Chapter 63 Selling "Spy Equipment" to Foreigners

10 days later, Red Star Labor Service Agency, finished goods warehouse.

Three iron doors were locked tight.

"Manager Lin, is... is this the razor we made?"

Sun Erga peered through the warehouse's transom window, looking at the rows of black razors inside, and swallowed hard.

"No looking, no touching, and no talking about it to anyone."

Lin Xi held a large padlock and with a "click," locked the final door.

"If anyone dares to breathe a single word, I'll exile them to clean the toilets."

Sun Erga shrunk his neck back.

Was this really manufacturing consumer goods?

This atmosphere was more tense than transporting nuclear warheads.

"Manager, did we..."

"...make something we shouldn't have?"

Liu Guihua passed by carrying a vegetable basket, her face full of terror.

"I saw that blade head; it was pitch black."

"When it spins, it doesn't make a sound, just like a ghost."

Lin Xi didn't explain.

This sense of mystery was exactly what he wanted.

The reason this batch of goods was sealed away wasn't because of nuclear radiation, but purely because—

The packaging boxes hadn't arrived yet.

Industrial products of that era were mostly wrapped in kraft paper or stuffed into thin white cardboard boxes.

But Lin Xi was different; he had specially ordered a batch of hard gift boxes from Jiangzhe.

The surface used special tactile paper, and it was to be stamped with a matte gold "Red Star" and a line of small English text:

Designed by Future.

This cross-era "Apple-style" sense of packaging ritual was a dimensional strike in 1980.

But in the eyes of the base leaders who didn't know the truth, the situation took on a different flavor.

Half an hour later.

"Screech—!"

A military-green jeep came to a sudden halt at the entrance of the Service Center with the sound of screeching brakes.

The car door swung open, and Zhang Zhengguo, Director of the General Design Office, jumped out with a dark face, followed by Elder Qian with his hands behind his back.

"Lin Xi! You little brat, get out here!"

Zhang Zhengguo slammed the table as soon as he entered.

"I heard you've developed some kind of secret weapon?"

"What are you trying to do? Establish an independent kingdom? Or are you planning a rebellion?"

Lin Xi was drinking tea and almost spat it out.

"Director Zhang, that's quite a heavy accusation you're pinning on me."

Lin Xi put down his teacup and went to meet them with a grin.

"It's just a batch of new products. I locked them up because I was afraid they'd get damp."

"New products?"

Zhang Zhengguo gave a cold laugh and pulled a blurry photo from his pocket—

It was a photo of the prototype secretly taken by the Security Department. "And you call this a civilian product?"

In the photo, the red star whirlwind presented a deep, matte black color.

There were no redundant lines, only a minimalist cylinder, with that honeycomb blade mesh at the top that seemed capable of swallowing light.

This industrial design style indeed appeared somewhat... sci-fi in an era filled with clumsy, large, black, and crude machinery.

"And this coating."

Zhang Zhengguo pointed at the photo.

"The people from the Security Department say this thing has almost zero reflection in the radar frequency bands."

"Did you brat melt down the wreckage of that downed U2 Reconnaissance Aircraft?"

Elder Qian also pushed up his glasses from the side, his expression serious.

"Lin Xi, technology is technology, but principles are principles."

"There are certain military-to-civilian red lines that cannot be crossed."

Lin Xi didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

What stealth coating?

That was a "Skin-like Rubber Paint" he had specially formulated for the feel, intended to increase friction and the sense of premium quality!

"Leaders, seeing is believing."

Lin Xi sighed, took a black razor out of a drawer, and handed it over with both hands.

"This is a sample. Why don't you two 'interrogate' it personally?"

Zhang Zhengguo took it suspiciously.

It felt slightly heavy in his hand, about a hundred and fifty grams.

The touch was delicate and warm, like a piece of polished ink jade.

There was no switch.

Only a sensor area that was almost integrated with the body.

Zhang Zhengguo's thumb subconsciously pressed onto it.

"Buzz..."

An extremely slight vibration traveled through his fingertips to his palm.

There was no frantic roar, no loose noise.

The sound was low, stable, and even carried a certain hypnotic rhythm.

"Hmm?" Zhang Zhengguo was stunned.

He brought the black blade head close to his ear.

That 12,000 RPM high-speed whine, because the dynamic balance was so perfect, was compressed into a "white noise" similar to wind passing over a wing.

This sound was a hymn to industry.

"This motor..."

Zhang Zhengguo was an expert, and his face changed instantly. "Maglev? Brushless?"

"Something like that."

Lin Xi spoke vaguely. "Rare Earth Permanent Magnet, with a few small tricks added."

Zhang Zhengguo didn't say a word and pressed the blade head directly against his stubble-covered chin.

The blade mesh slid across as if on level ground.

That sense of "swallowing" appeared again.

No pulling, no hesitation.

In just thirty seconds.

Zhang Zhengguo felt his chin.

It was as smooth as a freshly peeled egg.

"This is no razor..."

Zhang Zhengguo looked at the black cylinder in his hand and muttered to himself.

"This is practically individual combat equipment!"

"This level of processing precision, this motor performance."

Zhang Zhengguo suddenly looked up and stared at Lin Xi. "You brat, are you planning to sell this to spies?"

"Director Zhang, you're worried about the issue of technology leakage, right?!"

"Let me report my plan to you, and you can give me some guidance..."

Then Lin Xi rattled off a bunch of things.

Zhang Zhengguo listened until he was numb, his face blank with shock.

Elder Qian, on the other hand, said calmly from the side:

"The last time we made fans, we scammed Japan once. This time, it looks like we're going to scam someone even bigger."

...

In the meeting room, the atmosphere was strange.

On the left side of the table sat the red star whirlwind.

On the right side of the table sat the latest model of electric razor from Germany's Braun.

That was the current world hegemon.

It was priced at 150 Foreign Exchange Certificates, equivalent to four months' salary for an ordinary worker.

"Zzzzz—"

Zhang Zhengguo turned on the Braun's switch.

The sound wasn't small, and the vibration was obvious.

He turned off the Braun and turned on the Red Star.

"Buzz..."

The world instantly became quiet.

This comparison was as brutal as comparing a tractor's idle to a Rolls-Royce's.

"Let's set the price."

Elder Qian made the final decision, the worry in his eyes having turned into a smile he couldn't hide.

"Something this good cannot be sold cheaply."

"Domestically, one hundred and twenty." Lin Xi wrote a number on the blackboard.

"One hundred and twenty?" Sun Erga gasped from the side.

"Manager, are you trying to rob people?"

"That's two months' salary!"

"Our fans only sell for twenty-eight!"

"Fans are for daily life; this is for status."

Lin Xi tapped the blackboard.

"Gifts for others, for leaders, for fathers-in-law."

"If you sell it for twenty yuan, people wouldn't even feel right giving it as a gift."

In that era, being able to produce an electric razor was a symbol of status.

At one hundred and twenty, what you were buying wasn't functionality, but that prestige.

"And for abroad?" Zhang Zhengguo asked.

"One hundred." Lin Xi wrote down an even more ruthless number. "US dollars."