“I’m sorry, Professor Zhou, for disturbing you.”
Liu Yutong quickly apologized, then introduced herself: “My name is Liu Yutong, Chairman of Wanlonghui Group. I’m here today because I’d like to talk with you.”
Zhou Yingpei waved his hand impatiently. “I have nothing to discuss with you. You’re not the first to come looking for me. None of you capitalists are reliable—you’re all just after quick money and government subsidies. Not a single one of you genuinely cares about technology.”
With that, he turned back to fiddle with the equipment in his hands, making it clear he had no intention of engaging with her further.
Liu Yutong: “Professor Zhou, I’m different from those people you’ve met before. I come with genuine sincerity.”
Zhou Yingpei, still tinkering with his device, said, “Are you done? If you’re done, you can leave.”
Seeing that the old man was unmoved by either soft or hard approaches, Liu Yutong decided to cut straight to the point. “Professor Zhou, I want to start a private aerospace company—build rockets, launch satellites, explore space—and I’d like to invite you to join me.”
Zhou Yingpei’s hands froze.
He slowly turned around and looked at Liu Yutong as if she were a swindler.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, I want to build rockets—rockets that can send people to Mars,” Liu Yutong repeated.
Zhou Yingpei looked her up and down before speaking. “Little girl, do you have any idea how much money it takes to build a single rocket? Do you know the technological accumulation required? Do you understand how high the barrier to entry is in this field? Even if your parents were billionaires, it still wouldn’t be enough. I suggest you give up that fantasy now.”
He clearly assumed Liu Yutong was just another spoiled rich kid with more money than sense, dreaming up a far-fetched aerospace venture.
Liu Yutong: “You don’t need to worry about that. I have more money than I could ever spend.”
Zhou Yingpei snorted, somewhat irritated. “Little girl, that’s quite a bold claim!”
Liu Yutong: “Let me answer your questions first, Professor. The R&D cost for a medium-lift launch vehicle is roughly between five and ten billion yuan. From design to maiden flight, it usually takes at least three to five years. Right now, only a handful of countries and organizations in the world have the capability to independently develop launch vehicles. As for private aerospace companies, there are only a few in the U.S., and they’re just getting started—their technology isn’t mature yet…”
After hearing her words, Zhou Yingpei’s expression shifted slightly.
This girl, who looked to be barely twenty, actually knew what she was talking about.
“You did your homework beforehand?”
Liu Yutong nodded. “If you’re going into aerospace, you have to do your homework. Professor Zhou, I own a chip company called Loongson. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”
Zhou Yingpei paused, momentarily stunned.
He had certainly heard of Loongson—it was one of the few chip manufacturers in the country, and word had it that it took less than a year from project initiation to the mass production of its 90-nanometer process line, causing quite a stir in the industry.
Under normal circumstances, building such a factory would take at least two or three years before it could go into production, yet Loongson had managed it in less than a year. That was extraordinarily efficient.
It showed just how capable the owner of Loongson must be.
What he hadn’t expected was that the owner of that company would be this impossibly young woman standing before him.
“Did you really build Loongson?”
“Yes, I’m also the Chairman of Loongson.”
Liu Yutong didn’t downplay it. Being modest in front of someone like him would only come across as insincere—it was better to show her strength.
“Back when I started the chip company, a lot of people told me I was fantasizing and would likely fail. But as it turned out, I made it happen. Now I want to go into aerospace, and I’m hearing similar things again. I don’t care, because I’ll prove to everyone once more—I can do it again.”
“Professor Zhou, let me ask you something: What’s the biggest regret of your life?”
Zhou Yingpei fell into deep thought at her question.
His biggest regret was probably that, back when he was in the aerospace system, he never got to finish developing the new engine he had designed.
He had studied that project for ten years, run thousands of experiments, and was on the verge of a breakthrough when it was shut down due to various reasons.
Then he was transferred to the Aviation University to teach.
From that day on, he never touched that project again.
It was the greatest regret of his life and the deepest ache in his heart.
“Professor Zhou, what if I told you that I could let you finish that unfinished project?” Liu Yutong suddenly said.
Zhou Yingpei looked up sharply. “You don’t even know what project I was working on—how dare you make such a wild claim!”
But no sooner had he spoken than he realized something.
How did she know he had an unfinished project at all?
Liu Yutong pulled a document from her bag and handed it to him.
“Liquid oxygen and kerosene staged combustion cycle rocket engine, thrust-to-weight ratio design target of 320, specific impulse of 350 seconds. This was your ten-year project, wasn’t it?”
Zhou Yingpei took the document, his hands trembling.
He flipped open the first page and saw a line of text:
【Wanlong Aerospace Technology — New Liquid Oxygen Kerosene Rocket Engine R&D Plan】
As he read further, he found that the technical parameters, R&D roadmap, and timeline were startlingly similar to the plan in his own mind.
No, not just similar—some ideas were even more advanced than his.
“This… who wrote this?”
“I did.”
Liu Yutong didn’t hide it. “Of course, I’m not a technical person. These are just based on your original design, with some of my own ideas added in. Whether they can actually be realized depends on experts like you.”
This wasn’t a lie.
While she didn’t understand the core technologies behind rocket engines, in her past life, the hype around Elon Musk’s Starship had been so massive that it was impossible not to know something about it.
She had come across many videos and articles analyzing the pros and cons of the Raptor engine’s full-flow staged combustion cycle.
So after researching Zhou Yingpei’s background, she had incorporated some of the forward-looking concepts she remembered—like reusable rockets and high-efficiency engine designs—as inspiration and development directions.
These advanced ideas from the future were invaluable to a top rocket engine expert, potentially helping him bypass many dead ends.
Zhou Yingpei read that plan three times from cover to cover before finally confirming one thing:
This girl was not here to fool around.
She genuinely understood, she had genuinely thought it through, and she was genuinely ready to make it happen.
“Director… Director Liu, may I ask how much capital you can provide?” Zhou Yingpei addressed her with respect for the first time.
“Initial investment of twenty billion yuan. The funds will be in place soon, and we’ll add more as the project progresses,” Liu Yutong said.
“Twenty billion…”
Zhou Yingpei gasped.
In his decades in the aerospace system, the total project funds he had handled were probably less than half of that.
If this girl wasn’t exaggerating, then her family must own a printing press for money.
It was absolutely stunning.
Liu Yutong: “Beyond funding, I’ve already cleared things with various departments. Securing policy support shouldn’t be a major problem.”
Upon hearing her words, Zhou Yingpei was mostly convinced.
“Director Liu, I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why do you want to get into aerospace?”
He had asked the same question to some business owners who had approached him before, but none of their answers had satisfied him. He wanted to see how this young girl would respond.
Liu Yutong thought for a moment, then said, “Probably because I think I’ll get bored after retirement. I want to, while I’m still alive, travel to space, visit the moon and Mars, maybe check in for fun?”
Zhou Yingpei: “???”
Seriously, what kind of absurd reason was that? Were young people these days so restless that even Earth couldn’t contain them?
