Chapter 1507: Diamond Princess
A cruise s.h.i.+p set sail from the Island at the port of Upper Bay.
The dazzling neon gleamed on the s.h.i.+p, with the lights of Nouveau York as the backdrop, the s.h.i.+p slowly sailed towards the estuary.
Not far away, the torch was held high in the hands of the Statue of Freedom with a copper-yellow flame “reignited” and faintly glowed in the night. This flame was a gift from Xin to the Trump administration, which symbolized the long-term and hard-won peace between the two countries. Because the flame was mixed with special fluorescent materials, the torch could even be vaguely seen in the dark night.
As one of the top fifteen most luxurious cruise s.h.i.+ps in the world, “Diamond Princess” was the largest luxury cruise s.h.i.+p with the most complete facilities in the world-famous cruise brand “Princess” series fleet. It was just like a five-star hotel floating on the sea. The cruise s.h.i.+p was built with a total of 1,337 cabins, of which 748 cabins included private balconies. Visitors could directly enjoy the beautiful sea without leaving the comfort of their room.
At this moment, on the deck of the cruise s.h.i.+p, guests in formal or evening dress held champagne in their hands. They gathered in large and small circles while they chattered with each other. From the luxury of the banquet, it seemed to be higher than the one held by the B City Consortium, but in terms of the quality of the partic.i.p.ants, it was much inferior.
“That person is the chairman of the Princeton Group, one of the top 500 global companies with a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars. The person over there is Jelinek, the major shareholder and CEO of Costco Group, and he is also a shareholder in several tech startups.” Leslie noticed Jiang Chen yawn, she grinned and then chuckled, “Of course, none can compare to you.”
“They can’t even compare with your father.” Jiang Chen smiled.
Jiang Chen didn’t use his real name this time, but rather boarded the cruise s.h.i.+p as Leslie’s guest, and half of his face was covered by a pair of sungla.s.ses. Because the surname Garcia weighed enough, the security did not check his ident.i.ty and his presence did not attract anyone’s attention.
“Not exactly,” Leslie’s bright red lips closed, then she smiled. “Five billion is the threshold for this party, but there are also billionaires worth hundreds of billions. This kind of banquet is not formal at all. You can see that people are not here to do business, but mainly for…”
“For?” Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow.
“For pleasure,” Leslie smiled slightly, raised her chin and pointed at the man with a girl on each arm, “In other words, to alleviate their physical needs.”
Jiang Chen laughed and did not answer.
But the meaning in his eyes was very clear. If this banquet was just that, it was not enough to attract him.
“If you are not interested in these appetizers, there will be an auction soon. I bet there will be something you like in it.”
“For example?” Jiang Chen asked with a smile.
“Arts, cultural relics, deeds to mansions, company shares, even people…”
“People?” Jiang Chen raised his eyebrows.
“This is an open secret of the upper cla.s.s… Generally, this kind of auction will be set up for banquets with a capital threshold of more than five billion dollars. Of course, if you dislike it…”
“Just curious.” With a light smile, Jiang Chen said, “By the way, I always wanted to ask, what are they celebrating?”
“The Sundax Group won the bid for the Bering Strait Expressway project. It’s a huge project worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It is indeed worth celebrating.” Leslie smiled.
As early as more than a century ago, a French engineer first proposed the bold idea of building an undersea tunnel under the Bering Strait. However, the plan was difficult to implement, not to mention the tense diplomatic relations between Russia and the UA.
Of course, this project was not that difficult today. The breakthrough of graphene materials and nano-ceramic technology made this kind of millennial project a possible reality. Since the UA joined the Earth Defense Alliance, the newly established Trump government has also actively repaired diplomatic relations with other member states. Eighty percent of global geopolitical crises seemed to have disappeared followed by the decline of the UA hegemony.
Thus, the grand plan to connect Eurasia with North America was put on the agenda. This 103-kilometer-long undersea tunnel spanned the Bering Strait, after the most recent diplomatic meeting between the UA and Russia, the heads of the two countries immediately agreed on the plan. After the meeting, they announced to jointly build this “Millennial Project.”
More than 500 companies would partic.i.p.ate in the bidding of the project, and eventually more than 50 companies would win the bid.
Jiang Chen seemed to recall this event. Xia s.h.i.+yu mentioned to him a few days ago that Future Heavy Industries would provide steel, corrosion-resistant cement and graphene building materials for this tunnel in the future. And in the last meeting with Trump, he also mentioned it.
As for the money to fund the project, it was easy to solve. Future Bank recently increased its holding of the UA Treasury bonds by 600 billion dollars. The Supreme Court’s judgment on Morgan and the Rockefeller Group also helped the Trump administration to obtain trillions of dollars in a.s.sets.
The event could be regarded as a blessing in disguise for the ill-fated president. It was no exaggeration to say that he was definitely the richest president in the country’s history.
There was never a president who could spend so much on infrastructure without having to worry about the budget.
While Jiang Chen chatted with Leslie and tasted the red wine, he suddenly seemed to see a familiar figure in the crowd. However, when he was about to take a closer look, that figure disappeared.
He frowned slightly, but at this moment, there was a discordant voice.
“Leslie, this is your boyfriend? Indian? Or Mexican? Oh, my G.o.d, don’t tell me he is Asian.” The woman said in an exaggerated voice, with a slight sneer at the corner of her mouth.
Jiang Chen turned his head slightly and looked to that side.
A woman who wore a silver-white dress while holding a male guest’s arm walked towards him and Leslie. The bottom of the skirts was dotted with silver light, which seemed to be diamonds, and looked expensive. The male guest looked familiar, but Jiang Chen couldn’t recall his face… but that was not the issue.
Jiang Chen instantly understood what happened, so he gave Leslie a meaningful look.
The latter glanced at him with some guilty conscience and quickly explained in a quiet voice.
“Elsa Griffin, the youngest daughter of the Griffin family. His father is the chairman of Wachovia Bank…”
“If I guessed correctly, you have some feud with her, am I right?” Jiang Chen said with an expression between smiling and not smiling.
“Sorry, I… I really didn’t know she would be here too. His father and my father have some feuds, and our relations.h.i.+p is not great…” Leslie looked at Jiang Chen carefully, then nervous said, “I, I just…”
Leslie wanted to explain something, but Elsa was already walking towards them.
From the way she stared at Leslie, the flicker in those eyes was obvious…
She obviously didn’t come here with friendly intentions.