Chapter 769 - Three Pieces of Good News
The first day of negotiations ended on a high note.
After returning to the hotel, Wu Weiyu immediately contacted his boss. The next day, Victoria Construction Company moved two construction ships, two survey helicopters, and a professional construction team from the Xiangjiang headquarters. They took several laps around Pannu Island to survey the structure of the seabed, and delineate the construction route and series of other tasks.
Three days later, Victoria Construction Company proposed a macro design plan and determined the project length and route as well as a budget. Wu Weiyu immediately took a stack of documents five centimeters thick to Jiang Chen.
“This is the plan we proposed. The tunnel starts from the northernmost Garin Island in the Pannu archipelago, passes through Coro Island, and ends on Ange Island, connecting the rest of the six islands via slip roads. The tunnel will use a transparent graphene shell. 319 kilometers in length and a two-way 12-lane road – driving in the tunnel will be the same as driving on the sea floor! Here is the engineering concept diagram. I bet the Pannu Undersea Expressway will make its mark in the history of modern architecture!” Wu Weiyu ecstatically pounded his chest and vowed to Jiang Chen.
The transparent undersea tunnel wouldn’t only serve as a transportation belt for Xin, but it would also become a world-famous tourist attraction with a total length of 319 kilometers. Under the attraction of light, fish would inhabit the vicinity of the tunnel. While enjoying a tour of Pannu, tourists could enjoy the beautiful scenery outside the window. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Jiang Chen took the proposal from Wu Weiyu’s hands, flipped through the pages and nodded with satisfaction.
It seemed he had a good vision. This Victoria Construction Company was indeed capable of completing this project.
“How much will the project cost?”
“The construction of the graphene pipeline is provided by Future Heavy Industrial and isn’t included in the project cost. Our budget for this undersea tunnel is 10.17 billion US Dollar and no more than 12 billion US Dollar.”
At an average price of around 200-300 million RMB per kilometer, this price was already quite cheap. Including the cost from Future Heavy Industries, the graphene material for the entire project would be around 500 million US Dollar.
“Excellent, this project will be yours. I will send scientists from Future Heavy Industries to your project team temporarily as technical consultants for graphene materials.” Jiang Chen signed the letter of intent on investment. “Send the contract to my CEO tomorrow and start construction the day after tomorrow. Can you do it?”
“No problem!” Wu Weiyu said without hesitation.
“Then you can go now.” Jiang Chen smiled.
Right after Wu Weiyu left, Future Group also completed the registration of a subsidiary named “Pannu Undersea High-Speed Management Company” and injected 15 billion US Dollar into the subsidiary. The next day, the Victoria Construction Company sent a contract to the subsidiary to complete the signing of the undersea expressway project.
At this point, this 12 billion US Dollar project was formally announced!
After just spending billions of dollars on the space elevator, 15 billion was invested into the undersea tunnel. Typically, Future Group wouldn’t be able to squeeze out so much cash.
But now, there wasn’t much concern. Future Bank had already reached 24.49 million depositors since its establishment. Total deposits had been converted into 192.1 billion US Dollar based on current exchange rates. After half a month of tightening the lending rate, there was no issue with providing 15 billion US Dollar of fresh blood for Future Group.
Jiang Chen no longer needed to worry about liquidity for the company. Only when the blood flowing in their blood vessels was sufficient would the behemoth Future Group take off and expand at a faster pace to transform the world.
Of course, the premise was that there were no major operational mistakes.
On the other hand, Future Bank was in the process of going public. If nothing unexpected happened, it should be successful on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-May to issue 30% of the shares. According to the news brought by Future Bank’s CEO, Future Bank just entered the asset review stage. With a 15 billion US Dollar loan, Future Bank could increase its P/E ratio and earn more money from investors
After Jiang Chen finished setting the direction of the tunnel, there were three other pieces of good news from Future Technology.
The first good news was that Virtual Image Production Company completed the modeling of Gliese 581g. According to the data sponsored by the International Astronomical Association, the planet’s surface environment was restored in a 1:1 ratio.
As a result, “The Time Curtain” would enter the second phase of shooting. With the help of powerful virtual reality processing technology, director Nolan would be able to express his free-flowing imagination and demonstrate the collision between two “homogenous origin but heterogeneous structure” civilizations for the audience!
To be honest, although Jiang Chen read the script, he was still looking forward to the stunning masterpiece Nolan would bring to his audience.
He also sincerely blessed this friend to fulfill his dream to become the first director to win an Academy Award for Best Film using a sci-fi genre.
The second good news came from VRcity. After several months of hard work, the game development department of Future Technology completed the production of VRcity beta after integrating the famous Maxis and designers of Rock Star Studio.
Although the game was still only in beta, this program already possessed a city scale. The satellite imagery of Shanghai, Beijing, Wanghai, New York, London, Paris and other large cities captured by the Sky Eye X1 satellite was analyzed and constructed by smart programs. Over one hundred programmers completed the modeling of VRcity.
In addition to its rich infrastructure, tens of thousands of user-selectable building plans and the new city-based mission system designed by Rock Star would provide users with a wealth of game content while meeting users’ social needs.
At present, VRcity opened a total of 100,000 beta testing codes to users from multiple countries as part of the internal beta testing for social media software. If there were no major problems after the test, this VRcity would enter the Phantom in the fall for users to download.
Jiang Chen was extremely pleased. Ning Huajian, CEO of Future Technology, perfectly replicated his original idea.
The only regret was that the GTA7 he was looking forward to may be bounced for an indefinite period.
Future Group mercilessly headhunted 17 developers of Rock Star, leading to stagnation of the development of GTA7. Jiang Chen was very hesitant when he made the decision.
From Vice City, he had always been a loyal player in the GTA series. However, this series was now ruined in his hands and he was extremely regretful.
While regretful, it was a decision he made.
He still couldn’t stop shaking his head at the thought that if Take Two agreed to sell Rock Star, he wouldn’t have needed to go through the trouble to headhunt. If Rock Star was acquired by Future Technology, he could produce a GTA based entirely on the VR platform.
Crimes would be completely restored in the real New York – shooting against gangs in the dark alley, street racing against the police, experiencing Fast and Furious through virtual reality… just thinking about this made him excited.
But would too realistic crime simulations increase the crime rate in real life?
It wasn’t an outcome Jiang Chen could predict.