61: Chapter 61 establishes "Pinduoduo Technology," focusing on affordability and ease of use.

Jiang Chen's finger hovered over the answer button, feeling as if he were pressing down on a nuclear landmine ready to detonate at any moment.

The air in the room had practically frozen.

On his left was the unhinged female Academician Chen Shuyin, clutching a laser screwdriver with a look that said, "I'm going to dismantle this piece of junk"; on his right was Ikaros, the mechanical maid with cold eyes and arms that could transform into Gatling guns at any moment.

And on the other side of the screen was the Wasteland Empress, who had just awakened a "yandere" personality and was eagerly waiting to show off her spoils of war.

"To hell with it!"

Jiang Chen gritted his teeth and slammed the answer button.

"Hum—"

The holographic projection instantly unfolded.

There was no "Mars colliding with Earth" style interrogation or crying as he had expected.

The moment Jiang Wanqiu's figure appeared, she radiated the excitement of someone who had just crawled out of a trash heap, waving a gray, tattered rag that looked like a dishcloth.

"Father God! Look quickly!"

Jiang Wanqiu's small face was dirty, but she beamed like a flower. "We found a pile of this strange fabric in the janitor's breakroom of that ruin! Grand Commander Lei Zhen, that idiot, said it was a foot-wiping rag, but I discovered it's not that simple!"

Academician Chen Shuyin had originally been staring at the holographic projection with killing intent, mentally calculating where this "virtual vixen" had come from.

But when her gaze landed on that "rag," she suddenly froze.

Jiang Wanqiu draped the cloth over her own arm.

"Swish!"

That section of her fair arm, along with the alloy combat blade in her hand, vanished into thin air!

It wasn't some low-level trick using light refraction; it was absolute—a nothingness where even the shadow could not be seen.

"Holy crap..."

The screwdriver in Academician Chen Shuyin's hand clattered to the floor. The jealousy from moments ago was instantly thrown to the winds, replaced by the mania a scientist feels when witnessing truth.

She lunged toward the holographic image. Although she couldn't touch it, her eyes were wide as saucers, wishing she could press her eyeballs right against it.

"Wide-area quantum optical camouflage?! And a civilian flexible material version at that?!"

"This refractive index… this band coverage… Good heavens! If this stuff were made into a coating, our fighter jets could dance disco right under the noses of the Eagle Sauce radars!"

At the same time.

Ikaros, who had been in "kill mode," saw the red light in her eyes flicker twice before rapidly extinguishing.

"Beep—"

"Target detected as a remote holographic data stream, no physical attack capability."

"Threat level: Zero."

"Classified as: Master's electronic pet."

Ikaros calmly retracted her Gatling gun arm, reverting to that obedient maid. She even thoughtfully picked up the screwdriver for Academician Chen Shuyin and handed it over.

"Here, repairman, your tool."

"Who are you calling a repairman?!" Academician Chen Shuyin retorted instinctively, but her attention was quickly drawn back to that "rag." "Forget it, I won't argue with you! Jiang Chen! Quick! Ask her how much more of this stuff there is?!"

Watching this scene, Jiang Chen let out a long sigh of relief, feeling his back soaked with sweat.

Fortunately.

Although these women were crazy, fortunately, they each had their own brand of madness. As long as you catered to their interests, a Shura field wasn't impossible to resolve.

"Ahem, Wanqiu."

Jiang Chen wore a fatherly smile toward the projection. "This is… um, the Chief Artisan of the God Realm. She is very interested in what you have in your hand."

"Really?"

Upon hearing it was an artisan, Jiang Wanqiu immediately showed deep respect. "So it's an elder who crafts divine artifacts for Father God! My apologies, my apologies! There are still several tons of this fabric in the warehouse; it was used by the cleaners of the old era to cover trash cans, for fear of affecting the city's appearance."

"Cover… trash cans?"

Academician Chen Shuyin clutched her chest, feeling like her angina was about to flare up.

Using quantum stealth material to cover trash cans?

Just how extravagant was that alien civilization?!

"Alright, everyone calm down."

Jiang Chen clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the three "female creatures" in the room—whether human, ghost, or data.

He sat on the sofa with a grand air, his expression becoming serious and profound, as if he were holding a supreme meeting to decide the fate of humanity.

"Since everyone is here, let's have a family meeting… no, a strategic expansion meeting."

Jiang Chen pointed at Academician Chen Shuyin, then at Ikaros, and finally looked at Jiang Wanqiu:

"The current situation is very severe."

"In order to… ahem, in order to break through the barrier between the two worlds, and to bring Wanqiu over, we need one thing."

"Energy."

"A massive amount of energy."

He didn't dare mention it was to pay the one-billion "toll fee," instead using a more high-sounding explanation: "And in this world, energy needs to be exchanged for money. Therefore, our primary goal is—making money!"

"Making money?"

Academician Chen Shuyin adjusted her glasses, regaining some rationality. "If it's money you need, the patent fees for the Lithography Machine and that anti-cancer drug, even if you only take one-tenth, would be enough to make you the richest person in the world."

"Too slow."

Jiang Chen shook his head, his eyes showing the shrewdness of a profiteer. "Besides, those things are too sensitive; they get controlled by the state at every turn. The money is all on paper, and the liquidity is too poor."

"What I want is cash flow! The kind of quick money where hundreds of millions come in the moment I open my eyes every day!"

He stood up, walked to Jiang Wanqiu's holographic projection, and pointed to that "stealth rag" in her hand:

"We need to broaden our thinking."

"Why must we sell arms? Why must we sell life-saving drugs? Although those things are incredibly profitable, the audience is too small."

"True super-profits come from consumer goods!"

"The kind of little gadgets that make ordinary people think, 'Holy crap, that's so cheap,' and then they can't help but chop their hands to buy them, only for them to gather dust!"

The more Jiang Chen talked, the more excited he became. He paced back and forth in the living room, the blueprint of that massive commercial empire gradually becoming clear in his mind.

"We are going to start a company."

"We won't sell aircraft carriers, and we won't sell nuclear bombs."

"We'll just sell Wasteland trash! Take the civilian technology they've phased out over there, package it up a little, and turn it into a blockbuster hit on Earth!"

"For example, this stealth cloth—we won't make it into military camouflage; we'll turn it into… raincoats! Or aprons!"

Academician Chen Shuyin listened, dumbfounded.

"Rain… raincoats?"

She felt her brain couldn't quite keep up with Jiang Chen's rhythm. "You mean to take optical stealth technology that is five hundred years ahead of Earth and use it to sell raincoats?"

"Exactly!"

Jiang Chen snapped his fingers. "Think about it: on a rainy day, you walk down the street wearing a stealth raincoat, with nothing but your head floating in mid-air—how cool is that? How thrilling? Young people nowadays love this stuff!"

"And the cost is low! Over in the Wasteland, they throw it away by the ton as trash; if we bring it over, that's pure profit with zero investment!"

"This…"

Although Academician Chen Shuyin felt it was absurd, when she thought about it carefully, it seemed… it actually made sense, damn it?

This was a dimensionality reduction attack!

"So what's the company called?"

Academician Chen Shuyin still had a bit of professional habit. She frowned in thought. "Since it's an enterprise with cross-era technology, the name must be grand. How about 'Longteng Technology'? Or 'Galaxy Dynamics'? Sounds high-class."

"Too tacky!"

Jiang Chen waved his hand dismissively. "Those names sound like they're just trying to scam government funding. We need to be down-to-earth and strike directly at the consumers' souls."

He narrowed his eyes, his mind flashing back to that orange app from his past life that people both loved and hated, the one where you'd ask friends to "cut a price" until you ended up deleting each other.

"Let's call it—"

Jiang Chen waved his hand, drawing a circle in the void, his tone resolute:

"Pinxixi Technology!"

"Focusing on 9.9 with free shipping! Cheap! Useful! And black technology!"

"We want to let people all over the world use high-quality trash from the Wasteland!"

"Pin… Pinduoduo?"

Academician Chen Shuyin's mouth twitched, feeling the name was filled with a certain cheap, plastic sense. "Jiang Chen, are you serious? This name sounds like it sells fake goods."

"You don't understand."

Jiang Chen smiled mysteriously, "taking" (actually having Ikaros record the data) the parameters of the stealth cloth from Jiang Wanqiu's hand.

He looked at the fabric that shimmered in and out of the light, the gleam in his eyes one only a profiteer would understand:

"When the fake is treated as real, the real becomes fake."

"When everyone thinks I'm selling street-stall junk…"

"I'll pull out a world-changing piece of black technology; that sense of contrast is the most lethal marketing."

"Alright, enough talk."

Jiang Chen dragged Ikaros over and sat her in front of the computer. "You there, mechanical maid, here is your first task."

"Use your computing power to register the company for me, set up the online store platform, and by the way, get the logistics channels sorted out."

"Wanqiu, hurry up and have your people pack up this 'rag'; I want as much as there is!"

"Academician Chen, don't just stand there either."

Jiang Chen threw the cloth to Academician Chen Shuyin. "You are in charge of writing the product manual. Remember, don't write any confusing words like quantum entanglement or optical refraction."

"Just write—"

Jiang Chen paused, an extremely punchable smile appearing on his face:

"[Quantum Optical Camouflage Raincoat (Beggar Version)]"

"Selling point: Wear it, and you'll be the most stylish… head in the rainy night."

"On the shelves tonight at eight sharp!"