Chapter 68: We've been waiting for you to cut off the supply; Xinghai Semiconductor is established.

The heavy solid wood door was pushed open with a shove.

The dead silence in the hallway was instantly broken.

Old Li sprang up from against the wall as if he were spring-loaded.

His eyes beneath his thick-rimmed glasses were bloodshot, and he was sweating profusely from anxiety.

"Young Master!"

The old man grabbed Lu Jingming by the arm, his voice tinged with a sob.

"Although Paul's terms are tyrannical, shouldn't we just bow our heads? As long as there is life, there is hope!"

Niu Dazhuang stamped his feet in anxiety.

"Old Li, why is your backbone so soft! I'd rather go back home to farm than be a grandson to those foreign devils!"

He waved the pipe wrench in his hand, his chest heaving violently.

"Farm what? The soil in Donghai City doesn't grow crops."

Lu Jingming chuckled.

He reached back and pulled out a metal USB drive with a faint blue luster, tossing it directly out.

Old Zhou subconsciously reached out and caught it.

The cold touch of the USB drive made him pause.

"Old Zhou, hold onto this thing."

Lu Jingming patted his shoulder and strode forward.

"Go to Conference Room One and call all the top executives. Shen Qingqiu, you come too."

In Conference Room One, the air pressure was so low it could freeze a person.

A dozen people sat at the long table, dejected, looking exactly like a large-scale funeral service.

Shen Qingqiu flipped through the financial folder, her delicate brows knitted tightly together.

The amounts of the penalty fees were so high that just looking at them made one dizzy.

Lu Jingming pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down with a flourish.

He tapped his fingers on the mahogany tabletop, making a crisp sound.

"Why are you all pulling such long faces?"

Lu Jingming scanned the room, a lazy smile curling the corner of his mouth.

"Are you holding a funeral for Qualcomm?"

Chu Xuan looked miserable, his center-parted hair messed up like a bird's nest.

"Boss Lu, we're about to run out of supplies, please stop teasing us."

He swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, "Customs won't even let a single sensor through anymore."

"Who said we're running out of supplies?"

Lu Jingming crossed his hands and rested his chin on them.

He leaned back in his chair, his gaze suddenly turning as sharp as a knife.

"The West doesn't want to sell us chips, which is exactly what I wanted."

He scoffed, his tone filled with the arrogance of someone ready to overturn the card table.

"I never wanted to use that pile of overheating garbage of theirs anyway."

The room was dead silent; you could hear a pin drop.

Lu Jingming sat up straight, his voice resonating with determination.

"From today on, the Xinghai Semiconductor department is officially established!"

"If the Americans won't sell, we'll build our own chips!"

As soon as these words were out, Old Zhou acted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

He sprang up from his chair, knocking over the teacup beside him.

Tea spilled all over the floor, but he didn't care at all.

"Build chips? Boss Lu, do you even understand semiconductors!"

Old Zhou was so anxious that the veins on his neck were popping, his hands pressing hard against the tabletop.

"That's not like soldering motherboards in a workshop! That's nanometer-scale micro-engineering!"

He panted heavily, his eyes wide open.

"We can't even get a decent ARM architecture license in this country, what design blueprints are we going to use?"

"Even if we take a step back and assume we have the blueprints, what about the lithography machines? What about the photoresist?"

Old Zhou pointed toward the door, his voice cracking.

"The Americans have blocked access to UV lithography machines completely! Are you going to use a nail file to carve the wafers!"

Old Li also sighed repeatedly from the side.

"That's right, Young Master. This isn't something that can be solved with a few million."

The old man looked miserable.

"You could throw tens of billions of dollars into trial and error and not even see a ripple!"

Lu Jingming didn't refute him.

He gestured with his chin toward Old Zhou's hand.

"Are you done talking?"

Lu Jingming's eyes were cold, "If you're done, plug the USB drive into the computer."

Old Zhou gritted his teeth.

He turned around and slammed the glowing blue USB drive into the host interface in the conference room.

The screen lit up.

A folder named "Xialong-class SoC Architecture Full Set of Blueprints" popped up.

Old Zhou gripped the mouse and clicked on the first outline document.

He only took one look.

His bloodshot eyes instantly froze.

His previously rapid breathing suddenly caught in his throat.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, but he couldn't make a sound.

"This instruction set... this bus layout..."

Old Zhou's voice trembled like a sieve.

He was practically sprawled over the monitor, his nose almost touching the screen.

He scrolled the mouse wheel rapidly.

Page after page of precise underlying architecture diagrams flowed before his eyes like a waterfall.

"It completely bypasses Qualcomm's underlying patent wall?"

Old Zhou stared fixedly at the tri-cluster core design on the screen, his brain buzzing.

"This power-to-performance ratio design... this is the work of an absolute madman!"

He turned his head sharply.

His expression when looking at Lu Jingming had completely changed; it was as if he were looking at a true god.

"Boss Lu... where did these blueprints come from?"

Old Zhou's face was flushed red, and he was so excited he was incoherent.

"This is at least two and a half generations ahead of that industrial trash in Paul's hands!"

The conference room instantly erupted.

Although Dazhuang and Chu Xuan couldn't understand the code.

But seeing Old Zhou's state, as if he were about to have a seizure, they knew this was absolutely a massive treasure.

Shen Qingqiu stood up, looking at the dense data on the screen.

She took a deep breath, her ample chest heaving slightly.

The funding was saved; as long as the technology was real, she could pry open Wall Street capital.

Lu Jingming straightened the hem of his black T-shirt and stood up.

"Don't worry about where the blueprints came from."

He looked at Chu Xuan and snapped his fingers.

"Time to work."

Chu Xuan immediately straightened his back, looking pumped up.

"At your command, Boss Lu!"

"Use the official account to post an announcement and leak the news about the establishment of Xinghai Semiconductor."

Lu Jingming walked to the door, turned back, and dropped one last sentence.

"By the way, tag Paul and tell him we don't care for Qualcomm's junk."

He let out a cold laugh.

"The Chinese people's own heart will be built soon."

Once the announcement was out, the internet exploded.

If Xinghai was the hegemon of the tech circle a few days ago.

Today's chip-making announcement was seen by the outside world as a complete international joke.

On Weibo and various digital forums, the mockery was overwhelming.

Bolang Mobile headquarters.

Fatty Xu sat in his boss chair, laughing so hard he slapped his thigh, spilling the water in his thermos.

"Build chips? That kid Lu Jingming must have been driven insane by Paul!"

Fatty Xu picked up his teacup, his face full of sarcasm.

"Does he really think he can rub together a CPU just by drawing a few blueprints? He doesn't even know which way the wafer fab factory gate faces!"

Across the ocean, in the Qualcomm headquarters president's office.

Paul looked at the briefing from China and contemptuously stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray.

"Stupid Chinese monkeys."

He touched the swelling on the back of his head, his eyes sinister.

"Let him build it. I want to see what he uses as a lithography machine—that glib mouth of his?"

Domestic tech influencers also started posting videos to stir up the narrative.

"Xinghai has made a bad move. Assembling phones might work, but semiconductors are the crown jewel of heavy industry."

"Just the fact that they don't have a UV lithography machine makes Xinghai Semiconductor a pure, empty joke!"

The whole internet was waiting to see Xinghai's joke.

Watching how this new Eastern star would play itself to death.

Xinghai Technology, President's office.

Chu Xuan was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

He ran in carrying a laptop, his forehead covered in sweat.

"Boss Lu! Netizens are all mocking us for overestimating our own capabilities!"

Chu Xuan wiped his sweat, "They say we haven't even seen what a lithography machine looks like!"

He put the computer on the coffee table, looking miserable.

"Old Zhou is about to go crazy too. He says the blueprints are awesome, but there's no foundry in the country that can help us tape-out!"

Lu Jingming sat in the boss chair, toying with the lighter in his hand.

The flame danced on his fingertips, reflecting in his eyes, which were devoid of any ripples.

He clicked the lighter shut with a crisp sound.

"If Old Zhou can't handle the tape-out, then replace him with someone who can."

Lu Jingming looked up and crooked his finger at Chu Xuan.

A trace of scheming flashed in his eyes.

"Go drag Xia Weiliang out of the lab for me."

He leaned back in his chair and let out a cold laugh.

"And by the way, ask her if she wants to personally build a piece of precision machinery that even foreigners can't create?"