Chapter 228: I, Qin Shi Huang, Send Money!
Xiao Li only met this figure who had become renowned throughout China and equally renowned in the global mathematics community over the past six months in reality after the first class of the semester ended.
He was also the person he served.
According to university tradition, although Lin Ran was not his mentor, calling him Boss would be more appropriate.
“Li Bingnan? Lin Ran.” Lin Ran met Xiao Li, who looked slightly haggard after two months of rushing to finish the work, in the Kunshan Villa; he extended his hand waiting for the other to extend his hand.
“Yes, Professor Lin, I’ve heard so much about you.” Li Bingnan said while shaking hands.
Temperament is a very mysterious thing.
This thing truly exists, yet it cannot be quantified.
At Shanghai Jiaotong University, the highest-ranking official Li Bingnan had seen was the Shanghai leader in charge of education.
Even that leader, in terms of aura, did not feel as strong as the 23-year-old young man in front of him.
The feeling Lin Ran gave him was that of someone long accustomed to a high position, with firm goals and unquestionable authority.
“Bingnan, just call me Professor from now on.” Lin Ran said softly.
Li Bingnan later learned that it was not the school that chose him; the school gave Lin Ran a bunch of suitable candidates, about ten or so.
Then Lin Ran picked him out at a glance from that pile of resumes.
According to the administrative staff responsible for liaising with Lin Ran, they had only sent the list, not even the resumes yet, and Lin Ran had already sent back the name he selected.
Li Bingnan prided himself on having no dealings with Lin Ran during university, and he was not particularly well-known at Jiaotong University.
He did not know why Lin Ran chose him.
After meeting Lin Ran in person, he understood.
The young man in front of him was extremely confident, confident to the point that he felt no matter who he chose as his assistant, he could control the overall situation and keep things in his own hands, and choosing him might simply be because the name Li Bingnan sounded good.
“Not bad.”
After looking around the Kunshan Villa, Lin Ran found that it had been set up according to his requirements.
Although it could not replicate a NASA employee dormitory one-to-one, the important thing was the feeling.
To pursue the authenticity of this feeling, Lin Ran even required military green, rough-textured bedding, Pinduoduo price fifty yuan each.
Xiao Li suppressed his inner doubts, though he really wanted to ask, Professor, you’re not really going to blow through all those eighty-year-old timers’ pensions with this setup, are you?
The two-story villa had a total of 8 rooms plus the living room to squeeze in 27 people.
The quality of this retirement base was a bit too poor.
For the remaining three days, Lin Ran called him to continue perfecting it here together.
The blackboard was filled with formulas.
Xiao Li could vaguely make out that these formulas were related to the Apollo Moon Landing.
Because they were formulas, search engines were useless.
There were also information materials.
The materials were in English, but he understood them effortlessly.
All of them were materials from the Apollo Moon Landing process in the 1960s.
Filling the entire space completely.
This further confirmed for Xiao Li that Lin Ran indeed intended to conduct project research on the Apollo Moon Landing, just as he had said in the first class inside Shanghai Jiaotong University.
It was just that during the speech, he had said it was research, planning to use mathematical knowledge to review and analyze the Apollo Moon Landing project.
But Xiao Li knew more inside information.
He knew this project had called in 27 former NASA employees, elites from the golden age of aerospace during the Cold War.
Summoning heroes from the Hall of Heroes, and you tell me it’s just for review?
Xiao Li would never believe it no matter what.
But if it was really to go to the moon, these 27 people alone would be far from enough.
After spending these few days with Lin Ran, the doubts in Xiao Li’s heart not only did not disappear but accumulated more and more.
The Shining Moments of Humanity.
When the 27 former subordinates appeared in the villa living room, standing here in groups of two or three, Lin Ran’s heart was full of emotion.
These 27 were all shining stars of humanity, who had accomplished what seemed impossible in the 1960s.
And as former shining stars of humanity, Lin Ran only wanted to ignite their remaining embers one last time.
From young lads to now with wrinkles covering their skin, hair from black to white, eyes from clear to cloudy.
If life is a candle, then these old timers’ candles had less than a tenth left.
But as these old timers entered the living room one by one, looking at Lin Ran standing by the blackboard, the scrutiny and doubt in their eyes showed no trace of senility.
This made Xiao Li standing by the blackboard a bit scared.
What if something unexpected happened, and the professor got beaten—should he use his physical body to help take the hits?
Lin Ran stood up and walked to the front of the crowd:
“This is the best of times, this is also the worst of times.
Sixty years ago, humanity achieved an unprecedented moon landing feat for the ideal of leaving Earth.
In that era, even the janitors in the NASA building were full of enthusiasm.
They did not think their work was just simple cleaning; they believed their work ensured the building was clean and tidy, providing a comfortable working environment for scientists, engineers, and astronauts, and thus contributing to the manned moon landing.
They believed they were not mopping the floor, but helping humanity achieve the grand dream of the moon landing.
Such an idealistic golden age is gone forever.”
Lin Ran said wistfully.
Instantly pulling them back to the golden age sixty years ago.
“Line up! Stand at attention!” Lin Ran shouted.
These elderly old timers looked at each other, Buzz Aldrin nodded first, then everyone slowly moved to form three lines.
Why?
Why would these worldly old timers, who had experienced glory, lows, and long years of silence, listen to Lin Ran.
Simple, because of the accent.
They confirmed once again that Lin Ran indeed had the unique accent from Huntsville City in the 1960s, just as they had speculated on the plane.
After the Apollo Moon Landing ended, to be precise after 1965, with the Lyndon Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center successively built, and NASA headquarters built, everyone gradually left the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville City.
Even though the Marshall Space Center was still in Huntsville, compared to the early 1960s when Huntsville was the only center, it had clearly declined from being the core area of America’s space program.
This also meant that in recent years, they rarely heard the local Huntsville dialect anymore; such speech only appeared among early employees.
This was one of the doubts they discussed during their time on the plane and in the hotel, namely where the faint familiar feeling came from when Lin Ran called them.
Later, Haines reminded them that the other party’s accent was very similar to what they remembered.
They specifically recalled that it was from Huntsville.
Because 1960s Huntsville City belonged to Alabama, a typical southern state, with many conservative traditions, and in accent, it sounded like Elizabethan English, with the habit of stretching monosyllabic words into disyllabic ones.
Certain pronunciations like long i sounds, nice and right stretched out, drawer pronounced as drahwer, pin and pen pronounced similarly.
In short, such an accent puzzled them.
Letters can be forged, but forging an accent would be too difficult.
Unless Randolph really went to the countryside in Alabama to learn from old folks.
From the other’s resume, such a possibility was minuscule.
“Buzz Aldrin, your performance during the moon landing was very impressive, a very impressive improvisational reaction.
But what if the improvisation was not improvisation but deliberate?”
After hearing this, Buzz Aldrin’s face changed, because this was almost his deepest secret, and yet it was known by the Chinese young man in front of him.
“You”
He was baffled; he would not even tell this secret to others in his dreams.
Before he could finish, Lin Ran patted his shoulder and walked to the next person:
“Haines, your manual calculation of Earth’s oblateness for the spaceship orbital inclination correction value was very impressive, but if only your error value could have been better.
5% was still a bit too high, and if you hadn’t been so fond of going to New York to fool around with blonde girls, NASA’s related data wouldn’t have been obtained by the Soviet Space Agency.”
The next one filled him with mixed feelings even more, because Haines was the first NASA employee he met in 1960.
Haines was equally shocked.
Because his habit of going to New York to play with blonde girls was ancient history from sixty years ago; no NASA employee who knew would spread it around, it had long dissipated into the river of history.
Additionally, regarding the NASA data leak in that manner, even Haines himself did not know about it.
Lin Ran pointed out one by one.
“Libo Yardley, your family made outstanding contributions to the moon landing; who would know your family was also working for the Soviet Union all along.”
Lin Ran revealed the hidden secrets in each person’s heart, filling everyone’s mind with doubts.
Especially when he finally mentioned Libo Yardley, as the other 26 watched Libo’s face go from tense to more tense, their hearts were deeply moved.
Libo Yardley’s father was John Yardley, the factory director Lin Ran met at the General Aerospace Factory in Texas on the eve of Kennedy’s death.
He helped pass a message to the Soviet Union that Kennedy was about to be assassinated, hoping Lin Ran could pass this news to Kennedy himself.
Libo was his eldest son, and also one of the rare all-around senior workers among these 27.
The whole family working for the Soviet Union and holding out until now was a secret, but nothing major.
They were all about to meet God; so what if it was known?
The Soviet Union no longer existed.
“How I know these things is not important; I searched the dusty papers of history for the Apollo Program’s glorious history.
I’ve always wondered one thing: why after 60 years, we can’t return to the moon.
I’m unwilling, and I believe you are too.
For this day, I’ve been preparing nonstop for the past six years.
The first two years, I personally went to America, to the NASA Museum, Columbia University’s library, and various libraries, trying to outline the Apollo Program’s framework and details as much as possible.
I know even more clearly that in today’s world, only China can complete the moon landing at the lowest cost, because it has an unprecedented industrial foundation in human history.
The handwritten letters sent to you all were written by me simulating your handwriting and the periods when such events might occur on you.
I wanted them to make you embark to this unknown land with determination to start a new journey; my simulation was quite good.
What we need now is trust!
Mutual trust between us.
You believe I can send humanity to the moon again.
And I need to believe you still have the ability to work!
Three months, in three months we need to complete the design of all key systems and start manufacturing.
Then spend half a year on production and testing of key components, and finally launch in November next year.
In three months, I will conquer you with actions, and you, likewise, must prove yourselves with actions!
Otherwise, get out and spend your remaining days in the nursing home!”
Lin Ran’s speech rate was fast, and with a bit of accent, it differed from modern standard English.
Plus, Li Bingnan was a mathematics major, and his English ability was at the level of dumb English.
From his perspective.
The whole process was like, these old timers came in, Lin Ran said a couple of sentences, and then they started lining up at attention.
Before lining up, they glanced at each other, looking somewhat unwilling.
Then Lin Ran said a few words to each person, and after he finished, their entire state seemed activated.
At the end of that speech, he could vaguely make out Lin Ran’s roar and “get out.”
And these old men, their eyes went from cloudy to somewhat sharp.
Li Bingnan searched his mind for a metaphor, and after a moment, he found one:
“Terracotta warriors, just like terracotta warriors dug up from underground and repainted, coming back to life.
What, me paying Qin Shi Huang to make it real!”
He could not help but feel shocked inside; what exactly did the professor say that was so effective.
If the professor went into multi-level marketing, he’d probably be top-notch too.
And what happened afterward in these two villas shocked and baffled Li Bingnan even more.
These old timers either slept or worked.
And pure manual labor.
What the hell, actually doing compass and straightedge constructions, hand-calculating calculus formulas.
Li Bingnan could not help but sigh; what senior re-employment training center.
He was afraid these old timers would suffer a stroke from overthinking.
That night.
Villa rooftop
“Buzz, you know very well we still have a core problem unsolved.” Lin Ran said.
Buzz Aldrin nodded: “Money, without money, we’re stuck.
To go to the moon, even if China’s goods are cheap, no matter how much power we unleash, with all materials ready-made, we just need to fill the gaps.
It’ll cost at least tens of billions of US Dollars.
Without money, it’s impossible; only blueprints, only designs, and no money—sorry, this game ends after three months.
Though I’m very curious how you knew the Apollo Moon Landing malfunction was deliberate on my part.
But even if you know so much, without money, it’s useless.”
“You have money!”
