The system test of Starworm was successful.
The silver-gray Stainless Steel Water Tower rose steadily to a height of twenty meters in the billowing smoke, hovered, and then steadily dropped back to the launch pad.
The whole process lasted less than a minute, but the moment Raptor engine turned off, the entire Launch Site burst into deafening cheers.
The engineers hugged each other, some threw their helmets into the air, and some squatted on the gravel and cried.
When Elon Musk walked out of the control center, the expression on his face was as if he had just run a marathon - tired, excited, and relieved.
He walked through the crowd and walked straight to Zhao Chen.
"Zhao, barbecue." His eyes were shining with the light of a hunter after a successful hunt in the sunshine of Texas,
"Don't forget tomorrow night, I have made an appointment with Huang Renxun. You must come."
"Huang Renxun agreed?"
"He originally had a meeting at Silicon Valley, and I told him that the greatest investor in history also wanted to meet him."
Elon Musk shrugged, with a trademark crooked smile on his lips,
"Although he didn't know who I was talking about, he changed his ticket."
Su Wantang stood beside Zhao Chen and turned his head to look at him after hearing this.
Zhao Chen's expression did not change, but she noticed that his right hand tightened slightly.
On the evening of the next day, Boca Chica went forty miles north to a Texas barbecue restaurant named "Old Joe".
This store is located on the edge of a dusty road. The exterior wall is made of corrugated iron. Half of the neon tubes on the sign are broken, leaving only the letters "O E JOE" flickering in the dusk.
The parking lot was full of pickup trucks, and Elon Musk's silver Model S was squeezed among a pile of Ford F-150s, like a metal bird that broke into the herd.
When Zhao Chen and Su Wantang pushed the door in, Elon Musk had already arrived.
He was sitting behind a crooked wooden table in the corner, with a plate of brisket and pulled pork spread out in front of him, and a glass of amber Whisky in his hand.
He changed out of his work clothes that were stained with engine oil and wore a dark gray T-shirt, but the whitening on the knees of his jeans remained the same.
Next to him sat a man.
He is in his fifties, has gray hair, wears a pair of metal-framed glasses, and a dark blue Polo shirt, with a lean forearm exposed from the cuffs.
His sitting posture is very quiet, which is in sharp contrast to Elon Musk's excited state of wanting to jump up from the chair at any time.
But the moment he raised his head and looked at Zhao Chen, Zhao Chen noticed his eyes - they were a pair of eagle eyes.
Quiet, but seeing everything.
"Zhao." Elon Musk stood up and pointed at the man next to him with his fingers dipped in barbecue sauce, "Huang Renxun."
Huang Renxun stood up and stretched out his hand.
His hands were dry and strong. He held them briefly and then released them without any unnecessary shaking.
He was not tall, but when he stood there, his whole figure looked like a knife in a sheath.
"Mr. Zhao, Elon say you are the greatest investor of all time."
His voice is not high and his speaking speed is not fast, but the spacing between each word is the same, like the clock cycle of a GPU.
"I asked him who he was, and he said he was the person behind Era Vanguard.
He said that you only make investments and never interfere with operations. From this aspect, you are indeed very great."
Zhao Chen sat down opposite him,
"Elon Thanks for the award. I just feel that professional matters should be left to professional people without any interference from me."
Su Wantang sat next to him and quietly poured him a glass of water.
Huang Renxun's eyes stopped on her for less than half a second, and then moved away.
He did not ask who Su Wantang was, nor did he look at her with the look of "bringing a female companion to talk about business". Zhao Chen noticed this detail.
Elon Musk pushed a plate of beef brisket in front of Zhao Chen, and added Whisky to Huang Renxun's cup.
"Huang and Zhao are the second investors I've ever met who don't ask me about the cost of satellites."
Elon Musk took a bite of the pulled pork and said vaguely, "The first one is myself."
Huang Renxun did not answer this question.
He picked up the fork, cut off a small piece of beef brisket, put it in his mouth, chewed it slowly for a dozen times, then raised his head and looked at Zhao Chen.
"Mr. Zhao, Era Vanguard started buying Nvidia in mid-November.
SoftBank recently cleared its position, and you must have taken most of the chips from Masayoshi Son.
If my estimate is correct, the average cost is about one hundred and forty US Dollar to one hundred and fifty US Dollar."
His tone was as calm as if he was reading a copy of Financial Report, "The SEC filing should be within the next few days."
Zhao Chen did not deny it, nor did he explain why he bought it.
He just nodded.
"I'm not here today to ask Mr. Zhao why he bought Nvidia."
Huang Renxun Put down the fork,
"Those who were still buying when the stock price dropped to more than 80 billion don't need to explain why.
What I want to ask is - what are you going to do after you buy it?"
There was background noise in the barbecue joint—the clatter of knives and forks, the clink of beer glasses, the commentary of the football game on the TV behind the bar.
But the air around this table was as quiet as a vacuum.
Elon Musk stopped chewing, and the Whisky cup hung in mid-air.
Su Wantang's fingers stopped on the edge of the glass.
Zhao Chen picked up the ice water in front of him and took a sip. The taste of the water was very ordinary, with the unique mineral smell of Texas tap water.
He put down the cup and looked at Huang Renxun.
"Mr. Huang, Era Vanguard holds 16.6 million shares of Tesla and is one of the largest external shareholders of Tesla."
His voice was not high, but every word was clear,
"From the time we opened the position last year to now, Era Vanguard has never asked Tesla or Board of Directors Seat, and has never said 'no' to any of Elon's business decisions."
He paused.
"Tesla's Q3 Report, Model 3's weekly production capacity climbed from 3,000 units to 5,300 units, the automotive business Gross Margin exceeded 25%, and the free cash flow was 881 million US Dollar.
None of these numbers were made by Era Vanguard telling Elon Musk what to do."
Elon Musk made a nasal sound of unknown meaning from the side, but there was a smile on the corner of his mouth.
"Era Vanguard has only one investment logic - find the smartest person in the world, give him your money, and then shut up."
Zhao Chen's eyes never left Huang Renxun,
"The same goes for Nvidia. I bought Nvidia not because I think I know GPU better than you.
On the contrary, it's because I know better than most people in the market what you are doing."
Huang Renxun tapped his finger lightly on the table.
"CUDA ecosystem's moat is much deeper than what Wall Street can see."
Zhao Chen's voice is neither fast nor slow,
"The demand for computing power in AI training is not a linear process, but an exponential process.
Nvidia is not a chip company, it is the operating system for the entire computing era.
These things are not what I told you, you started laying them out more than ten years ago."
Huang Renxun was silent for a few seconds.
Then he picked up the Whisky in front of him and took a sip.
"Mr. Zhao, do you know what happened to all the external shareholders who tried to interfere with my business decisions in Nvidia's history?"
Zhao Chen did not answer.
"They all made a lot of money, but none of them stayed."
Huang Renxun put down the cup, "Because they always feel that if they hold more than 5% of the shares, they are qualified to tell me--
You should do CPU, you should acquire this company, you should spin off the company.
I didn't listen to them.
The stock price of Nvidia has increased hundreds of times since its listing. Those shareholders who were rejected by me finally sold their stocks at a high point.
They made money but never really owned Nvidia."
He looked at Zhao Chen.
"Mr. Zhao, do you want to own Nvidia?"
The air around this table solidified again.
Zhao Chen picked up the ice water and took a sip slowly. The water was already warm.