Homo Sapiens

「Xing Island.」

The recently established Green Electronics Company was a subsidiary responsible for the sales, repair, refurbishment, and replacement of electronic products.

Homo Sapiens Company’s optical chips had recently burst onto the scene. As a result, older-model phones and computers not only lost the Southeast Asian market but also faced vicious competition from the company.

Under the guise of environmentalism, Green Electronics took the old phones, laptops, and computers that had been traded in, refurbished them, and sold them in bulk to Lucia, Persia, and small African countries.

Lucia, in desperate need of military-grade chips, grit its teeth and traded oil and natural gas from the Far East Region for Green Electronics’ stock of old electronic chips.

In fact, the number of mobile phones and computers in circulation throughout Southeast Asia was substantial.

According to Green Electronics’ statistics, in the areas where Homo Sapiens Company’s branches were located, there were 270 million mobile phones and 83 million computers in circulation, all of which were still usable.

This was especially true for the large number of phones and computers previously purchased by the Luzon Branch and Hongsawaddy Branch.

Currently, Green Electronics had collected the vast majority of these devices. The company even built a dedicated electronics refurbishment base in Johor.

Green Electronics collected all sorts of electronic products, including mobile phones, laptops, tablets, desktop computers, MP3 and MP4 players, printers, televisions, and digital cameras.

They were usually reprocessed, with parts being salvaged or replaced.

At present, Green Electronics could refurbish 20,000 to 30,000 phones and 6,000 to 8,000 computers per day.

The Xingdao Branch selected a suitable island within the Riau Islands—which had just been designated a development zone—and established it as a trade and distribution center for electronic products.

This island was Batam Island, which lay across the sea to the south of Xing Island.

Due to the recent blockade by European and American capital, coupled with Homo Sapiens Company’s requirement for payment in Jin, few people were willing to come to Xing Island.

But there were always people in this world willing to risk it all.

Birds die for food, and men die for wealth.

「North Xin Port, Batam Island.」

Du Lin had fled from Xiangjiang. For certain reasons, the trading company he had opened with others in Peng City had gone bankrupt, so he took his wife and son and went into hiding in Xiangjiang.

With shipping routes to Xing Island recently reopening, he smelled a business opportunity.

The electronics trade center in North Xin Port was divided into two exhibition areas: the traditional electronics section and the optical electronics section.

Du Lin tried out the optical electronics for a while and found that Homo Sapiens Company’s products performed well, easily rivaling the flagship models from Samsung, Apple, and Huawei.

In the end, however, he just shook his head and put down the Pineapple phone he was holding.

After all, the Pineapple phone used an optical chip. Although it was compatible with many electronic components, it hadn’t yet received market access approval in other regions. Even if he bought them, he wouldn’t be able to sell them.

Therefore, he focused his attention on the traditional electronics section.

As soon as he entered the area, he spotted many familiar faces from Huaqiang North. This prompted him to quickly put on his mask, glasses, and hood to avoid being recognized.

Green Electronics had already set up dedicated counters for each product brand.

These included various phone models from Samsung, OPPO, Apple, Huawei, Transsion, and Xiaomi.

There were also computer products from Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, and Apple.

These were all refurbished machines.

Du Lin glanced at the prices and saw that they were generally quite low. Smartphones were priced around 200 to 1,000 Jin, and computers were in a similar price range.

This was dirt cheap. After all, once Green Electronics refurbished a device, there was little difference between it and a new one. Homo Sapiens Company didn’t like to rip off its customers and wouldn’t use shoddy, third-party replacement parts.

The only catch was that Homo Sapiens Company only accepted Jin.

Some time ago, the countries of East Asia had exchanged their Jin foreign reserves for gold. Now, they held very little Jin.

Meanwhile, Homo Sapiens Company practiced balanced trade. Don’t have Jin? Then trade technology, resources, or products.

As for various national currencies and the US Dollar? Sorry, Homo Sapiens Company wasn’t in the habit of collecting scrap paper.

Compared to the cash-strapped buyers from East Asia, a dozen or so Russians were on a shopping spree at the chip counter. Their money was Jin they had acquired by selling oil and natural gas.

”Give me 50,000 of these old mobile phone chips with the navigation module.”

The counter salesman checked the inventory and shook his head. ”Sorry, we only have 32,000 in stock right now.”

The rosy-nosed Russian waved his hand dismissively. ”32,000 it is. Pack them up and send them to Xingdao Island Airport. I’ll have a plane coming to pick them up the day after tomorrow.”

”Okay. The total is 3.2 million Jin.”

The rosy-nosed Russian pulled a stack of bearer Jin notes from his pocket and took out three one-million Jin notes and two one-hundred-thousand Jin notes.

These bearer Jin notes were issued by Qingye Bank to its major clients.

The salesman took the Jin notes and the contract, saying with a smile, ”Thank you for your business. Please come again.”

The rosy-nosed Russian asked in a low voice, ”Can your optical chips be custom-made?”

”Custom-made?”

”Actually, the general-purpose chips we sell can be modified for various applications.”

”Too expensive.” Even though the rosy-nosed Russian was holding billions of Jin, the price of Homo Sapiens Company’s optical chips still made him wince.

But the salesman explained, ”You get what you pay for. Our optical chips far surpass ordinary electronic chips in terms of anti-interference and response speed.”

The rosy-nosed Russian, of course, knew this.

These Russians were procuring chips to upgrade their missiles, loitering munitions, and rockets, as well as to manufacture various types of drones.

As for why they were buying from Homo Sapiens Company, it was mainly because Lucia was currently unable to obtain chips through normal trade channels.

While other major powers worried about being infiltrated by Homo Sapiens Company, Lucia wasn’t too concerned.

After all, Homo Sapiens Company’s home base was in Southeast Asia, which didn’t share a border with Lucia. Moreover, the previous major conflict between Homo Sapiens Company and America had actually relieved a great deal of pressure on Lucia.

Therefore, Caesar was not as resistant to cooperating with Homo Sapiens Company as other major powers were.

On the contrary, Caesar even intentionally let these chip buyers be seen, with the aim of provoking America and some of their ”old friends.”

After all, the stronger Homo Sapiens Company became, the less pressure Lucia would face from Europe.

Caesar was sending a message to the other major powers: don’t push me too far, or one day I might just enter into ”deep cooperation” with Homo Sapiens Company.

Although America and the European Union knew Caesar was unlikely to be so irrational, even a moderate level of cooperation between the two would pose a huge threat.

Caesar saw this clearly. Coupled with the fact that Homo Sapiens Company would not have any direct conflicts of interest with Lucia in the short term, he naturally didn’t mind using them—and being used by them—to tie the hands of America and the European Union.

Consequently, Lucia’s contact with Homo Sapiens Company had been very frequent recently.

It was also the only major power to establish a formal liaison office at the Thonburi Branch.

As for Tianzhu, Lucia’s good buddy, Caesar was also actively trying to win over and appease them.

Homo Sapiens Company saw all of this with perfect clarity, but instead of refusing to cooperate with Lucia, it actively played along with Caesar’s little schemes.

Take the current electronics trade show, for example.

Spies from many different powers saw the rosy-nosed Russian’s procurement activities, but they were powerless to do anything about it.

Perhaps elsewhere, they could have arranged for the rosy-nosed Russian to have an ”accident” or intimidated the seller.

But this was Homo Sapiens Company’s territory. No one dared to cause trouble here.