"More than that! I chartered the entire plane. It was specifically for bringing scientists and their families here, and everyone on board was someone I invited!" Song He poured himself a cup of tea, blew on it, and took a small sip.
"And they weren't minor figures either?" Xiang Xiaotong rested her chin in her hands.
"Pope and Field. They're both just one step away from the Nobel Prize, and I plan to assign them as teachers to Lu Geng's students. Hope is an explosives expert. He made the warheads for the air-to-air missiles carried by the Lighthouse fighter jets, and he nearly died from his own invention." Song He counted them off on his fingers.
"Nigel and Iwano Keita are Crafoord Prize winners, and they both work in astronomy. Payne, Chai Jin, and Wang Hang are all Sloan Prize winners, and they work in marine science. Rudolph is a Ramanujan Prize winner—the guy who got his head stuck in a toilet that one time. Julian and Meng Yue won the Turing Award. Garcia and Nightingale both won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry..."
Song He spent a long while counting on his fingers, practically listing every major international award!
Xiang Xiaotong clicked her tongue. "No wonder they're freaking out. That plane was an all-star lineup! You poached so many people at once that you've hollowed out the pillars of their universities. How could they not be frantic?"
"I didn't hollow them out completely. There are still plenty I haven't had time to poach yet," Song He argued solemnly.
Xiang Xiaotong burst out laughing, burying herself in the blankets as her shoulders shook.
"There's one problem now. What do we do about Hope?" Song He said. "The briefing asked me at the end whether it would be possible to set up