Chapter 51 Suppression of Foreign Enterprise Alliances: A Prelude to the Entity List

The air conditioning in the president's office was blowing at full blast.

"President Lu, it's blown up! Those foreigners on Twitter are about to vomit blood from anger because of us!"

Chu Xuan hugged his laptop and darted into the room like a monkey that had gained sentience.

He slammed the computer onto the mahogany desk, so amused that his middle-part hairstyle was shaking along with him.

Lu Jingming leaned back in his chair.

Twirling the plastic lighter in his hand, he lit it with a "click."

He exhaled a ring of blue-gray smoke, his gaze slowly sweeping toward the screen.

On the page, several Twitter accounts registered with virtual IPs were frantically flooding the feed.

The attached images were a few spy photos taken in low light.

The edge of a blurry large-screen device, plus a pitch-black rubber wristband.

The accompanying text was even more arrogant, all in the worst broken English.

"You Apple, garbage! Microsoft, too low! Xinghai is your father!"

The comments in the section below were refreshing so fast they left afterimages.

When had foreign netizens ever seen this kind of brazen, cross-border provocation?

Each one was genuinely enraged, furiously typing all sorts of English profanities on their keyboards.

"They're cursing us as Chinese scammers using glass plates to swindle money."

Chu Xuan scrolled with his mouse, laughing until tears were almost coming out.

"They also say Microsoft's new system is about to be released and will definitely stomp us into the mud."

Lu Jingming looked at those frantic screenshots, a villainous sneer curling the corners of his mouth.

"Let them curse. The filthier they curse, the more firmly our zero-cost trending topic will hang there."

He flicked the ash, his eyes revealing a sense of calculation.

"I'd only be worried if they didn't look. As long as these few blurry pictures spread, those in the know naturally won't be able to sleep."

This farce was a joke in the eyes of ordinary foreigners.

But in the lair of capital across the ocean, it stirred up a monstrous storm.

Silicon Valley, USA, Apple headquarters building.

Outside the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was bright, but the air pressure inside the conference room was terrifyingly low.

Cook sat at the end of the wide long table, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

In his hand, he clutched a reverse-engineering analysis report of Xinghai OS, the edges of the pages crumpled from his grip.

On the wall in front of him hung a huge high-definition display screen.

The screen was split in two, conducting a top-level trilateral transnational video conference.

On the left was an executive from Microsoft, and on the right was Paul, the president of the semiconductor hegemon, Qualcomm.

"This bunch of Chinese robbers! They simply don't know what death is!"

The Microsoft executive slapped the table, spraying saliva onto the camera lens.

"A junk-selling assembly plant actually dares to mock our upcoming PC system on Twitter?"

He was so angry his tie was crooked.

"Find hackers! Ban all those disgusting accounts of theirs!"

"Shut up, you idiot."

Cook glanced at him coldly, his voice like tempered ice.

"Don't be fooled by that ridiculous broken English. Look closely at the device sketches they released."

Cook slammed the analysis report in his hand onto the table.

"They aren't making phones anymore. They're working on large-screen tablets and smart wearable wristbands!"

Paul on the other end of the video frowned and took the cigar out of his mouth.

"Tablets? What kind of threat is that?"

Paul snorted coldly, his face full of arrogance.

"As long as they dare to make communication equipment, my patent stick will be able to smash their bones."

"That is exactly what makes Lu Jingming the most terrifying!"

Cook leaned forward, his hands pressing hard against the table, veins throbbing on his forehead.

"He removed the communication baseband! He only kept the Wi-Fi module!"

The entire video conference room instantly fell into a deathly silence.

The expressions of the Microsoft executive and Paul finally changed.

"Without the communication module, they bypassed your Qualcomm underlying patent barriers."

Cook gritted his back teeth, a flash of undisguised dread flickering in his eyes.

"Combined with that Xinghai OS Tombstone Mechanism that even we can't crack."

"They are trying to conduct an intelligent ecosystem invasion! Cutting directly into the daily lives of ordinary people!"

Once the tablets and wristbands spread overseas.

Xinghai Technology will be like a nail, firmly driven into the European and American consumer electronics market.

By then, even if you want to pull it out, you won't be able to.

Paul mashed his cigar out in the ashtray, his face livid.

"We absolutely cannot let this Eastern monster grow fangs."

He stared at Cook on the screen, his voice revealing the cruelty of a capitalist.

"You mean, while they haven't become a climate yet, we should cut off the source directly?"

Cook nodded slowly, a trace of sinister intent flashing in his eyes.

"Go lobby Congress. Utilize all our connections in the Department of Commerce."

"Use cybersecurity as an excuse to set a separate rule for Xinghai Technology."

The Microsoft executive finally understood, gasping in a breath of cold air.

"You want to restrict the export of high-precision core components? Blacklist them?"

"Yes."

Cook leaned back in his boss chair, his lips pulling into a cold arc.

"Cut off their supply channels for high-end chips and sensors."

"Without hardware support, Lu Jingming's god-tier system will just be a pile of useless code that can't run."

These three technology oligarchs reached the dirtiest tacit understanding at this moment.

An invisible net called "Top-Level Technical Blockade."

Was silently and overwhelmingly descending toward Donghai City.

This was the prototype of what would later shock the world: the Entity List.

Two days later, Donghai City.

The sky outside was gloomy, seemingly brewing a rainstorm.

In the corridor of Xinghai Technology, a series of rapid, crisp footsteps echoed.

"Da da da da!"

Shen Qingqiu, in her high heels, didn't even knock, directly bursting through the door of the president's office.

Her hair, usually combed meticulously, was slightly messy at this moment.

Her chest heaved violently, and her panting was loud enough to be heard outside.

Chu Xuan was reporting the progress of domestic sales to Lu Jingming and was startled by the commotion.

"President Shen, is there a wolf chasing you?"

Shen Qingqiu had no time to pay attention to him.

She strode to the desk and slammed the document she was holding heavily onto the desktop.

It was an urgent, all-English briefing that still smelled of printer ink.

"A friend on Wall Street just tipped me off!"

Shen Qingqiu pressed her hands against the edge of the desk, her face as pale as paper, her eyes behind her gold-rimmed glasses filled with terror.

"The American Department of Commerce is going to make a move against us!"

Lu Jingming raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over the briefing.

He didn't reach for the document, remaining seated in his boss chair.

"Apple, Microsoft, and Qualcomm have jointly submitted a lobbying report."

Shen Qingqiu's voice was trembling, her nails digging hard into the desk.

"They want to establish a technical blockade agreement. Prohibiting all North American enterprises from selling us core sensors and high-computing power components!"

Chu Xuan stood by, stunned, the pen in his hand dropping to the floor with a "clatter."

"Blockade? Are they actually using the state apparatus to target a private company like us?"

He swallowed dryly, his scalp tingling.

"If the supply is really cut off, how are we going to manufacture our tablets and wristbands?"

Shen Qingqiu bit her lower lip, her eyes rimmed with red from anxiety.

"At the earliest, this sanctions list will officially take effect next month. We don't even have time to stock up!"

She stared intently at Lu Jingming.

"Our steps were too aggressive; we touched the high-voltage lines of those oligarchs directly!"

The office was terrifyingly quiet.

Only the sound of muffled thunder faintly drifted in from outside the window.

Lu Jingming looked at Shen Qingqiu's bloodless face.

He slowly straightened up and reached out to pick up the plastic lighter on the table.

"Snap."

The lighter was tossed casually onto the briefing, making a sharp sound.

Not only was he not panicked.

The corners of his mouth curled into an arrogant smile instead.

Lu Jingming leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands over his abdomen.

He looked at the two anxious people and slowly spat out a sentence.

"They've made quite a big commotion, haven't they?"

He raised an eyebrow, his eyes flashing with the excitement of an old hunter.

"It seems our tablet plan has scared the Americans into peeing their pants, hasn't it?"