Chapter 84 Supporting Domestic Companions and Establishing an Anti-Foreign Technology Alliance

Lei Zong's face turned pale instantly, as if he had just been fished out of a flour vat.

He stared at the invoice in Shen Qingqiu's hand, his eyes fixed.

"A threefold increase?"

Lei Zong swallowed, his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down.

"Then how the hell am I supposed to make a budget-friendly phone? I'd lose my shirt just buying the memory!"

Lu Jingming walked over and snatched the paper from Shen Qingqiu's hand.

The paper made a soft rustling sound.

He crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner.

"The Koreans only have this much ambition; whenever they can't win, they resort to the old trick of 'fires' to drive up prices."

Lu Jingming put his hands in his pockets and turned to walk out the door.

"Brother Lei, sign the papers first. I'll take care of everything else."

Inside the large conference room on the first floor, the air conditioning was blowing loudly.

The bosses of over a dozen traditional mobile phone manufacturers were crowded on both sides of a long mahogany table.

Fatty Xu wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, unable to sit still.

The solid wood door was pushed open.

Lu Jingming walked in front, with Chu Xuan following behind, clutching a stack of documents.

The previously buzzing room instantly went silent; you could hear a pin drop.

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

Chu Xuan distributed the "Xinghai Ecological Alliance Agreement" in his hands to each of the bosses.

The papers hit the table with a dull thud.

"Since everyone has traveled a long way to get here, I won't beat around the bush."

Lu Jingming crossed his fingers and rested them on the edge of the table.

"Xinghai will provide an open supply of Xialong Chip and retina screens; there will be no shortages."

The eyes of the bosses below lit up.

Old Wang rubbed his hands together, reaching for a pen impatiently.

"However."

Lu Jingming changed his tone and tapped his fingers on the table.

"If you take my goods, you have to play by my rules."

His gaze swept over Fatty Xu's oily face.

"All phones that leave the factory must have Xinghai OS as the underlying system."

"No matter what UI skin you put on top, the root must be ours."

As soon as these words were spoken, the people in the room looked at each other.

Fatty Xu put down his pen, his rolls of fat trembling.

"Mr. Lu, this means even our underwear is being replaced by yours."

He forced a smile, "Doesn't that make us vassals of Xinghai from now on?"

Lu Jingming sneered.

"Being a vassal is better than being a dog for the foreigners."

He leaned forward, his shadow casting over the table.

"Once the foundation is unified, we'll create a closed ecological loop. All app stores will be hosted on Xinghai Cloud."

He looked at the hesitant bosses and played his trump card.

"Once our companies occupy ninety percent of the domestic market share."

"When Apple and Nokia phones come in, they won't even be able to download a usable chat app."

Lu Jingming narrowed his eyes, his gaze sharp and ruthless.

"I want to turn those foreign brands into nothing more than bricks on Chinese soil."

Fatty Xu gasped, feeling a chill run down his spine.

This cutthroat tactic was truly meant to drive foreign capital to its doom.

Lei Zong squeezed in from outside the door.

Without a word, he grabbed the pen on the table and scribbled his name on the last page.

The pen tip tore through the paper, and ink bled into the wood grain.

"I'll sign! Wherever Mr. Lu points, I'll attack!"

Lei Zong tossed the pen aside, panting.

With someone taking the lead, the rest gritted their teeth and bent their heads to sign.

In a few minutes, over a dozen agreements with red fingerprints were piled up beside Lu Jingming.

The Chinese Anti-Foreign Tech Alliance was thus established on these few sheets of paper.

Across the ocean, in Seoul, South Korea.

On the top floor of the Samsung Group headquarters, a cold, drizzling rain fell outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Raindrops pelted the glass, leaving streaks of water.

Lee Jae-yong was wearing a loose hospital gown, with an IV needle still inserted in the back of his hand.

He had just been resuscitated at the hospital, and his complexion was a sallow yellow.

The large leather sofa sank under his weight.

He stared fixedly at the large LCD TV on the opposite wall.

On the TV screen, a Chinese news channel was broadcasting.

Lu Jingming sat at the head of the long table, and below him were the scenes of over a dozen domestic manufacturer bosses standing up and applauding.

"Sibal!"

Lee Jae-yong suddenly grabbed the ceramic ashtray beside him and threw it hard.

"Clang!"

The brand-new TV screen he had just replaced was smashed, leaving a black hole.

Sparks flew, and the picture turned into a pile of distorted static.

The female assistant nearby screamed in fear and huddled in the corner, trembling.

High heels crunched on the broken glass, making a grating sound.

Lee Jae-yong gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently.

A large patch of the collar of his hospital gown was soaked with sweat.

He reached out with the hand that had the IV needle and pointed at the blackened screen.

"Ecological alliance? A peasant who sells assembled machines dares to engage in monopoly!"

Lee Jae-yong gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with bloodshot veins like venomous snakes.

His jaws ground together with a clicking sound.

He turned his head and stared fixedly at the assistant huddled in the corner.

"The announcement I told you to send out, did you send it?"

The female assistant nodded tremblingly, her voice shaking.

"I—I sent it. We claimed to the public that a sudden fire broke out at the memory wafer plant in Suwon."

"The spot price for global memory chips was raised threefold half an hour ago."

Lee Jae-yong snorted coldly.

He pulled out the IV needle from the back of his hand, causing a string of blood droplets to drip onto the carpet.

He didn't bother with it, grabbing a tissue to press against it.

"Lu Jingming can make screens and develop lithography machines."

Lee Jae-yong walked to the window, watching the bustling traffic below with a venomous look in his eyes.

"I don't believe he can also churn out high-capacity memory chips himself!"

He threw the blood-stained tissue onto the floor.

"Notify the Greater China Region, all the factories in the Xinghai Alliance."

"Don't sell them a single memory chip! Cut off their supply entirely!"

Donghai City, Xinghai conference room.

The agreements were collected, and the bosses were relieved one by one, preparing to go back and start their production lines.

Fatty Xu wiped his sweat and leaned in toward Lu Jingming.

"Mr. Lu, the papers are signed, and the alliance is established."

He rubbed his fat hands, his eyes darting around.

"But Brother Lei said just now that Samsung's memory prices have tripled. Have you heard about this?"

The few bosses who were just about to leave stopped in their tracks.

They all turned their heads in unison to look over.

The three major components of a mobile phone.

Chip, screen, memory.

Without any one of them, the device won't turn on.

Samsung controls sixty percent of global memory production capacity.

If the supply were really cut off, the agreements everyone signed would be just a stack of waste paper.

Lei Zong clutched his worn-out leather bag and squeezed back to the table.

"Mr. Lu, I just called the distributors."

He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his eyes filled with panic.

"All spot stock has been locked up. Samsung has put out word that they won't accept any orders from the Xinghai Alliance."

Lei Zong gasped for air, his throat dry.

"We can't cover the costs; if our ecosystem isn't even built yet, we'll be stifled at the starting line!"

Chu Xuan clutched the documents, his brows furrowed in a knot.

He looked at Lu Jingming, who was sitting at the head of the table.

Lu Jingming didn't budge.

He leaned back in his executive chair, his fingers fiddling with the pen on the table.

The pen rolled twice on the wood grain and stopped.

He looked up at his allies, who were anxious and burning with impatience.

A devil-may-care smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Those losers at Samsung, every time they can't win, they play the 'burning down the factory' trick."

Lu Jingming tossed the pen into the pen holder with a soft sound.

He stood up, one hand in his pocket.

Lei Zong asked anxiously.

"Then what should we do, Mr. Lu? Go beg them to release some stock?"

"Beg?"

Lu Jingming tilted his head, revealing one canine tooth.

"If we can't buy it, then we'll just make it ourselves."

Lei Zong gasped, his voice cracking.

"Make... make memory? Mr. Lu, stop joking. Nobody in our country understands the stacking technology for that stuff!"

Lu Jingming walked to the door of the conference room and pushed open the glass door.

The draft in the hallway blew the hem of his black T-shirt.

He looked back at the people in the room, who were stunned into silence.

"When did I say that this matter would rely on anyone else?"

Lu Jingming raised an eyebrow, his eyes showing an arrogant ruthlessness.

"Chu Xuan, go call Old Zhou to the wafer plant. Tell him to clear out an old production line for me."

Chu Xuan stood frozen, asking with a stutter.

"Mr. Lu, what are we clearing the line for?"

Lu Jingming turned his back, leaving the crowd with his silhouette.

"To teach the Koreans what real bargain prices are."