Chapter 49: A Godlike Device

“Old Pan! Had a fun vacation, huh?” Pan Ce’s roommate sat in front of the computer and said without looking back.

“It was awesome!” Pan Ce comfortably said.

“Hurry up and join me. I’m being thrashed by the opponents right now. Damn it, I can’t take it anymore! What a bunch of useless teammates!” The roommate said with a frustrated look, but didn’t get any response.

“Hey, did you hear what I say… Goddammit!” The roommate turned around and instantly widened his eyes. He stood up, stepped away from the computer desk, and stared in amazement at the device in Pan Ce’s hand. “What kind of phone is that? Huh! Why is it empty in the middle?!”

Pan Ce saw his roommate’s astonished expression and said, “This is the latest godlike device; wearable smart device, S-1!” The former said, skilfully putting the device onto his wrist. His roommate stared blankly and screamed, “This… doesn’t make sense at all!”

“There’s still plenty of them that don’t make sense! Nicole…” Pan Ce changed the name of his voice assistant to Nicole and immediately gave her a series of instructions.

“What!” The roommate was bewildered.

“How about that? How many points do you give this beauty?” Pan Ce leisurely said.

“103 points! Three additional points come from a little more tolerance, a little more understanding, and a little more fatherly love!”

“You sure are full of crap!”

“Show me! Hurry up!” The roommate impatiently asked, looking at the device non-stop like a curious child after taking it over.

“Dammit, don’t drop it. It cost me 7755 RMB. You b*stard, better be careful.”

“Why is there no response? Were you scammed?!”

“It’s perfectly normal. I set the permissions so that only my fingerprints can unlock the device… Nicole, unlock the fingerprint lock for 10 minutes.”

“Done. The fingerprint permissions will be back in 10 minutes! The voice assistant’s voice rang out.

“Wow! That’s amazing!” The roommate cried out. After a few moments, he returned the device to Pan Ce and eagerly asked: “Tell me, where did you get it? Where?! This is stunning!”

“Say, can’t you follow the news a little? The world is changing and you damn fool still don’t know what’s going on. Take a look at the news! XlouS… Forget it, you won’t know even if I told you. Anyway this is a new product launched by a domestic high-tech company…” Pan Ce mocked.

“Phew! I was set to buy the latest iPhone; I would have cried if you showed this to me any later.” The roommate looked relieved and suddenly asked. “Wait, did you say a Chinese company? For crying out loud, such awesome black technology is made in China?”

“XlouS! Check it out on Baidu yourself and you’ll see how awesome this company is!”

“Ta-da! Check this out!” Pan Ce suddenly took out an exquisite box from his bag and after opening it, there was a brand new S-1 inside!

“Whoa!” The roommate was stunned for a second, before pouncing on Pan Ce and shouting with great joy, “I love you… Pan Pan!”

The startled Pan Ce suddenly took a few steps back and exclaimed, “Don’t come near me, you gay!”

After a bit of playing around, Pan Ce’s roommate took out the piece of fine strip from the platinum box.

“I knew you were going to buy a new phone, so I brought one back for you. Whoever buys an iPhone is a dumbass, and I don’t want to live with one!”

“You should be glad you’re smart, because if you hadn’t brought back an extra, yours would be mine!”

“…”

“7755 RMB, right! No problem, I’ll transfer the amount to your account. Argh, it hurts my wallet, but it’s still worth it!”

“It’s definitely worth the money! S-1 is ridiculously powerful. Let me teach you; the strip in your hand is currently a masterless device. First, let her recognize you as her master! When it’s done, apart from you, it will just be a strip worth 7755 RMB in anyone else’s hands, like how you tried to activate my S-1 just now! It’s more awesome than an iPhone, right?”

“Oh, yes! This is great!”

Everyone who bought the S-1 was, without any surprise, impressed by its features. Even though the S-1 was priced at 1199 USD, people all over the world scrambled to get one rather than an iPhone, which had now been relegated to a past love.

Basically, 1099 USD for a flagship phone from Apple, whoever bought it was brain-dead!

The only physical store was in XlouS’s headquarters. It was open 24/7 just because it was the one and only physical store. Hainan Province was also a developed tourism region with a huge flow of crowds and foreigners. Basically, one was allowed to purchase multiple units at once because many of them had friends to delegate the purchase. Not only that, but some small retailers also arrived to purchase the devices.

The company’s official website also ran hot on orders, in which Real-time Online Translator provided great help by allowing buyers around the world to purchase the device without understanding Chinese.

XlouS also did a great job with the orders placed by online buyers. They ensured that every S-1 transported through the logistic system came with a security box. Individual buyers would receive a unique activation code upon successful placement of their order and would be able to open the box after entering the unique activation code.

However, the security box also raised the price of S-1 to 1249 USD. Despite that, buyers were willing to pay for it because none of them was willing to spend more than 1200 USD just to receive a useless piece of rectangular strip. After all, S-1’s security protection was so strong that even XlouS would take a year to crack.

Apple took the greatest hit. 70% of the consumers who bought S-1 were originally Apple users. This meant that every 10 units of S-1 sold represented 7 users snatched away from Apple, which was undoubtedly a disaster for Apple’s iPhone, which was its core business.

But that was the truth; no sane person would choose to buy an iPhone now. And there was also a saying on the internet that whoever bought an iPhone was braindead!