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

Chapter 268 Cold Nuclear Fusion, Let's Get Started

Ten days.

The production line on the 66th floor never stopped for a second.

The silver-gray robotic arm rotates day and night, and the core modules of the energy shield slide out one after another from the end of the production line. They are then neatly stacked into black shockproof boxes by the Zhongqing robots, just like stacking mahjong tiles.

On the other side of the same floor, the Terminator assembly station was also operating at full capacity. The silver-white skeleton moved slowly on the conveyor belt, adding a layer of bionic skin and a set of servo motors with each station it passed. The yield rate was frighteningly stable.

Every few days, a military-green enclosed truck pulls into the underground parking garage. The materials list for cold fusion is being fulfilled batch by batch, each box escorted by two armed soldiers, and after being signed for, it is directly sent to the experimental area on the 66th floor for sealing.

Gu Shounian's WeChat messages went from one every two days to one a day, and finally to two a day.

When will the Warframe be available for additional orders?

"How's the shield progress?"

"When will the first batch of 100 Terminator units be accepted?

Li Yichen reads all messages but doesn't reply.

Gu Shounian finally couldn't resist and made a phone call.

"Brother Li, have you blocked me?"

"No, I'm busy."

"What are you busy with? I sent you seventeen messages!"

"Seventeen articles?" Li Yichen held his phone away to look at it. "Oh, indeed seventeen articles."

Gu Shounian took a deep breath on the other end of the phone, using all his strength to maintain his military bearing.

"I only have one question—when can I pick up the shield and the Terminator?"

"the day after tomorrow."

"real?"

Why would I lie to you? Just have someone come and pick it up the day after tomorrow morning. I've got everything ready.

Gu Shounian hung up the phone, and Li Yichen tossed his phone onto the table and continued monitoring the production line.

Two days later.

It was exactly 9:00 AM.

The freight elevator doors on the 66th floor opened, and Liu Guoliang strode out, followed by Gu Shounian and a group of soldiers in camouflage.

Li Yichen stood at the end of the production line, hands in his pockets, with a "welcome" expression.

Liu Guoliang's gaze passed over him and landed on the rows of neatly stacked black shockproof boxes behind him. Each box was labeled with a number, from 001 to 100.

He walked over and reached out to lift the lid of the nearest box.

A pale purple crystalline light shone on his face, and the core module of the energy shield lay quietly in the shock-absorbing foam, its exquisite craftsmanship unlike anything from this era.

"Good stuff." Liu Guoliang closed the box and turned to face Li Yichen.

Then he started doing the accounting.

"Fifty million each." He held up five fingers.

"One hundred." He opened his other hand.

"Fifty billion."

He pulled his hands back, and the flesh on his face twitched twice.

Gu Shounian stood to the side, his expression even more pained than Gu Shounian's.

"And it's at the 'cost price' of the materials provided by the military region."

Liu Guoliang looked up at Li Yichen, his eyes filled with a final struggle.

"Yichen, is there any room for negotiation on this price?"

Li Yichen kept his hands in his pockets and didn't move, a harmless smile on his face.

"Mr. Liu, you know the market price, right?"

Liu Guoliang's lips twitched.

Market price?

Is this available on the market?

Where does the market price come from?

It's one of a kind in the world. You can name your price, and who can negotiate with you?

He gritted his teeth, took out a pen from his pocket, and scribbled his name hard on the delivery slip.

Gu Shounian leaned close to Li Yichen's ear, his voice low enough for only the two of them to hear: "Can't you have a little conscience and give in a little more?"

Li Yichen turned his head and lowered his voice as well: "I've already conceded. I was originally planning on 60 million."

Gu Shounian shut up.

After Liu Guoliang finished signing, he put the pen in his pocket and waved to the soldiers behind him.

"Move it. Be careful, if anyone gets hurt, I'll deduct three months' worth of your allowance."

The soldiers filed up, two at a time, carrying boxes toward the freight elevator. Their movements were as swift as if they were moving New Year's goods.

Liu Guoliang watched the boxes disappear one by one into the freight elevator, took a deep breath, and after catching his breath, asked Li Yichen, "Where's the Terminator?"

"Downstairs. Come with me."

The elevator went down to the third basement level.

The underground storage area was brightly lit, and the space was large enough for trucks to drive through. A perimeter of cordoned-off area housed a hundred Terminators.

Neat and orderly. Five rows and twenty columns.

Each one was dressed in dark casual clothes, with different faces and slightly different heights and builds. When they stood there still, they were indistinguishable from real people.

The person in charge of inspecting the goods was already waiting there.

Zhao Tiezhu.

The special operations battalion commander. The one whose armor was destroyed by the Heavenly Soldiers during the last joint military exercise.

He stood outside the cordon with his hands behind his back, his expression best described in eight words—utterly hopeless and questioning the meaning of life.

Seeing Li Yichen come out of the elevator, Zhao Tiezhu turned around and his gaze lingered on Li Yichen's face for two seconds.

"Let me confirm with you," Zhao Tiezhu said calmly, "I'm here today to recruit these one hundred... people?"

"Not human," Li Yichen corrected, "a robot."

Zhao Tiezhu turned around and glanced at the hundred lifelike faces.

There was a silence for several seconds.

"Last time your armors blew me up, this time I'm here to unload goods for the Terminators." His tone was extremely complicated. "Am I just destined to be your downfall?"

Li Yichen looked at him very seriously.

"No. You are my most loyal product inspector."

Zhao Tiezhu: "..."

The two young soldiers next to him were trying so hard not to laugh that their faces turned red, but they immediately stopped when Zhao Tiezhu glared at them.

"Alright, let's start inspecting the goods." Zhao Tiezhu tugged at his collar. "We have to go through the procedures."

The inspection checklist was long. Visual inspection, joint mobility test, bionic skin integrity, core system startup response… Zhao Tiezhu checked off each item on his tablet, his expression as serious as a college entrance exam proctor.

When they reached the seventy-third station, something went wrong.

A young soldier was assigned to a facial recognition test. He was probably cold, as he didn't take off his hat or mask before entering the warehouse.

He had just stopped in front of the Terminator when—

The Terminator's eyes suddenly zoomed in, and the miniature cameras in its pupils spun rapidly.

My entire body switched to a defensive posture in 0.3 seconds.

Lower your shoulders, shift your weight forward, and raise your hands from your sides at a 15-degree angle with your fingers slightly spread.

That movement—it was just like a leopard eyeing its prey.

The young soldier was so frightened that he took three steps back and fell to the ground with a thud.

"Damn it!" Zhao Tiezhu nearly dropped the tablet from his hand, turned around and yelled at Li Yichen, "Your robot has a bug!"

The surrounding soldiers instinctively reached for their waists, and the air instantly tensed.

Li Yichen didn't move an inch.

Ling'er's voice drifted out from the watch, her tone as calm as if she were announcing the weather forecast.

"The soldier did not remove his mask and hat brim before entering the warehouse, and his face was covered by more than 67% of his face, which triggered the counter-reconnaissance behavior recognition model. The system identified him as a potential threat target and automatically switched to alert mode. This is a normal response and not a system malfunction."

The entire room fell silent for two seconds.

Li Yichen shrugged: "No bugs. It's more serious than any of you."

Zhao Tiezhu gritted his teeth, grabbed the soldier on the ground by the collar, and pulled him up.

"Take off your hat and mask next time you come in! You're here to inspect goods, not to rob a bank!"

The young soldier hunched his shoulders and nodded repeatedly, almost saluting him.

The Terminator automatically deactivated its guarded stance after three seconds, returning to a standing, ready-to-go position. It was as if nothing had happened.

Zhao Tiezhu took a deep breath and continued to cast the hook.

Two hours later, all one hundred Terminator vehicles were inspected, loaded onto trucks, and driven away. Zhao Tiezhu sat in the passenger seat of the last military truck and glanced at the increasingly distant building through the rearview mirror.

He shook his head and didn't say anything.

After Zhao Tiezhu and the others left, Li Yichen returned to the 66th floor.

Li Yichen stood at the entrance of the experimental area, looking at the rows of sealed material boxes. The last batch of cold fusion core materials had been delivered three days ago by a special vehicle from the Equipment Development Department. The list was verified to be correct, and everything was in place.

Ling'er popped out of the watch.

"Brother, all the materials are ready. We can start work anytime."

Li Yichen nodded, not in a hurry to take action. He turned and went to Ji Yanran's office.

When he pushed open the door, Ji Yanran was signing documents. She glanced up at him, but didn't stop writing.

"Have you used up both the shield and the Terminator?"

"It's paid."

"So, what's next—"

"I'm going into seclusion." Li Yichen sat down on the sofa. "I'll be living and eating on the 66th floor for the next few days, and I won't be going back at night."

Ji Yanran's pen tip paused on the paper, leaving a small dot of ink.

"Another seclusion? What for?"

Li Yichen thought for a second.

"Make a big one."

How big?

"About one ton. It takes up a little over one square meter of space."

Ji Yanran put down her pen, leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"What's the purpose of a ton of stuff?"

Li Yichen looked at her.

I hesitated for half a second. Oh well, we're on the same side, no need to hide anything.

"I want to build a reactor that can power a city for five to ten years."

The office fell silent.

Ji Yanran's expression went through four stages: confusion, shock, digestion, and acceptance.

Then she looked at Li Yichen and asked with a serious expression.

"Won't this thing explode?"

Li Yichen's lips twitched.

Ji Yanran didn't give him a chance to refute, and continued her tirade: "Were the fire prevention measures in place? When you were building it, shouldn't you have evacuated everyone in the building first? That way, in case of an explosion, the employees won't be hurt. Don't you think so?"

Li Yichen's face darkened.

"Cold fusion. The key word is 'cold.' It won't explode."

Are you sure?

"I'm 100% sure."

"That's good." Ji Yanran picked up her pen again. "I'll bring the meals up on time every day. Is there anything else you need?"

"That's all."

"Okay, then you can go ahead and get busy."

When Li Yichen heard Ji Yanran's words, he felt that something was wrong, but he didn't think about it too much. He stood up and walked out, and when he got to the door, he heard a voice behind him.

"Take care of yourself. Don't act like a wild man again after you get out of quarantine."

He glanced back. Ji Yanran had already lowered her head and continued signing documents, as if her previous remark had been made casually.

The scratching sound of the pen tip gliding across the paper filled the entire office.

Li Yichen didn't reply and closed the door.

The 66th floor.

The airtight door to the experimental area closed behind him, shutting out all the noise from the outside world.

Before me was a wall of material cabinets. High-purity lithium deuteride, superconducting magnetic confinement coil components, tungsten-copper alloy panels for the first wall, plasma heating modules... each compartment was labeled with a number and purity level.

Li Yichen stood in front of the materials cabinet, slowly pulling his hands out of his pockets.

I moved my fingers around a bit.

In my mind, the complete design blueprints of the cold fusion reactor were brought out from the depths of my memory—the route of every pipe, the location of every weld, the number of turns of every coil, as clear as if they were engraved on my retina.

He walked to the worktable and opened the first drawer of the materials cabinet.

The silvery-white superconducting coil was vacuum-sealed in a transparent container, gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the light.

He took the container out and placed it on the table.

Ling'er's voice came from the watch, soft and carrying a suppressed excitement.

"Brother, are you ready?"

Li Yichen reached out and picked up the miniature welding torch, pressing his fingertip against the switch.

The blue arc of light flickered briefly before extinguishing.

He didn't rush to light the fire.

I looked up at the stark white industrial light on the ceiling.

"Ling'er".

"exist."

"Make a note of the time."