Chapter 78 On the same day, Xinghai Xialong chips officially announced mass production.

Paul's pale, ghastly face froze.

The smile that hadn't yet faded from the corners of his mouth seemed as if it had been glued onto his flesh.

He grabbed Tom by the collar and snatched the still-reflecting tablet from his other hand with a violent jerk.

His fingernails scraped against the tempered glass screen, emitting a harsh, screeching sound.

The wine glass rolled off the podium and shattered into pieces with a 'crack'.

Dark red wine splashed onto the tips of Paul's pristine white custom leather shoes.

He didn't even blink.

On the other side of the screen, the dome searchlights at the New International Expo Center in Donghai City were blindingly white.

Lu Jingming, who had been missing for three months, stood on the stage, one hand resting on the microphone stand.

His black T-shirt was washed out to a faded grey, and the collar was slightly frayed.

A layer of unshaven, dark stubble remained on his chin.

Paul's Adam's apple bobbed violently twice.

He felt as if the tomahawk steak he had just swallowed had turned into a thorny stone, scraping painfully against his esophagus.

"H-he... wasn't he supposed to be bankrupt?"

The pot-bellied fund manager leaned in, his breath reeking of garlic-roasted meat.

On the screen.

The scene in Donghai City was chaotic.

Chu Xuan was crouching behind the speaker on the far right of the stage, clutching a walkie-talkie tightly in his hand.

"Camera two! Your angle is off! Get a close-up of Mr. Lu's hands!"

Anxious, he wiped the greasy sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, his parted hair plastered against his brow.

"That thing is reflecting light, dim the filter... Yes, right there, keep it steady!"

Lu Jingming stood under the spotlight, a thin layer of sweat seeping onto his back from the intense heat.

He raised his hand, his thumb and index finger pinching a thin, circular wafer.

The sharp, cut edges pressed against his fingertips, carrying the cold, hard feel characteristic of metal.

Below the stage, the folding chairs of hundreds of foreign reporters scraped against the floor, creating a chaotic din.

Charles from The New York Times tugged at his tie, craning his neck forward.

"What is he holding? A piece of broken glass?"

Lu Jingming ignored the whispers below.

He lifted the back of his hand to rub the stubble on his chin and gave a dry cough.

"Ahem... Ladies and gentlemen."

His deep, slightly metallic-sounding American English shattered the air of the venue through the high-powered speakers.

He had no script.

Nor did he resort to empty opening remarks.

"I haven't seen you all in three months. I saw on Twitter that someone even erected a tombstone for me."

Lu Jingming smirked, revealing half of a sharp canine tooth.

"Sorry to disappoint everyone, but the food in Donghai City is quite good, and I'm still breathing."

The foreign reporters below exchanged glances.

Someone was scribbling furiously in a notebook, the tip of the pen tearing through the paper.

"Is he crazy? He's telling jokes at a time like this?"

"An assembly plant boss who can't pay wages—he's probably cracked under the pressure."

Lu Jingming turned his wrist, facing the searchlight above.

A brilliant, rainbow-colored halo instantly refracted from the thin circular disc.

The dense, microscopic textures, invisible to the naked eye, were revealed in stunning detail under the camera's close-up.

"Today, we aren't launching a phone."

Lu Jingming's voice dropped an octave, carrying an oppressive weight that felt like holding everyone underwater, gasping for air.

Charles's hand, holding the voice recorder, trembled, and the legs of his chair creaked as they slid back half an inch.

He recognized what it was.

"Let me introduce it to the world."

Lu Jingming pinched the wafer, his eyes sharp as a freshly sharpened bayonet.

Sweeping across the camera lens, it pierced straight to the corners across the ocean.

"Xinghai's first generation of self-developed chips."

"Code name: Xialong 1."

He paused for two seconds, listening to the collective gasp from the audience.

"Starting at 6:00 this morning, we are in full mass production."

"Boom!"

It was as if a high-explosive grenade had been tossed into the venue.

Charles sprang from his chair, his knee hitting the iron railing, and he winced in pain.

"Wait! Wait a minute!"

Charles scrambled into the aisle, grabbing the microphone from a colleague nearby.

"Mr. Lu! This is purely a scam!"

He shouted so loudly that his voice cracked.

"TSMC cut off cooperation long ago! Qualcomm has blocked the underlying authorization!"

Charles panted, his spit spraying onto the microphone mesh.

"What are you using for manufacturing? Are you going to use Chinese hammers to pound on silicon wafers?"

Lu Jingming looked at the red-faced, neck-swollen foreigner below.

He placed the wafer back onto the black velvet tray beside him and brushed the dust off his hands.

"Who told you that to make chips, one must beg for your charity and authorization?"

Lu Jingming braced his hands on the podium.

"One hundred percent, purely domestic micro-architecture."

He spoke every word clearly, like a hammer striking the top of the foreigner's head.

"One hundred percent, manufactured on domestic lithography production lines."

Lu Jingming straightened up, his eyes filled with a ruthless, skin-peeling ferocity.

"From the inside out, from the blueprints to the finished product."

"This Xialong of ours is clean."

He flicked his fingernail and let out a cold laugh.

"It hasn't even touched a single hair from your Western patent pools."

The comments in the livestream paused for a second.

Then, the screen was flooded with red text, like a hemorrhage.

Across the ocean.

In the banquet hall at Qualcomm's headquarters, the air conditioning blew against the back of Paul's neck.

The hairs on his body stood on end.

The pot-bellied fund manager dropped his wine glass, and the red wine spilled onto the white tablecloth like a bloodstain.

"H-he's talking nonsense, right? Building his own lithography machines?"

Paul stared fixedly at Lu Jingming's arrogant face on the tablet screen.

The blue light from the screen reflected in his bloodshot eyes.

A vein on his temple throbbed like a worm.

He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted the rusty, metallic tang of blood.

"Bullshit..."

Paul squeezed three words through his teeth.

Suddenly, he raised both hands.

He held the tablet, worth several thousand dollars, over his head.

"Bang!"

He smashed the tablet hard against the marble floor.

The explosion-proof glass screen shattered instantly, bursting into hundreds of white cracks.

Shards of broken glass flew up, cutting Tom's cheek.

Leaving a thin, bloody gash.

Before the device died, the final sound of Lu Jingming's words, "full mass production," was still stuck in the audio.

It pitched, distorted, and finally turned into a harsh, static noise.

"A scam! This fucking thing is a scam!"

Like a crazed wild boar, Paul kicked the remains of the tablet across the floor.

The metal frame smashed into the wall panel, leaving a large dent.

His chest heaved violently, and a button from his suit jacket popped off and rolled under the sofa.

"That's a 28-nanometer process! What machine tools are they using to grind it? Sandpaper?"

Paul roared at the terrified executives and investors around him.

Spittle flying.

"No extreme ultraviolet lenses! No photoresist!"

He grabbed his meticulously groomed hair with both hands, pulling it into a mess.

"What they've built can only be a piece of hot industrial trash!"

Cook sat in the front row, his face so gloomy it could wring out water.

He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, watched the maddened Paul, and said nothing.

His fingers tapped unconsciously on his knees.

Paul turned, grabbed Tom by the collar, and lifted the assistant up by force.

"Go! Contact our informants in China immediately!"

His eyes were bloodshot with madness, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper grinding against glass.

"Get me a prototype equipped with that shitty Xialong Chip!"

Paul panted heavily and shoved Tom away violently.

"I want you to test its benchmark scores in front of the world's media!"

"Go test the heat generation!"

He stomped on the floor, which was covered in glass shards.

"This bluff is blown out of proportion! As soon as the benchmark software runs, that shitty chip will burn out immediately!"

Paul clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his flesh.

"Go now! I'm going to strip this Chinese scammer down to his underwear myself!"