Chapter 86 Here we go again? Long-term storage chips drive down prices to rock bottom.

Chu Xuan hugged the thick atlas and slipped into the old No. 2 factory building as if greased lightning.

The iron door was rusted; when he pushed it open, it let out a sharp creak, shedding a layer of red rust flakes.

The smell of machine oil mixed with the acrid stench of electric welding assaulted his senses.

Old Zhou was sprawled under an old etching machine, half his body sticking out.

He held a screwdriver, desperately trying to twist a stripped screw.

Chu Xuan slapped the 《3D Stacking Storage Guide》 onto Old Zhou's oil-stained back.

"Old Zhou, stop fixing that junk. We have a guest."

Old Zhou, annoyed, waved a dirty hand to shoo him away.

"Get lost. Samsung has cut off our memory supply, and I can't even assemble a test motherboard here."

He crawled out from under the machine and wiped his face messily with his sleeve, leaving two black streaks behind.

Chu Xuan forced the atlas into Old Zhou's arms.

The cardboard cover hit his work uniform with a dull thud.

"Lu Jingming gave you this. He wants you to follow it and churn out the memory."

Old Zhou grumbled as he opened the cover.

After just one look, the screwdriver in his hand fell onto the iron plate with a "clang."

It struck the toe of his leather shoe, but he didn't even make a sound.

Chen Guoan wandered over, draped in a military overcoat.

The old man leaned close to the atlas, staring at the complex 3D routing diagram.

His breathing suddenly grew heavy, a wheezing sound like a leaking bellows rattling in his throat.

"Turning planar flash memory into a skyscraper?"

Old Chen snatched the drawing, his fingers tracing the dense annotations.

"This wafer-cutting logic is brilliant. Breaking physical limits to stack upwards?"

He whipped his head around, his eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity.

Droplets of spit sprayed onto the plastic lamination of the drawing.

"Old Zhou! Tear down the No. 3 old wafer line and rewire it for me!" the old man roared at the top of his lungs.

"Borrow the underlying computing power from the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine next door. Force this stacking process to run!"

For the next three days, the old No. 2 factory became a sealed iron can.

The blue light of electric welding flashed from morning until night.

The roar of the machines shook the wall plaster off in chunks.

No one closed their eyes; when hungry, they simply took a few bites of hard, cold steamed buns.

Three days later, at 10:00 AM, in the top-floor office of Xinghai Technology, the air conditioning made the blinds sway back and forth.

Mr. Lei huddled in the corner of the sofa, the sour, pungent odor of his gray plaid shirt permeating the air.

His eyes were sunken, and he stared blankly at an empty paper cup on the coffee table.

"Samsung has locked their inventory again. The spot price jumped another two points this morning."

Mr. Lei's voice was as hoarse as if he had swallowed a handful of sand; he rubbed his peeling fingers.

Fatty Xu's bulky frame was sunk into the armchair.

He irritably chewed on his thumbnail, biting it down until it was raw and bleeding slightly.

"There's no way out. Those Korean bastards want to suck us dry down to the bone marrow."

Fatty Xu panted, his chest heaving.

"The memory alone accounts for half the cost of a machine. This crappy business isn't worth doing."

Lu Jingming didn't respond.

He leaned back in his executive chair, legs crossed and resting on the edge of the mahogany desk.

His slender fingers tossed a plastic lighter.

The solid wood office door was kicked open.

Old Zhou, his hair a greasy, tangled mess, rushed in like a beggar.

His shoe soles were caked with mud, leaving a trail of black footprints on the hardwood floor.

He held a transparent anti-static plastic box.

As he presented the box to Lu Jingming, Old Zhou's hands were shaking uncontrollably.

"Lu Jingming. It's off the line. The first batch of 3D stacked flash memory chips."

Old Zhou's chapped lips formed the words, while tears mixed with machine oil carved two tracks down his face.

"The test data passed across the board. The read/write speeds leave the planar memory chips on the market eating dust."

Lu Jingming lowered his legs.

He pinched a small black square from the box.

His fingertips brushed against the dense metal pins, feeling cold and hard.

He tossed the memory chip onto the coffee table in front of Mr. Lei with a soft "clack."

Mr. Lei shuddered.

He scrambled over, his kneecaps hitting the edge of the glass table with a dull "thud."

Ignoring the pain, he cupped the black chip in his hands.

"Is… is this something we made ourselves?"

Fatty Xu leaned his large head in, his beady eyes wide.

"Old Zhou, what's the yield rate on this thing? Can we supply it without restrictions?"

He grabbed Old Zhou's dirty sleeve, his palms slick with oily sweat.

"As long as the lithography machine keeps running, the yield rate for this stacking technology will only get higher."

Old Zhou wiped his nose.

"One line can churn out 100,000 chips a day."

Mr. Lei's legs turned to jelly, and he half-knelt by the coffee table.

He looked up at Lu Jingming, who was sitting in his swivel chair, his lips trembling.

"Lu Jingming, what's the pricing? Can you give it to us at the original price, before Samsung hiked theirs?"

He swallowed hard.

"We'll accept the original price. Just don't cut off our supply."

Lu Jingming leaned back.

He pulled the plastic lighter from his pocket, spun it twice, and "clicked" it to produce a flame.

He stared at the ghostly blue fire for two seconds before releasing his thumb, extinguishing it.

"Original price?"

Lu Jingming curled his lip, revealing a canine tooth.

"Brother Lei, your vision is only as big as a needle's eye."

He stood up and walked over to Mr. Lei, looking down at the sour-smelling middle-aged man.

"Doesn't Samsung love playing that pathetic game of hiking prices after a 'fire'?"

Lu Jingming sneered.

"Chu Xuan, take my phone and post an announcement in the alliance group."

He turned his head toward the marketing director standing at the door.

"Tell the guys: Xinghai Changcun chips are in mass production."

Lu Jingming's voice wasn't loud, but it hit the ears of those in the room like a thunderclap.

"We don't want their nine hundred ninety-eight. We don't even want four hundred ninety-nine."

He paused for two seconds, his eyes flashing with a ruthless, bone-chilling intensity.

"Take the price from before Samsung's hike, and then slash it by ninety percent."

Lu Jingming kicked the trash can that was in his way.

"At one-tenth the price, we're practically giving them away. Unlimited supply. Take as much as you want."

The room fell deathly silent.

The black chip in Mr. Lei's hand dropped onto the Persian rug without a sound.

His mind was buzzing, with only the words "one-tenth" reverberating in his head.

"Lu Jingming… you're my own brother!"

Mr. Lei covered his face with both hands, knelt on the rug, and let out a wail.

Fatty Xu's breathing was as heavy as an old ox.

He slapped his thigh, his fat quivering.

"This is practically charity! Once we dump this cost, we'll wipe out the low-end market without leaving a blade of grass!"

Chu Xuan took Lu Jingming's phone, his fingers flying across the keyboard in a blur.

He posted the announcement to the manufacturer group of several hundred people, and then casually cross-posted it to Jifeng Forum and Twitter.

Less than half an hour later, the announcement traveled through undersea cables and slammed into major financial centers around the globe.

In the trading hall of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the memory futures price curve on the big screen, which had been hanging high, suddenly plummeted.

The red parabola looked as if it had been severed at the waist, diving straight down like a stone.

"Sell orders! Massive sell orders everywhere!"

A blonde trader roared, his hands hammering at his keyboard.

"China's Xinghai Technology has announced they're supplying at rock-bottom prices! Retail investors are trampling each other to get out!"

Dozens of trading terminals blared with ear-piercing margin call alarms.

The memory bubble that Samsung Group had hoarded and inflated was slapped into a pile of junk by Lu Jingming.

The futures price crashed through the issuance floor, and it was still plummeting.

Inside the Xinghai office, Shen Qingqiu walked in wearing high heels, holding a few freshly printed foreign market briefs.

An irrepressible smile played on her face, and her eyes crinkled behind her gold-rimmed glasses.

"The global spot market has collapsed."

She tossed the briefs onto the coffee table.

"Samsung's millions of units of high-priced inventory? Nobody dares to touch them now, even if they're given away for free."

Shen Qingqiu looked at the man standing by the window.

Lu Jingming turned around, one hand in his pocket, his gaze sweeping over the dazzling sunlight outside.

"As long as it's collapsed, that's all that matters."

He walked unhurriedly to his desk and sat down.

"Chu Xuan, go to the florist and order a few flower baskets."

Lu Jingming took a sip of his cold tea, his tone filled with the casual detachment of someone watching a show.

"I reckon that jerk Lee Jae-yong is probably swallowing blood in his hospital room right now."

He tapped his teacup against the edge of the desk.

"We need to be polite; send him some white chrysanthemums."