In Shanghai's eastern suburbs, Lingang District was so desolate that locals joked birds would not even shit there. If not for the metro line, the locals would have practically stripped it of its Shanghai residency.
In fact, many native Shanghainese no longer considered this place part of Shanghai.
Even though several zones had been planned here—the Smart Manufacturing Zone, Coordinated Development Zone, Smart Ecology Zone, Ocean Innovation City, and so on—the area had seen no particularly major development over the years due to its overly remote location, weak industrial foundation, and a host of other reasons.
It was as if...
It had been abandoned.
However, things had recently become a little different.
About two months earlier, a group of obviously important people came here. After walking around with blueprints for a while, they drew a circle on the map.
Soon afterward, a massive contingent of construction crews poured into the industrial park and began vigorously breaking ground on the land those people had marked out.
To Lingang District's residents and small business owners, this was undoubtedly a highly discussed matter. Yet no one knew what they were building. Judging only by the size of the enclosed land, the project was probably enormous.
Some said they were building a new commercial district. Others said they were developing a new housing complex. Still others guessed that some major semiconductor company planned to move its factory to Shanghai, and that housing prices were bound to rise.
All kinds of rumors flew around for more than two months. It was not until news broke that Starry Sky Technology would build the "Star Sea-1" quantum computer in Shanghai that the people living in Lingang District finally understood.
So this thing was not a shopping mall, nor was it a new housing development, much less a