Chapter 492: Xiao Ling Tong

November 18, 2000, Shenzhen.

That morning on Shen Nan Avenue was no different from usual. Wanxiang buses shuttled along the dedicated lane, a stream of bicycles surged on the sidewalk, and the young commuters heading to work held freshly bought buns, eating while walking in a hurry.

But on the plaza in front of Wanxiang Dasha, a long line had already formed early.

Some carried folding stools, some wrapped in overcoats, and others clutched bundles of cash, constantly checking their watches. The queue stretched from the plaza to the roadside, then turned into an alley, totaling two to three hundred people.

A middle‑aged man with a briefcase passed by and curiously asked the youngster at the end of the line.

"Brother, what are you queuing for?"

The youngster didn't even turn his head.

"Xiao Ling Tong! First release today!"

The middle‑aged man was startled for a moment.

"Xiao Ling Tong? Isn't that a landline? Why is everyone scrambling for it?"

The youngster finally turned around and gave him a glance.

"Big brother, how long has it been since you watched the news? Wanxiang's Xiao Ling Tong holds a press conference today. I heard its standby lasts a month, its radiation is only one‑two‑hundredth of a mobile phone's, and receiving a Telephone costs nothing!"

The man's eyes lit up.

"Receiving a Telephone costs nothing?"

"One‑way charging!" the youngster said decisively, "City Telephone two mao, long‑distance three mao, cheaper than a public phone!"

The man hesitated for two seconds, then also joined at the end of the line.

9 a. m., Wanxiang Dasha, third‑floor multifunction hall.

Li Yaozong stood backstage, holding today's press‑conference agenda, muttering the figures over and over.

Standby time: eight hundred hours.

Transmission power: ten milliwatts.

City Telephone rate: two mao.

One‑way charging.

He looked up, peeking through a slit in the curtain at the audience below. Five hundred seats were packed.

Reporters brandished long lenses and short flashes, dealers whispered to each other, and a few familiar faces appeared—Zhou Wenbin had rushed back from Hong Kong and sat in the front row; Zhang Wei rarely swapped his white lab coat for a dark jacket; Xu Jiaming pushed up his glasses, chatting with the nearby He Xiao.

"President Li, five minutes left."

Li Yaozong nodded and took a deep breath.

He recalled the words his father said before leaving.

"Yaozong, remember—on the day of the press conference, you're not selling a product, you're selling culture, sentiment."

He lowered his head and glanced at the Xiao Ling Tong prototype in his hand.

Its white body was a notch smaller than a GSM phone, feeling light in the hand, like holding a piece of plastic.

But he knew this light thing could change many people's destinies.

9:08, Li Yaozong walked onto the stage.

The audience fell silent, and flashlights lit up the room.

He stood before the podium, not hurrying to speak, but simply pulled the Xiao Ling Tong from his pocket, raised it, and let everyone see it clearly.

"This is Wanxiang's first Xiao Ling Tong," his voice rang through the microphone, "Codename: Ling Que."

Someone in the audience applauded.

"I know what you want to ask," Li Yaozong set the phone down, "There are so many GSM phones, why buy Xiao Ling Tong?"

He paused.

"Let me do the math for you."

He pressed the remote, and a comparison chart appeared on the big screen behind him.

The left side showed GSM phones, the right side Xiao Ling Tong.

"GSM phones, two‑way charging. Six mao per minute to call, six mao per minute to receive. Two hundred minutes a month costs 120 yuan."

He pointed to the right.

"Xiao Ling Tong, one‑way charging. Two mao per minute to call, receiving a Telephone costs nothing. Same two hundred minutes, the bill is forty yuan."

A low murmur of discussion rose from the audience.

Li Yaozong did not stop.

"GSM phones, transmission power two watts. Xiao Ling Tong, transmission power ten milliwatts."

He paused again.

"Two watts is two thousand milliwatts. Ten milliwatts is one‑two‑hundredth of two watts."

He surveyed the whole room.

"In other words, a year of using Xiao Ling Tong exposes you to as much radiation as two days of a GSM phone."

The murmurs turned into exclamations.

Li Yaozong pressed the remote, and the screen switched.

"GSM phones, standby three to five days. Xiao Ling Tong—"

He raised the prototype.

"Standby eight hundred hours."

The audience was silent for a second, then burst into applause.

"What does eight hundred hours mean?" Li Yaozong waited for the applause to subside, "Thirty‑three days. One charge per month."

He walked to the side of the stage, looking at the dealers in the front row.

"All of you in business know, what's the biggest fear when selling phones? Customers finding it troublesome. GSM phones need charging every two or three days—annoying, right? Annoying. But Xiao Ling Tong, only once a month."

He paused.

"This is not technology, it's an experience."

Someone in the audience shouted, "Li, how's the signal?"

Li Yaozong looked at that person.

"That's a good question."

He pressed the remote again.

A map of Shenzhen appeared on the screen, with countless red dots covering the entire city area.

"Wanshang has built twelve thousand base stations in Shenzhen," his voice was steady, "not macro cells, but micro cells. Each base station covers a radius of five hundred meters. In other words—"

He pointed at the map.

"Anywhere in Shenzhen, you will never be more than five hundred meters away from a base station."

He paused.

"Denser than the streetlights at your doorstep."

Five

Halfway through the press conference, Li Yaozong suddenly stopped.

He looked at the audience and was silent for a few seconds.

"Today, I also have an announcement to make."

Everyone perked up their ears.

He pulled another phone from his pocket.

It wasn't a Xiaoling Tong.

It was a GSM phone developed in‑house by Wanshang.

"Wanshang Mobile," he said, "is officially approved."

The audience was quiet for a second, then erupted.

Reporters frantically raised their hands, dealers looked at each other in bewilderment, and even Zhou Wenbin in the front row was taken aback.

Li Yaozong raised his hand, calming the crowd.

"Xiaoling Tong is the present, GSM is the future." His voice was steady, "Now we will make Xiaoling Tong so that ordinary people can afford a phone. But the future—"

He paused.

"In the future we will make a real phone, letting Chinese people use a GSM we built ourselves."

He looked toward where Zhang Wei was seated.

"Jingyuan, we have the chips. The system, we have it. Base stations, we can learn."

He raised that Xiaoling Tong again.

"Today's Ling Que is just the beginning."

The audience was silent for a few seconds.

Then applause rang out.

From scattered to enthusiastic, from enthusiastic to enduring.

After the press conference ended, the experience session began.

In the lobby outside the multifunction hall, dozens of prototypes were displayed. Reporters and dealers swarmed in, crowding the booth so tightly it was impassable.

A reporter picked up a Xiaoling Tong and examined it repeatedly.

"So light?"

The staff smiled and explained, "The whole device is seventy‑eight grams, plus the battery nine‑five grams."

The reporter weighed it and nodded.

"Does it have SMS?"

"Yes. Chinese SMS, seventy characters."

The reporter flipped through the menu again.

"Is this screen backlit?"

"Yes. Blue backlight, clear to see at night."

The veteran reporter was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly asked.

"How much?"

The staff looked at him.

"The bare phone is 1,208. Join the network and you get a device; pre‑load 600 in credit and that's enough."

The veteran reporter was taken aback.

"Six hundred?"

"Yes. Six hundred."

He looked up, gazed at Li Yaozong being interviewed in the distance, and muttered.

"This kid is going to revolutionize mobile's fate."

Meanwhile, on the thirty‑eighth floor of Wanxiang Dasha.

Zhang Wei stood by the window, watching the queue of people below, his face expressionless.

Xu Jiaming walked up to his side.

"What are you thinking?"

Zhang Wei shook his head.

"Nothing in particular. Just feel that…"

He paused.

"We've struggled for five years, and finally we've made it."

Xu Jiaming looked at him.

Five years ago, when Li Ping'an proposed developing the Little Smart, Zhang Wei was the one who opposed it most strongly. The crystal source hadn't been figured out yet, the system still had a bunch of bugs, who had the energy to work on this thing?

But Li Ping'an only said one sentence.

"GSM is the rich people's phone, Little Smart is the poor people's opportunity. If we don't think for the poor, who will?"

Zhang Wei didn't speak again.

Five years later, he kept that sentence in mind, worked countless nights, went through over a dozen design versions, and finally turned the "Spirit Sparrow" from blueprint into product.

"Old Xu," he suddenly said, "you say, if the boss were here today, what would he say?"

Xu Jiaming thought for a moment.

"He would say: 'Not bad.'"

Zhang Wei laughed.

"Not bad."

The two of them looked out the window together.

Downstairs, the line of people had already wrapped around the corner, and more kept pouring in.

At six in the evening, the launch day ended.

Li Yaozong slumped in his office chair, his shirt collar unbuttoned two buttons, sleeves rolled to his elbows. On the coffee table in front of him lay three reports, each bearing the same number—

First-day sales, twelve thousand units.

He stared at that number for a long time.

Twelve thousand units.

With a profit of one hundred per unit, that's 1.2 million.

Enough to cover the R&D center's monthly wages.

The telephone rang.

He picked it up; it was Zhou Wenbin's voice.

"Yaozong, Hong Kong's side also blew up. Distributors are queuing all the way to Copper Gong Bay, our inventory only lasts three days."

Li Yaozong rubbed his forehead.

"Uncle Wenbin, redistribute inventory. Send half from Shenzhen over here."

Zhou Wenbin remained silent for two seconds.

"Is Shenzhen enough?"

Li Yaozong thought for a moment.

"Enough. Our goal is to roll it out, not to stockpile. Sell out, then produce; produce out, then sell. Only by keeping it moving can we have money to continue R&D."

Zhou Wenbin laughed on the other end of the line.

"You're steadier than your father was back then."

Li Yaozong didn't speak.

After hanging up, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

His mind was a mess——the applause from the launch, reporters' questions, the crowd downstairs, Zhang Wei's "Not bad."

Outside the window, Shenzhen's night was already lit up. Among those neon lights, how many were people who bought the Little Smart today?

He didn't know.

But he knew that tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that——

More and more people would pick up this "Spirit Sparrow" and hear the voice from the other end.

Clear, cheap, noiseless.

As clear as a landline.

As free as a mobile phone.

At eleven at night, Li Yaozong returned home.

The floor lamp was still on, left for him by Lin Xueqing. A bowl of soup sat on the table, still steaming.

He sat down and slowly drank the soup.

Suddenly he remembered something.

He put down the bowl, picked up the telephone, and dialed a number.

It rang for a long time before connecting.

On the other end came his father's voice, a bit sleepy.

"Yaozong?"

"Dad, did I wake you?"

"It's fine." Li Ping'an cleared his throat, "How did the launch go?"

Li Yaozong remained silent for two seconds.

"Not bad."

The other end of the line also stayed silent for two seconds.

Then Li Ping'an laughed.

"Then that's good."

Silence again.

Li Yaozong wanted to say something, but the words died at his lips.

In the end he only said one sentence.

"Dad, go to bed early."

"Mm. You should rest."

Telephone hung up.

Li Yaozong held the microphone and sat for a long while.

Outside the window, Shenzhen's night was deep.

But he knew that his father, wherever he was now—in some small county town, in some small inn—must also be thinking about today's matter.

Thinking of that spirit sparrow.

Thinking of those people in line.

Thinking of that "not bad" remark.

He put the microphone back, lifted the soup bowl, and drank it sip by sip.

Then he switched off the floor lamp.

In the darkness, he looked at the city outside the window.

He whispered softly.

"Dad, I didn't lose face."

Early the next day, a line formed again at the entrance of the Wanshang mobile phone shop.

Longer than yesterday.

Li Yaozong stood by the window, looking at those faces: there were young people, middle‑aged people, the elderly, and women holding children.

In their hands they clutched money, or a savings book, or merely that "Sign up online, get a phone" advertisement flyer.

All were waiting.

Waiting for that spirit sparrow.

Waiting for that little device that, for only 600 yuan, could be taken home, with no more worries about call fees or radiation.

Li Yaozong watched for a while, then turned and walked toward the office.

On the desk, three more reports appeared.

First‑day sales were updated— not 12,000 but 18,000.

He picked up a pen and signed his name on that report.

Then he opened the next one.

It was a research‑development progress sheet sent by Zhang Wei.

The GSM mobile phone project had already been launched.

He looked for a moment, then wrote a line at the bottom.

"No rush, proceed steadily."

Putting down the pen, he lifted his head and looked out the window.

The sunlight was just right.

Those waiting in line were still waiting.

And Wanshang's next step was already on the way.