Returning to the beautiful Coro Island, the sci-fi vibe was amplified compared to half a month before.
On his way out of the airport, Jiang Chen noticed several floating cars flying over the six-lane highway not far from the airport. The foreigners who came there for the first time exclaimed at the scene and started to capture the beautiful city. The locals reacted calmly and moved on with their lives.
This calmness wasn’t only reflected in the fact that cars could fly but also in the foreigners’ surprised actions.
The taxis at the airport were in particularly high demand. They were the first to use magnetic levitation vehicles. In order to experience this novel form of transportation, many international friends even asked their drivers to take a detour. After cruising down the maglev highway, they would finally return on route to their hotel.
Jiang Chen felt slightly shocked by the ever changing Coro Island, but it only lasted for a moment. After all, he brought the technology back from the Sixth Street. So, it was more of a novelty for him.
He just felt emotional seeing that the technology that belonged to the future was now in the modern world. The world was changing too fast.
Walking into the parking lot outside the airport, Jiang Chen avoided the taxi stop area surrounded by foreigners and headed straight to the corner of the parking lot. There was a red car parked, and a beautiful and familiar figure stood there. Her noble but cold temperament blocked all men with thoughts of taking their chances ten meters away.
However, when she saw Jiang Chen, her expression suddenly melted and a gorgeous smile formed.
“You’re finally back. Was it fun in Moscow?”
“What fun? I went there for business.” Jiang Chen rolled his eyes.
“I heard that you took a walk outside the border?”
“Oh, that was a special circumstance.” Jiang Chen didn’t look straight at the piercing sight and avoided the question by laughing.
Fortunately, Xia Shiyu didn’t persist further on the issue. Jiang Chen didn’t want to think about how he would confess to her about Natasha.
Opening the trunk for Jiang Chen, Xia Shiyu watched him put his suitcase in then invited him into the front passenger seat, leaving Ayesha alone in the back seat. She then got in and started the car.
Looking at the ground outside the window gradually disappearing, Jiang Chen’s hand involuntarily grasped the armrests beside the door. He was tense and looked pale white.
With how nervous Jiang Chen looked, Xia Shiyu, who was steering, couldn’t hold her laughter. She smoothly entered the acceleration lane. When the speed reached the maximum and the vehicle rose to the top of the track, she turned on the automatic cruise mode and her hands left the steering wheel.
Ayesha curiously looked around. Although she heard Jiang Chen talk about the future, it was her first time seeing this novel transportation.
“Look how scared you are. I got my maglev license with my skills, okay?” Xia Shiyu rolled her eyes, showed the license in her hands, then tossed it into the drawer.
“Your new car?”
Jiang Chen changed the subject. In fact, he wasn’t afraid of the maglev car; it was just because he was sitting beside a female driver.
“Of course. Magnetic levitation cars were launched in the middle of this month. The model of this car is called Luer EML-A1. EML is an abbreviation of eletro-magnetic levitation. How do you like it?” Xia Shiyu said proudly.
“It looks quite good; I will buy one some time.”
His hand clutching onto the armrest finally loosened, and Jiang Chen made a pertinent evaluation.
On automatic cruise mode, the speed of the car reached a daunting one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. The scenery outside the window quickly disappeared. It was hard to imagine they were in the city center. After leaving the urban area, Xia Shiyu turned off automatic cruise and drove the car into the buffer lane, slowing down and slowly descending.
The wheels and the road connected then the vehicle sank onto the road, and Jiang Chen’s heartbeat also relaxed. He knew the EML had finally returned to the ground.
“The financial report of fiscal 2019 first quarter came out.” Xia Shiyu skillfully switched to the road driving mode then spoke casually.
“Oh.”
“You’re not curious about which department’s financial report was the most eye-catching?” Xia Shiyu glanced at him curiously.
“Do I need to guess? The first was Future Technology, and the second was Future Heavy Industries.” Jiang Chen shrugged.
Since the establishment of the New Reserve, he started to feel less and less astonished by the long astronomical figures in the financial reports. In particular, the last time he looked at the news, New Xin Dollars was the only settlement currency for space trade and swept 943.1 billion US Dollars in the foreign exchange market. For Future Group, more money was just a figure.
Of course, that wasn’t to say that money was useless, but his goal wasn’t just earning more money. The lunar colony had only just begun to turn a profit this year, and the rate of return was less than one-tenth of Future Technology’s virtual reality project, but he was willing to burn money on the moon colony project.
“On the contrary, Future Heavy Industries was first, and Future Technology was second.” Xia Shiyu’s lips curved up.
“Oh? Manufacturing was more profitable than technology? Wait… I might know why.” Jiang Chen was intrigued for a second before he realized.
After Celestial Trade promulgated “Celestial Trade Outer Space Resources Development Plan of 2019”, nine asteroids were contracted to various countries for mining, which led to a large number of foreign enterprises flocking to Celestial City. This led to a snowballing amount of orders sent to Future Heavy Industries for external space stations.
The price of a space station was between one billion to ten billion USD. Although many space station custom companies were in Silicon Valley, Cambridge and Singapore also accepted orders, but neither their quality nor reputation matched Future Heavy Industries. They could only share the markets left behind.
Jiang Chen also forgot about the record profits of the production of space stations. Not only did Future Heavy Industries surpass Future Technology in first quarter profits, but the division was likely to completely leave Future Technology in the dust.
“Right, there’s still one more thing. There are visitors from Hua.”
“Let me guess—are they here to ask about outer space weapons?”
“You guessed wrong again.” Xia Shiyu blinked. This playful gesture on her was cute because of the sharp contrast. “The Minister of Transportation and the CEO of First Automobile are visiting.”
“Oh? Are they interested in magnetic levitation vehicles?” Jiang Chen showed interest.
“They heard about the concept of magnetic levitation vehicles and three-dimensional traffic.” Xia Shiyu, proud of the fact, continued. “Especially after learning that magnetic levitation vehicles can effectively alleviate urban traffic congestion.”
