Chapter 7 is priced at 998? The Huaqiangbei shop owner exclaimed, "Are you crazy?"

Niu Dazhuang held that rusty claw hammer, glaring menacingly at Boss Liu below the stage.

This man had spent years doing heavy labor in the factory; his arms were covered in knotted, bulging muscles.

Combined with that murderous look in his eyes, the sense of oppression was palpable.

Boss Liu's chubby face turned pale, and he shrank back behind a few of his bleached-haired underlings in fear.

"L-Lu Jingming! What are you trying to do?"

Boss Liu shouted with a show of false bravado, not even bothering to pick up the walnuts he had been holding.

"In broad daylight, you dare to commit violence with a hammer!"

Lu Jingming chuckled softly and waved a hand at Niu Dazhuang.

"Dazhuang, put the hammer aside for now. Don't scare Boss Liu into some kind of medical emergency."

He weighed the pitch-black iron lump in his hand, his gaze sweeping over the pairs of eyes fixed on him from below.

"Boss Liu just made a statement: if my price exceeded one thousand, you would swallow a red brick in public."

Lu Jingming paced back and forth unhurriedly, making the broken wooden planks beneath his feet creak.

"I've been soft-hearted since I was a child; I can't stand watching others eat such coarse food."

He stopped in his tracks and slowly raised an index finger in front of him.

The entire venue fell silent instantly.

Even the passersby across the street who were watching the commotion stood on their tiptoes, afraid of missing a single word.

The lenses of several cameras were locked tightly onto that finger.

Brother Biao let out a cold snort, hugging his arms to his chest with a face full of disdain.

"Stop putting on such a big act! If your piece of junk dares to sell for fifteen hundred, I'll twist my head off and let you use it as a ball!"

In his view, with such substantial materials used, the cost of that large battery alone couldn't be low.

The rules of Huaqiangbei were that you doubled the cost and added fifty; that was the starting price.

Lu Jingming ignored him entirely.

He held the microphone up to his mouth, his thin lips parting slightly.

"xinghai generation 1, national unified retail price."

The sound of electricity mixed with the wind echoed over the abandoned square.

"Nine hundred and ninety-eight yuan."

Silence.

Dead, deathly silence.

The sound of cicadas on the withered tree overhead seemed piercingly loud at this moment.

Niu Dazhuang's mouth hung wide open, and the claw hammer in his hand fell onto his foot with a "clatter."

He forgot even to cry out in pain, his eyes wide as copper bells.

He had personally watched how Old Li stuffed the batteries in and poured the resin.

With such solid materials, selling it for nine hundred and ninety-eight? That wasn't even enough to buy pork ribs!

A full five seconds passed.

With a "boom," the entire square was like a deep-sea bomb had been dropped into it; it completely exploded into chaos.

"How much? I didn't mishear, did I!"

A young passerby slapped his thigh hard, his voice cracking from the intensity.

"Nine hundred and ninety-eight? Even a random knock-off phone with a color screen costs twelve hundred now!"

"If this iron lump can really stay on standby for a month, nine hundred-something is like picking it up for free!"

The reporters below were also dumbfounded, frantically pressing their shutters.

The reporter wearing black-rimmed glasses had his fingers flying across his laptop keyboard, leaving afterimages.

In the live-stream thread on Jifeng Forum, the rate of replies instantly exceeded fifty per second.

The screen was filled with exclamation marks.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! A conscientious company!"

"Buying a PHS phone costs seven or eight hundred; this thing is worth the price just to use as a self-defense weapon!"

"Is the boss selling phones, or is he doing charity? Is he actually a fool?"

The online frenzy continued, but in reality, the competitors had already gone completely insane.

Boss Liu's face turned from white to red, then from red to an ashen blue.

He pointed at Lu Jingming on the stage, his lips trembling for a long time, but he couldn't manage to spit out a single word.

Brother Biao was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, jumping three feet high.

"Bullshit! You are talking total bullshit!"

He shoved aside the underlings in front of him and rushed to the edge of the stage in a few steps, the veins on his forehead throbbing.

"A twenty-thousand milliampere laminated battery! A dual-layer polycarbonate roll cage! And that fully potted motherboard!"

Brother Biao had been dealing in electronic components for years and had a clear account in his head.

"Add all these messy things together, and the material cost alone is nearly seven or eight hundred!"

He pointed at Lu Jingming's nose, his spit flying in the sunlight.

"You're selling it for nine hundred and ninety-eight? After deducting labor and utilities, what are you aiming for?"

"Aiming to make friends with everyone?" Lu Jingming replied with a smile.

This sentence didn't deal much damage, but it was extremely insulting.

Deep in his mind, the system notification sounds had now merged into a pleasant symphony.

[Ding! Detected that Boss Liu's mentality has collapsed, Mental Break Value +300!]

[Ding! Detected that Brother Biao's worldview has collapsed, Mental Break Value +500!]

[Ding! The Huaqiangbei competitor group is experiencing intense negative emotions, Mental Break Value continuing to skyrocket...]

Lu Jingming looked at the value in the backend, which was approaching the two-hundred-thousand mark, and the smile on his face grew even wider.

He knew why his peers were so anxious.

In this era of opaque information, knock-off factories made all their money through black-hearted profiteering.

Industrial trash with a cost of three hundred could be sold for fifteen hundred just by changing the shell.

Now that the xinghai generation 1 had suddenly appeared, it had stripped them of their dignity.

"This is malicious dumping! This is disrupting market order!"

Brother Biao grabbed the steel pipe in his hand in a fit of rage and smashed it heavily against the iron fence.

With a deafening "clang," it made people's eardrums ache.

"With your way of losing money just to shout for attention, forget about paying back the two million you owe me!"

Brother Biao stared at him viciously, his teeth grinding together with a clicking sound.

"I bet that the money in your Xinghai account won't even last a week!"

"When the time comes, the factory will still have to close, and you, Young Master Lu, will still have to obediently hand over the land!"

Several competitors nearby also came to their senses and began shouting along.

"That's right! He's just struggling in his death throes!"

"Once he goes bankrupt, we'll go and buy his equipment at a low price!"

Faced with the curses and insults of these peers.

On the roof of the building opposite, Chu Xuan held a megaphone, swinging his legs, and chimed in with a grin.

"Gentlemen, even if you grit your teeth until they break, it's useless."

"Our Xinghai phones sell for nine hundred and ninety-eight, while your plastic shells sell for fifteen hundred."

"Even a fool knows whose to buy, right? I'm afraid your inventory for these past few months is going to rot in the warehouse."

This sentence was like a sharp knife, piercing accurately into the lungs of the competitors.

Boss Liu was so angry that everything went black before his eyes, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

This was exactly what they feared most.

Once the common people knew that they could buy such a durable, hardcore product for nine hundred-something.

Who would still be a sucker and buy their refurbished machines that broke every three days?

"Lu Jingming, don't get too cocky too soon!"

Brother Biao took two deep breaths and stared fixedly at that black iron lump.

His eyes rolled, and he suddenly grabbed onto his last straw of hope.

"Anyone can brag! Your piece of junk looks solid, but inside it might be hollow!"

He turned around and shouted loudly at the reporters who were recording.

"Don't be fooled by him, everyone!"

"What bulletproof, what walnut-smashing—these are all selling points he made up by running his mouth!"

Several reporters looked at each other, and their pens stopped moving.

Indeed, this price was ridiculously cheap, and the slogan was exaggerated to the heavens.

No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like a carefully planned scam.

"Factory Manager Lu, Brother Biao has a point."

The black-rimmed reporter held up his voice recorder and asked loudly.

"Talk is cheap. Whether your phone is actually durable or not can't convince consumers with just empty words."

The passersby below also joined in the heckling.

"Yeah, show us!"

"If it's a mule or a horse, take it out for a walk!"

Niu Dazhuang was sweating profusely from anxiety.

Although he had seen Old Li smash a table, now that he was facing so many media cameras, if he messed up and broke it, everything would be ruined.

"Young Master, this..."

Niu Dazhuang just wanted to step forward to dissuade him, but Lu Jingming stopped him with a raised hand.

Lu Jingming directly turned off the microphone switch.

He tossed it casually onto the broken wooden board, producing a harsh noise.

He ignored the incompetent rage of the competitors below, nor did he pick up the reporter's line of questioning.

Lu Jingming turned around, and amidst the stunned gazes of the crowd, he strode forward with his long legs.

He walked straight to the very edge of the stage.

There, a solid red brick used to secure the bamboo pole for the backdrop was lying.

The edges of the brick were full of rough burrs, and it was hard.

Lu Jingming raised his right foot and kicked the annoying bamboo pole away.

That red brick, weighing a full five or six catties, lay alone on the dusty open ground.

He bent down and pinched the xinghai generation 1 prototype with two fingers.

The pitch-black phone gleamed with a cold metallic luster in the sunlight.

The sound of breathing from the entire audience seemed to have stalled at this moment.

Brother Biao sneered and curled his lip, waiting to see the joke of this scrap iron falling apart.

Lu Jingming didn't look at the phone in his hand; instead, he raised his head and stared at Boss Liu below the stage with a half-smile.

"Dazhuang, go to the convenience store opposite and buy a bottle of ice water."

Niu Dazhuang stood frozen in place, confused.

"Huh? Young Master, why buy water at a time like this?"

Lu Jingming weighed the black iron lump in his hand, aiming it at the red brick on the ground.

"By the way, ask Boss Liu if he likes to swallow this brick raw in a moment, or if he prefers to swallow it dipped in water?"