Super Mothership
“This ‘Harvest III’ multifunctional agricultural mech can be operated manually and also features highly automated intelligent seeding and harvesting. A single unit can manage 1,500 mu of farmland.
It comes with hundreds of cultivation modes for common crops, and more importantly, the entire process is foolproof—so simple that even ordinary people with only basic mechanical knowledge can use it proficiently…”
“Whoa! That’s freaking awesome~”
“I strongly recommend this ‘Hercules Type-7’ space transport vessel. It uses Type-II light steel gap armor, a triple-layer hull structure, and boasts an enormous internal volume of up to 1.3 million cubic meters. It can handle the transport of solid, liquid, and gaseous cargo alike…”
“Oh! My! God!”
“The ‘Windrunner’ series shuttles can travel back and forth between a planet’s surface and low orbit, letting you experience lightning-fast thrills…”
“Badass!”
“‘Stellar Source’ large-scale energy fusion furnaces—delivering clean energy and building harmonious cities…”
“……”
Naturally, the ones engaging in intrigue and maneuvering were the intelligence and espionage departments of Gemini. But the thousands of corporate representatives Gemini had sent this time genuinely wanted to make a huge profit.
After all, three-legged toads were easy to find, but suckers willing to purchase goods at two or three times the market price were extremely rare.
The massive teams brought by both sides quickly entered procurement and sales negotiations across subdivided fields, turning the scene into something as lively as a large-scale trade expo.
The inventory list Gemini brought was all-encompassing—tens of thousands of products in total—leaving the inexperienced Earth procurement officers dazzled and constantly exclaiming in amazement.
Although Earth’s technology had experienced an explosive surge recently under Nie Yun’s influence, when it came to accumulated foundations and the completeness of interstellar industry, it still lagged a tier behind the long-established interstellar civilization of Gemini.
In cutting-edge military technology, Nie Yun was no longer much inferior to Gemini. In civilian technology, the gap wasn’t particularly large either. The problem, however, was that even if the technology had caught up, Earth was still unable to mass-produce and deliver large quantities of finished products in a short time. This created a temporary vacuum in the market.
Introducing foreign products could undoubtedly accelerate Earth’s interstellarization and the development of the solar system. This was precisely the significance of Earth opening its market and integrating with the interstellar community!
Although Gemini’s salespeople appeared enthusiastic in promoting their products, seeing the Earthlings wearing expressions like country bumpkins visiting a grand mansion for the first time made them secretly scoff.
“Tch! What a bunch of clueless yokels. Just as expected of a low-level civilization—getting this shocked over products we phased out decades ago? Hey, hey! Is that guy about to start drooling oil already?”
“Heh. Looks like the unsold inventory piling up in the warehouses can finally be dumped…”
“These guys look ridiculously easy to fool. What a waste that I even brought out products from the previous two generations. If I’d known, I would’ve dragged out stuff from five generations ago to show off instead—though who knows whether those old production lines can even be restarted…”
Driven by enormous greed, Gemini agreed to sell their goods—but of course, they had no real intention of contributing to the construction of the solar system.
Thus, under instructions from the Joint Council, the products these companies put up for sale were entirely outdated, technologically obsolete items. They had originally worried the other side wouldn’t bite, but who would’ve thought that a terrible hand would somehow turn into a royal flush?
“So it really comes down to personnel quality…” Leon shook his head and laughed as he watched the scene.
Reusing Earth personnel seemed to solve the problem of manpower shortages, but it wasn’t without drawbacks. How could the education level of a low-level civilization possibly meet the demands for highly skilled talent in high-tech production?
Employees who struggled even to read operating manuals—let alone handle mechanical maintenance and upkeep.
When the time came, equipment damage, low efficiency, and similar issues would become major problems. Just from selling spare parts and secondary services alone, Gemini could probably rake in another massive profit.
He didn’t deny that Earth humans were also an intelligent species with a certain technological foundation, and perhaps capable of rapid growth. But it takes ten years to grow a tree and a hundred years to cultivate people—only after several decades, or even a century, might Earth’s human capital become truly useful.
But by then—after several decades or a hundred years—who knew whether the solar system would already have been incorporated into Gemini’s territory? Wouldn’t all of this simply be preparing a wedding dress for someone else?
“Earth branch—limited threat level in the short term,” Leon wrote down a sentence in his notebook.
What he didn’t know, however, was just how terrifying the growth and development speed of Earth’s people—who possessed virtual reality technology and had, in a certain sense, already achieved mental networking—would truly be…
And in fact, Earth’s people genuinely didn’t care whether the goods were obsolete products or not.
Did the construction of the solar system really require ultra-high-end, cutting-edge equipment? No matter how advanced your technology was, could it possibly outshine the Ghost Captain’s? Besides, these were only meant to be short-term transitional products anyway, so… as long as the quantity was large and the supply plentiful, that was enough!
After their initial round of wide-eyed amazement, Earth’s “Granny Lius” quickly began drafting their procurement intentions.
“This Hercules transport ship—we’ll purchase 1,000 units in the initial phase. Additional orders can be discussed later depending on performance. If we pay the full amount in cash, what kind of discount can you offer?”
“Agricultural mechs: 3 million units for now. Large mining vehicles: 300,000 units. By the way, is shipping included?”
“This space-edition ‘Low-Orbit Amusement Park’ and ‘High-Orbit Roller Coaster’—we’ll take five sets of each. Oh, and the interstellar theme park too. Can we buy out the copyright?”
“We don’t need energy furnaces, but we have a huge demand for your high-energy batteries… What? The production line isn’t for sale? Alright then, let’s start with 300 million units.”
“This standard-issue single-soldier protective suit—let’s order 100 million sets, split into spring/autumn versions. Oh right, can the exterior design be customized? The stats might drop? That’s fine—looking cool is all that matters!”
“……”
This time, it was the Gemini people who were left completely stunned.
Are you sure I didn’t hear an extra zero somewhere?
One thousand large transport ships alone?! Did the entire Caldari sector even produce that many in a year?
An even bigger problem was—there weren’t that many old production lines to begin with! Surely they couldn’t use brand-new shipyards to build outdated ships, right? My liver hurts just thinking about it…
Procurement quantities jumping straight into the millions—or even hundreds of millions—made every Gemini salesperson short of breath.
Sorry, I was wrong. These aren’t country bumpkins at all—this is a bunch of Middle Eastern-style mega oil tycoons!
Just listen to that—full cash payment without even blinking! For clients this high-quality… free shipping is a must!
Some companies whose inventories were completely bought out even started urgently contacting their superiors, requesting emergency expansion of production lines—because these tycoons had extremely low standards for product quality. Their only complaint was that delivery times were too long…
Faced with this outrageously rich crowd, what was supposed to be an interstellar procurement expo was forcibly turned into a clearance fire sale!
Watching Gemini negotiators get instantly beaten into submissive bootlickers by sheer money power, Leon’s expression turned… complicated.
Where the hell did these guys get so much money? Do they have mines at home or what?!
Chu Xiaoxiao merely smiled and said nothing.
It was true that Earth’s civilization did have mines—however, the amount of energy crystals produced on the Moon really wasn’t that much. The real source of profit was the outrageously lucrative blank crystal trade.
Charge them up, and a bicycle turns into a motorcycle—foreign exchange reserves came in absurdly easily.
Thirty thousand tons of freshly produced energy crystals had just rolled off the line. All she needed to do was convert them entirely into resources to accelerate the construction of the solar system.
And for women, spending money… was an innate talent.
“Oh right, Mr. Leon, if I remember correctly, Gemini Heavy Industries seems to be a joint-stock company. Could you help me ask whether they’re selling shares? Don’t worry—money isn’t an issue!”
“Uh…”
TL Note- Shopping Spree...
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