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

Traffic was sparse on the elevated highway, and the setting sun painted the Pudong skyline a vibrant orange-red.

Li Yichen held the steering wheel with one hand, his right thumb scrolling through the contacts before dialing.

It rang once and a half times, then I answered.

"Are you coming back for dinner? Uncle Zhou made some pork bone soup." Ji Yanran's voice was as calm as ever.

"Yanran, I need to tell you something."

The sound of flipping through documents on the other end of the phone stopped.

Ji Yanran had an almost instinctive sensitivity to changes in his tone. Normally, he would address her as "Sister Yanran," "President Ji," or "Wei," only using his full name when it came to serious matters.

"explain."

"I may be going into seclusion for about a month. I won't be going back to the villa."

"What is it this time that can't be said?"

Li Yichen switched hands to grip the steering wheel, and the car slid down the ramp, merging into the expressway leading to the aerospace base.

"This time is different." He paused for a moment. "It's about saving lives."

Ji Yanran remained silent for two seconds.

In those two seconds, she didn't press for details about who it was, how they rescued him, or why he had to do it himself. Having spent the last six months with Li Yichen, she had long since learned one thing—if he said a month, then it was a month. Asking more questions was pointless; it was better to secure the rear.

"Okay." Her voice calmed down. "Eat on time, don't ruin yourself."

"Understood, Mr. Ji."

"Be poor."

*Click*, the call ended.

Li Yichen took the phone away from his ear and glanced at the screen. After hesitating for half a second, he opened WeChat and sent three messages in a row.

To Xue Shanshan: "I have something important to do during this time. I'll let you know as soon as I'm done. Don't worry."

To Liu Xiaoyu: Same as above.

To Xiao Yuqing: Same as above.

After sending the lock screen message, I tossed it to the passenger seat.

In less than twenty seconds, the phone vibrated three times.

Xue Shanshan: "...Okay."

Liu Xiaoyu: "Don't overwork yourself!"

Xiao Yuqing sent a hugging emoji with the caption: "Waiting for your message."

Li Yichen glanced at it but didn't reply.

I stepped on the gas and the car reached speeds of 120.

In the rearview mirror, the lights of Shanghai gradually shrank into blurry spots of light.

-

The No. 1 workshop of the waste recycling station.

The blue indicator light of the cold fusion reactor flashed steadily in the corner, and the entire building was enveloped in a low electromagnetic hum.

Li Yichen stood in front of the control panel of the atomic forging platform, his ten fingers falling.

The list of materials for the outer shell of the nanomedical chamber has been imported—a titanium-vanadium composite material anti-electromagnetic interference layer, a medical-grade tantalum alloy biocompatible liner, an ultra-high purity quartz observation window… Seventeen components, each with a different shape, all with a uniform precision requirement of ±3 micrometers.

The plasma chamber glowed with a faint blue light.

The raw materials are broken down into atomic-level particles at temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius, and then rearranged, polymerized, and shaped under the confinement of a magnetic field.

Six hours.

Seventeen silver-gray components slid out of the discharge port one by one and were neatly stacked on the conveyor belt.

Four Terminators silently stepped forward, packed the components into sealed transport boxes, and loaded them onto the truck.

Li Yichen followed the car and drove into the precision laboratory building two kilometers away.

As the door to the underground workshop closed, he looked around—a ten-axis industrial machine tool, an ultra-precision machining center, a dust-free workbench, and a micro-welding station.

In the corner, a cot less than 1.5 meters wide was covered with a military green quilt, and the pillow was still hard.

For the next month, this would be his whole world.

"Brother." Ling'er peeked halfway out from her watch, her playful expression unusually serious. "Four hundred and seventy-two steps, each to be completed in under 1.4 hours on average. You must personally handle the core nanoscale operations; I will provide full assistance and data monitoring."

"Enough with the nonsense." Li Yichen took off his coat and hung it on the doorknob, rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. "Let's get started."

-

first day.

Main frame of the cabin.

It's not as simple as welding a few pieces of sheet metal. The outer shell of the nanomedical chamber has a three-layer composite structure—an outermost layer of titanium-vanadium alloy for impact resistance, a middle layer of electromagnetic shielding mesh, and an innermost layer of sterile biocompatible coating.

Li Yichen operates a ten-axis machine tool to cut alloy plates into preset arcs. The required precision is ±5 micrometers.

One-tenth of a hair.

As the blade advanced one millimeter, Ling'er broadcasted the deviation value in real time to her ear.

"Deviation 3.7...3.9...4.1..."

Li Yichen held his breath and turned the fine adjustment knob a fraction of a degree with his right index finger.

"Pullback. 3.8...3.4...3.1. Safe."

After cutting a piece of wood, a thin layer of sweat had already seeped out of my back.

Seventeen motherboards. Each one is like that.

-

Day three.

2:40 a.m.

Apart from the hum of the mother machine, the only sound in the workshop was the crisp "hiss" of the welding torch being lit.

Medical-grade tantalum alloy. The welding temperature window for this stuff is shockingly narrow—only an eleven-degree margin between the upper and lower limits. Too high, and the material becomes brittle and cracks at the slightest touch; too low, and the weld is weak, rendering it unusable due to lack of airtightness.

Li Yichen burned the first piece of wood.

The second piece burned out.

The third piece—a layer of microcracks visible to the naked eye appeared on the weld surface. It was ruined.

Ling'er didn't say a word. But the bright red scrap count "3/47" on the holographic panel was dazzling.

Li Yichen stared at the fourth piece of board on the worktable for five seconds.

Take a deep breath.

I turned the welding torch inward by two degrees, fine-tuned the current to thirty-seven amps, and placed my right index finger on the trigger button.

His hands were as steady as if they were welded into the air.

"laugh--"

A uniform silver-white line flowed from the weld, its surface as smooth as silk.

On Ling'er's panel, the scrap count stopped changing.

-

Day .

The outer shell of the cabin is complete.

The real nightmare has only just begun.

Nanorobot release system. 1,280 micro-jet arrays, each array with a nozzle diameter of 0.3 micrometers—one-third the diameter of a red blood cell.

Li Yichen lay on the microscopic workbench, his eyes peering through the high-powered eyepiece at the structures smaller than dust particles in his field of vision.

Each one was calibrated individually.

One by one.

By the time I got two hundred, my eyes started to sting.

On the 500th one, my temples started throbbing.

When Ling'er's reminder popped up for the third time, he realized that the lunchbox on the corner of the table had been sitting there for four hours.

I ate a couple of mouthfuls of cold rice and drank a mouthful of ice-cold black coffee.

carry on.

-

Day 7. 3 AM.

The phone call was made.

There were two loud noises. Liu Guoliang's voice was nasal, clearly indicating he had been jolted awake from bed.

"Brother Li? What's wrong now, in the middle of the night?"

"Brother Liu, I need a batch of platinum-iridium alloy. 99.99% purity, 30 kilograms."

When do you need it?

"today."

A heavy snort came from the other end of the phone.

"Anything else?"

"Twenty liters of anhydrous ethanol and five kilograms of medical-grade nano silver powder."

"Finished?"

That's enough for now.

"Fine." Liu Guoliang's voice carried a sense of resignation, as if to saying, "I've gotten used to you calling me in the middle of the night." "Deliver it within six hours. Next time, can you at least call after sunrise?"

"cannot."

"...You wait."

Snapped.

Li Yichen put his phone on the table and leaned back onto the microscopic operating table.

The 501st jet array was waiting for him.

Six hours later, a military SUV pulled up outside the experimental building on time. Terminator signed for it, and the supplies were stored. The process was as smooth as picking up takeout.

-

Days passed by one after another.

There was no distinction between day and night in the laboratory building. Incandescent lights were never turned off, and the machine tools never stopped. Li Yichen's schedule was compressed into a simple and brutal cycle—work, eat, sleep for three hours, get up and continue working.

Ling'er pops up a reminder every four hours.

"Brother, you've been working for twelve hours straight. Time to eat."

"Um."

He didn't raise his head, and his hands didn't stop.

Two more hours passed.

"It's been fourteen hours, the food's getting cold. I'll count to three, and if you don't come and eat, I'll shut down the mothership."

"...Okay, okay."

Li Yichen put down his tools, walked to the corner of the table, picked up the box of braised pork rice that had completely cooled down, and shoveled a few mouthfuls into his mouth while standing. He barely chewed, swallowed it, took a swig from a mineral water bottle, wiped his mouth, and turned to sit back down at his workstation.

The entire process should not exceed four minutes.

-

tenth day.

My phone vibrated.

Li Yichen was hunched over the control panel calibrating the 837th jet array when he reached for his phone with one hand and glanced at it.

Ji Yanran: "Are you still alive?"

He made two thumb gestures and replied with two words: "Alive."

Ji Yanran: "Miaomiao asked when you're coming back."

The finger hovers over the screen.

The only sounds in the workshop were the fine hum of the machine tool and the airflow from the rotating microscope fan.

Three seconds later, he typed: "Tell her that I'm doing something very, very important. When I'm done, I'll go back and take her out for ice cream."

After sending the message, turn your phone face down on the table.

With the screen facing down, the vibration was swallowed up by the desktop.

Keep working.

-

Late that night, Ling'er sent out a progress report.

The outer shell of the cabin is now complete.

Internal circulation system – installation complete.

Nanorobot release array – 87% commissioning complete.

The control chip has been embedded in the motherboard, and the underlying program has been burned in.

The progress bar on the holographic panel had reached 38%, and the large blank space following it corresponded to a line of bold red text:

"Core process: Nanorobot body manufacturing - not yet started."

Ling'er huddled at the edge of the watch, her short legs dangling, her voice several tones softer than usual.

"Brother, starting tomorrow, the next two weeks will be the most difficult part of the entire project."

Li Yichen sat on the edge of the cot, his hands resting on his knees. His ten fingers trembled slightly from more than ten days of intense micro-manipulation, like the fine vibrations he felt after doing pull-ups.

"Each nanobot is only one-third the size of a red blood cell," Ling'er's voice came from the watch, "integrating three systems: sensors, a power unit, and an actuator. Atomic precision, zero tolerance for error. If even one fails, we have to start all over again."

She tilted her head to look at his hand.

"Is your hand... alright?"

Li Yichen looked down.

The trembling of her fingertips became even more noticeable under her gaze.

He clenched his fists, held them for three seconds, and then released them.

The trembling stopped.

"There are still two weeks left." His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against sheet metal.

I stood up, walked to the sink, turned on the tap, and splashed ice water on my face. The coolness seeped into my bones, washing away some of the fatigue.

He looked up. The face in the mirror—dark circles under his eyes looked like they were drawn on, his cheekbones were a little more prominent than ten days ago, and there was a patch of stubble on his chin.

But the eyes are bright.

Li Yichen wiped the water off his face and turned to walk back to the control panel.

He took a brand-new atomic-level manipulation probe from the drawer, twirled it halfway between his fingers, and then precisely inserted it into the fixing slot with the tip pointing downwards.

On Ling'er's holographic panel, the countdown numbers quietly ticked.

"Remaining construction period: half a month"

"Wake me up at five o'clock tomorrow morning." He pulled over the stiff, army-green quilt and lay down on his side on the cot. The springs made a short creak.

Ling'er dimmed the workshop lights by two levels.

Okay. Goodnight, bro.