Meanwhile, as Gao Jian reviewed what had happened...
Midtown Manhattan, New York.
The Empire State Building.
Night had fallen. As the bustling heart of one of the world's greatest cities, Manhattan gleamed in a wash of gold. From the topmost floor of the building's spire, Central Park was clearly visible, nestled among the towers. Its dark rectangle lay amid the lights, strikingly serene.
A man stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands behind his back. He no longer worried about being discovered. Half of this wealthy, decaying empire was already under control. Securing the other half was only a matter of time.
There were plenty of others in the reception room at the top of the spire. Many sipped crimson wine, chatting merrily as their glasses clinked.
Jasade stood before the windows, admiring Manhattan's nightscape. Only after a while did he draw his gaze away and slowly turn around.
Some called out Jasade's name or teasingly addressed him as "Mr. Administrator," while others offered him rich, fine wine. But the administrator of NASA paid little attention. He merely smiled faintly and looked straight at the old man seated at the head of the table.
The "richest man in the world" sat upright in the seat of honor.
The old man with silver-white hair and beard appeared on neither the Forbes rankings nor Bloomberg's real-time rankings. Yet before him, the current richest man in the world, Elon Musk, was nothing more than an upstart tech youngster.
There were plenty of tech youngsters like him: Google's Larry Page, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Zuckerberg, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Oracle's Larry Ellison...
They were all mere children, still wet behind the ears.
Elon Musk had a trillion dollars in total assets. The old man had fifty Elon Musks.
What did fifty trillion dollars in