"Don't get close yet!" Elliot suddenly shouted.
As soon as he finished speaking, the phone on the ground suddenly burst into flames, the fire instantly shooting up more than half a meter high.
"Wow!" The host Sam Ning was so scared he repeatedly backed away.
Exclamations of shock erupted from the audience.
Staff members came forward with fire extinguishers.
It took a minute for the flames to be extinguished.
By the time the smoke cleared, the StarTech phone on the stage floor had turned into a pile of charcoal.
A perfectly good phone had burst into flames before the eyes of all the audience members and tens of millions of netizens in the live stream.
This scene was shocking.
"Holy crap!" A netizen with the ID "yangdage" exclaimed.
His phone was a StarTech, the exact same model as the burning phone on stage.
At this moment, yangdage worried if his own phone would also suddenly burst into flames.
It was a bit scary.
[Holy hell, this is too awesome!]
[It really exploded!]
[Damn, my phone is also a StarTech *shivering*.]
[Mine is a StarTech S25, is there a problem?]
[Some time ago, I think I saw news reporting that StarTech phones have faulty batteries.]
[Foreign phones just don't have good quality.]
[I'm never buying a foreign phone again!]
[Too scary!]
...
In the live stream room, the bullet comments flooded the screen.
On the scene, the cameras captured several audience members taking out their phones, discovering they were also StarTech models, and their faces instantly changed drastically, afraid their phones would suddenly burst into flames like the one on stage.
"This is unbelievable! Little Boy, what's going on, why did it burn?" The host Sam Ning asked with a surprised look.
"I just said, it's because of the phone battery. This batch of StarTech Note phone batteries has quality issues," Elliot explained simply.
"To verify if what Little Boy said is true, let's test another StarTech phone. Audience members here, who is willing to provide a StarTech phone?" Sam Ning asked, facing the audience.
"I have one!" In the third row of the audience, a middle-aged man raised his hand, holding a StarTech phone.
"Please invite this gentleman onto the stage."
The middle-aged man walked onto the stage with his phone.
"What is your surname?" Sam Ning asked.
"My surname is Wang."
"Mr. Wang, are you sure your phone can be used for testing? If the phone is really broken, won't you feel heartache?" Sam Ning confirmed again.
"It's okay, I have two phones. I rarely use this one, so even if it breaks, it doesn't matter," Mr. Wang explained.
"Thank you, Mr. Wang." Sam Ning looked at Little Boy.
"Mr. Wang, what is the phone number of this phone? You don't need to say it out loud, tell a staff member. Please ask a staff member to go up and ask Mr. Wang for his phone number," Elliot said.
A staff member from the audience, who was Director Oliver, walked onto the stage, went to Mr. Wang's side, got the phone number, and sent it to Elliot via the work group chat.
"Clatter!"
Elliot typed on the keyboard.
The first step was to hack into Mr. Wang's phone... This detail went unnoticed by the audience.
The audience didn't understand either.
Only a few expert members whispered to each other, "Old Marcus, how do you hack a phone just by knowing the number?"
"There are ways, using vulnerabilities, but it's very difficult. I guess Little Boy knows about the StarTech phone vulnerability," Marcus whispered to an expert in his early forties from the OmniCorp Lab.
On the stage, Mr. Wang was originally holding his phone, but when he saw Elliot typing on the keyboard, he suddenly felt a bit scared, quickly put the phone on the table, and backed away a few steps, keeping a safe distance from the phone.
A minute later...
"Oh!"
"Wow!"
A wave of exclamations rang out from the scene.
They saw Mr. Wang's StarTech phone actually started smoking.
"Bang!"
Immediately after, the phone let out a loud bang.
The phone burst open.
"Whoosh~~"
Flames gushed out, and the entire phone ignited.
Fortunately, the staff members were prepared, rushed up with fire extinguishers, and quickly put out the flames.
"Wow, that was too scary!" Piper Snow patted her chest, still feeling lingering fear.
The scene did look scary.
Just think, if the phone was in a pocket, or on the bedside table while sleeping at night, and suddenly caught fire, the consequences would be unimaginable.
In the audience, all eyes were fixed on the StarTech phone on stage that had turned into charcoal, stunned and dumbfounded.
An audience member stood up, held up his phone, and shouted loudly, "My phone is also a StarTech."
Upon seeing this, Sam Ning signaled a staff member to go and hand the microphone to that audience member.
"Mr. Little Boy, I'd like to ask, my phone is a StarTech Z Fold6, does the battery also have a problem?" the audience member asked loudly.
"The Z Fold6 has no problem. The battery in this phone is different from the battery in the Note series," Elliot explained.
"Are there any other audience members here who use a StarTech phone? Please raise your hand," Sam Ning said, facing the audience.
"Swish swish swish..." About fifty or sixty audience members raised their hands.
In the live stream room, among the 15 million netizens, many used StarTech phones.
[Holy crap, mine is a StarTech Note model.]
[Mine too *crying*.]
[Damn, isn't this like carrying a time bomb with you?]
[Holy s**t! I just realized I'm using a StarTech Note, and I've only had it for less than a month! *Fear*]
...
The netizens were all sending bullet comments.
At the same time, many netizens spontaneously uploaded video clips of the show to various websites and forums.
News of the StarTech phone battery explosion quickly spread online.
In just a few minutes, a piece of news shot up the trending searches: "StarTech NOTE series phones have significant safety hazards with batteries that can spontaneously combust and explode!"
...
Elysium City, Bank of the Federation's Elysium City Office.
A dozen or so employees were busy at their respective workstations.
"Holy crap!"
A curly-haired male employee suddenly exclaimed, stood up abruptly, and said to a colleague at the next workstation, "Brother Leo, you use a StarTech phone, right?"
Leo, around thirty years old, wearing glasses, looked up upon hearing this, "What's wrong?"
"I just saw a video on VidStream saying that StarTech phone batteries have major safety hazards and can spontaneously combust and explode."
"Really or fake?" Leo was a bit skeptical, "Where did you see this news? Don't tell me it's fake news."
"If you don't believe me, see for yourself," the curly-haired man said, handing his phone to Leo.
Leo took the phone, looked at it, and said, "You believe videos like this? It might be fake."
"Zephyr News also reported it, look," the curly-haired man said, opening the Zephyr News website.
The headline news on Zephyr News's homepage was prominently displayed: "Breaking News # StarTech NOTE series phone batteries have significant safety hazards with spontaneous combustion and explosion!"
"Holy crap! It can't be true, right?" Leo's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Who else in the office uses a StarTech phone? An..." the curly-haired man shouted, then paused and added, "Oh right, if any of you bought StarTech stock, sell it quickly!"
(End of this chapter)
Please Send Power Stones...
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Translator and Editor - Husband
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*