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

The scene shifts to Ji Yanran's side, where her acquisition team has already entered the logistics park east of the scrap yard.

The first day's talks went quite politely. The next day, the owners of several factories got together for a smoke, raised the price twice, and even sent a representative to deliver a message saying that relocation was no small matter, and that employee resettlement, equipment depreciation, and customer defaults all needed to be accounted for.

The implication was clear—we intend to stay here, and you can talk at your leisure.

After listening, Ji Yanran asked Feng Yue to turn to the last page of the evaluation report. She glanced at it, then looked up and asked the representative, "What was your company's revenue last year?"

"...around three hundred million."

"The market valuation of the factory and land here is 420 million," Ji Yanran capped her pen. "I'll give you 1.26 billion."

The ash from the representative's cigarette fell onto his pants.

"Three times." Ji Yanran pushed the checkbook over. "There's only one condition: all people and machines must be evacuated within 24 hours. If it's more than a minute later, this price is void, and we'll build somewhere else."

The man's hands were still shaking when he came out of the meeting room. He ran to the stairwell to call his boss, and his voice was distorted.

At 10 p.m. that night, the road in front of the logistics park was blocked by trucks. Forklifts roared all night as workers unloaded equipment from the warehouse. One boss personally helped load a German-imported sorting machine onto a flatbed truck, urging the driver, "Drive faster, faster! What if they change their minds tomorrow morning!"

Three days. Sixty percent of the area was cleared.

Of the remaining 40%, there was a resettlement housing area. Ji Yanran didn't write any checks; instead, she dispatched six negotiation teams to knock on doors one by one. They noted down every detail: which elderly person needed hospitalization, which child needed to transfer schools, and which family had a jujube tree planted by the old lady herself—and compensated them all with the highest level of compensation. On the seventh day, the last family signed the agreement.

The afternoon the bulldozers drove in, the dust they kicked up could obscure half the sky two kilometers away.

In the same week, another event occurred on the other side of the world.

The spot price of tungsten concentrate on the London Metal Exchange initially jumped six points, leading traders to believe that a steel mill was replenishing its inventory. The next day, it jumped another eight points. On the third day, it was discovered that the buyers were the same group of agents, registered in seven different countries, but all with settlement channels pointing to a newly established trading company in Daxia.

"What about high-purity rhenium?"

"It was swept away too. The three-year contract for that mine in Chile was just bought out in one go."

Foreign media headlines were quite blunt: "A large Chinese company is emptying the global specialty minerals market with cash."

One analyst, pressed by clients on a conference call, had to admit that prices for some niche product categories had already been artificially inflated by 30%, and there was no sign that buyers would stop.

As for the source of this storm, he has been squatting on a small stool by the Huangpu River every afternoon this week.

Li Yichen's fishing rod was propped up on a cement platform by the flood control wall, the float resting motionless on the water, as steady as if it were welded to the surface. An old man next to him, who had already caught two crucian carp, couldn't help but advise him: "Young man, your bait isn't good, it's too bland."

"It's okay, I just want some peace and quiet."

The old man shook his head and left.

He wasn't after the fish. The only thing making noise was the panel that no one else could see.

[Ding! You have spent 10 billion, your wealth level +1, technology points +1, and wealth gift pack +1]

[Ding! You have spent 50 billion, your wealth level has increased by 5, your technology points by 5, and your wealth gift pack by 5.]

The sound has been almost constant this week. Sometimes it can go off more than ten times a day, blasting out seven or eight levels of damage in a row. He counted it once, but then got too lazy to count anymore.

By Friday evening, the level had stopped at 110.

[Technology Points: 65]

[Unopened Wealth Gift Pack: 65]

Li Yichen stared at that number for a few seconds.

Sixty-five points. Star Destroyer battleship, 1,500 points; antimatter main gun, 1,200 points; planetary shield, 500 points.

I can't touch any of them.

Burning through 700 billion in a week only yielded a fraction of that. He knew the math perfectly well—at this rate, relying solely on cash reserves, it wouldn't even reach 500 points in five years.

The real hope lies in those sixty-five gift packages. The industrial motherships, vibranium formulas, and space carriers mentioned earlier were all found in those gift packages.

He glanced at the float again. Still, he didn't move it.

"Air Force," he muttered to himself, reaching for the reel.

My phone vibrated in my pocket at that moment.

Ji Yanran.

"Boss." She sounded like she'd just drunk half a bottle of water; her throat was dry, but her tone was tense. "The venue's all set."

"Oh, tell me the specifics."

"The west and north sides are completely leveled, and the last warehouse in the south was demolished yesterday afternoon. The ground is being paved, and fourteen construction teams are working on the makeshift factory buildings at the same time." Ji Yanran's voice came through as she turned the pages. "It cost 214 billion, which is a little over the limit. The relocation premium couldn't be controlled."

"not much."

"Not many?" Ji Yanran exclaimed through her nose. "Boss, do you know how many checks I've signed this week? My hand is numb from signing so many."

Li Yichen reeled in his fishing rod, shook off the water, and asked, "Where's the shipyard?"

"We got it."

Which one?

"The largest private shipyard outside of Jiangnan, the one in Pudong. It has three docks, the largest of which can handle 300,000 tons." Ji Yanran paused for half a second, "320 billion."

"Is the other party willing to sell?"

"They initially refused. Their chairman had worked at that factory for twenty-six years and said it was his life's work." Ji Yanran's voice carried a hint of something indescribable. "I negotiated three times. In the third round, I increased the price by another 40 billion and promised to retain all the long-term employees and not lay off a single person for five years."

"Then?"

"Then he brought the company seal to my house last night." Ji Yanran laughed, but it was a tired laugh. "Can you imagine, a man in his fifties, putting a box wrapped in red cloth on my coffee table, saying that he sat in his office all night while signing this, and telling me to make sure the factory is run well."

Li Yichen did not respond.

The wind blew up from the river, carrying the smell of diesel fuel from the cargo ships.

"There's more ore," Ji Yanran brought the conversation back on track. "Five thousand tons of top-grade ore, over 110 billion. Ten thousand tons of mid-to-high-grade ore, another 120 billion. We don't have enough warehouse space, so I rented three plots of land in Qingpu. We're storing it in the open air, covered with tarpaulins. As long as the ground is level, that's fine."

"very good."

"Very good?" There was a creaking sound from Ji Yanran's side. "Boss, now there's a problem."

"explain."

"The company's 700 billion+ in its accounts..." She paused, her teeth clenching, "...I emptied it all out."

Li Yichen threw the fishing rod on the ground, and the fishing line spread out on the cement platform.

He smiled.

"Well done."

"Well done—" Ji Yanran's voice rose half an octave, "Li Yichen, did you hear what I said? It's empty! I checked my balance this afternoon, it was a four-digit number followed by zeros, not a billion!"

"What did I tell you before?"

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

"...If you run out of money, go to the bank."

"You really need to contact a bank!"

From Ji Yanran's side came the sound of her rubbing her temples, her fingernails scraping her skin, one stroke after another.

"Okay," she agreed. "Then let me ask you, how much do you want to borrow? If it's one or two hundred billion, I can get the bank to approve it this afternoon. I've already been invited to dinner three times this month by the four major banks; they're lining up to lend us money."

Li Yichen bent down and lifted the fish basket; it was empty, not a single fish inside.

"What can a hundred or two hundred billion do?" he said in the same tone as asking about the price of cabbage at the market. "It's not even enough to fill a tooth gap. If we're going to borrow, we should borrow a trillion."

"puff--"

There was a violent coughing fit over there, with water getting stuck in his throat, and the sound of a table being bumped.

"Cough cough... How much?!" Ji Yanran's voice squeezed out from her throat, "One trillion?! Li Yichen, do you think the bank is our family's money-printing machine?!"

"It's not ours, so we need to talk to them."

"You must be joking," Ji Yanran said quickly and urgently. "One trillion RMB—that's a staggering amount! All the new loans in the entire Great Xia region would be wiped out in a year. Go to any bank, and the bank president would need to see a cardiologist on the spot. If he dared to approve it, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission would be knocking on his door the next day. No single bank could possibly handle that!"

Li Yichen folded up the stool and tucked it under his arm, then walked along the flood control wall towards the parking area.

"If one place isn't enough, find four."

"..."

"Call all the branch managers of the four major banks in Shanghai together." His tone was very calm. "Tell them, one trillion, we just want the money, they can name their interest rate, whatever it is, we will not argue."

"You can set the interest rate however you want?" Ji Yanran was stunned. "Boss, you can't say that. It sounds like they're roasting a fat sheep over a fire. They really dare to raise the price."

"How much higher?" Li Yichen asked. "Two percentage points? Three percentage points? I don't care about the interest on 30 billion a year. If they really dare to quote the highest rate, it means they are confident in their investment, and I'll feel more at ease."

There was complete silence on Ji Yanran's end.

Li Yichen opened the car door and got in, throwing the stool into the back seat: "I need to see the money within two days. They can choose whatever they want as collateral—the patent pool of Thor batteries, the production line for photonic chips, the equity of the security robot subsidiary—take whatever they can get, as much as they can offer."

"The valuation of future technologies..."

"Over a trillion, that's a conservative estimate from the media." Li Yichen started the car. "Slam the company's annual cash flow statement on the table. The company's annual profit can exceed a trillion. The four major banks aren't charities. They know we can repay this trillion. It would be strange if they didn't dare to lend it. After all, no one can resist the temptation of 30 billion in interest a year."

There was a long silence on the phone.

"Okay," Ji Yanran said. "One trillion. I'll negotiate. Don't blame me if things fall apart."

"The talks won't break down."

The phone hangs up.

The 60th floor of the Shanghai Center Building.

Ji Yanran placed her phone on the table and sank back in her chair, the only sound in the office being the low hum of the air conditioner. Seven contracts, three asset appraisals, and two empty coffee cups lay scattered on the table.

She stared at the ceiling for about ten seconds.

"Crazy," she said. "Absolutely crazy."

She paused, then laughed again, a laugh tinged with an indescribable excitement: "But... using a trillion to smear someone, just thinking about it is pretty exciting."