Returning to his senior year of high school, he went all in and made billions by buying at the botto

The midnight sea breeze in Florida carries the dampness of the Atlantic Ocean and the lingering smell of gunpowder from burning rocket propellants.

At the Cape Canaveral I landing site, beams of searchlight pierced the night sky, focusing on the towering white cylinder several kilometers away.

That's the first-stage booster of Falcon 9.

Its entire body was charred black, covered with marks left by the high-temperature airflow of thousands of degrees when it re-entered the atmosphere, yet it stood proudly on the solid earth like a triumphant steel giant.

For the first time in human history, an orbital-class rocket that sent a satellite into space has returned home.

On the terrace, the boisterous cheers and the sound of champagne spraying were shut out from behind.

Musk held a half-empty bottle of beer in his hand, his hair tousled by the night wind, and flames flickering in his deep-set eyes.

"Those idiots on Wall Street were laughing at me just a second ago, calling me a fraudster selling rocket concepts."

Musk pointed to the charred rocket in the distance, his voice hoarse with excitement, "They thought I was blowing rockets up in the sea time and time again just to cut a 30 percent discount on the launch quote."

Lu Jingyi stood by the railing, the night breeze ruffling her hair.

She gazed at the miraculous creation and asked softly, "Isn't the ultimate goal of commercial launches to reduce costs?"

"Cost reduction is just the key to unlocking the door."

Musk took a gulp of beer and swung his arm forcefully towards the boundless starry sky: "If every time humanity goes into deep space, we have to burn tens of millions of dollars worth of machinery and throw it into the ocean, we'll never be able to build a civilization on another planet!"

"Boeing planes don't crash every time they fly across the Atlantic, so why would rockets?!"

"Earth is too fragile, Chen." Musk turned and stared intently at Chen Mo. "Nuclear war, superviruses, runaway artificial intelligence, even a sudden asteroid... any one of these events could wipe out tens of thousands of years of human civilization into a lifeless dust. We must become an interplanetary species!"

"Mars is not a fallback plan; Mars is humanity's second backup hard drive in the universe!"

At this moment, there was no calculation of interests or shrewd valuation; there was only the primal obsession of a madman who carried the fate of the entire race on his shoulders.

Lu Jingyi was deeply shaken.

Before tonight, anyone who talked about Martian civilization in front of her would be categorized by her as an arrogant dreamer.

But at this moment, the rocket standing silently on the ground in the distance gives these words weight.

Looking up at the vast, dark sky, Chen Mo suddenly spoke up: "Relying solely on SpaceX cannot sustain human interstellar civilization."

Musk paused, frowning as he looked over: "What did you say?"

"How much supplies would be needed to move an industrial city with millions of inhabitants to Mars? Tens of millions of tons? Hundreds of millions of tons?"

Chen Mo turned around, his gaze meeting Musk's in the night wind.

"That would require tens of thousands of super-heavy launch vehicles, dozens of launch sites around the world, and several generations of engineering clusters that would iterate at any cost."

"If humanity's interstellar dreams can only be pinned on an American company, a supply chain, and one person's lifespan—that dream is fragile beyond repair."

"Eron, you need allies, and you need rivals."

Musk laughed: "Very few people would advise a company founder to cultivate competitors in front of him."

"Because I'm also preparing to enter this industry."

Chen Mo did not hide anything.

"I have invested in a private aerospace company in China."

"It has just been established, with no mature engines, no launch site, and not even a decent assembly blueprint. But I will give it enough funding, patience, and room for error so that it can survive in the East."

Musk's fervor gradually subsided: "Are you implying that I should provide technology to a Chinese rocket company?"

"You know that's impossible. The Pentagon and ITAR (International Trade in Arms Regulations) will put us all in federal prison."

"I don't need your blueprints, nor do I need your handouts of parts." Chen Mo calmly shook his head. "We can compete in the commercial satellite market, see who can launch at the lowest cost per kilogram, and fight for coordinates in deep space tracking and control."

"But one day, when human thrusters are truly roaring over the lunar craters and Valles Marineris, spaceships from different civilizations, bearing different flags, will finally meet on the Martian wasteland."

"The Age of Exploration was never an adventure in a single canoe, and the interstellar age can never belong to just one Stars and Stripes."

Musk was stunned.

He seemed to be having a hallucination, as if Chen Mo in front of him was even more convinced than he was of the arrival of that great era.

"You're crazy. And coincidentally, so am I."

Then he threw his head back and laughed.

Laughter drifted across the terrace, startling the engineers who were still celebrating nearby.

What's the name of the company you invested in?

LandSpace.

"What about the technological approach?"

"It's not completely confirmed yet."

Chen Mo paused for a moment.

"But the direction of the driving force has already been determined."

"Liquid oxygen methane".

Musk's hand holding the beer bottle suddenly stopped.

A night breeze swept across the terrace.

At this time, SpaceX's Merlin engine, which made it famous, was still using the traditional liquid oxygen and kerosene route.

The entire Silicon Valley, and even NASA as a whole, believe that liquid oxygen and kerosene are the most cost-effective commercial options.

Only on Musk's most core, top-secret sketches, regarding the plans for the next-generation Starship and Raptor engine, is the full-flow staged combustion of liquid oxygen and methane clearly marked!

Kerosene is prone to coking and requires complicated cleaning, making it impossible to support rapid reuse without disassembly for dozens or even hundreds of times.

Methane combustion is extremely clean, but more deadly is that the Martian atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, and as long as there is water, methane and liquid oxygen can be synthesized in situ through the Sabadell reaction!

That is the ultimate fuel solution for interstellar travel.

This is a top-secret trade secret of SpaceX. How did Chen Mo figure it out?!

How do you know this?

"The laws of physics are universal," Chen Mo said calmly. "The answer for oxymethane is the only one derived from mathematics and chemistry."

"You're a madman," Musk said, rubbing his face vigorously. "If all Chinese investors were like you, the space race would be incredibly interesting!"

Musk is well aware that the ITRA red line must not be crossed, but he would never mind offering a spark of light to this visionary fellow traveler to illuminate the fog.

He pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket, casually tore off a napkin, and quickly scribbled strings of names and codes on the rough paper.

"I can't give you the regulated blueprints, flight control algorithms, and high-temperature alloy formulas; that's a federal felony."

Musk pushed a napkin covered in writing to Chen Mo: "But on this napkin are indexes of papers on cryogenic combustion multiphase flow published by five Ivy League universities."

"There are three European manufacturers of cryogenic valves and testing equipment that are not subject to military control, as well as NASA's white paper on aerodynamic deceleration technology for super-heavy vehicles, which was declassified during the Apollo era."

"Don't waste time on inefficient approval processes and bureaucratic procedures designed to guarantee success. Use industrial-grade components for agile testing. Blowing up ten test machines is more useful than spending three years just proving things on blueprints!"

"As for the engineers."

Musk leaned close to Chen Mo's ear.

Chen Mo wrote down three names.

The first one is a professor at a European university who has been researching low-temperature combustion for many years.

The second one was in charge of a civilian turbomachinery project and has since left the original research institution.

The third is an engineer who has been responsible for the quality management of large and complex systems.

None of the three individuals belong to SpaceX, nor did they have access to controlled data on Falcon 9 and Raptor.

Their knowledge comes from publicly available scientific research, civil engineering projects, and personal experience.

Whether or not Chen Mo is willing to join Blue Arrow is something he needs to fight for himself.

Today's conversation will save the fledgling LandSpace five years of detours in the unknown depths of liquid oxygen and methane, a field of human industry.

Thanks.

Chen Mo carefully put away the note.

Musk picked up the beer bottle again, raised it to Chen Mo, and gazed through the night sky into the deepest part of the vast starry sky: "Chen, I'll be waiting for you on Mars."

Chen Mo picked up the champagne glass next to him and clashed it heavily against the dark green beer bottle!

"Regardless of who takes that first step in the end."

"Respect to this vast starry sky."

"Respect for the future of humanity."

The night wind howled, and this late-night secret meeting, spanning the ocean and between opposing camps, silently ignited the spark of China's commercial aerospace industry, a spark destined to ignite across the heavens.