103: Chapter 103 Factory Construction and Steve Jobs' "Goodwill"

Montana, the wasteland on the edge of Yellowstone Ranch.

Huge steel-structure factory buildings were rising from the ground.

Tower cranes turned, sparks from welding flew, and the roar of engineering machinery made the ground tremble.

Over ten thousand workers were working in full swing, with astonishing efficiency.

A super factory covering nearly a thousand acres, equivalent to 90 standard football fields, had already begun to take shape.

The construction period originally planned for three years had now completed its first phase in six months.

In America, this could entirely be described as a miracle.

But this efficiency also drew the dissatisfaction of the local power.

Outside the wire fence, Old Dalton sat on his horse, staring with a dark face at the factory that was already looking the part.

"Dad, you don't seem to like it here?" A crisp female voice came from beside him; his daughter, Suria, a typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed Southern girl, was curiously watching the busy crowd in the factory.

Old Dalton spat in annoyance: "These outsiders have broken the peace here. Our Dalton Family has been settled on this land for a hundred years, guarding it for generations."

"Now a yellow-skinned monkey upstart is actually causing trouble right under my nose. It's time to let him know that this land will never belong to outsiders like them."

He had been eyeing this land, which had been barren for a hundred years, for over a decade, waiting for the price to bottom out, only for it to be quietly bought by an outsider of Asian descent, who then built such a huge factory.

In his eyes, this wasn't building a factory; it was digging up his roots.

Once the factory came, young people wouldn't stay on the ranch to herd cattle, and a group of outsiders would arrive; the rules of the small town would be disrupted, and the sky over Yellowstone would change!

This could not be tolerated!

"Boss, let's rush in and smash the production line, make this yellow-skinned kid get the hell out of Yellowstone!" The cowboy behind him patted his shotgun, eager to try.

Old Dalton didn't answer, but his body had already given the response.

He squeezed his horse's belly with his legs, leading a dozen or so people to crash through the side gate of the wire fence, heading straight for Fu Haoran in the crowd in the center of the factory area.

Fu Haoran was looking at the debugging report of the military production line. Hearing the sound of horse hooves, he slowly looked up.

Old Dalton reined in his horse in front of him, swept a condescending glance over him, and immediately spat out a string of foul language.

The core meaning was only one: Get out, you're not welcome here.

Fu Haoran didn't listen closely to those insults; out of politeness, he just raised his hand to signal everyone to stop.

In the next second, the entire factory area fell into an instant silence.

The roaring production line slowed down instantly. Thousands of workers turned at the same time, their hands tightening around wrenches, steel pipes, and welding torches. Thousands of eyes locked onto Old Dalton on horseback in unison.

These people were veterans who had fought against Genestealer Cult in the Warhammer Underhive.

Even without any deliberate intent, they naturally carried a murderous aura from crawling out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The horse beneath Old Dalton immediately bristled, reared up, and let out a terrified neigh.

A stream of warm urine flowed down the horse's legs, nearly tossing Old Dalton to the ground.

Old Dalton gripped the reins tightly, barely managing to calm his old horse.

But the others weren't so lucky. Several cowboys fell directly off their horses, and some simply turned around and fled.

"Damn, what is the background of this yellow-skinned Asian... they must have all killed people!"

Fu Haoran didn't notice this scene and asked politely, "Mr. Dalton, what did you just say? I didn't hear clearly."

Old Dalton's face turned pale and then flushed.

In the face of force, he chose to bow to the "evil forces."

"No... nothing! I was just passing by to see if there's anything you need help with regarding the construction! We're neighbors, after all; it's only right!"

"No need." Fu Haoran waved his hand and turned to raise it.

The factory area instantly resumed its roar. The workers turned back to continue their work as if the silence just now had never happened.

Old Dalton was breaking out in a cold sweat. He led the cowboys away at a gallop without looking back, not even daring to pick up the cowboy hat he had dropped.

On the way back, Suria looked back at the open factory gates and muttered softly, "Dad, why did we run? He didn't seem to have any ill intent."

Old Dalton kept a dark face and said nothing.

He couldn't tell his young daughter that he had almost been scared into wetting himself.

He suddenly remembered that when his father returned from the Peninsula War, he never mentioned that experience, only telling him one thing: Never fight for your life against those Easterners; they will think about taking you down with them.

Old Dalton didn't understand before, but now he could guess.

...

Old Dalton's little interlude didn't affect Fu Haoran's pace.

A month later, the super factory was officially completed, and the military-grade battery production line from the Warhammer World started up simultaneously.

The products that could be produced here ranged from various tactical batteries for Lasguns to standard Astra Militarum individual battery packs, and even power battery units for Baneblade super-heavy tanks, all achieving full-process mass production.

But as the production lines went full throttle, Fu Haoran realized a very realistic problem.

To build a factory in the 2K World, one had to pay taxes.

To pay taxes, there had to be compliant product sales and complete financial reports; otherwise, the IRS could come any minute and shut down his factory.

But now it was all military products from the Warhammer World; there were no civilian products that could be put on the table.

"The biggest problem right now is to come up with compliant civilian products to balance the books, but what to make?"

Design civilian products from scratch?

Fu Haoran found it too troublesome.

Finally, he made a direct decision: "No new designs. I'll just take existing military products, strip them down, lower the specs, and push them directly to the market."

As for whether it would make money, it didn't matter; even losing money was fine.

Looking at the cold 20 billion USD lying in his account, Fu Haoran felt it was time to burn some cash and give this world a little warmth.

"As long as I don't do large-scale marketing, it should be enough for me to burn for several years."

No sooner said than done.

The first to be modified was the standard magazine battery for the Astra Militarum individual Lasgun.

The all-solid-state batteries from Warhammer 30K had long since crushed all lithium battery technology in the 2K World.

Don't look at how a Lasgun can only fire over thirty shots on a full charge; that's to support the energy consumption of high-energy laser firing. Put into the civilian field, the performance is severely excessive.

Fu Haoran directly cut most of the volume of the palm-sized magazine battery, changing it to a cell only the size of a finger; the energy density was still several times that of mobile phone batteries on the market.

Fu Haoran made this into a power bank.

Then there was the standard tactical battery backpack for the Astra Militarum Schola Progenium Stormtroopers.

The original version could support high-intensity combat on a full charge, providing power to Lasguns, tactical helmets, and life support systems throughout.

Fu Haoran directly cut the cell capacity to one-fifth of the original; customers wouldn't find it heavy, it would save a lot of costs, and it wouldn't affect production capacity.

In the empty space, he casually added a bunch of flashy features: multi-spec USB fast charging ports, IP68 water and dust resistance, a 1000-lumen high-intensity long-range light, SOS emergency signals, multi-interface DC output, and even added a 12V car emergency jump-starter interface.

He cut the extreme environment performance down to civilian standards, removing military attributes like explosion resistance, electromagnetic interference resistance, and vacuum/low-temperature adaptation, pressing the cost down to be on par with similar products on the market.

After finishing the modified blueprints, Fu Haoran stopped worrying about it.

For a stripped-down version of a product, as long as it could fool the authorities, losing a little money was acceptable.

However, the necessary procedures still had to be followed; otherwise, it would be hard to fool the IRS.

So, Fu Haoran took the products and met an old friend in the tech circle.

The Silicon Valley legend wore his signature black turtleneck, his face ruddy, and his mental state seemed good.

"Fu, it's not that I won't help you." Steve Jobs spoke with a difficult expression, "You also know that I've been seriously ill these past few years and basically don't manage company affairs. Now the CEO position has been taken over by Cook, and it's not convenient for me to interfere in supply chain matters."

He paused, his tone carrying the advice of someone who had seen it all:

"As a friend, I must remind you that power banks are not a good product."

"The industry ceiling is very low, and it's not suitable as a long-term project."

"Moreover, the core selling point of mobile phones has never been battery life; users can accept charging once a day. No matter how high your battery energy density is, using it on a phone is performance overkill and completely unnecessary."

"If you insist on entering this track, I can have Apple offline stores sell your product." Steve Jobs changed his tone, "However, I'm afraid it can't have the Apple logo; it can only be listed as a third-party accessory."

In Jobs's view, this both gave Fu Haoran a favor and was completely risk-free.

Fu Haoran didn't care.

He just wanted a plausible channel; the rest would be handled by professionals.

He was just about to get up and leave when Jobs changed the subject again and took out a tablet:

"If you really want to do batteries, I think you'd be better off building electric cars."

Jobs clicked on a blueprint; it was a concept for an automotive product conceived internally by Apple.

He had written all his ideas on it: 1000 km range, 10-minute seamless fast charging, seamless integration with the entire Apple ecosystem, frameless suicide doors, all-scenario intelligent driving, 0-100 km/h acceleration in under 2 seconds, and vehicle quietness comparable to a recording studio.

"I've always felt that the future of cars will definitely be smart and electric." Jobs looked at him with a sincere tone, "If you can build an Apple car that meets this standard, I will swallow my pride and help you convince the board to fully support cooperation with you."

Fu Haoran looked at the blueprint, and his eyes instantly lit up.

"Right, why didn't I think of that?"

"Since weapons can be driven by batteries, why can't vehicles?"

On the battlefield, obtaining electrical energy is much easier than obtaining Promethium fuel.

Electric motors are smaller, have more torque, and respond faster. He could completely replace traditional power systems with electric technology, and even transform all those clumsy internal combustion engine vehicles in the Warhammer World into electrified versions.

This was not just a civilian car-building project.

This was a technical route that could completely change the logistics system of Warhammer.

If successful, his troops would no longer rely on Promethium fuel and would no longer be restricted by long supply lines.

Fu Haoran suppressed the excitement in his heart, looked up at Jobs, and said sincerely, "Joe, your suggestion is great. I'll go and prepare right away."

After Fu Haoran left, a wealthy man present asked jokingly, "Joe, do you really think highly of him building cars?"

Jobs chuckled and leaned back in his chair.

"Cars are the crown jewel of industry. Supply chain, manufacturing, quality control, safety—which one of these can a layman in batteries figure out?"

"At most, he can build a battery-powered shuttle for a supermarket or a golf cart. Want to build the smart car I want? Pure fantasy."

"Then why did you suggest he do it?" another wealthy man chimed in. "Building cars is a bottomless pit; without tens of billions, there won't be results, and in the end, you might lose everything. Japan put the whole country's strength into hydrogen fuel cells, smashed in tens of billions of dollars, and still can't see mass production landing."

"I know." The corners of Jobs's mouth curled up. "When he's burned through all his money, he'll naturally come back obediently with the technology, begging us for a bite to eat."

He paused and added a sentence, his tone carrying the arrogance unique to this class:

"Besides, a successful Chinese person is not a good thing. We can allow Chinese people to have money, but we cannot allow a Chinese person to be successful."

Everyone looked at each other and smiled; no one refuted.

For America's tech giants, Chinese scientists are useful tools, perfect beasts of burden, but they are not partners to be trusted. Especially since many Chinese people have the concept of returning to their roots, unlike Indians, who have no intention of returning home.

So such people must never be given important roles, much less power.

...

After Fu Haoran returned to the factory, he immediately traveled back to the Warhammer World.

He went straight to Father Kallun's workshop.

"Governor, what are your orders?" Callun put down the tools in his hand, his mechanical bionic eye flashing with red light.

"Callun, give me all the data on the Tauros Rapid Assault Vehicle, right now."

Callun was stunned for a moment but didn't ask much, turning to pull up the full set of blueprints from the data terminal.

Fu Haoran looked at the dense structural diagrams on the screen, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Jobs thought he was digging a hole for him.

But he didn't know that beneath this hole lay a strategic passage to another world.

Cars?

What Fu Haoran wanted to build wasn't cars, but military vehicles.