The moment the houselights cooled and the confetti guns fell silent, Heifeng stepped back to center stage and dropped the bombshell with a smile that dared the room to breathe: today he would draw twenty lucky winners—ten from the audience and ten from the livestream—and each winner could choose any Audi they wanted. The venue erupted. People who'd spent the last hour grumbling online about how unfair it was to give away cars only to those in the hall suddenly found themselves scrambling to register from their couches. Twenty vehicles weren't many, but twenty chances felt like a tidal wave of luck rolling across the arena and the comment feed. A chorus of "Heifeng is generous!" and playful "corrupt me with capitalism!" scrolled by so fast the moderators gave up trying to pin any single message to the top. Heifeng glanced to the side wings, nodded to the hostess—"We'll have Miss Su Min host the drawing later"—then, with a crisp inhale, steered everyone toward the only number that mattered tonight: the Audi A6's price.
The room fell into an almost theatrical hush. Camera shutters stopped chattering. Every TV lens locked on Heifeng's face, waiting for the figure that would either crown months of hype or deflate it. For days, the internet had gnashed over where the A6 would land. Some insisted a mid-to-upper executive sedan had to be priced shoulder-to-shoulder with the German trio; anything else would muddle the positioning. Others argued that even landing an official fleet role wouldn't magically confer brand weight, so a cut under the usual suspects was the only rational play. Official channels had kept radio silence. Tonight was judgment.
Heifeng didn't give them a number. Not yet. Instead, He asked a question so simple it made a few people chuckle before they realized he was dead serious: "Who sets the price of top-tier luxury cars?" A hand in the front row went up: "The manufacturers, of course." Nods around the hall. Heifeng agreed—then twisted the knife. "So why," he asked, scanning the press seats where he knew rival-brand reps were hiding behind their lanyards, "do the same cars sell for dramatically different prices in China and abroad?"
He walked them through it without theatrics, just the clean rhythm of a prosecutor building a case, whether it's Benz, BMW, or their peers, the same model that sits in a U.S. showroom at an entry tag can show up in China priced like a different species. "Take a low-trim Benz S320," he said. "In the U.S., the starting figure is about ¥360,000 (≈$50,000). In China? ¥520,000 (≈$72,000)." Cue the reflexive objection—"Taxes!"—and his immediate counter: Audi pays the same taxes. Duties and compliance don't explain a gulf like that; even if you padded for logistics and certification, you're talking tens of thousands at most, not a yawning canyon. So why is the canyon there?
He let the silence answer first. Then he supplied his own because foreign automakers have been comfortable treating Chinese buyers like sheep, and because for years, the country didn't own the critical engine tech or the halo nameplates that could anchor pricing power. You don't get a say in the sticker if you don't have the tech or the brands. You accept whatever number the plaque spells out—and swallow the "mandatory options," the finance packaging games, the dealer mark-ups, and every euphemism the sales manager can invent.
The anger came like a weather change. In the chat, the jokey tone vanished. People started typing in complete sentences, then in caps. Reporters who meant to keep poker faces found their brows knotting. A cameraman forgot he was live and muttered a curse audible enough to make the producer wince. "Why should the same metal cost so much more here?" someone shouted near the back. Another added, bitterly, that even the much-touted "¥120,000 discount" campaigns had always felt like a shell game; if you can knock that much off without blinking, how padded was the original margin?
Heifeng didn't gloat. He held the line, letting the crowd assemble the conclusion he wanted them to reach. Yes, capital is ruthless; yes, companies chase profit. But there's a difference between profit and contempt. For years, he said, the market had tolerated contempt. The way out wasn't a pity discount; it was to build a domestic brand with its technology stack, then name a price that respected buyers instead of penning them in. "Who sets the price?" he repeated. "The manufacturer does. So long as we own the tech and the brand, we'll set it here—fairly."
Back on the livestream, the tempo picked up again, but the mood was different. The comments were still fast, still funny in places, but the spine had turned steely. Viewers tallied household budgets and calculated the yawning gap between an imported badge and the life decisions it forced: fewer vacations, deferred down-payments, and that second child's cram school. Even the seasoned car bloggers, expecting a fireworks show and a safe headline, adjusted their ledes mid-draft. A line began to form in their minds between showmanship—the twenty-car giveaway—and something heavier: a statement of intent to smash the price floor that had long felt ordained.
And that was the genius of the order Heifeng chose for the evening. The giveaway primed attention; the question reframed the problem; the case study weaponized common sense; and the appeal to dignity welded emotion to economics. You could feel it in the hall, the way people leaned forward as if a figure had already flashed on the screen and they were halfway to applauding. Heifeng looked out over a sea of raised phones and glassy lenses and knew he had achieved lift. When the number finally came, whatever it was, it would be heard inside the frame he had built: not as a stunt, but as a promise.
He gave the press one last breadcrumb. He acknowledged that rivals were in the room—of course they were—and that tomorrow's headlines from their friendly outlets would try to carve him up no matter what he announced. He didn't mind. A price could be printed; a narrative had to be felt. Tonight, he'd made them feel it.
In the comments, someone joked they'd just switched from "hate-watching" to "hope-watching." Another wrote that the phrase "mandatory fees" had finally clicked for their father, who'd been saving for a car and quietly assuming he'd have to swallow thousands in "services" to touch the keys. A third said they'd been cynical about domestic luxury for years, but after this, they were ready to test-drive with an open mind. Even the skeptics sounded different; their doubts read like genuine due diligence rather than reflexive disdain.
Heifeng tipped the mic toward the front row again, as if to dare anyone to rebut the math. No one tried. He nodded, then handed the floor to Su Min to explain the drawing mechanics for the twenty cars—a brief breather before the real plunge. The cameras adjusted exposure, the sign-language interpreter rolled her shoulders, and somewhere in the press pit a lone editor hissed at a junior reporter to stop staring and start typing. The number itself, the one that would redraw segment lines and force every importer's pricing committee into an emergency call, was seconds away. The crowd braced.
And for the first time all night, the quiet felt like anticipation instead of doubt.