Chapter 124: Chapter 108: C Machinery Co., Ltd.! (2)
"To summarize: In its early days, C Mechanical Company brought in financial, talent, and network support from Jinling University! It was a win-win, a union of powerhouses."
"This matter also revealed the outstanding insight, Extraordinary perception, and immense boldness of C Company’s chief scientist and founder, Chu Bamboo."
’...So that’s how it is.’ Chu Bamboo understood completely. ’To put it bluntly, they used the university as a protective umbrella?’
’It makes sense! Heavy industries like manufacturing require so much coordination. It’s a completely different beast from the AI sector... It’s almost unimaginable to succeed without a network! The difficulty would be on a Hellish level.’
Tech companies are clearly a different concept from heavy-industry, asset-heavy corporations.
After all, if the local authorities got too out of line with a tech company, they could just pack up and leave. Data is so easy to move, after all! As for employees, as long as their food and housing are covered, they can live anywhere, can’t they?
But where can a heavy industry company move? A single relocation would be a devastating blow!
This was especially true later on. Early on, things like batteries were manageable, but the later stages involved superconductors and even aspirations to lead the construction of a nuclear fusion device—an achievement that could shape the nation’s destiny.
Frankly, Chu Bamboo was stunned that a mere thirteen percent of the shares was enough for the university to shoulder so much responsibility, and for the government to not raise too many questions.
Thoughts churned in Chu Bamboo’s mind. ’Hmm, since this is a successful strategy from the future, maybe I can consider it after I get back... The only question is the absolute control over the company...’
’But, come to think of it, Lin Xia’s and my shares total over fifty percent. With Jinling University as the only other major shareholder, retaining a controlling voice must have been part of the plan!’
Chu Bamboo’s eyes lowered slightly. He let out a breath, preparing to think it over carefully when he returned.
"Right, pull up the intel on Celestial Net Group too!"
And then...
"...Interesting." Chu Bamboo’s gaze suddenly froze. A strange look came over his face, and after a brief silence, he started to laugh.
"James Raven’s time of death was also in ’41, and only half a month after mine?"
No one would believe that’s a coincidence!
After a moment of thought.
"I see!"
Chu Bamboo nodded in understanding. He’d thought as much; he wasn’t the type to just take a beating without fighting back. It seemed he had set up some kind of contingency; if he died, it would trigger an unconditional counterattack against Celestial Net Company, or more precisely, against James Raven and Golden Dawn.
’As for how exactly James died, there’s not much to consider. It was either C Security Company’s doing, or it involved the AI, Z?’
’I just don’t know why there’s no information about an attack on Golden Dawn... Oh, I almost forgot. The Golden Organization’s name is even redacted! So even if I did retaliate against Golden Dawn after my death, the information probably couldn’t be recorded! Or even if it was, it would just be a bunch of black symbols...’
Chu Bamboo looked at a large, heavily redacted block of data and grinned. ’This section could be it...’
Next, Chu Bamboo asked about a few other things, such as the usual request for details on the AI War.
"Server busy, please try again later!"
’...Why do I not even feel the slightest bit of disappointment right now?’ Chu Bamboo’s face was expressionless as his mind wandered. He immediately moved on to the next question.
Then, he quickly gave up on this line of questioning.
Compared to Shaking Light from the previous timeline, Nuwa No. 17 was the same as ever: large swaths of redacted text and constant retractions. It got to the point where Chu Bamboo was having a hard time getting used to it again.
"Of course. When I have Shaking Light, I think of Nuwa, and when I have Nuwa, I think of Shaking Light!" Chu Bamboo lamented.
’Why can’t there be a perfect AI that combines the benefits of both?’
’Or maybe, I could stick Nuwa No. 17 in this base, and then add the Shaking Light AI as an assistant?’
As he let his imagination run wild, Chu Bamboo gave a command, "In my capacity as the largest shareholder of Z Intelligent Company and the largest shareholder and founder of C Mechanical Company, display all patents from both companies."
As soon as he finished speaking, a dense list of patents appeared, far too many to count, numbering in the millions.
"Holy crap." Chu Bamboo sucked in a sharp breath. After scrolling a couple of times, his face lit up with joy. "Excellent! The patent list for C Company includes numerous patents for nuclear fusion! So even without Shaking Light, I can slowly get started on building a fusion reactor."
"Huh? Construction of a nuclear fusion device, too? Right! C Company does have a track record in this area." Chu Bamboo casually clicked on the manufacturing section for nuclear fusion facilities and discovered that there were actually three versions.
"First-generation nuclear fusion, second-generation, third-generation... Right! It seems development went quite well!"
Chu Bamboo understood. If he remembered correctly, hadn’t nuclear fission power plants in the Real World already advanced to the fourth generation?
Letting his mind wander, Chu Bamboo casually clicked on one and was stunned to discover...
"The blueprints for the first-generation nuclear fusion reactor are over eight hundred thousand pages... but the construction blueprints for the second-generation are only five hundred thousand pages? Uh... But the third generation balloons to over ten million pages... What the hell, that’s a bit ridiculous!"
Chu Bamboo rubbed the bridge of his nose and then clicked on the second-generation blueprints, complaining internally. He could understand the third generation’s massive increase in page count, but why the second... Compared to the millions of pages he’d seen last time, this was less than half!?
After a quick glance, a look of realization dawned on Chu Bamboo’s face.
’I see, this is obviously much more refined! It must be because when the fusion reactor was built in the previous timeline, human civilization was already in great danger, so there was no way to push things further.’
’But in this timeline, they even had an AI to assist them. So, by increasing the technological sophistication, they were able to reduce the number of tedious steps.’
Chu Bamboo scanned through the documents, a sense of joy gradually building within him.
Although on the surface, it didn’t seem like history had changed all that much—
Chu Bamboo and Zhao Shao still died at the familiar time, the war still started at the familiar time, and the construction of the civilization-continuation base still began at the familiar time.
But fundamentally, things were completely different.
The Nuwa timeline was characterized by a focus on developing artificial intelligence, using AI to coordinate industry and trigger a massive boom in production capacity. The Shaking Light timeline, on the other hand, was characterized by heavy manufacturing—room-temperature superconductors, Quantum Computers, controllable nuclear fusion...
Yes, Chu Bamboo realized in hindsight that in the very first timeline, it seemed they hadn’t managed to build a controllable nuclear fusion reactor.
’Or maybe they were about to build it but hadn’t announced it? Or was it built after ’50, but the data became unsearchable when the internet went down during the AI crisis?’
But regardless... due to Chu Bamboo’s personal influence, the two timelines actually symbolized two similar yet completely different paths of technological development!
But now, in this brand-new worldline! Because Chu Bamboo constantly drew on experience from the future to make micro-level adjustments and interventions—
This timeline, before the start of the AI War in ’42, was one where heavy industry and artificial intelligence truly developed side-by-side!
You could say it combined the strengths of both the former Nuwa timeline and the Shaking Light timeline.
"Further development is good! Keep leveling up, and eventually, the quantitative changes will lead to a qualitative leap."
Chu Bamboo had Nuwa No. 17 materialize a bed. He lay down on it and let out a long sigh, a look of pleasure and satisfaction on his face.
He rested for barely a breath.
"Alright, next."
Chu Bamboo’s expression twisted for a moment. He pushed himself up, glared at the silver interface, and ground his teeth. "Nuwa No. 17, pull up all the textbooks from Jinling University’s artificial intelligence department..."
"And also, call up all the data on the initial prototype of the Spiritual Star Algorithm, as well as all the data on the complete version!"
’Thinking about how many patents are available from the two timelines is meaningless right now. After all, I’m the one who has to transfer them—’
’So for now, I should focus on memorizing the important stuff.’
’In the last Shaking Light timeline, due to an accident, I couldn’t finish memorizing the two Spiritual Star Algorithms and the AI textbooks. I need to make up for that now, and fast.’
