739 The Construction of the Century

The footage of Penglai's completion was captured on video and went viral on sites like YouTube. People's initial reaction was to suspect that this was a special effect in a movie, and it was not until people watched other onlookers upload videos of themselves did people realize.

It was not a movie, it was true!

Back then, how many experts stated that it was impossible for this to be built. Even if it were built, it would not float to the surface of the sea. Even if it really did, several waves would have torn the island apart. Even on the day before the completion ceremony of Penglai City, a professor in ship science still commented to make this point known.

"I'm telling you, this thing won't float! How do we make islands? Although this is knowledge in the field of construction, as a professor, I still know some elements. In general, we have to surround an area first, then fill it with sand, build an island directly on the sea floor, and then float it! This is completely ridiculous! I'm willing to bet, if this island doesn't sink, I will eat a pound of sh*t!"

However, the next day, Penglai City successfully floated. So many experts' face was slapped hard.

When everyone singled the professor out and asked him when he was going to eat, he suddenly stopped talking.

Material science breakthroughs would bring a series of chain reactions, and changes to the construction industry and manufacturing would be disruptive. The tidal forces that ordinary steel cannot withstand were not difficult in front of tougher graphene materials.

At the same time, the advantage of replacing metal material with graphene as a stabilizing structure was that there was no need to worry about seawater rust. As long as it was not built on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and happened to encounter the volcanic eruption at the bottom of the sea, there was no need to worry about broken graphene cables.

With the completion of Penglai City, the number of people on Coro Island suddenly surged. Many hotels and rental rooms were completely booked out, so some people simply bought a tent and set it up on the roadside. The Xin National Congress had to introduce a city management bill urgently and regulate the phenomenon of sheds everywhere to contain it.

At present, flights between Penglai City and Coro City had been established, and a dedicated line had been set up beside the passenger port to provide pick-up and drop-off services for tourists on the outlying islands. At the same time, the island itself also had a yacht pool and a berth at the edge where visitors could dock their own yachts and even sailboats and cruise ships.

However, these access channels were temporarily closed. As for the reason, it was naturally because the cleaning work has not yet been completed.

Although Future Group explained the reasons, people's curiosity and enthusiasm for Penglai City still caused crowds to gather in front of the passenger port.

"Let me on the island! I bought a house on it. Why are you not letting me on!" A man in a designer suit shouted and questioned.

"Sir, please wait patiently for Penglai City to officially open. Now we are working on the final stages of cleaning out the seaweed and desalination. Compared to a semi-finished product, we would like to show you the most beautiful city in front of you." The front desk lady with a perfect smile explained to the tourists what she repeated countless times.

Whether or not this kind of rhetoric will satisfy these eager tourists, before the month-long clean-up is complete, Future Group would not let anyone in. In addition to the cleaning work, there would be simultaneous safety inspections.

For example, is there any leakage? Is there seaweed in the power component? Is the graphene cable cracked? These were major events that could affect the lives and safety of millions of people and thus they could not tolerate any sloppy behaviour. If everyone boarded and the island sank, then Future Group would have completely played itself.

According to the statistics provided by Xia Shiyu, in order to build this city, Future Group spent a total of 31.7 billion US Dollar, which was almost equivalent to the total amount of funds invested by Hua real estate investors in 2015 internationally!

From this figure alone, it was demonstrative of how much liquidity this century project occupied. If Penglai City was unsuccessful, it was possible that Jiang Chen must really seek help from the Rothschild Bank, or send more subsidiaries public to ease the financial pressure.

High risk goes hand in hand with high reward. The return on investment from the completion of Penglai would also be shocking.

As early as the end of last year, Wall Street analysts conducted a valuation on Penglai City, and the final valuation was as high as 400 billion US Dollar!

What was the concept of 400 billion US Dollar?

The world-famous investor, Buffett, known as the stock god, said directly.

"I can't estimate the market value of Penglai, just like I can't set a price for Los Angeles or Chicago, because that's not what money can measure. It's a city, as long as it is always there, it will always be generating value. Compared to Penglai City, I would rather value the founder of this spectacle, Future Heavy Industrial. If the spectacle could not be replicated, there is no doubt that it will be the most profitable company in this century. The biggest regret of this century will be Jiang Chen's unwillingness to go public.

It seems that he felt his statement was not powerful enough. Buffett paused and added a sentence.

"Yes, I mean, it will make money faster than the Fed can print money."

...

When everyone couldn't wait to step onto Penglai City and start exploring it, apart from the staff of the Future Group, only Jiang Chen and a few others have experienced the city.

However, as Future Group explained to the public, there was nothing to see in Penglai at this time.

Streets full of jellyfish, and thickened salt blocks were everywhere on the pavement. The salts were not simply sodium chloride, but contain ionized elements such as potassium, magnesium, and calcium. When the sun shone on it, these elements crystallized out of the sea.

In order to flush these aesthetically-stricken residues, Jiang Chen had also drawn a desalination platform with a daily processing capacity of 4 million tons from Future Heavy Industrial. At the same time, the company deployed two tidal power generator sets on the seabed to power the desalination platform.

It had now been a full ten days since the island's rise. During the Lunar New Year, Jiang Chen intended to return to the apocalypse. The expeditionary force seemed to have encountered some problems on Yizhou Island. He planned to go personally. After all, it had to do with the space elevator, and the trade routes south of the NAC.

It could take as little as a few days or as many as two months. If he didn't take advantage of this time on the island to look around, once Penglai opened in March, he would not be the first to step onto the platform.

Therefore, Jiang Chen took Ayesha, Xia Shiyu, and Natasha, who forced her way there with her thick skin. They boarded a helicopter and landed in the square in front of the architecture in the middle of the island – the Central of Penglai.

"I think if these things are sun-dried into salted fish, they must be another huge sum of money." Standing in the doorway of the Central, Jiang Chen looked at the dead fish on the steps and sighed.

He didn't know when these salted fish would be cleaned up.

"I heard that the World Environmental Protection Organization is preparing trouble for you?" Standing beside Jiang Chen, Natasha mocked.

"From Blue Seagull, our troubles have not stopped. We can only say that they inadvertently started a trend, and now those defenders of the Earth are looking for us. But do I care?" Jiang Chen laughed and kicked the salted fish aside.

"Just like this salted fish."