Chapter 661 - Secondhand Apple and Timet Phones
“In any case, I didn’t say I would be building it right away. If it was that easy to make missiles, they might as well find a few college kids to do it and save money. Right, have Happy bring me some cheeseburgers when he comes over,” said Tony Stark as he entered his basement lab.
Looking at the video of Batman projected on the wall, he said in annoyance, “This guy crippled more than two hundred criminals in one night without leaving any footage from the scenes. This cautious behavior is so boring. What’s the point of hiding? If it were me, I would’ve let them see my face on TV and told everybody that I’m Tony Stark!”
That being said, Tony had had mixed feelings when he saw Batman charge outside the building to catch a falling Pepper.
It felt like he had been slapped in the face by the pretentious prick.
No matter how he disparaged him, however, he had to admit that this Batman’s skills weren’t bad.
What Tony looked down on was his level and resources.
Would Tony, who considered himself the smartest genius on earth, acknowledge that someone else was better than him?
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Furthermore, Batman hadn’t left any clear leads so far, which was enough to prove that his suit was pure DIY.
If Tony wanted to make a suit of armor, especially one that included cutting-edge technology, he wouldn’t be able to hide his purchases from discerning eyes.
Batman’s equipment didn’t seem very technologically advanced, but its source was completely unknown, which was probably why it was so crude.
Tony still believed that Batman was deliberately hiding things about him.
He didn’t have any proof, but he firmly believed that he had seen through this pretentious prick.
“Batman, just you wait!” Tony murmured. “When my armor comes out, I’ll catch you and take off your mask.”
Saying that, he looked at the prototype of the silver humanoid armor not far away; there were still a lot of parts that needed to be tested and fitted.
Once this suit of armor was completed, he was confident that he could capture Batman easily and even play this pretentious criminal.
Thinking that, Tony was inspired again. He opened up a light screen and continued working
In the following days, Luke and Selina’s lives returned to normal.
In the meantime, Luke received a call from Weyland, who invited him on another private assignment.
Although Luke was tempted by the location, he still refused.
The Amazon jungle wasn’t a peaceful place. The main point was that it would take a long time before he came out; a conservative guess was three to six weeks.
It was the best time to earn points in Los Angeles. Luke planned to turn Batman into a live target to cover up news of the Ghost Butcher.
He was saving his strength for his upcoming life as a New York detective, so he didn’t take on the job even though Weyland offered a sky-high price of five million.
However, Luke gave Weyland a number and promised that it would be a good choice.
The condition was that the money couldn’t be too little. It had to start at a million, and it would be best to pay half of it upfront.
At least Weyland got Luke’s recommendation out of it.
While his investigation revealed that a certain person had a lot of bad habits, the man had a good reputation in the industry and was a perfect example of someone who worked as much as he was paid.
Luke wasn’t the type to speak without thinking, and Weyland wouldn’t be going personally this time.
Since it was just a matter of money, Weyland called the number.
A day later, a private plane flew out of Los Angeles for Brazil.
Apart from that, Jenny’s phone company had already started to take shape. Luke had gone over a few times to fix some bugs on the production line.
More than that, what amazed Luke was that Jenny had negotiated with Weyland Corporation to facilitate the construction of the wireless network.
When Luke asked her how she had done it, Jenny said with a smile, “I didn’t say that you were the big boss, but I did say that we were close, and Mr. Weyland arranged a meeting very quickly. I don’t think you’re interested in listening to the rest, so I won’t go into detail, but Weyland is very interested in the combination of wireless technology and smartphones…”
She hesitated.
Looking at her, Luke asked with a smile, “Is there anything else?” Pondering for a moment, Jenny said, “But Chairman Weyland wants to invest in our phone company.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “How much?”
Jenny chuckled. “Based on our cash investment and shares, I estimate that the phone company is worth two billion dollars, and he wants 30 to 50% of the shares.”
Luke was taken aback. “Is our phone company that valuable?”
Jenny sighed. “If we already had a wireless network, that value would be double. Weyland is a smart old man. Now that we’re done with most of the preliminary work, what we’re short of is a large-scale marketing campaign for the wireless network and our company. We’ll be able to make money right away once Weyland Corporation gets involved.”
Luke nodded. He didn’t know much about business, and wasn’t going to delve into it.
Pondering for a moment, he said, “We can let him invest, but do your best to keep his share down to 10 or 20% at most. If he isn’t willing, we can take word of the construction of the wireless network to other companies. Business is business.”
Jenny heaved a sigh of relief. She was worried that Luke would simply give up a large amount of shares, which would be detrimental to the company’s future finances and operations. She was the CEO of this cell phone company, and while Luke was in a real sense the major shareholder, he left her to it. Any attempt to weaken his position with the shares would only weaken her authority. Naturally, she had to be careful.
After solving this big problem, she raised another pending issue. “So, what’s the name of our phone? We can’t call it a Universal Cube phone after our company name, right? It sounds awkward and isn’t easy to remember.”
Luke found that odd. “Apple? Didn’t we talk about this last time?”
Jenny was angry. “Can you be more serious? How can you call such an innovative smartphone an Apple? And there’s even a bite that has been taken out of it in the logo. Are you implying that our consumers are buying a secondhand phone?”
Luke was lost for words. The “secondhand” Apple company was worth hundreds of billions of dollars in his previous life, and dominated the cell phone industry!
Depressed at the rejection, Luke agreed to the phone brand Jenny suggested — Timet!
Translated into Chinese, it would probably be… Titanium.
Luke couldn’t complain. It was fine as long as Jenny liked the name, and the rotten apple could fly away with the wind.
But when he thought of the bald man holding a phone in a certain ad in his previous life, Luke decided that when the Titanium phone came out in the future, he would make a high-quality, no-brand fake for his own use. He wouldn’t use a real Titanium phone.
