Peter Pu sat behind his desk in the Samsung Greater China regional office, staring coldly at the Weibo sales figures.
China Star's post was crystal clear—over a million Harmony X2 units sold in under thirty minutes.
The number dug deep.
When Samsung's S4 and S5 launched, they barely cracked 300,000 first-day sales combined.
Now the X2 had buried both in a single morning.
Peter's expression soured. He hated it. But he couldn't deny it.
He'd already damaged Samsung's image with last week's smear attempt. Even Chairman Lee Jae-yong was watching now.
He had no more room to play dirty.
"All right," he muttered. "Track their momentum. If their follow-up sales stall… we drop prices."
His staff nodded and left the room to monitor China Star's store data.
Meanwhile, in Piao City, China Star's HQ was celebrating like it was New Year's Eve.
Confetti hadn't been ordered, but someone brought their own.
"We did it! We did it!"
The Harmony X2 had crossed 1.6 million units on day one. By 10 a.m. the next morning, the phones were completely sold out.
Two million units in twenty-four hours.
Liu Jianyu stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by cheers, yet completely buried in calls.
He was ecstatic, yes. But also buried in supply chain chaos.
Taiwan was already being pinged for another Kunpeng A2 chip batch.
Without chips, there were no phones. And without phones, there was nothing left to sell.
Buyers were still flooding in. Forums were packed with people demanding more stock.
But they had nothing left to offer.
Inside Haifeng's office, the celebration didn't carry on.
Instead, he stared at his screen, grim.
No stock meant lost momentum—missed opportunity.
He tapped his desk once, then picked up the intercom.
"Zhao Lan, let's make the announcement. Next batch—end of the year."
She nodded without hesitation.
This whole situation exposed something he'd overlooked.
They had the market. But not the capacity.
It wasn't an ego bruise—it was a system failure.
Back at Samsung China, Peter Pu was still watching the numbers.
He smiled when he saw the "sold out" notice go up.
Not out of joy.
Out of relief.
If China Star couldn't produce more, that left market share on the table. That meant Samsung could still recover.
No need to cut prices. No need to panic.
He turned to his marketing lead.
"Let's hold off on the discount campaign. No point if they can't even ship."
Just as the team began to relax, his after-sales manager knocked.
"Chairman Pu, we've received a wave of user complaints. Most are reporting overheating issues."
Peter's face didn't flinch.
"Isn't that normal? Every phone gets hot."
But his eyes darted sideways, avoiding contact.
He knew full well the S4 and S5 had skipped extensive thermal testing.
When Samsung took over the chip fab order from Qualcomm, they went straight into mass production.
The Snapdragon 815 was powerful—no doubt. But even after minimal testing, the heat output was absurd.
And they pushed forward anyway.
Why? Apple had already announced its launch date. There was no time to delay.
They tried to patch it by adding copper pipes into the chassis, but it wasn't enough.
And now… it was starting to backfire.
Peter looked at the manager again.
"Phones overheat. Which one doesn't?"
The manager looked stunned. He hadn't expected a deflection that obvious.
Peter's tone sharpened.
"Did you not hear me?"
The man nodded stiffly and backed out of the room.
Peter exhaled. Slowly.
Still a window. Still room to sell.
But the cracks were widening.
At China Star, Haifeng had Zhao Lan gather every shred of public evidence about Samsung's slander.
He hadn't retaliated yet—but that was about to change.
Zhao suddenly burst into his office holding a laptop.
"President Lu! Look at this!"
Haifeng took it from her. The screen showed a Weibo newsflash.
A Samsung S6 had exploded during use in Shanghai.
According to the post, the device had self-ignited from overheating, leading to a full burn-through.
Haifeng's lips curved slightly.
Timing was everything.