Chapter 262: Enjoying Treatment Even More Exaggerated Than Huazi’s
Resignations weren’t just Nelson; all four involved in the hotel incident resigned completely.
Netizens even jokingly called it Lin Ran wiping out half of NASA’s senior officials from a thousand miles away.
The impact of this blow was too obvious.
So after the manned space program was completed, many things remained unchanged from the past, while many other things changed.
First, on the Shanghai side, after Lin Ran returned to Shanghai, leaders came one after another to inspect, dominating the front pages of various news outlets in rotation.
Although Lin Ran didn’t personally attend almost any of them, with Song Nanping handling the receptions, some visitors still required his presence.
After the cameras disappeared, the Songjiang prefect joked, “Professor Lin, you definitely can’t stay here in Huaqiao any longer.
People might think we’re mistreating you in Shanghai.
With Shanghai local leaders coming one after another to inspect, they’ve probably offered you all sorts of conditions, from tax exemptions to land discounts, even free office buildings.
They’ve given everything they could, right?”
This really wasn’t an issue.
Daily Shanghai local news: Shanghai leaders visit Shanghai high technology company Apollo Technology for inspection. The company recently completed the first manned space project by a private aerospace enterprise. The company’s astronauts stayed in space for up to fourteen days, demonstrating a breakthrough achievement in our city’s high technology development field.
It sounds incredibly inspiring.
In this era advocating innovation, in this era where high technology is a key economic driver, aerospace is elite enough, an industry even more capable of driving upstream and downstream industries than the internet.
Shanghai local media naturally reported on it extensively and repeatedly.
But looking closer, a Shanghai high technology company—why is the office location in Huaqiao?
The founder is still a professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and the backing capital is Shanghai local state-owned capital like Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment.
It just feels off somehow.
Shanghai leaders visit Huaqiao, Kunshan to inspect a Shanghai native enterprise.
Shanghai can’t afford to lose face like this.
In the past, Kunshan was chosen because Lin Ran selected it himself.
Then after Burning No. 1 succeeded, various Shanghai districts expressed willingness to provide support, with plenty of preferential policies.
But the incentives offered were quite limited, nothing more than tax exemptions, office rental subsidies, and the like.
All much the same.
Compared to this office building owned by Shanghai Sci-Tech Investment, the conditions absolutely weren’t superior.
Later, after Lin Ran met that person at Hengshan Hotel, the offered conditions changed again.
This time the conditions were much more generous, but Lin Ran was too busy and not in Shanghai to make decisions.
Now that the manned space program is achieved, all sorts of conditions are being thrown out like they cost nothing.
After all, times change; after manned spaceflight is achieved, to those in the know, Apollo Technology will be a company not inferior to SpaceX.
SpaceX has 13,000 employees total, and Apollo Technology is at least that scale, driving upstream and downstream industries, regional effects, and the influence of the high technology company itself, greatly increasing its appeal to Shanghai’s various districts.
The most eager is definitely Minhang, since the main campus is there; in the future, Jiaotong University students can go from entering school to graduation all handled in one go, without even leaving Minhang’s Dongchuan Road.
Of course, Shanghai definitely wants to welcome back this shining son, while for Kunshan, or more accurately Gusu, they definitely want to keep Apollo Technology there.
Gusu local media, in their reports, emphasized that Apollo Technology is a private aerospace enterprise located in Huaqiao, Kunshan, Gusu.
As for whether Huaqiao considers itself part of Shanghai or Gusu, Gusu thinks that doesn’t matter at all.
You’re administratively under us—what you think matters?
Gusu’s demand is, best case move to the park by Jinji Lake, second best stay in Kunshan, worst case go back to Shanghai.
It’s rare to have an enterprise of this level emerge; from a scale perspective, the potential is limitless, so Gusu naturally doesn’t want to let go.
Enterprises have scales; this scale is more accurately called the ceiling.
Like internet companies such as Dewu, Hupu, Keep—their upper limit is very low, and the social benefits they generate for a city, the driving effect, are visibly limited.
For an aerospace enterprise like Apollo Technology, it’s hard to gauge its upper limit; if it develops into a colossus like China Aerospace, with annual revenue exceeding 80 billion US dollars, while Gusu’s entire city GDP is around 2.4 trillion RMB.
That’s equivalent to offsetting 20% of Gusu’s entire GDP.
This upper limit sounds absurd.
But looking at Lin Ran’s performance over the past year, it doesn’t seem so absurd.
In any case, during this time, all the inspecting leaders expressed similar sentiments.
Basically, can you come to our side?
Whatever policies or support you need, just say the word.
The most eager are Gusu and Minhang.
This time the Songjiang prefect came and made such a request, so the other side naturally offered the best corresponding conditions.
“Professor Lin, Shanghai will mobilize the entire city’s strength to nurture Apollo Technology; all the support you can imagine in every aspect will be in place.
If there are any difficulties, you can contact me directly; I’ll step in to solve them for you.”
Lin Ran nodded: “Good.”
The other party then pulled out his mobile phone, brought up the map, pointed to a plot next to Xintiandi in Shanghai and said: “This is the plot on Ji’an Road in the HP district, in Xintiandi, the core of the core in Shanghai.
This plot, after you complete the moon landing, will be injected as Apollo Technology’s headquarters into the company’s assets via capital injection.”
This plot, just the land alone, could fetch at least 10 billion RMB sky-high price.
Because of its location, in Xintiandi.
This is Shanghai’s most core area.
Lin Ran, having been in Shanghai for years, naturally knew well that petty bourgeois types in Shanghai love going to Xintiandi the most.
Xintiandi’s Cuilu plots routinely sell at over 100,000 RMB per square meter.
This condition is undeniably a trump card.
Lin Ran just smiled bitterly and shook his head: “Thanks for your kind intentions, but this would bring us a hundred harms for one benefit.
It’s impossible for me to put the company headquarters in a place like that.
We’re not some high technology company; we’re a manufacturing enterprise.
Putting the company headquarters in Xintiandi would only drag the company down; with our employees working there, could they afford the surrounding houses?
With the salaries we can offer, it’d be at least two hours commute each way, spending that much time on the road—would they have the mind to work?
Aside from giving us a flashy facade, I don’t know what benefits it would bring us.
It would invisibly massively increase the enterprise’s costs.”
Lin Ran saw the drawbacks of this at a glance.
Is Xintiandi good? Of course it is.
But that’s an ideal choice for finance or tertiary industry businesses.
For their kind of manufacturing, it offers zero benefits.
“If you’re really going to support us, instead of commercial plots, give us some surrounding residential land; we can allocate housing to employees. Even on Chongming Island, as long as there’s housing allocation welfare, we’ll have a natural advantage in recruiting talent.”
The Songjiang prefect smiled, clapped, and said: “Professor Lin, that was just option one. As you said, we offer another choice: next to Yuepu Town in Baoshan District, we’ve found you a large plot of open land; you can expand outward from there as the center.
Meanwhile, Baosteel is also there, including Baosteel’s core production area and new materials production base, all around Yuepu.
Your cooperation with Baosteel on aerospace materials could become even closer.”
This was the real perk.
No matter what you build—rockets, spaceships, satellites—these things all rely on steel.
Musk’s Starship uses a lot of stainless steel.
This is almost the most common metal material.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to research new materials.
Even the same stainless steel—type 30X stainless steel is SpaceX’s self-developed version, with higher strength and lower weight, maintaining good performance at extremely low or high temperatures, and much cheaper than carbon fiber material, considered a super material in the industry.
Self-media wildly hype that Musk’s Starship uses the most basic materials, unaware that stainless steels differ among themselves.
The Songjiang prefect’s proposal this time was undoubtedly much more practical.
Leaving aside whether Baosteel, as a traditional manufacturing state-owned enterprise, has sufficient materials R&D capability, it absolutely doesn’t lack equipment, engineers, or workers.
Without R&D capability, with Lin Ran coming, pulling in people anew would create it.
“Good, Yuepu Town it is.” Lin Ran said without hesitation.
Lin Ran knew the place; he had classmates from Baosteel worker families, and housing prices there were cheap.
For Shanghai, it was a surefire profitable deal.
Giving land to Apollo Technology is fine, but it could boost the entire Yuepu Town’s regional capacity.
“Then for residential land, we’ll subsequently build batches of talent apartments exclusively for Apollo Technology.
In that Yuepu area, it’s unlimited supply anyway.
Your employees can live there as long as they want.” The Songjiang prefect continued.
Lin Ran caught the subtext: housing allocation is off the table; once your employees get tired of the talent apartments, they should contribute to Yuepu Town’s real estate, right?
Lin Ran could even guess that later there would be lots of new plots, with nice appearances, selling prices pegged to Apollo Technology employees’ incomes, and decent supporting education and medical facilities—new homes targeted at this group of young people connected to Apollo Technology.
Whether working at Apollo Technology or upstream/downstream supply chain companies, these young people would become the main force for local old house renovations, new house listings, and city interface upgrades.
Lin Ran knew this so well because Huntsville City did exactly that back then.
NASA was established in 1958, Redstone Arsenal gradually grew with more people, then Huntsville City started a major city interface upgrade.
Plenty of young engineers working at Redstone Arsenal contributed to Huntsville City.
Lin Ran nodded: “Good, but relocation after our moon landing at the end of this year.”
“Can you really do the moon landing this year?” the other confirmed.
Lin Ran grinned and said: “The military order is already issued; how could we go back on it.”
After seeing the Songjiang prefect, Lin Ran saw Li Xiaoman looking troubled: “Did your uncle and aunt contact you?”
Li Xiaoman nodded: “Yes, they were also taken by federal police for investigation, but their situation was better than Nilanjan’s; they were released after questioning, but the federal police said they might be summoned again anytime, and they can’t leave America now.”
Lin Ran saw her hesitating to speak and said: “Sister Xiao Man, are they wanting you to come back and stop working for me?
The usual family emotional appeal, right?”
Li Xiaoman nodded again, then sighed deeply: “Sigh, yes, their point is that if I keep working here, their danger level will keep rising.
By the day we truly land on the moon, they’ll probably follow Nilanjan’s footsteps and completely lose their freedom.”
Lin Ran said: “If you go back, you’d be the one in danger.
Don’t they know that?
As the only female friend with long-term close contact to me, if they truly have even a shred of family feeling left, what they should do is beg you to help them leave America, even using China’s power.
Instead of persuading you to go back.
Once you go back, you’d lose your freedom, and they might not truly have freedom either.
Sister Xiao Man, I’m not just comforting you; I’m purely analyzing pros and cons.
Because I’ve always disliked them; where was the family feeling in the past? After your parents passed away, you didn’t see any of the family property they left; at eighteen you had to cover your own tuition, and the property share that should have been yours, you didn’t see either.
Talking family now is laughably late.
Even if they treated you well, at this point we couldn’t abandon everything because of them.”
Li Xiaoman held Lin Ran’s hand and said: “I know, I’m just a bit melancholic.
They treat me like the Dursleys treat Harry Potter in Harry Potter; in a fairy tale world they could reconcile, but in reality we can’t reconcile.
But they are still some of the few blood relatives I have left in this world, so I still have mixed feelings.”
Lin Ran didn’t speak, just stood quietly, listening to her breathing, feeling the temperature transmitted from her hand.
But the troubles went far beyond this.
For the old timers, he simply couldn’t accept that during his term, a private enterprise from the old midst was about to land on the moon.
First, a certain Donkey Party senator wrote to the White House, stating in the letter:
“Dear Minister Raimondo, Mr. Blinken:
We write to emphasize the threat Apollo Technology poses to America and the free world, and the necessity of preventing it from further exploiting our 1960s Apollo Moon Landing achievements to strike back at America and NASA through multilateral cooperation and diplomatic means.”
One line inside was the funniest: “Among all Chinese Companies, Apollo Technology is the worst.”
In the May 2025 letter from John Molenar and Raja Krishnamoorthi to the White House, there was this line: “Huawei is the worst.”
The original text was exactly: “Huawei is as bad as it gets”
(This letter, the last sentence of the third paragraph: Huawei is as bad as it gets)
Lin Ran hadn’t expected their company to enjoy Huawei-level treatment ahead of schedule.
The White House treated it as a major enemy.
Not treating it as a major enemy wasn’t an option; Apollo Technology’s progress was a bit too fast.
They were almost at the point of landing on the moon in the next two years.
And the White House knew well that official NASA definitely couldn’t manage a moon landing in these two years; even if the task was truly handed to Musk as he wished, he might not pull it off.
Now the White House was stuck.
This morning, Li Ni went to Bilibili headquarters as usual.
She had been extremely smug lately.
Because her transformation plan was exceptionally successful, having invested in the potential stock Apollo Technology.
Bilibili’s traffic, revenue, and profits all stood to make a big haul from Apollo Technology.
First, private label advertising: major enterprises kept coming to negotiate, hoping to get a piece of Apollo Technology’s manned space program; money was no object.
Could Moutai not afford to pay?
Like last time, two liquor companies, two banks, one shelled out 20 million—for them it was pocket change.
Later, Bilibili live broadcasting Apollo Technology’s manned spaceflight, inserting ads, would rake in another big sum.
Though Apollo Technology’s progress was fast, the 1.2 billion couldn’t be dragged out over ten years; it might have to be paid in two years.
But the returns were astonishingly high, with plenty of manufacturers helping share the expenditures.
Returns could cover the expenditures.
Traffic and new clients from traffic were pure profit.
More importantly, the documentary: their full-process documentary with exclusive broadcast rights.
Bilibili planned to make it paid viewing: free for the first two episodes, paid for the rest, to cultivate users’ paying habits.
This was even more important for a content-driven company like Bilibili.
Precisely because of this, the entire documentary team was replaced with the team that shot Life on a String, and for the final film quality, Li Ni planned to oversee it personally.
Betting on Apollo Technology and winning was seen by her as a brilliant battle in her career.
If Apollo Technology truly lands on the moon, it would be the most brilliant one.
Just like LeTV could feast on Legend of Zhen Huan for life, Bilibili could feast on Apollo Technology’s moon landing for a long, long time, with sufficient long-tail traffic.
But this day, as soon as she arrived at the company, she was called to the office, where executives were gathered uniformly.
Sitting in the center was Chen Rui, his face heavy, not speaking.
Instead, the chief financial officer in charge of finance and operations said: “Sorry, everyone, bad news: Nasdaq just sent us an inquiry letter, requiring us to detail our cooperation with Apollo Technology.
They believe cooperating with a company seriously threatening their national security could lead to delisting under Executive Order 13959.”
“Ah?” Li Ni was stunned. “Wait, I’ve seen so many Chinese Companies cooperate with Huawei without issue.
What’s this 13959?”
The chief financial officer continued: “13959 is their executive order from November 12 last year, revised to 14032 on June 3 this year.
Simply put, for specific companies, if we cooperate with such a specific company, we could face delisting.
And now it’s clear America is about to designate Apollo Technology as such a specific company.”
