At Huawei, Ren sat calmly in his office, speaking to his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who was managing more and more of the company's core operations.
"If a mobile phone company wants to go global," he said, "it needs its chip."
"That's how Apple and Samsung rose to the top—they both mastered their processors."
He glanced up from the documents.
"You should make time to talk with the team over at China Star Lab.
Their chip design capabilities are no joke."
Though Huawei had been hit hard in the recent market clash with the Xingchen Q1, Ren didn't seem fazed.
He viewed it the way only a seasoned businessman could:
Victory or defeat—both are part of the game. Learn from the loss. Move forward stronger.
China Star's total domination in recent sales has revealed a more profound truth:
Price matters.
But in the end, core technology decides the winner.
China Star's phones weren't the cheapest, but they offered:
Top-tier specs
A self-developed chip
A vertically integrated ecosystem
And that changed everything.
As the smoke cleared from the online sales war, Haifeng sat with his team at China Star.
Zhang Yu raised a point during their internal meeting:
"President Lu, I think it's time we built a proper headquarters building.
We can't keep running things out of the factory."
And he was right.
China Star had gone from a few hundred employees to tens of thousands. Most still worked on the production line. But they were bursting at the seams.
Haifeng nodded.
"Prepare to apply for land across the Wanggang Sluice[1].
I want a mixed-use HQ campus—commercial and residential.
Plan for 100,000 people. Build it in five phases."
Once complete, the entire industrial park and the new HQ would connect seamlessly—a self-contained super-campus for China's most advanced electronics company.
Is the only comparable model in China?
Huawei, with its sprawling subsidiary ecosystem and semiconductor pipeline.
Even so, Huawei still relied on external suppliers for some components.
The true benchmark? Samsung.
From screens to chips to full phone production, Samsung controlled every step.
That's the model Haifeng aimed for.
A fully vertical tech empire.
Right now, China Star already had:
A chip design division
Its semiconductor manufacturing
A complete mobile phone foundry
Next up?
Battery factories
Display panel production
Core component supply chain integration
He handed those next steps to Zhang Yu.
But hardware wasn't the only frontier.
"It's time to expand offline," Haifeng said.
He hadn't forgotten a frustrating memory from his last life—ordering a phone online, only to have it delayed for over a week. He ended up walking into a store and buying it directly.
"The online market saves cost, but it can't match the feel of a live demo.
You can't judge weight, temperature, or heat output from a screen."
And data backed it up.
Despite the boom in e-commerce, the offline market was still much more significant.
Even Xiaomi, despite its massive online presence, couldn't compete with Ouye, a quiet giant rooted in brick-and-mortar.
Over 70% of Chinese mobile sales still happen offline.
And brands like Ouye and another unnamed player dominated that space.
Even Xiaomi and Huawei couldn't touch their offline volumes.
The difference?
Online: marketing, price wars, flash sales
Offline: real-world shelf space, distribution networks, telecom partnerships
China Star had crushed the online game.
But if it wanted to scale truly?
It needed to win offline, too.
Huawei's strength came from splitting into:
Huawei (offline-focused)
Honor (online-focused)
And they thrived because of it.
Now it was China Star's turn to do both—and do it better.
[1] this is a real place