138: Chapter 138 A Technological Extravaganza Belonging to the Xia Kingdom!

The silence lasted less than three seconds.

Then, the comment sections of major social platforms and news apps were hit by an unprecedented torrent of traffic.

The red lights of server overload warnings flashed frantically in the data centers of major internet companies, with piercing alarms blaring one after another.

"Quick! Add servers! Bring all backup nodes online!"

Operations staff roared, sweating profusely, their hands typing so fast they became a blur, expanding capacity, expanding, and expanding again...

But they still couldn't hold back that overwhelming tidal wave of traffic.

The comment sections were completely insane, one could even say they had fallen into madness!

"Am I seeing this right? A 29-yuan monthly plan that includes 150GB of data?? I currently pay dozens of yuan for just 50MB of 3G data!"

"If you break down this plan, 1GB of data costs less than two dimes? I just pinched my husband's thigh three times hard, and only after hearing his pig-like squeal did I confirm I wasn't dreaming!"

"It's not just that, have you looked at the phone pricing? After the special state subsidy, the base model is actually only 1099! And it's equipped with the world's most advanced 10nm chip!"

"The most ruthless part is the trade-in policy. If you bought a flagship phone within the last year, you can even trade it directly for a new 5G phone for free, regardless of the brand! I bought a flagship phone by gritting my teeth half a year ago, and I can actually trade it evenly for the latest 5G flagship? That's a huge profit!!!"

The refresh rate of the comment section was so fast that individual posts were impossible to read; every fraction of a second, new comments would push the old ones up, only to be completely drowned out.

But even so, the core of everyone's discussion was nothing more than the same point, repeated over and over —

Cheap!

So cheap that it felt unreal.

After the initial frenzy and disbelief, some quick-witted netizens calmed down and began analyzing the underlying logic behind this price in the comment section.

"Brothers, calm down, let me do the math for everyone and you'll understand."

"Before, when we bought a flagship phone, about 30% of the price was for the chip. Where did that money go? It all went to foreign chip giants."

"Another 20% was for operating system licensing fees and all sorts of messy communication patent fees. Where did that go? It also went The Other Side of the Ocean!"

"The remaining half was the manufacturing cost and profit for domestic manufacturers!"

"But what about now? The chips are domestic, the system is domestic, and the 5G communication patents are domestic. From head to toe, there are no patent fees that need to be paid to outsiders!"

"So, naturally, the price of the phone has come down."

Once this analysis was posted, countless people liked it frantically, and the chorus of agreement was overwhelming.

"I get it now. We used to spend five thousand yuan to buy a phone, and half of it was paying patent fees to foreigners, but now we don't have to pay!"

"Not just that, just not paying patent fees isn't enough. The state also has subsidies, and you can even trade in your old phone for a new one for free, all so that we ordinary people can use our own 5G as soon as possible!"

"So I'm saying, this isn't just some natural low price, this is the state throwing real money at it!"

"Gratitude! Heartfelt gratitude! Think about it, if these technologies were sold abroad, a phone would cost three or four times as much and that wouldn't even be the end of it. Now, it's quite the opposite; domestic citizens can enjoy the world's most advanced things at the lowest price."

"At the end of the day, we have to thank one person."

"Lin Yuan."

"Without God Lin, there would be no domestic chips, no Hidden Dragon System, and no 5G communication. He pushed every breakthrough in this industrial chain. The fact that we can buy this level of phone for a thousand yuan today is, ultimately, because of him."

"I used to read news saying scientists are the pillars of the nation, and honestly, I didn't feel much. Today, I suddenly understand. This is the power of technology; this is the tangible change a top scientist can bring to over a billion people."

"God Lin! The eternal god!"

The wave of gratitude and worship swept through every corner of Xia along the invisible network cables.

It was no longer empty slogans, no longer superficial nationalistic sentiment.

It was the warmth that every ordinary person felt deep down — from their pockets, from their wallets, and from their monthly phone bills — the moment they saw that price list, the feeling of being protected.

...

And where there is joy, there is sorrow.

The Other Side of the Ocean.

The headquarters of a globally renowned communication equipment giant, in the top-floor conference room.

On the projection screen, the price announcement translated into English filled the entire display.

The dozen executives sitting at the conference table were collectively speechless.

After the air stagnated for a full ten seconds, a vice president spoke first, his throat dry and cracking.

"This is impossible... This is absolutely impossible!"

He stared fixedly at the number "1099" on the screen, repeatedly calculating the cost structure in his mind.

"The procurement cost for a single 10nm chip is nearly 200 dollars. The chip cost alone already exceeds their terminal retail price!"

"Where are they getting the profit from at this price?! Are they doing charity?!"

No one answered him.

But everyone knew the answer in their hearts, because the chips were made by Xia itself, and the costs were not calculated based on international market procurement prices at all.

A strategy analyst hung his head in defeat, flipping through the briefing in his hand, his voice hoarse.

"Their chips are self-developed, their system is self-developed, and they hold their own communication patents."

"Under these circumstances, their true hardware cost might not even be one-third of ours."

The conference room fell into a dead silence.

The president sitting at the head of the table pressed his hands against the edge of the table, the veins on his forehead throbbing.

It wasn't that he didn't understand these analyses; on the contrary, it was precisely because he understood that he felt a bottomless despair.

What did this price mean?

It meant that the massive market of Xia, with its population of over a billion, was completely closed to them from now on!

This wasn't a blockade by administrative order, nor was it a barrier of tariffs.

It was a pure, naked price crushing.

How could you compete with a 1099 5G phone?

With a 4G phone that doesn't support 5G networks, is equipped with a chip that requires patent fees, and starts at three or four thousand?

"And... it's not just a matter of terminal pricing."

Another executive continued with a bitter face, his voice filled with a heavy sense of powerlessness.

"Don't forget, Xia is using the Fifth-generation Communication network, while our latest terminals are still stuck at 4G."

"Xia consumers can enjoy high-speed 5G data for 29 yuan a month, while our end-users still have to pay dozens of yuan for a few hundred megabytes of 4G data."

"This experience gap alone is enough to make all non-5G devices sold in the Xia market completely lose their competitiveness."

The conference room plunged into silence once again.

This was not a commercial competition.

This was a dimensional strike.

The only thing they could do now was to pray viciously in their hearts like gamblers that the quality of Xia's phones would be terrible, or that the so-called Fifth-generation Communication would fail to live up to its name, with frequent network disconnections.

...

The global earthquake triggered by this price announcement continued for several days.

On the Xia internet, the popularity of discussions about 5G phones and tariffs remained firmly in the top three of the trending lists on major platforms, with no signs of fading.

Customer service hotlines for major mobile phone brands were jammed and paralyzed, and inquiries about trade-ins exploded exponentially.

Even before business hours at offline stores, long queues snaked for hundreds of meters at the entrances.

This frenzy had long surpassed simple consumer impulse.

This was over a billion people of Xia, after witnessing a nation's technology go from being strangled to overtaking and crushing the competition, using the most simple way to cast their vote of unconditional trust and support!

Finally, in the expectation of everyone.

The official accounts of the three major operators, at the exact same moment, updated with the same message on the hour.

The content was short, powerful, and consisted of only one line —

"Fifth-generation Communication network, officially enabled starting today!"