After seeing Director Cui off, Haifeng returned to the conference room with Li Jun and Huang Zhonghua.
Li Jun looked over and asked,
"President Lu, how should we structure this proposal?"
Haifeng thought for a moment.
"Let's sell each server for ¥20,000 (≈ $2,760 in 2025).
We'll sell 20,000 units to start."
Huang raised a more important question.
"And the software? How will we price that?"
Haifeng didn't hesitate.
"The software's free.
But we'll charge a technical upgrade and maintenance fee—¥10 million yearly (≈ $1.38 million)."
Li Jun was a bit stunned.
"That's a huge margin. Our hardware costs around ¥10,000 to produce…"
Haifeng shook his head.
"A considerable profit?
We're just shifting software revenue to the hardware line.
If we were like Oracle—charging hundreds of millions for a single database license—that would be a considerable profit."
He continued:
"Understand this clearly—our cloud database is ten times better than Oracle's—maybe more.
That ¥10 million per year? It's more than fair."
Li Jun couldn't argue. He knew Oracle had made hundreds of billions over the decades on far less performance.
"Also," Haifeng added, "we're not just selling cloud servers."
"We're building their core ticketing application and entire cloud infrastructure for free."
"If this were the U.S., greedy tech giants wouldn't move for less than a billion USD."
"Do we have enough servers for delivery?" he asked.
Li Jun nodded.
"Plenty. Especially since construction on the Phase II Data Center hasn't started yet.
We've got the inventory."
"Good. Then, draft the proposal.
I want a clean, professional version sent to my email. I'll approve and forward it to the Ministry of Railways."
📍 Railway Ministry Conference Room
Director Cui Sheng sat at the head of the long table.
"Today's meeting is about the ticketing system."
A deputy director looked puzzled.
"Didn't we pause development already?"
"Yes," another added. "The last attempt failed miserably."
Cui waved them off.
"We've now found a complete technical solution.
You all saw what happened when we launched—the site went down in minutes."
"But it was fixed—within the hour."
Another deputy leaned forward.
"How was that possible?"
Cui nodded.
"All thanks to China Star Technology.
They took over our infrastructure using their cloud system."
"Yesterday, I visited their facility.
I brought our tech staff with me. I've never seen anything like it."
The room was silent.
Finally, someone asked:
"Cloud computing? Director Cui, can you break that down a bit?"
Cui gestured toward Xiao Li, a tech staffer sitting quietly in the back.
"Let Xiao Li explain."
Xiao Li stood and gave a detailed—though slightly awkward—rundown. Those with some technical background followed. The others mostly just nodded along, impressed.
Once Xiao Li finished, Cui moved to the next agenda item.
"I've already asked China Star to prepare a proposal.
But before we review it—what kind of budget are we comfortable with?"
One deputy offered,
"How about ¥500 million (≈ $69 million) to start?"
Cui slammed the table.
"Too little!"
"That won't even cover the base server load."
"We're finally catching up with the times. Let's help people stop freezing in line every New Year's."
"China Star built all this on their dime—and even developed our ticketing system for free."
"You call yourself a leader? Show some vision."
The room fell quiet.
Another deputy raised a hand.
"How about ¥1 billion?"
"If the system performs well, we can increase funding and roll out data centers to every province."
Cui nodded.
"That's a good suggestion."
"How long for ROI?" asked the finance lead.
"Six months," Cui said firmly.
"Our analysts say three years," someone countered.
"Three years is too long."
The room buzzed with debate.
Finally, Cui took out his phone.
"Let's call President Lu directly."
He put the phone on speaker.
"Hello, President Lu. It's Cui Sheng."
"Director Cui, good afternoon."
"I'd like to ask—how long will it take your team to deliver the complete core ticketing system?"
"The backend and order infrastructure?"
"Yes. How long until it's ready for use?"
Haifeng answered calmly.
"About a month."
The room fell silent.
"A… month?" Cui asked, stunned.
Their R&D team had estimated three years.
And now someone was saying one month was already 'a bit slow'?
Every official in the room was frozen. Shocked. Embarrassed.
Even Xiao Li, their tech lead, couldn't speak. He wanted to say:
It's not that we're useless—it's just that their tech is... monstrous.
"Alright," Cui said. "Send us the plan as soon as it's ready.
If there are no issues, we'll begin immediately."
"Understood," Haifeng replied. "We'll submit the plan this afternoon."
As the call ended, Cui looked around the room.
"You all heard it. One month."
"If our tech was even one-tenth as good as China Star's…
People wouldn't still be waiting in freezing lines."
The leaders nodded, faces red.
Cui stood.
"Meeting adjourned.
Once the proposal arrives, we'll skip the public bidding process.
This project will be completed directly by China Star."
No one objected.
They didn't dare.