Chapter Four: One Battery Buys a Neighborhood

Wildfire published its core parameters, test methods, and safety boundaries, charging only for calibration software. Hundreds of small plants retooled. The suppliers Vaughan had purchased lost their power overnight. At the launch, a reporter asked why Wildfire had abandoned a patent wall. “If an energy technology can only make one company win,” Zhou said, “it isn't advanced enough.” Wildfire's valuation passed ten billion yuan that day. The new landlord withdrew the eviction and offered ten years without rent. Zhou declined—and bought the old building and warehouses across the next two blocks. Trucks carrying rare earths, titanium powder, and superconducting scrap entered after midnight. Refraction consumed its first abundant supply of matter.