This article is dedicated to commemorating the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Administrative Procedure Law and its first major revision! Part One: "Tycoon" Guo Moumou and His "Sea Palace" 4. Technical Challenges The plan to expand living and commercial space at sea, from offshore fish rafts to floating islands, was so enticing, but the reality Guo Moumou faced was disheartening: there were no successful precedents for floating islands worldwide. Japan, with strong technical and financial resources but limited land, was one of the earliest explorers of floating islands, investing heavily in attempts to build a floating island airport. The Netherlands, known as the "Low Countries," also made significant efforts to increase land area through floating islands. However, these early explorations and efforts failed, partly due to human inertial thinking—engineers chose the "shipbuilding" technical approach, constructing the island onshore with steel plates and then placing it in the sea. But this meant the floating island couldn't be too large, as it couldn't be launched; moreover, steel plates faced high corrosion risks after years in seawater, shortening the island's lifespan. Guo Moumou leveraged his early art education and later architectural decoration expertise to turn his vision of sea living space into vivid renderings, then sought advice from marine research institute experts for a feasible technical solution. After studying his designs, most experts deemed it impossible, as such a large structure couldn't be built onshore and then placed at sea. The same inertial thinking that plagued Japanese engineers resurfaced! Later, an engineer with marine principles knowledge offered Guo a simple yet creative solution: connect 100 stainless steel buoys at sea, secure them, and build a house on top! Guo had an epiphany, applying the decisive execution of a successful entrepreneur, and immediately began implementation. "But unexpectedly, before the foundation was even finished, a small wave snapped the connections between the buoys." Successful entrepreneurs never give up easily! Undeterred, Guo carefully studied the video of the wave snapping the buoys, gaining initial marine experience. Combining this with land construction principles, he poured concrete over the original base and stuffed foam into the steel frame, initially solving the foundation's strength and stability issues. Then, adding the superstructure, the first experimental sea building was completed. With a touch of his artistic and architectural decoration skills, Guo's dream "Sea Home" appeared between the blue sky and clear waters of Dongshan Bay. It was the joy of success, the pleasure of creation, and perhaps the excitement of grand commercial plans at sea—we can imagine his feelings then. But it didn't last long. A year later, the seemingly sturdy sea building encountered the strongest typhoon in Shenzhen in years and snapped in two instantly! Starting over from scratch! After several setbacks and repeated trials, Guo was not discouraged but instead confident and assured, having discovered the secret to building floating sea structures. Since steel corrodes easily in seawater while concrete does not, Guo replaced the foundation base with polyester, sealing foam inside concrete to create "hollow concrete." This could float, was heavy enough to keep the floating island stable, and crucially, was durable and corrosion-resistant, requiring no onshore maintenance and lasting centuries. To increase the building's base area, he connected the "hollow concrete" with steel bars, allowing infinite expansion like fish rafts, at low cost, making it economically viable for large-scale promotion. Guo once proudly said, "Experts couldn't figure out how I did it. When I explained the principle, they were thrilled, saying it was so simple. This shows that the more widely applicable a project, the simpler its basic principle." Figure 14: Description and schematic of the patent application Guo Moumou submitted on April 2, 2011, with patent application number CN201110084209. (Source: Screenshot of National Patent Office database search results) (To be continued)