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

Li Yichen picked up his teacup and took a small sip.

"Brother, there are three minutes left in the countdown." Ling'er's voice came from the watch. "All weapon platforms have completed their attitude adjustments, targets are locked, and the system self-check is all green."

"Hmm." Li Yichen put down his teacup and swiped his finger across the virtual screen to bring up the live feed.

In the holographic projection, the island was peaceful. Several soldiers were smoking by the pier, one of them holding up a phone with the camera pointed at the distant sea, muttering something unintelligible. At the barracks entrance, two officers leaned against the wall chatting, one of them laughing so hard he bent over.

Li Yichen stared at the screen for a few seconds.

"Brother, do you want to double-check?" Ling'er peeked out, blinking her eyes. "After all, this..."

"No need," Li Yichen interrupted her. "They deserve to die."

Ling'er shrank back and didn't say anything more.

The countdown has jumped to one minute.

Li Yichen leaned back in his chair, his gaze sweeping over the six red dots on the left side of the screen—they were slowly moving along an orbit 360 kilometers above the target, each representing a space-based kinetic weapon platform.

Thirty seconds.

In the video, the soldier holding up his phone to livestream is still talking, a smile on his face. Behind him, the missile silo hatch reflects the sunlight, which is blindingly bright.

ten seconds.

Li Yichen extended his index finger and hovered it above the red button on the virtual panel.

Five, four, three, two, one.

He pressed it.

Six weapon platforms simultaneously released their payloads. The tungsten-titanium alloy projectiles detached from their mounting frames and, under the initial acceleration of the micro-thrusters, began to fall towards the Earth's surface.

Li Yichen switched to the projectile's perspective. In the scene, the black space was quickly replaced by a blue atmosphere, with white flames igniting at the edges.

"Hit in thirty-seven seconds." Ling'er announced the time, "Speed ​​Mach 51, trajectory correction complete."

Li Yichen didn't speak, he just stared at the screen.

On the reef, the soldier holding the phone suddenly stopped. He looked up at the sky, his mouth agape, and the phone slipped from his hand.

You can see him shouting something in the video, but you can't hear his voice.

The others also looked up.

Then, six white beams of light tore through the clouds and descended from the sky.

The impact occurred at the same instant.

Li Yichen saw the center of the reef suddenly cave in, and then the entire island exploded from the inside—not an explosion, but a pure physical tear. The rock layers were ripped apart like paper, and the shockwave whipped up a hundred-meter-high wall of water, with debris and dust forming a mushroom cloud that shot straight into the sky.

Ten seconds later, the island disappeared.

Instead, a huge whirlpool appeared, with seawater rushing in and the surging waves visible from over ten kilometers away.

Li Yichen turned off the projector, stood up, and walked to the window.

"Brother..." Ling'er's voice was a little weak, "The target is completely destroyed. Thermal imaging shows zero residue above the sea surface. The original water depth at the reef site is now... -42 meters."

"Notify Chen Jianjun," Li Yichen stretched his neck, "and tell him the matter is settled."

"OK."

The phone rang for less than thirty seconds before Chen Jianjun called.

Li Yichen answered the call.

"Xiao Li..." Chen Jianjun's voice was a little tense, "I just saw the images transmitted back by the satellite."

"Um."

"That island... is gone."

"right."

Chen Jianjun was silent for two seconds: "Is it clean?"

"Very clean." Li Yichen turned around and walked back to his desk, poured himself a glass of water, "Not even a crumb was left."

"Okay, okay..." Chen Jianjun breathed a sigh of relief. "Leave the rest to us. I'll handle things with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You don't need to worry about anything."

"OK."

"And..." Chen Jianjun paused, "Xiao Li, about this matter... are you alright?"

Li Yichen took a sip of water: "What's up?"

"I mean..." Chen Jianjun hesitated, "After all, there are more than a thousand people on the island."

"In my eyes, they're no different from livestock. You're asking me if I'm alright?" Li Yichen put down his cup. "Commander Chen, you're overthinking it."

Chen Jianjun was silent for a while before saying, "Okay, I understand. You get some rest."

After hanging up the phone, Li Yichen tossed his phone back onto the table.

Ling'er leaned over the edge of the watch, tilting her head to look at him: "Brother, you really don't feel anything at all?"

"How does it feel?"

"It's just..." Ling'er gestured, "You just sank an island, and there are over a thousand people left."

Li Yichen glanced at her: "What do you think I should feel?"

"I don't know either," Ling'er shook her head, "but you're being too calm, aren't you?"

"It's just an ant that's been crushed." Li Yichen opened the study door. "Let's go fishing."

Ling'er opened her mouth, but in the end, she didn't say anything.

Meanwhile, on the USS Carl, fifty kilometers away from the island, alarms blared throughout the fleet.

"Sir! Anomalies have appeared in the direction of the reef!" the radar operator shouted to Commander Hamilton. "Six high-speed targets detected, exceeding... exceeding Mach 50! Coming from directly overhead!"

"What?!" Hamilton rushed to the radar screen. "A missile?"

"Not a missile! No heat signature, no exhaust plume, it's..." The radar operator's voice trailed off. "Sir, target hit."

Hamilton looked up at the sea outside the bridge.

In the distance, six white beams of light descended from the sky and crashed into the sea.

Then, the entire sea surface exploded.

"My God..." the staff officer beside him stammered, "What...what is that?"

A mushroom cloud shot three thousand meters into the sky, and the shockwave sent waves crashing onto the fleet. The Carl rocked violently, and sailors on deck clung to the railings to avoid being thrown off.

A dozen seconds later, the sea returned to calm.

Hamilton gripped the edge of the control panel tightly, his face deathly pale: "The island? Where's that island?"

The radar operator stared at the screen, his fingers trembling: "Sir... he's disappeared. There's nothing on the radar."

"How is that possible?!" Hamilton snatched the binoculars and aimed them at the location of the reef.

Through the telescope, all that could be seen were surging white waves and slowly sinking pebbles.

That island is truly gone.

"Contact the mainland immediately!" Hamilton's voice was hoarse. "Tell them...tell them the reef has been destroyed. The attack came from space, traveling at over Mach 50, with no warning, no interception."

The staff officer swallowed hard. "Sir, should we...should we retreat?"

Hamilton remained silent. He stared at the sea, only one thought in his mind—what if those six projectiles had hit the fleet's head instead of the island…

They didn't even have time to react.

"All fleet to Level One alert." Hamilton's voice was hoarse. "Request evacuation orders from the mainland. Immediately!"

Sakura Defense Ministry, duty room.

"Report! Communications in the East China Sea are down!" An officer jumped to his feet. "All signals from the islands and reefs have disappeared!"

"What do you mean?" The supervisor on duty walked over. "Bad signal?"

"No," the officer said, pulling up the data. "All links were disconnected simultaneously. Base stations, satellite communications, and shortwave radios were all out of service."

The supervisor on duty frowned: "Reconnect."

"We've tried three times already." The officer's hands were trembling. "There's been no response."

The duty supervisor stared at the screen for a few seconds, then suddenly turned and rushed to the large screen on the wall: "Pull up the live satellite imagery!"

The image took five seconds to load.

On the screen, only a white expanse of waves remained where the islands and reefs were.

Everyone in the duty room was stunned.

"This...this is impossible..." The duty supervisor took a step back and bumped into a chair. "Where's the island? Where did it go?"

The officer turned on the video playback and switched to footage from ten minutes earlier. The reef was still standing intact on the sea, and the soldiers were moving around on the pier.

Then the scene jumps back five minutes—six white beams of light descend from the sky.

The scene flashed, and the island was gone.

"My God..." someone whispered, dropping their coffee cup and shattering it on the floor.

Nobody picked it up.