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Chapter 72 - Chapter 72 Absolute Monopoly

Chapter 72 Absolute Monopoly

"President Wang, I heard you joined Yuanchip, congratulations!" The speaker was a man in his early thirties, with a strong Sichuan accent, shaking Wang Rui's hand enthusiastically.

Wang Rui smiled modestly: "Nothing to congratulate, just working as a laborer under our teacher. See, I've even been exiled to this gambling city." As he spoke, Wang Rui leaned in and whispered to Su Yuanshan: "This guy's name is Tu Dagang, Deputy Production Director at Changhong."

Seeing Tu Dagang go off to greet other vendors, Wang Rui snorted: "Last year at Red Light Factory, a batch of cathode-ray tubes had compatibility issues with their high-voltage packs. They kept blaming our tubes. I had to run back and forth five times. Almost killed me. Turned out it was their damn high-voltage packs that were defective."

"And then?" Su Yuanshan asked.

Wang Rui's face twisted with anger: "Everyone's supposed to be partners, right? No one asked for an apology or anything, but at least say a few comforting words. Instead, he gave me the coldest deadpan face. Damn him and his ancestors."

Su Yuanshan couldn't help but laugh.

At that moment, a few more manufacturers came over to greet Wang Rui. His attitude softened significantly — after all, as the technical team leader at Red Light Factory, he had extensive connections throughout the domestic TV industry.

Su Yuanshan stayed out of the spotlight, chatting casually with Yang Yiwen. Of all the people from China here today, he was only curious about one person — Jiang Wanmeng.

But even as the event began, there was no sign of him, and no one mentioned his name.

Following the crowd, Yuanchip's team entered the exhibition hall. Quickly, the masses split off toward their respective booths. Aside from Yuanchip, almost all the other Chinese companies had come mainly to "learn" — to see the world and study how exhibitions were organized and booths were set up.

Arriving at the Yuanchip booth, Su Yuanshan decided not to steal the spotlight from Toshiba in the morning. Today, Toshiba was scheduled to announce several new color TV models. Besides that, Epson would showcase their LCD projector — though it was still far from being a commercial product.

Even though Yuanchip had no plans to fight for attention this morning, plenty of attendees were still drawn to their prime booth position.

Compared to their flashy neighbors, Yuanchip's setup was extremely understated. At the back of their spacious booth stood a row of televisions — although the brand names were covered, any expert could tell at a glance that these were Sony's 24-inch color TVs released the previous year.

None of the TVs were turned on. They stood there with blank screens, lined up like a row of cool and elegant socialites.

In response to the curious gazes of the attendees, Yuanchip's team silently moved the tables forward, cordoning off about a five-meter space between the televisions and the crowd. This made Yuanchip's booth look even more like a television store.

...

"The booth next door is way too noisy!" Xi Xiaoding muttered, glancing at Toshiba's stage and then back at Su Yuanshan — clearly asking whether they should start.

Even though Yuanchip had the second-best spot, their neighbors were Toshiba on the left, Sony directly opposite, and Hitachi on the right. These giants were all aggressively promoting large-screen, right-angle color TVs, along with a whole arsenal of video and audio products. The noise level was overwhelming.

Yuanchip also had microphones and speakers, but apart from a quick test during setup, they had remained silent. Disappointed by the quiet booth, even those who had originally pinned high hopes on Yuanchip began wandering off to other exhibits.

Su Yuanshan watched as the crowd naturally drifted closer and nodded: "We can start now. Where's Senior Brother?"

"Right here!" Wang Rui, who had been chatting with acquaintances, had kept an eye on Su Yuanshan all along. Seeing the signal, he immediately pulled out a stack of sealed boxes from under the table.

Yuanchip and Xinghai employees quickly stopped chatting, unpacked the boxes, and started setting up.

As the VCD players were unpacked, the surrounding exhibitors and attendees began paying close attention, gathering around the Yuanchip booth.

Su Yuanshan had been crafty — as the saying goes, "at three meters you can't see the pixels, at five meters it's full HD." By setting up a barrier five meters away, the VCDs would appear even sharper to the human eye.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Yuanchip staff pulled out custom extension cords and connected the TVs to the VCD players.

When the power was switched on, all five televisions simultaneously displayed the Yuanchip VCD logo.

Then, five VCD tray doors opened simultaneously, and five discs were loaded.

"What is this product?" asked Tu Dagang, who had been lurking resentfully around Yuanchip's booth.

"VCD," Wang Rui answered nonchalantly, though his hand trembled slightly on the remote control.

"What's that?"

"It's a device that plays MPEG1-format video discs — like this." Seeing Su Yuanshan's approving nod, Wang Rui smiled faintly and pressed the button on the remote.

The five VCDs accepted the discs simultaneously, and five televisions lit up, displaying Yuanchip's promotional footage.

Su Yuanshan picked up a microphone and directed it toward the TVs. Instantly, Chen Jing's voice filled the entire hall.

"VCD is a brand-new home appliance that plays MPEG1-format video content from optical discs. It offers advantages such as low cost, excellent clarity, large disc capacity, stable playback, and easy portability..."

As Chen Jing's English introduction echoed across the hall, everyone turned to the source of the sound. Seeing five TVs all playing the same clear, synchronized video, these broadcast and TV industry veterans immediately realized — Yuanchip had launched a new video playback device.

At first, the crowd trickled in slowly. Then, it became a flood, surging toward Yuanchip's booth.

Everyone's first reaction was to stare at the stunningly clear TV screens. Then, their gazes inevitably shifted to the sleek VCD players.

Thanks to their highly integrated design, the VCD players were much smaller than previous-generation video recorders — barely a quarter of their size — about the size of an Oxford dictionary. The ivory-white casing was polished smooth, the digital display was crisp, and even the control buttons were elegant ovals.

The whole machine was compact, delicate, and radiated a futuristic high-tech aura.

Seeing the stunned silence on everyone's faces, Su Yuanshan turned off the microphone and leaned casually against the wall, smiling.

According to legend, when Wanyan Electronics first developed their clunky VCD prototype and unveiled it, it caused a similar sensation — the Japanese attendees were so shocked that they couldn't believe China had built such a device. They bought up the entire first batch of a thousand units just to dissect them.

This time, Su Yuanshan had prepared fifty units.

But he wasn't selling them. He was giving them away.

Long before the VCD decoding chip had even been successfully manufactured, Yuanchip had applied for global patents through Xinghai. Afterward, they filed for additional patents covering appearance, heat dissipation solutions, anti-interference technology, shock resistance — and of course, complete system patents.

A system patent covered everything from decoding the MPEG1 optical disc to outputting video and audio signals to display devices. To build an impenetrable patent wall, Su Yuanshan had ruthlessly squeezed every ounce of creativity from Li Mingliu, then Xiao Shouping, and finally himself, exhausting every possible combination of circuit and component layouts.

In short, he intended to absolutely monopolize the VCD market.

This was a brand-new category of home appliance, one that even the fiercest antitrust regulations couldn't easily touch.

Amid the stunned crowd, a Sony employee couldn't resist — he pressed the "pause" button on one of the VCD players.

Instantly, the central screen froze.

"Oh my God!" someone finally gasped.

Still smiling, Su Yuanshan caught sight of two middle-aged men with East Asian faces practically sprinting toward the booth.

(End of Chapter 72)

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