Chapter 87 Lee Jae-yong breaks down; family business faces liquidation.

The rain in Seoul that day was sticky and dense.

In the large conference room on the 88th floor of Samsung Group headquarters, it was so quiet that one could hear the patter of raindrops hitting the glass outside.

The scent of high-end agarwood that usually filled the air was now completely overwhelmed by the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke.

A dozen or so conglomerate veterans, who usually walked with a swagger, were now hunched over in their leather chairs.

A massive projection screen hung in the center.

The curve representing global spot prices for memory chips looked like a snapped hemp rope, hanging straight down to the bottom.

Lee Jae-yong sat at the head of the table.

He wore an ill-fitting black suit over his hospital gown, and his shirt buttons were misaligned.

He covered his mouth with a handkerchief, a sound like a broken bellows wheezing from his throat.

"This... this must be fake. How could the Chinese possess 3D stacking technology..."

He stared at the plummeting line, his eyes unmoving.

His purple-tinged lips pressed together, trembling uncontrollably.

"Bang!"

An official from the Department of Commerce sitting opposite him slammed a hand onto the oak table.

The lid of a teacup rattled, fell onto the carpet, and shattered into two pieces.

"Lee Jae-yong! Is your head stuffed with kimchi!"

The official stood up and pointed at his nose, spraying spit everywhere.

"In order to stifle a private Chinese factory, you held back millions of units of production capacity to inflate prices?"

The official was so angry he tore off his tie.

"Now look! The global memory market has crashed! That pile of high-priced goods in our Samsung warehouses—nobody wants them even if we give them away for free!"

"A ten-billion-dollar hole! How are you going to fill it? With your life?"

Lee Jae-yong shrank back under the verbal assault.

He opened his mouth to retort, but couldn't catch his breath, his face turning beet red.

A white-haired shareholder representative next to him stood up with a cold face.

He slammed an audit report written entirely in Korean in front of Lee Jae-yong, the pages fluttering.

"Crown Prince, stop dreaming."

The white-haired shareholder looked at him as if he were looking at a pile of garbage.

"Xinghai Technology's dirt-cheap memory has already swept through the spot markets in Southeast Asia, Europe, and America."

"Not only are they selling cheap, but their yield rate is also higher than ours."

The white-haired shareholder tapped the table, his voice cold enough to freeze.

"The board has just passed a unanimous resolution. From this second on, all your positions are terminated."

Lee Jae-yong's head buzzed.

It felt like someone had smashed the back of his head with an iron hammer.

Terminated from his positions?

He was the legitimate Crown Prince of Samsung!

"You dare dismiss me?"

He stood up abruptly, bracing his hands on the table, his fingernails leaving white marks on the wood grain.

"Those Chinese monkeys just got lucky! Once I borrow money to start a price war..."

Before he could finish his sentence.

The conference room door was pushed open.

His personal assistant walked in holding a large cardboard box, his complexion worse than a dead person's.

"Young Master..." the assistant stammered, his legs shaking.

"The front desk downstairs received an express international package from China. They say it's a gift for you from President Lu of Xinghai Technology."

Lee Jae-yong panted, staring fixedly at the box.

"Open it!"

The assistant tore open the tape with trembling hands.

As the box lid opened.

A thick scent of raw white chrysanthemums rushed into the air.

In the center of the floral arrangement lay a black card with white lettering.

It read: "Samsung Memory, Rest in Peace."

"Pfft—"

Lee Jae-yong's chest heaved violently, and a thick, metallic taste surged from deep within his throat.

A mist of blood sprayed across the table.

Specks of blood splattered onto the black-and-white card.

His eyes rolled back.

His body, like a piece of rotten wood, slammed backward with a "thud" into his chair, flipping both him and the chair onto the floor.

"Call an ambulance! Don't let him die here!"

The conference room descended into chaos.

Security and medical staff rushed in, scrambling to lift the limp Lee Jae-yong onto a stretcher.

No one spared him a second glance.

...

The scene cuts back to Donghai City, the top floor of the Xinghai Technology building.

The sun outside the window was dazzling.

Lu Jingming stood with his back to the door, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows.

His black T-shirt clung to his back; he stood with one hand in his jeans pocket, looking down at the fleet of heavy trucks transporting goods.

In his mind.

The system, which had been quiet for two days, suddenly erupted like a firecracker factory.

The mechanical voice made his brain numb.

"Detected that the Crown Prince of Samsung Group has vomited blood and collapsed, and has been kicked out!"

"Samsung executives are plunged into panic and despair; their dao hearts have shattered!"

"Global semiconductor comprador enterprises are filled with deep fear!"

The "breakdown value" numbers were skyrocketing like a cheat code.

They jumped wildly, crossing over one million and racing toward the three-million mark.

Listening to this commotion, a devil-may-care smile curled the corner of Lu Jingming's mouth.

He pressed his tongue against his back molars.

The stress resistance of these Koreans was truly as fragile as paper.

The solid wood door creaked open.

Chu Xuan trotted in, carrying two iced coffees.

His center-parted hair was sprayed with gel today, looking slick and shiny.

"President Lu! It's deeply satisfying!"

He placed the coffee on the coffee table, condensation covering the sides of the cups.

"I just checked the overseas news. That grandson Lee Jae-yong has been carried out of the Samsung building and stripped of his inheritance rights."

Chu Xuan slapped his thigh in delight, his laughter loud enough to lift the roof.

"That wreath we sent was perfectly timed; I reckon the old geezer was sent off by the chrysanthemums."

Lu Jingming turned around and walked slowly to the coffee table.

He picked up an iced coffee and took a sip.

The bitterness mixed with the chill of the ice cubes hit his stomach, which was quite refreshing.

"Is this enough to satisfy you?"

He set the plastic cup back on the table with a light click.

"He's just a discarded Crown Prince; Samsung's foundation hasn't completely rotted yet."

Chu Xuan scratched his scalp, looking bewildered.

"Isn't this completely rotted? Their memory chips are all stuck in their hands, and they're looking for a sucker to take over the inventory all over the world."

Shen Qingqiu walked in on high heels, holding a newly printed hardware shipping manifest.

She pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose.

Her white shirt sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, looking capable and sharp.

"Chu Xuan is right. In terms of hardware, we've basically choked the life out of foreign capital."

Shen Qingqiu tossed the manifest onto the coffee table.

"Xialong Chip plus the Oriental Screen, combined with Changcun memory."

"Once these three major components form a closed loop, the domestic manufacturers will all become workers on our assembly line."

She looked at Lu Jingming, her eyes probing.

"Apple has also become obedient; I heard Old Qiao's press conference has been postponed indefinitely."

"Should we take a break now and stabilize the production line?"

Lu Jingming didn't reach for the manifest.

He pulled a plastic lighter from his pocket and flicked the wheel with a "click."

He didn't light it, just listened to the sound.

"Break?"

He sneered and tossed the lighter onto the edge of the mahogany table.

"The hardware war is over."

Lu Jingming walked to the computer and tapped the black monitor with his knuckles twice.

"But with just a hard shell and no soul, someone will flip the table sooner or later."

He tilted his head, looking at the two bewildered people.

A hint of predatory calculation flashed in his eyes.

"Foreigners can't block us with hardware, so they'll change tactics immediately."

Lu Jingming tapped his fingers on the keyboard casually.

"That group at Google is holding back an open-source system called Android, preparing to unite global manufacturers to encircle and suppress us."

Chu Xuan swallowed dryly and shrank his neck.

"Then... then what do we do? Although Xinghai OS is smooth, the software all depends on us writing it; we can't build an ecosystem."

"Who says we can't build one?"

Lu Jingming stood up straight, his gaze as sharp as a newly honed blade.

"Go get Xia Weiliang out of the lab."

He straightened his T-shirt hem and turned to walk out.

He stopped at the door.

Shen Qingqiu asked quickly.

"Why are you looking for Weiliang? She just vomited blood two days ago and is still recovering."

"Recovering my foot, a money-making business has arrived."

Lu Jingming didn't look back, his hand on the brass doorknob.

He left them with an arrogant profile.

"Notify President Lei and his lackeys. Get all the machines in their hands connected to the internet for me."

He pressed the handle down with a crisp "click."

"Prepare to let them witness what a software ecosystem closed loop is."

Chu Xuan chased after him for two steps, "President Lu, what's the name of this closed loop?"

Lu Jingming stepped out the door.

"Xinghai Cloud. Let those foreigners get ready to delete their software en masse."