142: Chapter 142 Jiang Chen panicked: Is a battleground really about to begin?

The air in the study was as stifling as a pot of boiling asphalt.

Jiang Chen paced back and forth on the expensive Persian rug with his hands behind his back, his steps so fast it felt like he was about to wear through the carpet.

"Three days... only three days."

He muttered to himself, cold sweat streaming down his temples. "How is this a countdown? This is clearly a death warrant issued by the King of Hell!"

Zhao Gang stood at the door, clutching that polished assault rifle, watching his boss, who looked like he was facing a formidable enemy, with a look of confusion and nervousness.

In his impression, his boss was a ruthless character who dared to fish for aircraft carriers and enslave aliens. Even when facing nuclear threats from the Eagle, this man would talk and laugh without even knitting his brows.

But now?

The panic emanating from his very bones was like that of a young wife caught in the act of cheating.

"Boss."

Zhao Gang swallowed hard and asked cautiously, "Are the aliens on the Far Side of the Moon about to attack? If you're feeling the pressure, we can request support from above and raise the Dongfeng missiles..."

"Aliens?"

Jiang Chen stopped abruptly, turned his head, and looked at Zhao Gang with the eyes of someone looking at an idiot, his voice filled with grief and indignation:

"Old Zhao, you are still too young."

"Aliens are nothing! If they dare to come, I'll drive the luan bird straight at them and crash! I've never been afraid of enemies I can see and touch!"

He pointed to the floor beneath his feet, then to the ceiling above, his expression twisted like a mask of pain:

"What I'm afraid of now is—internal strife and external pressure!"

"Imagine it."

Jiang Chen leaned in close to Zhao Gang, lowering his voice, describing the hellish scene to come with a grim tone:

"Downstairs, there's a crazy female academician who, while beautiful, has a bizarre train of thought and is always wanting to slice me up for research, and she has already started calling herself the 'boss's wife'."

"Overhead, there is an overbearing empress wielding a forty-meter-long blade, coming across the galaxy to kill me, whose possessiveness is so strong that she won't even allow a female mosquito near me."

"In three days, if these two ancestors bump into each other..."

Jiang Chen shuddered and made an explosion gesture:

"Boom!"

"Do you think the Earth will explode first, or will I be torn apart first?"

Zhao Gang felt his scalp tingle and instinctively shrank his neck.

As a man, although he hadn't experienced such a high-stakes situation, just imagining the scene made his bladder tighten.

Is this a Shurafield?

This is basically Mars colliding with Earth, a nuclear bomb versus a hydrogen bomb!

"Then... what should we do?" Zhao Gang was also at a loss. "Why don't you hide? Go to the military and avoid the limelight?"

"Hide? Where can I hide?"

Jiang Chen gave a bitter smile. "All land under heaven belongs to the King. On Earth, Academician Chen Shuyin can mobilize all surveillance to find me; in the sky, Jiang Wanqiu has cross-dimensional radar locking onto me. Even if I burrow into a crack in the ground, they can dig me out."

He started pacing again, his brain running at full speed, his CPU almost smoking.

Must separate them!

Absolutely cannot let these two women breathe in the same atmosphere!

"Got it!"

Jiang Chen slapped his thigh hard, his eyes instantly becoming sharp.

Since he couldn't stay on Earth, he would just switch planets!

"Old Zhao, notify everyone!"

"Everyone at the West Suburb Base, cancel leave, assemble immediately!"

"Also, have the logistics department prepare three months' worth of rations, even if it's just compressed biscuits, as long as it fills our stomachs!"

Zhao Gang was stunned for a moment: "Boss, are you planning to... run away?"

"What running away? This is called a strategic relocation!"

Jiang Chen spouted nonsense with a straight face, instantly packaging his "scumbag running for his life" as a "savior setting out":

"You've seen it too, the ruin on the Far Side of the Moon has awakened, that's an S-class high-energy reaction! If we don't deal with it, the Earth could be finished at any time!"

"As the guardian of humanity, as the captain of the luan bird, I have the responsibility and the obligation to keep the enemy out of our borders!"

He pointed to the cold, full moon outside the window, full of heroic spirit:

"I am going to the Moon!"

"I will establish an outpost base there and block the flames of war outside the Earth!"

"By the way..."

Jiang Chen added silently in his heart: By the way, dig myself a bomb shelter and hide until the trouble blows over before coming back.

As long as he is on the Moon, even if Jiang Wanqiu comes, she will have to land on Earth first. By then, Academician Chen Shuyin will be on the ground, and he will be in the sky, so they won't meet. Wouldn't this crisis be resolved?

I am a genius!

Zhao Gang was moved to tears by these righteous words and gave a crisp salute:

"Boss! You are too great! I'll go arrange it right now!"

"However..."

Zhao Gang just turned around and stopped, scratching his head in embarrassment. "How do we get up there? The luan bird can fly, but it's a combat ship. Its belly is full of shells and energy cores, and its cargo capacity is limited."

"We are going to build a base. Cement, steel, life-support equipment, and those hundreds of alien slave laborers... How many trips will that take?"

"Relying on the spaceship to transport, I'm afraid that before we finish, the food will have gone cold."

This question stumped Jiang Chen immediately.

That's right.

This is the biggest technical problem.

Although the interstellar warship is fierce, it is not a cargo ship. To send enough supplies to build a survival base to the Moon within three days, relying on this one ship flying back and forth is too inefficient.

And the energy consumption for each takeoff and landing is an astronomical figure.

"Need to find a faster way..."

Jiang Chen frowned, sat back in his chair, and took out his phone.

When in doubt, ask the system.

Although his previous energy points had been squandered, a batch of advance payments for the "Photonic Chip" had recently arrived, plus the prestige value conversion from the global live broadcast, so he finally had some spare grain in his pocket.

"System, open the Wasteland store."

"Search for me! Is there any kind of... large-capacity, one-time transport tool that can send tens of thousands of tons of supplies to the sky?"

"Preferably something cheaper, second-hand is fine too."

[Searching...]

[Search keywords: Large payload, Earth-Moon transport, Low cost.]

[Screening complete.]

On the screen, countless pictures of strange-looking aircraft flashed by. There were anti-gravity barges, subspace conveyor belts, and even "mass drivers" that used cannons to shoot cargo up directly.

But these were either too expensive or the technology was too complex to be built in a short time.

Jiang Chen's fingers swiped quickly, his brows locking tighter and tighter.

Just when he was about to lose patience.

A nondescript design drawing at the very bottom of the list suddenly caught his eye.

That wasn't a spaceship.

It looked... like a line.

A thin line connecting the earth and the firmament, as if it were going to pierce the sky.

[Item Name: Planetary Material Transport Orbit (Civil Engineering Version).]

[Common name: Space Elevator.]

[Source: Early infrastructure product of the Gaia Civilization.]

[Description: Uses ultra-high-strength carbon nanotubes as cables to build a physical channel directly to synchronous orbit through the balance of gravity and centrifugal force.]

[Load capacity: 500 tons per single cabin.]

[Operating cost: Extremely low (only requires electric power).]

[Exchange price: Blueprint + core cable material package = 5,000,000 energy points.]

Jiang Chen's eyes lit up instantly.

Space Elevator!

This is the ultimate infrastructure artifact in science fiction!

No complex rocket fuel needed, no expensive Anti-gravity Engine needed; as long as this rope is erected, even an idiot can take the elevator to space for tourism!

The most critical point is—

It's fast! It has large capacity! And it's cheap!

"This is it!"

Jiang Chen slapped the table, so excited he almost jumped up.

With this thing, let alone transporting supplies, even moving the entire West Suburb Base to the Moon would just be a matter of pressing the elevator button a few more times!

And...

Just imagine, when a pillar reaching straight into the clouds stands on Earth, what would the whole world's expression be?

Musk is still playing with rocket recovery?

I've already taken the elevator to the sky!

"Old Zhao!"

Jiang Chen shouted at the door, his eyes as fanatical as a gambler's:

"Forget about the spaceship!"

"Go! Tell those alien slave laborers to stop digging holes! Get them all out here!"

"We are going to install... a zipper on the Earth within three days!"