Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

"Wait... is it coming back?"

This comment floated in the center of the screen and remained there for a full two seconds without being covered by a new comment.

Because everyone's fingers were frozen on the screen, and they forgot to type.

The atmosphere in the command center reversed in three seconds. The engineers who had just been hugging each other let go, sat back down at their workstations, and stared at the rapidly changing data on their respective screens.

"Rocket recovery process initiated."

Liu Ruyan's voice came through the broadcast on the control platform, steady, but with a barely perceptible tremor at the end.

A line of green text popped up in the bottom right corner of the large screen:

Recovery mode activated – Target: Sea launch platform.

The tens of thousands of people in the observation area fell silent again. Some were still wiping away tears, while others turned to the person next to them and asked, "What does 'recycling' mean?"

"It means that the 105-meter-tall rocket needs to fly back the same way and stand firmly upright on the launch pad." A middle-aged man wearing glasses next to him swallowed hard. "SpaceX's Falcon 9 can also be recovered, but that thing only weighs a few hundred tons. This one—five thousand tons."

"How will five thousand tons be disposed of?"

No one answered.

The number of viewers in the live stream surged from 1.5 million to 5 million within ten minutes. The hashtag "Lingxiao-1 recovery" dominated the trending topics on major social media platforms.

"The rockets of future spaceflight will be reusable"—the hottest topic.

"Is it possible to recover a 5,000-ton rocket?" - Second most popular question.

"Is Li Yichen crazy?" - Third most popular topic.

The experts in suits at the front of the observation area were speechless.

One of the elderly experts, with gray hair, handed his phone to his young assistant.

"Could you check the technical data for the Aurora engine for me...? Has any data been made public?"

The assistant shook his head.

The old expert closed his eyes, placed his hands on his knees, and the veins on the back of his hands throbbed.

Inside the command center.

"Report! Rocket attitude adjustment complete, entering reentry orbit!"

"Current altitude: 62 kilometers; speed: Mach 3.7; continuing to decelerate!"

Data was rapidly updating on the large screen. The Lingxiao-1 rocket was cutting into the atmosphere at extremely high speed, and the heat protection layer on the white rocket body began to withstand the high temperature.

everything is normal.

until--

A red alarm box suddenly popped up on the weather monitoring terminal in front of Liu Ruyan.

She glanced down.

The color drained from his face within two seconds.

"President Li!" She turned around.

Li Yichen was leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, one hand resting on his watch. Hearing Liu Ruyan call him, he walked over.

"A sudden low-pressure cyclone has appeared over the South China Sea." Liu Ruyan pointed to the red vortex on the weather terminal.

"Unforeseen severe convective weather is rapidly developing. In twelve minutes—"

She paused for a moment.

"The sea area where the launch platform is located."

The command room fell silent instantly.

A young engineer nearby suddenly stood up: "President Liu! Stop the recovery! Let the rocket crash into the sea!"

Another person chimed in anxiously, "Yes! Once the wind speed exceeds the limit, the arrow will become unstable in the last hundred meters—"

"If it crashes into the sea, this rocket will be useless." Liu Ruyan didn't turn her head.

"Three months. From blueprints to the finished product. Everyone worked themselves to the bone to get it done."

No one responded.

Everyone looked at Li Yichen.

He stood in front of the control panel.

Four seconds.

He didn't speak for a full four seconds.

Miao Miao clutched the hem of his clothes, her little face tilted upwards, her lips pressed tightly together. Ji Yanran stood three steps away, her arms crossed over her chest, her fingertips digging into the flesh of her forearms.

"continue."

Li Yichen spoke up.

"Give Ling'er complete control. No human intervention."

Liu Ruyan turned around and faced the control panel.

"Attention all personnel. Flight control of the rocket is being transferred to the AI ​​system. Manual intervention is now closed."

Her hand hovered over the confirmation button for half a second.

Press down.

A line of text popped up in the upper left corner of the large screen:

Ling'er takes over.

In that instant, Ling'er's holographic projection on the watch lit up. The small, chibi-style figure floated above Li Yichen's wrist, lacking its usual playfulness and bouncyness.

She stood ramrod straight.

"Brother, don't worry about leaving it to me. Ling'er won't let you down."

The launch platform's sensor arrays were activated at full power. Real-time data from three nearby meteorological satellites were simultaneously retrieved. Ling'er constructed a three-dimensional airflow model of the entire launch area within 0.03 seconds, updating it every 0.03 seconds.

The vector nozzle began to fine-tune its angle at a frequency that was too fast for the naked eye to follow.

The arrow darted through the turbulent currents. Every second, its trajectory changed. Every second, Ling'er recalculated its path.

Switch the large screen to the recycling countdown.

three minutes.

The live stream chat completely stopped.

Five million people held their breath at the same time.

In the live feed from the launch platform's cameras, the waves on the sea grew higher and higher. White spray was whipped up by the wind and crashed against the railings at the edge of the platform.

The rumbling sound from the sky grew closer and closer.

Two minutes.

One minute.

"Altitude 1,000 meters! Aurora engine reignites!"

Twelve white and blue flames simultaneously burst open above the sea.

The camera feed was mostly engulfed by the afterglow of the flames. Countless cameras—from the observation area, the live broadcast studio, and around the world—froze in that moment.

Miao Miao gripped Li Yichen's clothes tightly. Her face was flushed, and her lips were trembling.

The little girl who was chattering away just now is now so quiet she doesn't even dare to breathe.

500 meters.

Three hundred meters.

One hundred meters.

Fifty meters——

A gust of wind.

The arrow went astray.

In the camera footage, the landing legs were no longer centered on the launch pad; they were off-center, about two meters away.

Someone let out a short gasp.

0.07 seconds.

Ling'er completed the path correction. The vector nozzles compensated at the extreme angle. The trajectories of the four landing legs were abruptly reversed—

boom.

Metal colliding with metal.

The launch platform shook violently.

The locking catches engage. The engine shuts off. The exhaust flame dissipates. High-temperature steam surges up again, enveloping the entire platform.

But this time, everyone knows.

The white arrow was intact and stood upright in the center of the platform.

The error should not exceed half a meter.

The commotion in the command center was even greater than when the launch was successful. Some engineers were slumped over their desks, their shoulders heaving. People were shouting, all sorts of things.

Liu Ruyan leaned back in her chair, two streams of tears silently sliding down her cheeks. She raised her hand to wipe them away and turned to Li Yichen.

Li Yichen leaned against the window, the holographic image of Ling'er still lit up on his wrist.

He looked down at the tiny figure, no bigger than the palm of his hand.

"Well done."

Ling'er's face finally returned to its usual expression, and she winked at him.

The live stream completely spiraled out of control. A deluge of messages appeared in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, and Arabic.

Observation area.

The elderly expert with gray hair stood up from his seat.

He didn't say anything.

Silently, slowly, they clapped three times.

Then turned and left.

His young assistant paused for a moment, then jogged after him. When he reached the exit of the observation area, he heard the old expert say something in a low voice.

The assistant stopped in his tracks.

"After we get back, we'll work on our existing engine design—"

The old expert's figure disappeared around the corner of the passage.

Let's overturn everything and start over.