Chapter 1623 - An Old-Fashioned "Scam"?
Chapter 1623: An Old-Fashioned “Scam”?
These days, Lu Zhou had been receiving emails from Vera almost every day. Sometimes, he would receive several emails a day.
He only left home for a bit, but the emails sent every few hours made him feel like he had gone far away.
Well, that was true. After all, Mars was quite far away from Earth.
Especially now that the two celestial bodies had moved to relatively far positions with a straight line distance of nearly 300 to 400 million kilometers. Even light had to take more than 20 minutes to reach the opposing planet.
Because Lu Zhou did not take a civilian flight but the First Fleet Qinling instead, he didn’t spend much time on the road, and so, he didn’t have a real sense of this vast distance.
The only thing that made it feel like a business trip was the local culture on Mars.
The local delicacies of Tiangong City were a little hard to describe.
Perhaps because of the precious freshwater resources, most of the food here was dry and lightweight. He felt unsatisfied when tasting it.
In addition, there was an erratic change between their enthusiasm and coldness…
Lu Zhou had a profound experience of Martian culture.
“As for the meeting, is there no result yet?”
“No.” Lu Zhou shook his head while fiddling with the holographic model in his hand. “After I came, I found out that the situation on Mars is more complicated than I thought.”
Wang Peng had guessed what the complexity Lu Zhou meant was. He couldn’t help but show a strange expression on his face.
“Even you feel like it’s complicated?”
“Yes.” Lu Zhou said casually while nodding his head, “There is a serious rift between Mars’ academic world and Earth’s science community. In short, they have formed a unique circle, and it is difficult to allow outsiders to intervene.”
Wang Peng: “Then you came here for nothing?”
Lu Zhou: “That’s not true. The mayor’s invitation was just one of the reasons why I came to Mars. I have more important things to do.”
Wang Peng raised his eyebrows curiously and asked casually, “Oh… like what? Of course, I’m just curious, if you can’t talk about it, it’s fine.”
Lu Zhou stared at the model in his hand. He thought for a while and gave an ambiguous answer.
“It’s nothing special, it’s mainly related to the warp drive and Z particles.”
Speaking of which, it had been more than a year since he woke up from his hibernation.
General Reinhardt had been buried in the ground alone for more than a year. Lu Zhou wondered if General Reinhardt would feel bored.
The afternoon meeting still ended in a heated debate.
Lu Zhou didn’t listen much during the whole process. The meeting system designed by Xiao Ai helped him record the main points of the meeting while he basically did his own thing.
After the meeting, he originally planned to go to a restaurant for a meal, then go back to his room to rest.
However, he bumped into Professor Wu Qinglai again at the restaurant.
Lu Zhou said, “Why didn’t you come to the meeting just now?”
“The opinions of us Earth experts are actually not important at all. I thought you knew.” Professor Wu Qinglai had a helpless look on his face. He suddenly approached Lu Zhou with a mysterious expression, lowered his voice, and said, “Regardless… Speaking of which, have you heard about Noah’s Ark?”
Noah’s Ark?
Intuition told Lu Zhou that this guy wasn’t talking about the mythology story, so he asked, “What is it?”
“So you really don’t know,” Wu Qinglai said with a smile on his face. He continued with an excited tone, “The legendary world’s largest colonial ship that is under construction! It is also the first colonial ship built for the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation! The goal is Proxima Centauri b! The reason why I didn’t come to the meeting just now was so that I could use the hotel network to grab tickets!”
Grab… tickets?
After hearing these words, Lu Zhou couldn’t help but show a weird expression on his face.
“What tickets?”
“Of course it is the starship tickets!”
“Are you interested in colonial exploration?”
“No way! Although I have no plans to live on an exoplanet, I am still interested in credit points!” Professor Wu continued with a smile on his face, “In short, with the help of Tiangong City Bank, the Alpha Centauri Foundation issued 100,000 tickets to raise funds for the construction of the colonial ship!”
Lu Zhou asked, “So?”
“The Alpha Centauri Foundation promises that just by having tickets of different levels, one would be eligible to board the ship, and the foundation also promises ownerships of different areas of land in the colony. This type of ticket has financial attributes. In less than an hour, their price has doubled. I bought 10 of them with a total of 300,000 credits. When they rise to about 1 million, I will get rid of them!”
Lu Zhou was a little worried that this guy might have been deceived by a scam, so he couldn’t help but kindly remind him.
“This sounds like a Ponzi scheme… Something similar happened a century ago.”
However, this kind reminder obviously didn’t work.
The excited expression on Professor Wu Qinglai’s face didn’t change. Instead, he started arguing with Lu Zhou.
“You don’t understand. A Ponzi scheme is a paper game that pays profit to investors with other investors’ money, but this is different! According to research on the Internet, more than 1 billion people think that colonizing an exoplanet is a cool thing, and I’m considering going to the new world to find opportunities for development.”
Lu Zhou: “Those surveys on the Internet don’t reflect people’s true thoughts… How do they plan to go to Alpha Centauri? At the very least, as far as I know, East Asia Heavy Industries has not reached a warp drive technology authorization with a private company yet. I’m afraid it won’t happen anytime soon.”
“Regardless, the market is eating this up.” Professor Wu shrugged and continued with a certain tone, “If you still think I was deceived, I recommend you to take a look at Griffin’s exhibitions.”
Looking at Professor Wu, Lu Zhou was slightly stunned.
“Griffin’s exhibitions?”
He was clearly talking about the colonization of exoplanets, so what does this have to do with exhibitions?
Just when he was about to ask what was the relationship between the two, Professor Wu Qinglai saw his confusion and took the initiative to speak.
“That’s right, John Griffin! A New Londoner from the North Sea Alliance and the most famous impressionist painter on Mars. His painting skills are unparalleled. As one of the supporters of the Star System Colonization Plan, he has always advocated going to the new world to find new types of art, so he recently held exhibitions in major colonies on Mars. He auctioned his paintings to collect donations for colonial ships heading to Alpha Centauri.”
Lu Zhou: “Are you trying to say that there are many celebrities who advocate for this project? Sorry, I am not interested in fundraising.”
“But I believe you will be interested in his works of art.” Professor Wu Qinglai said confidently while looking at Lu Zhou, “According to the data provided by the International Astronomical Observatory, he used impressionist painting techniques and modern technology to complete revolutionary works of art. This work will be exhibited at the Central Museum in Tiangong City. Maybe it will change your prejudices about the colonization program. Here’s a ticket if you want to go.”
“I have no prejudices about the colonization plan itself, and I even… Forget about it,” Lu Zhou said with a helpless expression after taking the ticket. He then added, “Thank you for the ticket. I will go if I have time.”
The moment he heard these words, Professor Wu Qinglai’s face immediately showed an expression of joy. As if he had heard some great news, he held Lu Zhou’s right hand excitedly.
“Please go there! Believe me, that exhibition will not disappoint you!”