296: Chapter 295 Buying and Selling

As soon as the voice spoke, everyone turned their gaze toward Wang Jie, and the scene suddenly fell silent.

The other colleagues beside the man looked at Wang Jie quietly, their eyes filled with a hint of anticipation.

Even that Middle-aged man, who had been very enthusiastic, watched this scene with a smile and did not intervene.

He also very much wanted to know if an engineer from the company that invented the "Mark I System" would have a different understanding and solution to the same problem.

And just as everyone was waiting...

"Cannot."

Wang Jie lowered his head and said in a deep voice.

Everyone was stunned.

The man who asked the question revealed a confused expression and asked: "Why?"

Why?

Wang Jie complained internally: 'How can I answer a question I can't even understand? Should I just make it up?'

"No means no, there is no why."

Wang Jie tried his best to look professional; this was a small trick Han Xiaoxin had taught him—as long as you keep a cold face, you look more professional.

"I am not here to answer your questions, but to fulfill the contract."

Wang Jie turned to look at the Middle-aged man beside him and said: "General Manager Qu, I don't know where the raw data for the Mark I System that our company provided to you is?"

The stunned Middle-aged man immediately said: "It's here."

As he spoke, he instructed the man who had just asked the question: "Xiao Zhang, go get a laptop."

The man named Xiao Zhang stood in place, looking unconvinced, and wanted to say something more.

The Middle-aged man's face turned cold: "Hurry up, what are you dawdling for?"

Xiao Zhang had no choice but to nod. He glanced at the calm-faced Wang Jie, took a closed laptop from under the table, and handed it to General Manager Qu.

The Middle-aged man took the laptop, smiled, fished a USB drive out of his pocket, plugged it into the computer, and then turned the laptop screen toward Wang Jie.

"Master Wang, please check it."

The Middle-aged man's tone was very gentle.

Wang Jie nodded, took the computer, moved the mouse, and saw the conspicuous icon on the desktop.

The logo composed of three spheres was so eye-catching among the various desktop icons.

He clicked it gently, but there was no response.

The Middle-aged man beside him smiled and said: "Master Wang, this USB drive has been in this state since we brought it back. Our engineers wanted to admire it, but they found they couldn't open it at all, so it has been kept until now."

The Middle-aged man spoke very frankly, not hiding at all that he had sent people to try to decrypt the Mark I System.

In fact, decrypting the Mark I System was something every manufacturer did immediately after receiving the USB drive, but as far as he knew, apart from the Chen Group, it seemed no other manufacturer had successfully installed this system onto equipment that had already been produced.

Even for the Chen Group, apart from the machine used for testing, other mass-produced Machining Centers were still piled up in the warehouse, waiting to be adapted to the Mark I System.

After learning this news, the Middle-aged man felt much better.

Treating everyone equally is good; no one can say who is taking advantage of whom. Unified purchases, unified adaptation—this is the kind of business that makes people comfortable.

Thinking of the heaven-defying level of performance displayed by the Chen Group's prototype, the smile on the Middle-aged man's face became even more enthusiastic.

Wang Jie did not notice the Middle-aged man's internal thoughts. After checking the icon and confirming the initial state of the USB drive's data, he spoke directly: "Zero, take over this laptop and start installing the adaptation environment."

The zero egg issued this time, due to mission requirements, was uniformly set to Level 3 permissions, which could handle almost any complex scenario encountered during the mission.

As Wang Jie's voice fell, the Middle-aged man standing beside him saw that the breathing light strip on the zero egg originally hovering beside Wang Jie suddenly turned white, and a window popped up on the screen, displaying a progress bar.

The progress bar moved very quickly and disappeared from the screen in the blink of an eye; the Middle-aged man didn't even see clearly what was being installed.

However, the young man opposite him had a flash of realization in his eyes.

Wang Jie dragged the mouse again and clicked gently on the icon.

This time, the icon responded.

With Wang Jie's click, an input box popped up on the screen.

Wang Jie pointed to the screen and said to the Middle-aged man beside him: "General Manager Qu, the key."

"Oh, here."

The Middle-aged man suddenly realized, hurriedly took the computer, and entered the key.

Wang Jie glanced roughly at the dense, hidden characters; there were about twenty-six of them.

He looked at the Middle-aged man beside him with some surprise.

Being able to memorize a twenty-six-character key with uncertain numbers—this General Manager is indeed a ruthless person.

He clicked confirm casually.

The entire screen changed instantly; a logo consisting of one large and two small connected spheres appeared on the desktop, shimmering slightly.

The Middle-aged man's breathing became somewhat heavy.

He had been looking forward to this scene before his eyes for almost a month. Ever since he brought the USB drive back, he had been obsessively wanting to know the contents inside and wanting to see the Mark I System with his own eyes, which had already been almost mythologized.

For this, he even spared no expense in overtime pay, making the company's engineers work overtime to find a way to crack the USB drive.

But what he got in return was disappointment after disappointment.

He didn't know what encryption method Frontier Technology had used; this USB drive was like it was made of stone—stinky and hard. No matter what tricks you used, it wouldn't budge.

There was no other way; he could only take back the USB drive, stop trying to be clever, and quietly wait for Frontier Technology to speak.

And today, with the entry of the key, his wait finally yielded a result.

The Middle-aged man watched eagerly, and the engineers around him also widened their eyes.

And that man surnamed Zhang, who knows when he had squeezed to the side of the Middle-aged man, watched the changes on the screen without blinking.

This is the logo of Frontier Technology.

It is so simple, yet it gives people a sense of being deep in the starry sky.

Two seconds later, the logo of Frontier Technology disappeared, replaced by a very ordinary interface.

"Mark I System version 3.56 is ready. Do you want to start installation and debugging?"

Looking at the small text on the screen, the Middle-aged man was stunned, the man surnamed Zhang was stunned, and the other engineers were also stunned.

That's it?

The thing we had been obsessing over and looking forward to for nearly a month, and after opening it, this is it?

Everyone felt they had been deeply deceived.

This feeling was roughly as absurd as waiting happily for your father to come back from a business trip with delicious food and fun toys, only to have him bring back a few winter vacation homework books instead.

"Master Wang, this..."

The Middle-aged man turned back, looking at Wang Jie, somewhat hesitantly.

"General Manager Qu, the pre-installed version of the Mark I System has been unlocked for you. In the future, you only need to log in with the key. Also, I need to use your phone."

Wang Jie reached out his hand.

The Middle-aged man, somewhat stunned, handed over his phone.

Wang Jie took it and placed the phone directly in front of the zero egg.

"Zero, pre-install the security app."

"Okay."

The breathing light on Zero flashed: "Installation complete, firewall synchronized and installed."

Wang Jie handed the phone back to the Middle-aged man and said to the still-confused Middle-aged man: "General Manager Qu, this is the key generation system. To ensure the security of the key and ensure that the source code of the Mark I System is not leaked, the key will update itself every day at midnight. You will need to check it then."

"According to the contract, you have chosen the Intermediate Access version of the Mark I System. You can check the contract attachment for specific access content and numerical differences. We do not provide specialized guidance services for this item."

"According to the access agreement, you can now copy the initial version installation software of the Mark I System to other USB drives. The USB drive capacity must be at least 120GB. After copying, our company will automatically encrypt the USB drive and set up a firewall. The limit for copying USB drives is 5. If you want more, you need to negotiate additional paid content. All USB drives are executed automatically; you just need to plug them into the interface of the corresponding device."

Wang Jie explained calmly. In order to memorize this content, he had spent over two hours rote learning it.

"Additionally, you need to be aware that for the Intermediate Mark I System, our company does not provide any external interfaces. It only adapts to the data support and related content provided by our company. You can carefully review this part in the exclusive agreement section of the contract. If you cannot accept it, our company suggests that you can choose to downgrade to the Primary Access. Except for some high-end functions, other functions are basically unaffected."

The Middle-aged man immediately shook his head.

Downgrading is impossible.

Although the Primary Access Mark I System is free, its functions are crippled. Not only does it not support high-frame-rate interpolation, but it also lacks the tool position correction and automatic optimization that he values most. Such a thing is not even worth considering.

If you're going to do it, do it with the best.

If it weren't for that guy at the Chen Group signing a non-compete agreement, not allowing external authorization of Advanced Access within one year, otherwise, what he would have wanted would not be the Intermediate System, but the Advanced System.

Isn't it just a price difference of 50 million per year? He can afford it!

Waving his hand, the Middle-aged man pulled out the USB drive and handed it to the man surnamed Zhang beside him.

"Quick, install it on a trial machine and test whether the functions are perfect."

Watching the man surnamed Zhang run to a machine nearby and start operating, the Middle-aged man breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Wang Jie: "Master Wang, can we copy a few more of these USB drives? I'm afraid five USB drives aren't enough."

According to the contract signed with Frontier Technology, five USB drives are the upper limit, but the problem is that they have accumulated dozens of devices in the warehouse during this time that need the Mark I System installed, and production is currently ongoing. Five USB drives are simply not enough for them to use.

"Yes."

Wang Jie nodded: "According to the contract, each USB drive must use a key, so we need to charge a fee."

The Middle-aged man's face stiffened.

Why does it feel like this Frontier Technology is obsessed with money?

Everything costs money; nothing can be done without money.

"Is there any other way?"

The Middle-aged man was somewhat unwilling.

"Yes."

Wang Jie also nodded and said: "If you, General Manager Qu, do not want to use USB drives, you can directly purchase the latest package launched by our company: fully automatic pre-installed robotic arms. They can move freely, replace manual labor, work 24 hours a day without interruption, and maximize work efficiency."

"Of course, if you want to buy the robotic arms, you need to buy one zero egg. Each zero egg can control five robotic arms."

"This..."

The Middle-aged man hesitated: "Is there no way to pre-install it directly on the production line?"

"The Mark I System does not support pre-installation directly through the control panel; it can only be pre-installed later."

Wang Jie said indifferently: "This is to ensure that every machine can be well-tested; pre-installation via the control panel cannot achieve this effect."

The Middle-aged man was not a fool and understood instantly.

He touched his forehead, where his hairline was receding, with some headache, and asked: "Then... the robotic arms, how much?"

Wang Jie turned his head, looked at the Middle-aged man, and showed a smile.

"Two point five million each, fair prices for old and young, buy ten and get one zero egg for free."