Zhao Liangyun of Huawei stared at the warehouse inventory report. The numbers weren't good.
Before the Mi 4 launched, the Honor 3X had been a hit—one of Huawei's best-selling phones in years.
They'd even had to ramp up production after a surprise sales spike, thanks to the release of a popular game by Penguin Company.
But now?
The Hongmeng S2 had landed like a meteor. Zhao didn't even wait for the pricing reveal—he'd already rushed to halt factory orders. Production was stopped, but not fast enough. There were still 800,000 units of Honor 3X stock sitting in storage.
If that inventory started piling up, the financial damage would be massive.
Zhao exhaled hard and made the call.
"Lower the price. Drop it by ¥300."
It was damage control now. Preserve margins, offload stock, survive the shock.
The assistant nodded, grim. Everyone understood—they had to clear space for the Hongmeng S2.
By morning, anyone who opened their phone saw the headlines:
"Shocking! The world's top-performing mobile chip is this one?"
"Hongmeng Phone: The future of Chinese flagships!"
"CS leads the charge on super-fast charging!"
Overnight, the Hongmeng S2 had taken over the news cycle. It overshadowed every other brand, including one that launched a phone days earlier: Coolpad.
Coolpad, one of China's "Big Four" phone manufacturers, had just rolled out its Dashen series at the start of July. An online-first brand, Dashen followed the same playbook as Xiaomi—large screens, decent specs, high cost-performance.
They'd even tried Xiaomi's hunger marketing strategy.
But Coolpad had a grudge.
In March, just as Dashen's first model launched, CS's Xingchen series took the market by storm.
Coolpad's big debut? Crushed. Their highly anticipated release flopped.
While the Xingchen line sold over 5 million units in six months, the Coolpad Dashen sold only 500,000.
Now, Dashen was making a second attempt—only to get blindsided again by CS's new launch.
One time could be bad luck. Two times? Coolpad's executives were convinced this was sabotage.
The next day, Coolpad Dashen posted its own benchmark scores and pricing on Weibo:
79566 points
¥2499 (≈ $344)
Everyone online knew who they were targeting. It was an indirect jab at the Hongmeng S2, which had just pulled headlines for breaking the 100,000-point mark.
The tone was cocky. The timing was no coincidence.
Coolpad was trying to hitch a ride on CS's spotlight—and shade them while doing it.
Coolpad wasn't a nobody. Founded in the last century, they were one of the old guard of Chinese mobile phones.
Compared to CS, they were seniors in the field. But relevance was another matter.
The post did get attention—Coolpad Dashen's followers doubled overnight. Comment sections filled up with tags: "@ChinaStarTechnologies check this out!"
CS's social team flagged it instantly.
When the Weibo backend exploded with tags and notifications, the operations lead hurried to report to Lu Haifeng.
Lu scrolled through Dashen's post, eyes narrowing.
"Coolpad Dashen, huh… Haven't heard that name in a while."
He knew the brand well. Coolpad had tried to ride the online wave for years and had faded into meme status by the late 2020s.
To him, this wasn't a real threat—just noise.
Coolpad's mistake was also technical.
Like Meizu before them, their phones relied on MediaTek processors—cheap, high-performance on paper, but unreliable in practice.
CS, Xiaomi, and top-tier players sourced Qualcomm or built in-house. Coolpad? They didn't have the pull for that.
And MediaTek's reputation?
"A 70,000-point score is par for the course," Haifeng muttered.
He knew what chip Dashen was using—a new-gen octa-core from MediaTek.
It sounded powerful, but MediaTek had a nasty habit: stacking cores without optimizing them.
The more they crammed in, the worse user confidence got.
Coolpad was walking the same path Meizu had once limped down—flashy specs, unstable performance.
In the office, Liu Jianyu saw the Weibo post too. He frowned and walked straight to Haifeng.
"Chairman, they're trying to piggyback off our momentum."
"Don't bother with it," Haifeng said calmly. "Just keep our launch plan moving.
Let them talk—we've got work to do."
No heat. No drama. That was Haifeng's style.
Because when you're already ahead, there's no need to punch down.