A Ten-Thousand-Yuan Company Buys an Ocean

At two in the morning, its first production line started. Scrap entered one end. Standard cell cases, pressure sensors, and unmarked control boards emerged from the other. Every product led current industry by fifteen years—enough to excite experts, not enough to alert Hunter-Tide. “Capacity?” Lin asked. “Two thousand four hundred reconstructed cells per month, or twelve Firefly units. A tenfold expansion requires nickel, lithium, titanium, and stable power.” Su opened metal prices. “Legal purchases in those ratios will expose us within a week.” “Then we don’t buy them.” The scout logs contained the coordinates of a freighter lost twenty-seven years earlier with nickel ingots and titanium aboard.