"President Lu isn't human…"
The employee blurted it out without thinking—and immediately regretted it.
Haifeng's face darkened for a second.
"President Lu is a god!"
The correction came fast. And awkward.
"That's right! President Lu and Director Tang are gods!"
"President Lu is a genius! A visionary! An absolute legend!"
"...A neuro—uh, no, that was a slip! I meant genius! Absolute genius!"
The whole lab burst into laughter.
But behind the jokes, something more profound was bubbling up inside everyone:
Pride.
They were now employees of China Star Auto—the team that produced China's first fully self-developed engine.
And more than that?
"Our boss also owns China Star Tech," one engineer grinned.
"You know the Hongmeng phones? Same guy."
"We're working under the person changing the smartphone and automobile industries simultaneously."
With the engine milestone reached, Haifeng shifted gears.
He began leading the team through the design of the Audi A4 model under the newly revived Audi brand.
This meant:
Exterior design
Interior layout
Electronic control systems
Headlight assembly
He divided tasks carefully:
Sun Er handled the headlight design
Li Gang developed the infotainment system
The two collaborated on the entire electronic control system
Meanwhile, Haifeng worked closely with the design team to verify vehicle specs and run testing simulations.
As the year came to a close, he decided to check on another key project:
📡 The Cloud Computing Platform
He drove directly to the China Star Data Center.
The last time he visited, the building was only half complete. Now? Fully operational.
Inside the R&D lab, he found Huang Zhonghua, the cloud computing specialist he'd recruited.
"President Lu!" Huang greeted him with a proud grin.
"Let me show you what we've accomplished."
💻 China Star Cloud – Area One Deployment:
"We've completed four main functions in Zone A," Huang explained:
Cloud Servers
Cloud Storage
Cloud Databases
Core Security Infrastructure
And coming soon?
Big Data Analytics
Artificial Intelligence
Private Cloud Environments
Huang broke it down:
"Our cloud servers offer the fastest elastic compute response on the market."
"Our cloud storage auto-backs up enterprise data—zero data loss."
"Security? We're hardened against hundreds of millions of DDoS attacks. Full user data protection."
"And the best part is that our cloud database runs 1,000 times faster than anything else available."
Haifeng was speechless.
This tech wouldn't appear publicly until 2028 in his past life.
Now it's here—in 2013.
He leaned in.
"Old Huang… can you slow this down a bit?"
"Slow… it down?" Huang blinked. "Why would we?"
The whole room looked confused.
Wasn't faster always better?
Haifeng smiled.
"Half a step ahead makes you a genius.
A whole step ahead makes you a threat."
He continued:
"Our tech is already 10 to 20 times ahead of everyone else. That's more than enough."
"We're not here to destroy the industry. To lead it."
"We'll release upgrades slowly.
First 10x, then 20x, then 50x—to give users time to adjust and competitors time to chase."
"Think of it like squeezing toothpaste."
"No one's better at that than Intel. We're just learning from the best."
Everyone in the room nodded slowly. The logic was brilliant.
Haifeng didn't just have cutting-edge tech.
He had a vision.
"Understood, President Lu," Huang said quickly.
"I'll research ways to 'negatively optimize' the system—artificially limit performance."
Haifeng clapped his hands.
"Good. Keep it subtle. And one more thing…"
🐉 Name the Cloud Platform
"President Lu," Huang asked,
"What should we call our cloud?"
Everyone looked up, curious.
Haifeng thought for a moment, then chuckled.
"Didn't we register a bunch of mythological beast names from the Classic of Mountains and Seas?"
"Pick one of those."
"Also, can we create a subsystem for the central cloud?
Something we can license or open up to developers?"
Huang replied:
"Theoretically, yes. Kind of like an open-source Android-style platform."
"Then do it," Haifeng said.
"It'll be our Cloud OS—a development framework we can give others.
Make it modular. Minimal. Just the bones.
They can build apps and enterprise systems on top."
Huang nodded, eyes gleaming.
"We'll be ready for testing soon. We need a high-traffic platform to deploy it on."
Haifeng grinned.
"Don't worry. I've got one in mind."
"You all know 12307, right?"
Everyone nodded—it was China's national railway ticketing site, infamous for crashing during holidays.
"Then we talk to the railway bureau next."