For the better part of that day, Li Yaqi had been ill at ease. Several times, going about her work, she'd made mistakes.
"Chairman, might you be overtired these days?" her junior secretary asked with concern.
Li Yaqi rubbed her temples. Wasn't it all because Zhao Chen had left her hanging, neither up nor down? With that matter unresolved, she had no heart just now for anything else.
"Perhaps I really am a bit tired. Cancel all my upcoming appointments — I may need a day's rest. Unless it's something especially important, don't let anyone in to disturb me." Li Yaqi leaned back in her office chair.
"Yes." The junior secretary nodded, slipped quietly out of the office, and shut the door.
Li Yaqi fixed her eyes on her mailbox on the virtual screen before her.
Beep, beep.
A message suddenly popped in, and Li Yaqi's spirits leapt in an instant — only to open it and find it was something sent by a business partner. Impatient, Li Yaqi closed the message, then temporarily blocked every account but Zhao Chen's private one. Right now, nothing could be more important than this matter.
After several more minutes' wait, Li Yaqi at last received the message from that man. The content was a ship's technical blueprint. By the name:
T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.
So it truly was a medium destroyer to set against the T2 Hyena. But whether it could really surpass the T2 Hyena, she didn't know — the other, after all, was a hit ship that had sold well for 10 years.
Li Yaqi opened the blueprint and began to look over the detailed data. And one look was enough — her eyes went wide, her breathing gradually quickening.
A few hours later, Li Yaqi couldn't wait to send that man a request to meet again. He agreed. The two appeared in a holographic meeting scene set in a garden.
"This blueprint of yours — can it really achieve the figures on it!" Li Yaqi gazed at Zhao Chen with burning eyes.
Zhao Chen nodded. "Absolutely no question."
Li Yaqi gulped, and asked in a low voice, "This T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer of yours — was it truly developed to go straight at the T2 Hyena?"
"You could put it that way." The ship blueprints the System gave came from no one anyone knew of anyway, so Zhao Chen owned it openly and without fuss.
Li Yaqi raised a hand and laid out two brief reports on the ships, setting the T2 Hyena and the T2 Tibetan Mastiff side by side.
The class went without saying — both were the same class, both medium warships.
| T2 Hyena | T2 Tibetan Mastiff | |
|---|---|---|
| Hull armor | 150–180 units | 170–200 units |
| Cruising speed | 43 star-knots | 50 star-knots |
| Weapons | one medium pulse-laser main gun; four medium rapid-fire electronic secondary guns; 16 medium close-in guns | one twin-mount medium pulse-laser main gun; six medium rapid-fire electronic secondary guns; 30 twin-mount medium close-in guns |
On hull armor, the T2 Tibetan Mastiff came out ahead. On cruising speed, nearly 15% faster. And in weapons, one could say the two used exactly the same types — yet the T2 Tibetan Mastiff's combat power far outstripped the T2 Hyena's! Even if Zhao Chen swore this T2 Tibetan Mastiff hadn't been developed to target the T2 Hyena, no one would believe him. And the T2 Tibetan Mastiff surpassed the T2 Hyena in every single category, no less!
That alone would have been one thing. But as far as Li Yaqi knew, the T2 Hyena cost 200,000 star coins to build and generally sold at around 4 million. And this T2 Tibetan Mastiff Zhao Chen had given her cost a mere 200,000 to build as well!
Li Yaqi could fully imagine the result once this T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer was rolled out. Superior to the T2 Hyena in every measure of performance, and identical in build cost. Most important of all: the T2 Tibetan Mastiff was brand new, and its pricing was entirely Li Yaqi's to decide. She could set the sale price at 3 million to three and a half million star coins per ship.
By then, how was the T2 Hyena to fight the T2 Tibetan Mastiff? A ship inferior in performance, and no cheaper in price, either? This was crushing domination, pure and simple — and in the very domain where they were strongest.
Perhaps someone would say the Hurricane Conglomerate could simply cut its prices too! But was cutting a ship's price something the Hurricane Conglomerate could do on a whim? Find some pretext and shave 20 or 30,000 off, and fine. But if the T2 Hyena were slashed by more than 20% all at once, Li Yaqi wouldn't even need to deal with the Hurricane Conglomerate herself — the customers who'd only just ordered T2 Hyenas would blow the roof clean off the Hurricane Conglomerate! We buy your warships over here, and over there you slash the price? Are you fleecing us?
So on every front, the Hurricane Conglomerate stood on the back foot. This T2 Hyena, before the T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, would fall utterly from its pedestal.
"Well? Do you have the confidence now to cross swords with the Hurricane Conglomerate?" Zhao Chen watched Li Yaqi finish analyzing the figures, the excitement on her face impossible to hide.
Li Yaqi's eyes were like leaping flames. "Within three months I'll have the T2 Tibetan Mastiff production line complete. Before October, I'll stockpile a batch of inventory! That's exactly when the Hurricane Conglomerate's newest batch of T2 Hyenas goes on sale — and I'll choose that very moment to launch this T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer!"
Zhao Chen showed a satisfied smile. It was good that Li Yaqi had ambition, that she dared throw down the gauntlet to the Hurricane Conglomerate directly. Had she lacked such ambition, Zhao Chen might well not have gone on pouring greater effort into cultivating this business prodigy in future.
"The cooperation on this ship technology is the same as before. A 70/30 split." Zhao Chen looked at Li Yaqi and said with a smile, "I'll be waiting to see your fine show."
Zhao Chen's image vanished. But Li Yaqi's surging excitement could not be calmed in the least. She closed her eyes — as though she already stood at the launch of the T2 Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer, and across from her was that onetime king of bestsellers, the T2 Hyena. And what she meant to do was drag that once-unattainable warship down from its pedestal.
"Hoo… hoo…" Li Yaqi's breathing had grown a little heavy. A thing like this she'd never once dared even dream of before; and now she was so thrilled the very blood in her body seemed to boil.
The Tibetan Mastiff-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer against the Hyena-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer — that was a scene she could hardly wait to see.