153: Chapter 153: Three days to write the skeleton, five days to fill in the flesh and blood, Silicon Valley is waiting to be slaughtered!

3:40 PM.

Pangu Laboratory, B2 level, console area.

Su Che tossed the pair of black-rimmed glasses into an anti-static bag and sealed it.

Liu Huaqiang stood up from the main console and walked over holding a paper cup.

The water in the cup had long since gone cold, but he didn't drink it; he just gripped it in his hand like a prop.

"Chief Engineer Su, about what you said earlier regarding the global synchronized launch…"

Liu Huaqiang set the paper cup on the corner of the table and adjusted his black-rimmed glasses.

"The data mapping layer of the glasses calls the real-time rendering interface of the Mirror World's underlying engine. The engine isn't running yet, so if you put the glasses on, you'll only see the modeling overlay of a single space. Once you leave the anchor range of the Pangu Laboratory, it's just a pair of blind glasses."

Su Che uncrossed his legs.

"What's the progress on the engine?"

"The code for the main architecture is almost finished."

Liu Huaqiang walked to the auxiliary screen and pulled up a Gantt chart, with time on the horizontal axis and modules on the vertical axis.

"But the underlying skeleton—the physics engine, gravity constants, and fluid dynamics formulas—still needs two days to finalize. Counting today, the earliest it will be ready is tomorrow night."

Su Che scanned the latter half of the Gantt chart.

A large, gray, unfilled area was marked there.

"But getting the engine running is just an empty shell."

Liu Huaqiang tapped his index finger on the gray area.

"The terrain mapping around the Pangu Base is done, but what about the rest of the world? There are 193 countries, 12,000 cities, over 100,000 towns, and millions of pieces of critical infrastructure globally."

"These things aren't generated out of thin air. We have to let the Yiren AI Core scan, model, and calibrate the physical parameters for each one, then input and map them into the engine."

He held up five fingers.

"At least five days."

Su Che didn't say anything.

Liu Huaqiang quickly added a couple more sentences.

"And that's at the speed of the Yiren AI's global satellite data scraping combined with distributed parallel computing. If we did this manually, it wouldn't be finished in fifty years."

"Three days for the main engine plus five days for data entry—eight days total. Before that, if the glasses are sent out, users will only see a void when they put them on."

Su Che reached for the water cup on the table; it was empty.

Lin Waner happened to walk in from the side door, carrying a thermos.

She walked over, unscrewed the lid, and poured warm water into Su Che's cup.

Su Che took it and sipped.

"Eight days is enough."

Su Che set the cup back down.

"The day Silicon Valley holds their launch event, we launch simultaneously. But the first batch of glasses won't activate the full-domain functions of the Mirror World; we'll only open the AR overlay demonstration mode for single spaces."

He created a new document on his terminal and typed a few lines.

"Let the users get a taste of the benefits first. Once the full-domain Mirror World goes live, we'll push a firmware update directly, and all glasses will simultaneously unlock the complete Mirror World."

Liu Huaqiang was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

This was a ruthless move.

First, use a price of 9.9 yuan with free shipping to gobble up all of Silicon Valley's market share, getting users to wear Dragon Country's glasses, then with one-click upgrade, drag all global netizens into the Mirror World.

By then, no matter how good Silicon Valley's "Oasis" is, users will already have a cheaper and more powerful alternative in their hands.

The ironclad rule of the consumer electronics industry: whoever rolls out the hardware first controls the gateway to the ecosystem.

"I'm going to go rewrite the code."

Liu Huaqiang turned and walked toward the main console.

He stopped after two steps.

"Chief Engineer Su, there's something I need to tell you in advance. During the five days of global data scanning, the computing power allocation of the Yiren AI Core needs to be readjusted."

"The 20% monitoring the edge of the Solar System cannot be touched, and the computing tasks related to the mothership cannot stop either. I only have about 45% of the computing power at my disposal, so the scanning speed will be 10% slower than the theoretical value."

"Then we launch on the ninth day."

Su Che replied.

"No."

Liu Huaqiang pushed up his glasses.

"I'll cut out time for eating and sleeping, optimize the code once, and by compressing the modeling precision of non-core areas while prioritizing cities and critical infrastructure, I can increase scanning efficiency by 15%. Eight days, that's the deadline, not a single hour of delay."

After saying this, he strode back to his workstation and dove back into the pile of code.

Su Che turned his head to look at Qin Lan.

"What's the situation with mass production?"

Qin Lan opened her tactical terminal and flipped to the receipt she had just received.

"Several electronics manufacturing enterprises under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission have confirmed the order. Factories in Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Suzhou are starting lines simultaneously, and all injection molding machines and SMT machines will be in place this afternoon. The materials for the first batch of 50 million units…"

She swiped the screen.

"The inventory of micro-OLED screen components is sufficient, and the optical lenses and Bluetooth modules are being procured through civilian channels, all arriving at the factories before tonight. Based on a three-shift production capacity, by 8:00 AM the day after tomorrow, the first batch of 50 million units will all be off the line and packed."

Su Che sent an encrypted text message to Jiang Yingxue on his terminal.

[Are the global e-commerce channels ready?]

A reply came ten seconds later.

[Domestic in Dragon Country, we'll use Pinduoduo and Taobao. Overseas channels will use Amazon and AliExpress; accounts and stores were registered last night. Pricing is 9.9 RMB, overseas pricing is 1.29 USD. Combined with the paid press release for the launch event, it will go on sale globally the day after tomorrow.]

1.29 USD.

Silicon Valley's "Oasis-X" sells for 300 USD.

This price difference is enough to give Wall Street investors an immediate myocardial infarction.

Su Che locked his terminal and stood up.

"I'm heading to Kaitian Base for the rest of the day."

Su Che picked up the T-shirt draped over the back of his chair and put it on.

"Zhulong still has the production program for guide vanes running; I need to free up capacity to make a batch of high-precision masters for the AR glasses' optical lens molds. With the atomic-level precision of the masters made by Zhulong, civilian factories can directly use them for molding and mass production, and the yield rate can be pushed to over 99%."

Lin Waner handed him a paper bag from the side.

Inside were two meat buns and a carton of milk.

"Eat on the way."

Su Che took the paper bag, held it in his hand, and walked out.

Qin Lan followed closely, already calling for the motorcade through her communication headset.

When they reached the freight elevator on the B2 level, Su Che paused.

He looked back at the depths of the hall.

Liu Huaqiang was hunched over the main console, and fourteen researchers were scattered at their respective workstations, their screens filled with dense code.

These people had been working non-stop since the self-repair test ended.

"Qin Lan, order thirty dinners for them, plus a case of Red Bull."

Su Che stepped into the elevator.

"Don't order pork ribs, let's change it up—fried chicken."

The elevator doors closed, and the freight elevator descended heavily.

4:20 PM.

The bulletproof Hongqi SUV drove out of the ground exit of Pangu Laboratory and turned onto the expressway leading to the northwest suburbs of the capital.

Su Che sat in the back seat, tore open the paper bag for the meat buns, and took a big bite.

His phone screen lit up.

Jiang Yingxue sent a new message.

[The public opinion warm-up in Silicon Valley has begun. The "Oasis" consortium bought 30 million USD worth of advertising space on social media platforms, with the slogan "Welcome to the future". Outdoor big screens in New York, San Francisco, London, and Tokyo have already started playing the trailer on a loop.]

Su Che swallowed the bun and took a sip of milk.

He replied with two characters.

[Let them.]

30 million USD in advertising fees.

Once Dragon Country's 9.9-yuan glasses go on sale the day after tomorrow, those 30 million will become the world's most expensive joke.

The car drove onto the mountain road in the northwest suburbs.

The shadows of trees outside the window flashed backward rapidly.

Su Che threw the milk carton into the car's trash can and leaned back in his seat.

Once the engine is running, the data is filled, and the Mirror World is fully online.

By then, billions of netizens around the world will pour in one after another, and every interaction, stay, and exploration of each person will be converted into a steady stream of skill points.

A long-term flow.

He closed his eyes and glanced at the number on the system panel in his mind.

[Current Host has accumulated skill points: 97,000 points.]

This included the task completion reward for the AR glasses.

The redemption threshold for the Near-Earth Orbit Space Infrastructure System is 120,000.

He was short by 23,000, which would be enough very soon.

The car turned into the hidden entrance of Kaitian Base.

Su Che put away his phone and pushed open the car door.

In Workshop No. 3, Zhulong was suspended under the cold white light, the faint shimmer of the quantum force field flowing slowly over its surface.

Su Che walked to the control terminal and entered the new processing parameters on the keyboard.

Optical lens master.

Precision requirement: surface roughness less than 0.1 nanometers.

Traditional craftsmanship would require at least three months to make an optical mold of this precision.

Zhulong could do it in fifteen minutes per piece.

Su Che pressed the start button.

The force field expanded, and the raw materials floated into the air.

Atomic-level stripping and recombination began once again.

He stood before the console, his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie.

Outside the window, the setting sun was dyeing the distant ridgeline a dark red.

Tomorrow, Silicon Valley's launch event will become a globally broadcast funeral.

They just don't know it yet.