925: Chapter 92 Computing Power Hegemony

Shen Yan stood up, tossing a black card onto the table for Chen Guangke to handle the bill.

"Guang Ke, you're responsible for settling Lin Dong in tonight."

"Tomorrow, take him to the company and have him start immediately as Chief Scientist."

"Also, have An Ran withdraw the funds originally earmarked for real estate and throw every penny into Lin Dong's project team."

The meat still in his mouth, Chen Guangke's eyes widened.

"All of it? That's three billion!"

"If it's not enough, we'll add more."

Shen Yan adjusted his cuffs and put his suit jacket back on.

The decisive, battle-hardened CEO Shen was back.

"Lin Dong."

He looked at his old classmate, who was still staring blankly at code on his phone.

"Don't disappoint me."

Lin Dong looked up, two flames burning in his bloodshot eyes.

"Not unless I'm dead."

Shen Yan nodded, turned, and walked into the night.

The black maybach started up again and disappeared at the end of the street.

...

Shenyan Building, top-floor office.

In front of the floor-to-ceiling window, Shen Yan looked down upon the myriad lights of the city.

The system interface unfolded silently across his retina.

[New Chain Mission Triggered: Computing Power Hegemony]

[Mission Description: Establish a supercomputing center belonging to the Shenyan Group within three months. The computing power must rank among the top ten globally.]

[Mission Reward: Next-Generation Lithography Machine Blueprint Fragment (1/5)]

Looking at the new reward, Shen Yan's pupils contracted slightly.

Lithography machine.

The pearl atop the crown of industry.

The system was pushing him to challenge that forbidden territory monopolized by the West for half a century.

Interesting.

The door behind him was gently pushed open.

"Daddy!"

A small figure rushed in like a cannonball and hugged Shen Yan's leg.

Shen Yan squatted down, picked up his daughter Youyou, and kissed her rosy cheek.

"Was Youyou good today?"

"Good! Mommy took me to eat delicious food!"

Youyou said in a milky voice, clutching Shen Yan's neck tightly with her little hands.

Liu Hui stood at the doorway, holding a thermos, a gentle smile on her face.

She was wearing an off-white knit sweater, her long hair casually pinned up behind her head, exuding the quiet tenderness of a peaceful life.

This was home.

The only place where he could take off his mask after hacking his way through thorns and wading through blood outside.

"Still busy this late?"

Liu Hui walked over and placed the thermos on the coffee table.

"Grandma Liu made soup. She asked me to bring some for you."

Shen Yan held his daughter with one arm and wrapped the other around his wife's waist.

"Not busy anymore."

"In the future, I'll have other people busy."

The autumn rain in Jinghai City always carried a bone-chilling coolness, but it did nothing to cool the anxious atmosphere in the top-floor conference room of the Shenyan Building.

An Ran stared at the financial report in front of her, which still carried the faint scent of ink. Her phoenix eyes, usually sharp with shrewdness, were wide open.

What she held was the Shenyan Group's cash flow budget for the quarter, and the man sitting in the main seat had just casually struck out all the 'risk contingency funds'.

"Three billion?"

An Ran's voice rose an octave, and the Montblanc pen in her hand was nearly snapped.

"Old Shen, have you gone mad? That's the money the group uses as a safety net. If the supply chain has an issue, those three billion are our lifeline! You're going to pull it all out to buy graphics cards for that... that lunatic who only knows how to write code?"

Shen Yan leaned back in his ergonomic chair, playing with a freshly shelled walnut. Liu Hui had slipped it into his pocket that morning, saying it was for brain nourishment.

"It's not for buying graphics cards."

He corrected her, his tone as steady as if he were discussing what to eat for lunch.

"It's for building a city."

The system interface flickered slightly on his retina. Today's daily intelligence had refreshed twenty minutes ago.

[Today's Intelligence: 'Apollo Industries,' North America's largest supplier of rare gases, will suffer a serious pipeline leak explosion at its Texas refinery in three hours. Global neon gas supply will instantly drop by 4%, and the price of raw materials for semiconductor manufacturing will skyrocket before the market closes.]

Shen Yan tossed the walnut kernel into his mouth. The sound of chewing was particularly crisp in the silent conference room.

"An Ran, take those three billion and invest it all in semiconductor raw material futures, focusing on neon and krypton gas."

"Now?"

An Ran looked at him as if he were an alien, taking a deep breath to suppress the urge to throw the documents in his face.

"It's the semiconductor off-season now, inventory is severely backlogged, and prices are slowly falling. Entering the market now is suicide!"

"Be obedient."

Shen Yan stood up and walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the gray sky. A heavy rain was approaching.

"Do as I say. If anything goes wrong, I'll use my shares as collateral for you."

An Ran stared at his back for a full five seconds, then slammed the folder shut and turned to leave, her high heels clicking.

"Madman! If you lose money, I'm going to complain to Liu Hui that you have three mistresses outside!"

The door slammed shut.

Three hours later.

A loud bang across the ocean shook the global capital market.

Before the news of the 'Apollo Industries' explosion even made the headlines, the prices in the global electronic specialty gas market shot up like a rocket.

The Shenyan Group Finance Department's phone lines were overwhelmed. Countless short sellers who were liquidated at that instant were crying and begging to close their positions.

An Ran burst into the office with her hair messy, her hand gripping the tablet computer trembling slightly.

"It doubled..."

She looked at the man who was calmly resting with his eyes closed, her throat a little dry.

"After deducting handling fees and leverage costs, we made six billion in three hours."

Shen Yan opened his eyes. They were perfectly clear, showing no sign of ecstasy.

This was just the beginning.

The 'Computing Power Hegemony' the system demanded was built with money, and it was also won through risk.

"Transfer the money out and contact Ning Ke."

Shen Yan picked up his coat, his movements swift.

"Tell him I'm going to buy that thing."

...

One month later.

The northern suburbs of Jinghai City, the abandoned Third Thermal Power Plant.

The huge cooling towers stood like two silent tombstones in the wilderness. A sign reading 'No Entry for Unauthorized Personnel' hung on the rusty iron gate.

This was the base Shen Yan had chosen for the 'pangu' supercomputing center.

Nothing was more suitable for conversion into a data center than a thermal power plant: existing high-voltage lines, a massive water cooling circulation system, and sufficiently thick concrete walls.

Lin Dong, wearing a yellow hard hat, his white lab coat now gray, held blueprints and was roaring at the foremen of several construction teams.

"No! How many times have I told you! The liquid cooling pipeline layout must be a double-helix structure! With your straight-through method, once the load exceeds 9%, the core temperature will burn through the motherboard in three seconds!"

The foreman, a man in his fifties, looked equally wronged.

"Engineer Lin, it's not that we don't want to do it. This process is too complicated, we haven't done it before!"

"If you haven't done it, then learn! If you can't learn, then get out!"