At first light the next morning, a middle-aged man in a well-pressed Zhongshan suit arrived at the old family house. He had come to return the Audi A8 that Heifeng had left behind, and after exchanging a few courteous words, he placed the keys carefully into the old gentleman's hands. With that errand done, Heifeng wrapped up two days in Beijing and prepared to return to Piaocheng.
The timing wasn't his to stretch. Zhao Jianhua had just called: Audi's plant's Phase III assembly lines were fully debugged, and the shop-floor crews were already standing by. Before leaving the capital, Heifeng quietly left the Audi A6 he had brought for the old gentleman to keep; he also set aside cars for his uncle and Wang Cheng. They had flown in as a trio, but he flew out alone—Ye Lingzhi and the others chose to stay a few extra days to keep Grandma company.
Back in Piaocheng that same day, he walked straight into the humming order of the factory. The graduating class from Jinling University of Technology—fresh recruits to Phase III—had spent the last two or three months shadowing veteran technicians from the Phase I and II shops. Now their hands moved surely over consoles and torque wrenches, their eyes tracking workflows with the muscle memory that comes from repetition. Anticipating expansion, Heifeng had already split the senior workers into two waves: one holding the fort in Phases I and II, the other seeding experience into the new Phase III and IV lines. The latest hires were likewise divided so each floor had a blend of steadiness and spark.
Once in his office, he motioned Zhao Jianhua inside. "Anything from the foreign brands these past few days?" he asked.
During his time in Beijing, he mainly sat and talked with the elders, deliberately tuning out the noise from Benma, Baolai, and Auto. Before he left, though, he'd told Zhao to keep an eye on them—those companies weren't the sort to take a public setback and swallow it.
Zhao shook his head. "President Lu—" he corrected himself at once, "—President Heifeng, nothing. No visible moves."
"How odd," Heifeng murmured. It was hard to believe they had decided to lie low. "Maybe they're waiting to snipe at us the moment our A6 goes on sale."
Whatever the rivals were plotting, he couldn't afford to be distracted. The launch was the priority now, and the most crucial decision before the launch was price.
The next morning brought an answer of a different sort. Several officials from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) arrived at the company reception on a specific mission: to discuss purchasing the Audi A6 as the new official vehicle. The top had already spoken; their job was to execute.
They met Heifeng with careful respect—some of it for the company's meteoric rise, much of it because word travels in Beijing about who has genuine backing. The delegation lead was Liu Chengming, a director-level official who, judging from the way he carried himself, preferred to be efficient and done.
"President Heifeng," Liu began, setting courtesy aside, "we're all on the same side here, so I'll get right to it. We plan to purchase one thousand units of the Audi A6 for the initial phase. We hope you can give the state a preferential price."
He didn't try to hide the benchmark. "We've talked with Auto Motor before. Their quote was 420,000. Our ceiling is about 300,000."
"Is there any room for you to come closer to that?" he asked.
Listening, Heifeng felt a flash of contempt for Auto's math. Their C-class "B525" listed at 520,000 retail; the "discounted" government quote of 400-plus still left them a fat margin. But for him, this deal had never been about gouging. Making the A6 the official car was a brand statement first, a ledger line second. Besides, the A6's build cost wasn't dramatically higher than the A4's—the difference was positioning, not a chasm of parts.
He answered without hesitation. "We can do better than that. Auto's number is predatory. We're a domestic maker; we won't act like those foreign companies." He paused, then offered the figure. "Director Liu, 240,000 per car. How does that sound?"
He expected bargaining; instead, Liu shot to his feet, seized his hand, and blurted, "Really?"
The man's relief was palpable. Even if Audi had matched Auto's inflated quote, SASAC would likely have still proceeded—orders were already framed in principle. Liu had seen too many suppliers "make hay" when the state placed a bulk order. He had come braced for hardball, not for honesty. At 240,000, Audi might barely break even; it might even lose a hair. In Liu's eyes, that made this young boss the rarest sort of entrepreneur who knew when the long game mattered more than the short line of profit.
"President Heifeng," he said, brimming with admiration, "you're the most conscientious entrepreneur I've met."
"Ahem." Heifeng waved it off with an awkward smile. "Just giving back for the country's support of us."
From that point, the rest was procedural—but brisk. As if worried this generosity might evaporate in sunlight, Liu urged immediate signatures. Out of gratitude, he pushed for payment to land in a single lump sum. It did—same day, in full.
The initial order was for one thousand A6s, all 2.0T base trims. The state would handle transportation; Audi didn't need to marshal trucks. By coincidence, the low-spec A6s rolling off the lines that week filled the first tranche neatly, and the vehicles were loaded and driven away before dusk. In the afternoon, finance confirmed the remittance: the purchase funds for all one thousand units had hit the account.
A few days slid by, and with them the ambient temperature of the market. The buzz around Huaxing Technology's Hongmeng S3 smartphone—hot enough to distort the air at launch—finally settled. Right on cue, other phone makers started stepping onto the stage. The first to stride out was the "Green Factory," soon to be joined by the "Blue Factory." Those two dominated China's offline channels; their combined share left the rest trailing, trying to claw up a cliff with raw fingers.
Heifeng read the reports, then closed the folder and leaned back. On the auto side, the A6 had just won a massive, symbolic vote of confidence. On the tech side, the smartphone battlefield was only getting louder. However, the principle did not change: build what people want, price it where it stings the competitors but feels fair to the buyer, and move faster than the men trying to box you in.
For now, the mark of success wasn't headlines or hashtags; it was the sight of loaded carriers pulling away from the plant gates, taillights winking red in the early-evening haze—one thousand times in a row.