151: Chapter 151 Even if it's fake, I still want to see him one more time.

The night was already deep.

The specially modified bulletproof Hongqi sedan finally stopped in front of a heavily guarded villa on the outskirts of Jingzhou.

From the press conference to the secret meeting at the state-run hotel, the sheer volume of information was enough to fry an ordinary person's brain, and time had been compressed to the absolute limit.

Su Qingxue didn't even have the strength to stand steady in her high heels; she stumbled as she got out of the car, and Lu Li instinctively caught her by the waist.

"Legs turned to jelly?"

"..." Su Qingxue glared at him.

This villa was recommended by Elder Wu a few months ago when Lu Li wanted to set up a base in Jingzhou.

It was occupied entirely by retired senior officials, guarded by armed police, with maximum security levels.

The key was the outrageous price—only ten million.

Jingzhou was the capital, after all; a villa here for ten million was practically at cost.

Elder Wu's exact words at the time were, "Don't be shy, Little Lu," and Lu Li really hadn't been.

Once inside, Su Qingxue kicked off her shoes, her voice slightly hoarse: "I'm going to wash up first."

She was already walking barefoot toward the bathroom.

Lu Li threw himself onto the sofa, not wanting to move a single finger.

But his brain wouldn't stop.

The framework for the smart city, the renovation path for Beining City, the blueprint details of the Mark 45 Battle Armor, Elder Zhang's burning eyes—everything was churning together, like a server refusing to shut down, running frantically in the background.

What he really wanted to do most was find a place with no one around, put on the Mark Battle Armor from the small briefcase he was carrying, and fly a few laps.

But clearly, that wasn't an option tonight.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom.

Lu Li closed his eyes and slowly pushed his thoughts down.

After a while, Su Qingxue walked out wrapped in a bathrobe, water still dripping from the tips of her hair, with a few undried droplets clinging to her collarbone.

She didn't speak.

She walked over to Lu Li, bent down, and planted a kiss on his forehead.

Then, she just collapsed onto him, burying her face in his chest.

Like a cat that had finally found its nest, even her breathing became light and slow.

Lu Li reached out and patted her back.

"Sleep."

Su Qingxue hummed in response, lacking the strength to even move to the bed.

So, Lu Li carried her to the bed in the master bedroom.

The two of them fell into a deep sleep, wrapped in each other's arms.

They were the creators of this new era.

Yet they were also the first two people in the world to close their eyes that night.

Because at the moment they fell asleep—

A frenzy, one worthy of being recorded in business history, was erupting simultaneously in every corner of the world where there was light.

...

The second the Guanghui Technology press conference ended was the starting gun.

China.

Mingzhu City, Guanghui Technology flagship store.

12:03 AM.

There was already an endless queue at the store entrance, winding around two corners from the main commercial street and extending all the way to an intersection three hundred meters away.

At the very front of the line was a programmer in a plaid shirt who had skipped work to come at five in the afternoon, bringing a folding chair, a power bank, and three bottles of Red Bull.

"Brother, how long have you been in line?" someone behind him asked.

"Seven hours."

"Is it worth it?"

The programmer didn't even turn his head: "Have you ever seen a game where you can enjoy yourself freely in another world? Sixty thousand, it's so cheap that I feel bad for Lu Li."

Someone in the line laughed.

But no one left.

The thirty-seventh person in line behind him was a woman in her thirties, holding the hand of an eight-year-old child.

The child was crying from exhaustion, tugging at his mother's sleeve and fussing to go home.

The woman pulled the child closer to her, coaxing him softly, but she didn't budge an inch.

A passerby couldn't stand it and advised her: "Ma'am, why wait in a night queue with a child? Can't you just come back tomorrow?"

The woman shook her head.

"My husband passed away last year."

Her voice was flat, as if she were talking about something she had said many times before.

"You all saw Da Jun's mother at the press conference, right?"

"I just want my daughter... to see her father one last time."

"Even if it's fake, that's fine."

The surroundings went silent instantly.

No one tried to persuade her to go back anymore.

A young man in a baseball cap behind her silently took off his jacket and handed it over.

"Sis, cover the child with this, it's a bit chilly tonight."

Nearby, vendors even started stir-frying rice for midnight snacks, the aroma making people salivate.

Others brought out dozens of plastic stools from their homes to rent to the people in line, charging only one yuan per hour, and made a fortune overnight.

From Mingzhu to Jingzhou, from Pengcheng to Rongcheng.

The entrances of over three hundred Guanghui Technology flagship stores were all submerged by such long queues.

Financial elites loosened their ties and stood in line scrolling through their phones, weather-beaten food delivery riders locked their electric scooters by the roadside to join the queue, and an elderly man on crutches, supported by his grandson, walked a few steps and rested, but refused to leave no matter what.

They weren't buying an electronic product.

They were scrambling for a ticket.

A ticket to "another life."

In Seoul, because there was only one Guanghui Technology flagship store, and the president hadn't listened to the United States' big brother and forced Guanghui to close.

Instead, there were even more people in line at this store, with over ten thousand people queuing.

They didn't even know that each store was only allocated 3,200 Virtual Helmets.

And across the ocean—

In Europe and America, due to sanctions, they couldn't even buy them.

This actually drove the people there even crazier, but that's a story for another time.

...

The offline war was already exaggerated enough.

The online battlefield could not even be described by the word "brutal."

The servers of the Guanghui Technology official website suffered an impact of over one billion visits the moment the press conference ended.

The technical department had prepared a contingency plan in advance and urgently mobilized the largest server cluster in all of Asia to barely hold on, avoiding a crash in the first instance.

Midnight.

Online channels, one million [Magic-1 Generation] Virtual Helmets, were listed on time.

The black "Buy Now" button on the page lit up for a moment.

Then it turned gray.

The whole process—

1.56 seconds.

One million units.

1.56 seconds.

Cleared out.

You have to know, in order to prevent scalpers, Guanghui Technology set two hard thresholds for the purchase process: entering an ID number and facial recognition.

In other words, in these 1.56 seconds, one million people completed the entire process of clicking, pasting their ID number, opening their mouths for facial recognition, and confirming payment.