago, he had taken money from Bolang Mobile and posted a video bashing Xinghai.

Now, looking at the newly unboxed xinghai gen 2 on his desk, his cheeks burned.

Hundreds of thousands of curious viewers had flooded into the live stream.

"Brother Ape, turn it on! Is it just plastic film pretending to be glass?"

"Waiting for Brother Ape to expose Lu Jingming and tear this piece of junk apart!"

Tech Ape swallowed hard and zoomed the camera in for a close-up.

"Brothers, let's put the debunking aside for a second. I have to say something in good conscience."

He picked up the phone and showed the stunning glass back panel to the camera.

"Just based on this build quality, at this price of 1999, Mr. Lu is holding a knife to the throats of his competitors."

The chat was instantly flooded with question marks.

Tech Ape ignored the chat and opened the browser that came with the Xinghai system.

"Today, we're not testing drop resistance; we're testing something hardcore."

He quickly typed the URL for Sina.com into the address bar and hit enter.

In 2007, mobile internet browsing was limited to dry, text-only WAP pages with pitifully simple layouts.

But the next second, everyone in the live stream gasped.

What loaded on the screen was a full PC webpage, exactly like the one on a computer!

Various images and news sections were neatly arranged on the few-inch screen.

"Look closely, brothers! Full version webpage browsing!"

Tech Ape's voice cracked, his two fingers pinching the screen and suddenly expanding outward.

The dense news text was instantly and smoothly enlarged, perfectly clear.

He dragged his fingers up and down, and the webpage scrolled with them, still unreasonably smooth.

"Two-finger zoom! Capacitive multi-touch!"

Tech Ape was so excited he threw his Nokia test unit off the desk.

"Stop using those damn styluses! In front of this screen, all button phones are prehistoric!"

The live stream chat went crazy, a white blur that completely blocked the video.

"Holy shit! This browsing experience is invincible!"

"This isn't mobile internet! My bulky computer at home isn't even this smooth!"

Tech Ape panted, exiting the browser.

"Don't rush to call it awesome yet; Mr. Lu has hidden another killer feature for us."

He tapped on an icon of a sliced watermelon on the desktop.

Accompanied by upbeat music, the game interface for "Cut Fruit" popped up.

"I heard this is an exclusive mini-game developed by Xinghai itself."

Tech Ape extended his index finger, staring at a virtual watermelon flying up from the bottom of the screen.

His finger swiped rapidly across the screen.

"Swish!"

A realistic silver blade flash streaked across, the watermelon was instantly split in two, and red juice splattered all over the screen.

The sound effects were crisp and satisfying, and the touch feedback was precise to the millimeter.

Immediately after, Apples, bananas, and bombs flew all over the screen.

Tech Ape used both hands, swiping frantically across the screen, a blur of blade flashes.

The game graphics didn't drop a single frame, and the special effects were maxed out.

Millions of viewers, separated by the screen, were tingling with excitement at this interactive experience.

In this era where you could only play Snake and Sokoban.

This kind of game, utilizing swipe controls and explosive visual impact, was simply a dimension-reduction strike!

"I'm done! I can't play this anymore!"

Tech Ape slapped the phone onto the table and slumped into his chair, his eyes glazed over.

Suddenly, he sat bolt upright and roared into the microphone at the top of his lungs.

"Brothers! Lu Jingming is a big liar! He lied to us all!"

Tech Ape grabbed his hair, his face red and neck thick.

"This thing is not a phone! It's a handheld computer that can make calls!"

This live stream clip was quickly recorded and posted to major forums.

It was like throwing a torch into a gasoline barrel.

The national digital community exploded.

The Jifeng Forum servers crashed three times within an hour.

Countless users who had already received their orders posted frantically to show off their xinghai gen 2.

"I've been slicing fruit under my covers for half an hour, my hand is almost cramping, it feels so damn good!"

"The one-click transfer is amazing; I've already thrown my old flagship phone into the trash can."

"Just got back from touching the real unit at the experience store, I just want to say, Mr. Lu is a god!"

Word of mouth spread virally, sweeping across the entire internet with unstoppable force.

Those who had originally planned to wait and see were now completely losing their minds.

The available stock on the official Xinghai website was shrinking at a visible speed.

In Huaqiangbei, in that sweltering group-rental apartment.

Brother Jin squatted on the floor, holding a cigarette that was about to burn his fingers, his eyes dazed.

He looked at the stock numbers on the computer screen dropping crazily, regretting his decision so much his guts were turning blue.

"Brother Jin... can we still get back those five thousand orders we canceled from Mr. Lu?"

The yellow-haired lackey asked, squatting nearby, his voice laced with tears.

"Like hell you can!"

Brother Jin slammed the cigarette butt onto the ground and slapped his lackey on the back of the head.

"Go ask now, and they won't even let you see through the crack in the door!"

He rushed to the computer and opened several scalper QQ groups.

Brother Jin gritted his teeth and typed a line on the keyboard rapidly.

"Stop hoarding! Brothers, change of plans!"

He sent the message to dozens of groups, bolding and coloring the font red.

"xinghai gen 2 proxy buying! Service fee 500! As long as you grab one, rich clients will buy them with their eyes closed!"

The scalpers had completely surrendered.

In the face of absolute product power, they didn't even have the qualifications to be market makers; they could only be reduced to earning hard-earned money as proxies.

On this day, the era of keyboard phones in the country was forcibly terminated by Lu Jingming.

The curtain of the era was ripped open violently.

Xinghai Technology building, top-floor CEO office.

The afterglow of the sunset spilled onto the carpet, bathing the room in a golden hue.

Chu Xuan sat cross-legged on the sofa, clutching his laptop, humming a tune happily.

"Mr. Lu, that kid Tech Ape has defected; he's now acting as a volunteer promoter for us in his streams every day."

He read the comments online, grinning from ear to ear.

"Now, in the streets and alleys, if anyone pulls out a phone with buttons, they're too embarrassed to say hello to anyone."

Lu Jingming leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the bustling traffic below.

He wasn't wearing a suit, still in that black T-shirt, holding a cup of freshly brewed green tea.

"Just flattery. When the hype dies down, the real cutthroat competition will just be beginning."

Lu Jingming took a sip of tea, his eyes terrifyingly clear.

"Tell Old Li to hurry up and expand the assembly line. The payment for those one hundred thousand overseas units is enough for us to open a new factory."

Just as he finished speaking.

A "bang."

The solid wood office door was pushed open.

Shen Qingqiu strode in, her high heels clicking.

Her usually meticulous hair was a bit messy, and her gold-rimmed glasses were slightly tilted.

One button of her white shirt was undone, and her chest was heaving violently.

She was clutching a stack of freshly printed financial reports, the paper crinkling in her grip.

"Lu Jingming..."

Shen Qingqiu's voice was trembling, as if she had just finished a marathon.

She walked quickly to the desk and slammed the stack of reports onto it.

"Guess how much we've sold in the last twenty-four hours?"