An incredibly thick silence blanketed the control room. Harry, Chloe, Elena, and Nadine stared at Julian as if the CEO had just sprouted dragon wings and breathed fire."M-Mars Colonization... Center?" Chloe whispered, nearly losing her balance had she not gripped the back of a chair. "Julian... you're jokin', right? Tengda Corp is a company that originally made cheap online games and ran a coffee shop! We ain't NASA! We just launched one rocket today, and even that was usin' a used Soviet engine!""And that used Soviet engine successfully brought us to conquer the global military, Chloe!" Julian fired back with an absurd logic that simply could not be refuted. "Listen, we got eighty million dollars in military grant money that we gotta burn through as fast as possible. Plus, we got an infinite cash flow from our quantum communications network monopoly. What's the best way to spend billions

 "Now," Julian turned his gaze to the pale man at the end of the table, "Hendrik. Stand up."Hendrik jolted from his chair as if he had just been electrocuted. "I-I didn't embezzle the funds for the office chairs last week, Boss! I swear! That... that was an unexpected administrative fee!""I don't care about the office chairs, Hendrik!" Julian waved his hand impatiently. "Before we can send people to Mars, we gotta train 'em in a simulated environment on Earth. I'm givin' you a highly crucial task. I want you to buy a plot of land to serve as the Tengda Mars Simulation Center.""L-Land, Boss? In Riverdale?""Not in the city!" Julian argued. "Find me the most arid, barren, useless piece of land on the face of the Earth. A place where no plant can survive, where the dry air is torturou

 The giant screen flickered, displaying Hendrik's figure. The Head of Procurement was seen wearing a bright yellow hazmat suit, complete with goggles fogged up with sweat. Behind him stretched an endless expanse of desert sand illuminated by the blinding, scorching sun. The air around him appeared to ripple from the extreme heat."B-Boss Julian..." Hendrik's voice sounded static-laced and breathless from behind his oxygen mask. "Reportin' from the Atacama Basecamp. This... this place is an absolute hellhole. The temperature out here is hitting forty-five degrees Celsius, and my Geiger counter hasn't stopped beepin' since I got off the chopper!""Perfect!" Julian immediately leaped to his feet, his enthusiasm exploding once again. He stared at the screen with sparkling eyes, completely ignoring the suspicious stares of Chloe and Elena behind him. "That

 "Of course he knows!" Harry chimed in enthusiastically, typing something on his tablet. "Miss Thorne and I have already analyzed your purchasing patterns, Mr. Hendrik. And we gotta admit, your execution was absolutely brilliant!""B-Brilliant?" Hendrik parroted, his brain completely numb."Yes!" Elena pivoted to face Julian, gazing at the CEO with boundless admiration. "Julian purposely told you to use the black market broker route and that corrupt general, didn't he? If Julian had bought that land through official channels for two million dollars, the local government would've gotten suspicious right away! They'd have sent an appraisal team, detected the lithium content, and canceled the sale!""But by markin' up the price to fifty million dollars through 'dirty' transactions and disguised bribes..." Harry

"R-Reject all of 'em, Boss?" Harry's fingers hovered over the keyboard, trembling violently as if he had just been ordered to hack into the defense systems of heaven. "Boss Julian, are you sure? This is a five-billion-dollar down payment offer! In cash! They're even willin' to transfer it to our account in five minutes without any due diligence!""Reject it! Reject it! REJECT IT!" Julian shrieked, leaping from his chair and grabbing Harry's monitor. The CEO's face flushed crimson from explosive hysteria. "I don't care if they offer me the keys to the golden city of El Dorado! Block their emails! Cut the phone calls! Tell 'em Tengda Corp ain't ever gonna sell a single drop of that damn blue liquid!"Elena Thorne, who had been standing by observing, slowly crossed her arms over her chest. A razor-sharp, crooked smile—the signature smile of an apex predator in the business world—slowly for