At noon on 1 June, at Walvis Bay International Airport, a luxurious private jet slowly landed on the temporarily prepared runway.
A plain-looking middle-aged man got off the plane slowly under the protection of a bodyguard.
The man was wearing casual summer clothes and a pair of sunglasses that covered most of his face. Although his looks could not be seen, anyone could tell that he was of considerable status, based on the ceremonial treatment he received as well as the aura he exuded.
At this time, beneath the passage, three Rolls-Royce Phantoms had already parked in front of the plane. At the same time, several men in suits stood with their hands behind them, with a young man at their head who also wore sunglasses.
The instant they met, they shook hands with each other and then hugged gently as if they were old friends who were reunited.
If an International Weekly reporter saw this scene at this point, they would likely be shaking all over. Although the two men here were not stars in the entertainment circle, being unrelated to that industry, their influence was still unmatched by any international star.
One was the real-life version of Iron Man and the top entrepreneur across the three fields of new energy, aerospace, and electric vehicles — Elon Musk.
Another one was the newly emerging oligarch of the biological field, the pioneer who brought mankind into the era of anti-aging and the era of bionic transformation — Chen Chen.
This was the first time the two were meeting. It was a pity that no reporter was able to cover this historic scene.
“Mr. Musk, you’re my predecessor.”
At this time, Chen Chen wore a humble smile on his face and said enthusiastically, “I didn’t expect you to be so young in reality. If I didn’t know your age, I’d have thought you were a thirty-year-old young man.”
“If I can receive your company’s latest age-reversal treatment program now, maybe I can return to being thirty years old.”
Elon Musk laughed and patted Chen Chen on the shoulder. “Mr. Chen Chen, your achievements aren’t inferior to mine and you’re younger. Your future is far greater than mine.”
“You’re flattering me, Mr. Musk. You’re older than me, so you can just call me by name.”
Chen Chen said conversationally.
“Alright, Chen, I’ll just call you that then.”
Musk nodded and then looked past the airport, into the direction of the rows of tall buildings on the distant skyline. “If I’ve guessed correctly, that place ahead of us is the jewel of human life sciences — the Eco Science City, right?”
“That’s too high a praise. This city is just an ordinary sanatorium. I’m just trying to make a simple living.”
Chen Chen smiled and gestured. “Please get in the car, Mr. Musk.”
Following Chen Chen’s invitation, Musk and one of his personal bodyguards got into the backseat of the car. Seeing this, Chen Chen simply sat in the front passenger seat. Then, Cheng Cao drove the car in the direction of the Eco Science City.
Even in the car, Musk could not sit still. Being somewhat of a workaholic, he did not exchange pleasantries, but asked directly, “By the way, Mr. Chen Chen, your invitation this time did mention, besides our new cooperation, that there’s a new type of treatment technology that can cure a series of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and so on. Could I ask what that’s all about?”
“This is a brand-new technology whose real effect lies in repairing the body. It has just been tested successfully, but it hasn’t been made public.”
Although Musk’s bodyguard was present in the car, Chen Chen did not evade the topic in the slightest but smiled. “Furthermore, I will not disclose this technology for at least 30 years and only a few people will know the existence of this technology, and use it. I believe you’ve heard of it, right?”
“God’s Forbidden Zone?”
Musk’s expression sharpened and he blurted out immediately, “Only people from the ‘God’s Forbidden Zone’ organization are eligible to use it?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
Chen Chen nodded. It was no surprise that the other party knew about God’s Forbidden Zone. After all, the name “God’s Forbidden Zone” was almost spreading like wildfire in the upper-class society of Europe and America and only ordinary people were still kept in the dark.
“But I don’t mean to join any organization.”
Musk shook his head with a laugh, with a flash of disdain in his eyes. As an emerging titan who was striving to rise on his own, he did not think much of this kind of old-fashioned consortium that could only rely on existing capital and monopolize traditional industries.
“It doesn’t matter, we can talk about this later.”
Chen Chen did not shift his expression just because of the other man’s refusal and he still smiled. “I know you’re a technocrat and a workaholic, so I’ve brought this ‘Letter of Intent for Cooperation’ for you. You can take a look first.”
With that, Chen Chen waved one hand and a book of information appeared in his grasp out of thin air. By one side, Musk’s bodyguard seemed to turn blank when he saw this — he could not tell what sort of trick Chen Chen had used.
Conversely, Musk was not surprised by this. He raised his eyebrows, took the “Letter of Intent for Cooperation”, and read it directly in the car with relish.
However, as he read, his face darkened…
This was the second collaboration between Chen Chen and Musk.
A few months ago, Chen Chen spent huge sums of money to buy the lace electrode technology of Musk’s Neuralink company and applied it to his Xingtian bionic prosthetic project. Strictly speaking, this was the first collaboration between the two.
Although Chen Chen had paid a billion dollars for this, now it seemed to Musk that he had lost out.
After all, the technology usage rights of the lace electrodes were a one-off deal, but the speed by which Project Xingtian was making money was extremely ridiculous. It even appeared likely that Chen Chen would recover the cost in just two months.
After entering the era of anti-aging, human beings were further drawn into the age of bionic transformation before they could even react.
However, they were all powerful, influential figures. This amount of money was akin to a drop in the ocean after Musk’s Starlink project was launched. After all, the 12,000 Starlink satellites launched by his subsidiary, SpaceX, had covered the world and monopolized the world’s Internet broadband services except for Mainland China.
This was another network technology parallel to the 5G technology led by China. Although the speed was not as fast as 5G, it did not require any server base station technology after all, but employed ubiquitous low-altitude satellites to provide global network coverage. This included the north and south poles and the ocean.
The so-called Starlink project relied on a satellite network composed of tens of thousands of low-orbit satellites in space to blanket the world and provide omnipresent Internet services for the earth’s population.
It was precisely because of this plan proposed on 16 January 2015, that Musk had formally monopolized the global internet access service this year, raking in nearly 50 billion USD each year…
Therefore, Musk at this time could be described as brimming with confidence. This was the peak moment of his life.
Musk was not a rocket expert. His dream was not to launch rockets. His real dream was to emigrate to Mars — a dream that could change human civilization.
In early 2001, Musk, who was just in his early thirties, planned a project called “Mars Oasis” to be able to emigrate to Mars in the future. He planned to land a small experimental greenhouse on Mars.
However, when he found that the cost of launching was much higher than the R&D and engineering costs of this project, he reluctantly postponed the project and decided to set up a company to study how to reduce the launch cost.
Thus, the famous company SpaceX was born.
On 31 May 2012, the “Dragon” capsule of SpaceX, a company under Musk, successfully docked with the International Space Station and returned to Earth, ushering in the era of private space transportation.
On 7 February 2018, SpaceX’s “Falcon Heavy” carrier rocket was successfully launched for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in the United States and successfully completed the full recovery of two first-stage booster rockets.
There were only three original spacecraft launch and recovery technologies in the world. They were: the North American Continent, the North Sea Continent, and Mainland China.
However, from that day on, there was also an Elon Musk.
Musk had also planned all this a long time ago. When the spacecraft launch and recovery technology was developed, which would save a lot of costs, he could start the Starlink project and monopolize the global Internet access services. Therefore, sufficient funds could be obtained for research on how to emigrate to Mars.
Hence, when he read the content of Chen Chen’s “Letter of Intent for Cooperation”, the more he looked at it, the more he was astonished.
In this “Letter of Intent for Cooperation”, Blackwatch Corporation began with a cooperation project worth 30 billion, asking SpaceX to help itself launch five geosynchronous orbit satellites.
Moreover, this was only the first cooperation and the second cooperation was a new type of spacecraft technology.
SpaceX began researching interstellar spacecraft in 2019 and by now it had produced a model of the test machine named SN7, but this could still only achieve a geosynchronous orbit. They were uncertain if it could land on Mars. Musk, who originally planned to land on Mars in 2023, had fallen into a technological bottleneck.
Therefore, when he saw the new spacecraft technology mentioned in the “Letter of Intent”, his inner surprise was beyond words.
“Are you joking?”
At this time, Musk slowly raised his head, revealing an incredulous look. “The interstellar spacecraft technology on which we’ve spent more than ten years in SpaceX already represents the forefront of manned spacecraft technology. Even the Earth Federation wouldn’t dare to claim that they have anything better than our technology. Why do you think your spacecraft technology can be more advanced than ours?”
“Unless… You stole the interstellar spacecraft technology from China?”
“Not at all, Mr. Musk.”
Chen Chen’s expression remained unchanged. “Please forgive me for keeping the source of the technology a secret. I know you will not believe whatever I say now. In that case, I can allow you and your engineers to refer to it until you’re sure that our technology is real. Then we’ll talk about any future cooperation. How about that?”
“… Great!”
Musk’s face no longer wore a relaxed smile. He took a deep look at Chen Chen, then lowered his head and continued to look at the lengthy file of information in his hand.
Nonetheless, one thing was certain — it was difficult for him to be as calm as before…