The reporters didn't believe Boss Huang's words. Who would spend tens of billions of dollars just for dignity? That was impossible.
As for the truth, it was simple. There must be some hidden immense benefits in the collider, or perhaps Boss Huang had reached a beneficial exchange with certain individuals. In any case, there were definitely benefits, otherwise, why would anyone do such a thing?
In reality, they had all misunderstood Boss Huang. Boss Huang truly had no other intentions. He was simply too rich and couldn't find a place to spend his money. Doing something cool for the sake of dignity was a very reasonable act.
Otherwise, should he leave all the money to his unfilial descendants to squander after his death?
Seeing that Boss Huang had solidified his stance on the purpose of building the collider, the reporters changed their line of questioning. "Mr. Huang, after our high-energy particle collider is completed, will its performance be an improvement or slightly lacking compared to the current strongest European collider?"
"Do you think I, Huang He, would be satisfied with spending tens of billions of dollars on a high-energy particle collider that isn't the world's best?" Boss Huang retorted with a pout, clearly displeased. "I can tell you all here and now that once our Yuanshen is completed, it will not only be the world's strongest high-energy particle collider but also one that cannot be surpassed for the next 30 years!"
"Our high-energy particle collider will not just lead the Europeans by one era, but by at least two eras, and we aim to lead by three eras!" Boss Huang's statement naturally triggered another flurry of flashbulbs. While his words sounded outlandish, they were perfect for writing news, as news craves such explosive impact!
The reporter, emboldened by Boss Huang's declaration of leading the Europeans by at least two eras, pressed on. "Then, if Jiangnan Group's Yuanshen is completed, will it be made available to scientists worldwide? Will European scientists be excluded?"
Given Boss Huang's previous attitude towards Europe, he was certainly unwilling to let Europeans use it.
Just when the reporter expected Boss Huang to be somewhat restrained and try to gloss over the issue with some tactful phrasing, Boss Huang, holding the microphone, directly stated, "Regarding this question, my personal thoughts are as follows."
"Once Yuanshen is successfully established, it will be divided into three tiers for differentiated treatment. Firstly, the first tier will be for national and Jiangnan Group's own research tasks, which will be prioritized. All usage time for Yuanshen will be given priority to users in the first tier, and only then will the second and third tiers be considered."
"The second tier will be for other scholars and enterprises within China. They can pay the basic maintenance fees for Yuanshen to obtain usage scheduling. However, this scheduling will be subject to changes based on the scheduling of the first tier at any time, and no concrete guarantees are made here."
"The third tier users will be scholars and enterprises outside of China and Europe. They will need to pay triple the maintenance fees to obtain usage scheduling for Yuanshen. However, this scheduling will also be subject to changes based on the scheduling of the first and second tiers at any time, and no concrete scheduling guarantees are made."
Good heavens, Boss Huang's answer was even more explosive than the previous one, directly categorizing all future users into a three-tier system.
The first two tiers were understandable, but the third tier seemed to be treated as less than human. Not only would they have to constantly yield their scheduling to the first two tiers, but they also had to pay the highest fees, effectively treating the third tier as cash cows.
And this third tier also constituted the largest group, as everyone outside of China was considered part of the third tier. Such a decisive statement was indeed fitting for the domineering world's richest man.
However, since the equipment was invested and developed by the Chinese, they had no grounds to object to such an arrangement, especially considering that American equipment was almost never made available to the Chinese.
Of course, some reporters did discover a significant headline in this response.
That is, Europeans were excluded from the third tier, and they clearly wouldn't be in the first or second tiers either. So, what category did European scientists fall into? The fourth tier?
A reporter immediately inquired about this, and Boss Huang calmly replied, "I have no plans for a fourth tier. Besides, European high-energy physics research institutes already have the world's strongest high-energy particle collider. So why would they need to borrow from me? From now on, we and the European high-energy physics research institutes will be clearly demarcated and have no dealings with each other."
"But Mr. Huang, the European high-energy particle collider has never refused Chinese usage. Isn't your approach overly stingy?" another reporter pressed.
"Heh!" Boss Huang sneered. "Our Jiangnan Group has also never violated any commercial contracts, unlike the European high-energy physics research institutes, which can arbitrarily change a week-long contract to three days without any explanation. Not to mention the liquidated damages, they even refused to refund us the fees for the extra four days. Between the two, who do you think is stingier and more shameless?"
Indeed, as the media delved deeper, Professor Zhao's accidental death case had long been thoroughly investigated. Anyone who had glanced at the news knew that the root cause of this accident was the reduction in scheduling by the European high-energy physics research institutes.
Therefore, Boss Huang's words left the foreign reporters with little room for rebuttal, and the Chinese reporters present began to applaud enthusiastically, not that they particularly liked Boss Huang, who, despite being the richest man, often seemed full of passionate fervor.
After answering this question, the press conference concluded, but the subsequent public discourse did not end. The media, eager to fan the flames, immediately disseminated Boss Huang's responses to the international network, which then erupted in a frenzy.
However, foreign netizens did not uniformly condemn Boss Huang. On the contrary, the overall online atmosphere seemed quite relaxed and cheerful.
The reason for this somewhat peculiar situation was that foreign netizens treated Boss Huang's words as a joke, completely disbelieving them.
After all, consider what Boss Huang was saying: talk of wielding divine power, leading the world by two or three eras, and being unsurpassable for 30 years. If this wasn't the biggest joke under the sun, what was?
It was akin to Chinese netizens hearing Indians claim that India would surpass China to become the world's second-most powerful country in 10 years. Or calling China's Shanghai "Little Mumbai." It was all incredibly amusing.
Foreign netizens simply didn't believe that the Chinese had the capability to develop such a high-energy particle collider. Thus, Boss Huang's words became a complete source of amusement.
Beyond the amusement, the biggest conflict ignited on the international network was not between foreigners and Chinese, but between foreigners and Europeans.
This was primarily because, within Boss Huang's three-tier system, foreigners were placed in the third tier, while Europeans didn't even make it into the third tier. This provided considerable amusement for other foreigners worldwide, who began to mock Europeans online, claiming they had lost the right to be considered human.
Naturally, Europeans were angered by this mockery and engaged in fierce online spats with those who ridiculed them. It was said that over five digits of keyboards were broken in a single day, indicating how joyfully they were arguing.
Some might wonder why these people weren't directing their criticism at Jiangnan Group, since it was Jiangnan Group that had divided them into three tiers.
The reason was simple. Firstly, foreigners, excluding Europeans, didn't feel insulted by Jiangnan Group. After all, the entire facility was independently designed and manufactured by Jiangnan Group, without any foreign technical data or funding. So, what was wrong with prioritizing their own enterprise and national scientists?
Should their own equipment be prioritized for foreign use!
Therefore, foreigners, other than Europeans, did not feel insulted by Jiangnan Group. On the contrary, they developed a more favorable impression of Jiangnan Group because they were placed above Europeans.
As for why Europeans weren't complaining, one reason was that they were too preoccupied with the verbal attacks from people in other countries to spare time for criticizing the Chinese.
Another reason was that the media had exposed the entire affair with such thoroughness that Europeans felt ashamed upon learning the sequence of events. So, when Boss Huang brazenly and directly announced that he was retaliating against Europe because of this incident, most Europeans didn't feel particularly angry; instead, they considered Boss Huang a man of honor.
Of course, the main reason was that the Ba Nan particle collider had virtually no impact on the normal lives of Europeans. The real impact was on the "vermin" at the European high-energy physics research center, not on ordinary Europeans.
Conversely, those damned foreign scoundrels were taking advantage of this opportunity to insult them, which was unforgivable.
As for the final reason, it was thanks to Jiangnan Group and the Jiangnan Intelligent AI Research and Development Center.
This center had recently developed a brand-new intelligent AI named "Liang Yan." Its function was quite ordinary: it could automatically identify all comments online and then subtly throttle the reach of any comments that its owner disliked.
Note that it was throttling reach, not outright banning. After all, a direct ban would trigger a massive public outcry. But if it was just throttling reach... you might not even realize that your reach had been subtly throttled.
Therefore, some social media accounts that were frantically insulting Jiangnan Group and China had no idea that their posts were invisible to anyone except themselves and their friends!