I Just Said I Wouldn't Build Cars. Why Are You Making Friends at the Launch Event?

In 2010, the iPhone 4 reigns supreme, and imported gray-market models sell for sky-high prices. Ordinary people have to choose between foreign brands beyond their reach and knockoff feature phones riddled with money-draining malware and batteries whose capacities are wildly exaggerated. Lu Ming, former chief architect of a cutting-edge technology group, is reborn. With his father critically ill and a tiny factory on the verge of bankruptcy, he brings with him the industrial foundations of the future and a map of the era's unmet needs. He decisively smashes the knockoff molds and tolls the first death knell for the old era! From aerospace aluminum just 9.3 millimeters thick, machined to micron-level tolerances, to domestically made capacitive touchscreens that break the Japanese and Korean duopoly; from a lightweight microkernel that transforms the laggy user experience to the “1,999, let's be friends” launch that electrifies an auditorium packed with thousands; from Kunlun, an independent imaging chip, to a fully integrated ecosystem spanning people, cars, homes, and living spaces... Someone asks him, “President Lu, everyone says Aurora is a cyber wishing well. So why do you publicly debunk those rumors before every new project launch?” Lu Ming smiles and closes the proposal, filled with the era's pain points. “Because some tough battles are best fought after you've given your opponents a little time to catch their breath.” This is a story about industry, dignity, righting past regrets, and leading domestic manufacturing to the pinnacle of the world.