143: Chapter 143 Quickly build a space elevator to calm your nerves

West Suburb Base, late at night.

Searchlights illuminated the newly leveled land as bright as day. Amidst the swirling dust, a frantic construction project, one worthy of being recorded in human architectural history, was underway.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry! Pit number three, dig down another fifty meters!"

Jiang Chen stood on the command platform, holding a megaphone, his voice already hoarse. "Hey, you! That big gray guy! Stop gnawing on the concrete! That's the foundation! It's not a cracker!"

Beneath him, a hundred tireless "alien beasts of burden" were waving claws harder than excavator buckets, digging frantically toward the center of the earth.

Soil flew, and rocks shattered.

This group of biochemical laborers from the Wasteland, motivated by the promise of being "fed until full," erupted with astonishing productivity. They needed no blueprints, no rest; as long as Jiang Chen pointed in a direction, they could dig right through the Earth.

"Boom—" A loud crash.

A giant deep well, a hundred meters deep and tens of meters in diameter, took shape in just two hours.

"Ground anchor in position!"

Jiang Chen did not hesitate and directly extracted that big guy from the system space.

It was the ground anchoring base for the [Planetary Material Transmission Rail].

It looked like an inverted pyramid, forged entirely from black high-density alloy, its surface shimmering with ghostly blue energy runes. As soon as this thing appeared, its immense sense of mass even caused the surrounding space to warp slightly.

"Drop!" Jiang Chen pointed his finger.

"Thud—!!!" The black pyramid, accompanied by the whistling wind, slammed heavily into the deep well.

The ground trembled violently, as if a magnitude six earthquake had occurred. The glass of the surrounding construction sheds shattered instantly, and even Zhao Gang, who was far away, was shaken so hard he sat down on the ground.

"Stable!" Jiang Chen wiped the dust off his face, his eyes burning with fanaticism.

The foundation was ready; next came the "line."

The principle of a Space Elevator is actually very simple: a rope long and strong enough, tied to the ground at one end and to a counterweight in space at the other, utilizing the centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation to pull the rope taut.

He had the rope.

The carbon nanotube cable produced by the system was ten thousand times stronger than steel cable. It was as thin as a strand of hair, yet could lift a mountain.

But the counterweight...

"luan bird! Follow my orders!"

Jiang Chen shouted into the communicator, "Take off! Target: Geostationary orbit! Take this rope up for me! Pull it taut!"

"Hum—" On the tarmac, the interstellar warship, its engines just repaired, let out a deep roar.

The massive hull slowly ascended, and a pitch-black cable was locked tightly onto the towing hook at the stern.

"Whoosh!" The warship accelerated, shooting straight into the clouds.

That black cable, like a black dragon imbued with life, followed the warship's trajectory, whistling toward the firmament.

One thousand meters, ten thousand meters, one hundred thousand meters...

It sliced through the clouds, pierced the atmosphere, and connected the earth to the starry sky in a straight line.

"Boss... wh-what is this?"

Zhao Gang climbed up, craning his neck to look at the black line that went straight to the sky and had no visible end. His mouth was open wide enough to fit an egg. "Are you... trying to fly a kite for God?"

"Fly a kite, my foot."

Jiang Chen patted the dust off his hands, looking relieved. "This is called a Space Elevator."

"Also known as the legendary—Sky Ladder."

"With this thing, going to the moon in the future will be as convenient as taking an elevator downstairs to buy groceries. Saves us from flying the ship every time; fuel is too expensive."

Zhao Gang was dumbfounded. You built a Sky Ladder just to save on fuel? Isn't that reason a bit too hardcore?

Just then, the hurried sound of high heels came from behind.

Academician Chen Shuyin was wearing pajamas with a lab coat thrown over them, her hair messy as a bird's nest; she had clearly just crawled out of bed.

She had been awakened by the loud crash earlier and thought it was an earthquake, but when she ran out and saw it, she beheld this "black line" that would make any physicist fall to their knees and sing "Conquer."

"Jiang... Jiang Chen..."

Academician Chen Shuyin adjusted her glasses, her voice trembling. Her finger pointing at the cable was so stiff it looked like it was cramping. "You... you're not sleeping in the middle of the night, what the hell are you doing here?"

"This material's tensile strength... this structure... did you build a Space Elevator?!"

"Yeah." Jiang Chen nodded, looking innocent. "Didn't I say? There's a situation on the moon, and I need to go check it out."

"But the ship's cargo capacity is too small, so I figured, building an elevator would be more convenient."

"And..." He leaned in close to Academician Chen Shuyin, lowering his voice, his tone revealing a sense of guilty urgency. "And lately... I've been feeling a bit uneasy, always feeling like something big is about to happen."

"So, I built a Space Elevator to calm my nerves."

Academician Chen Shuyin: "..." She looked at the man in front of her, then at the magnificent engineering project connecting heaven and earth. Calm his nerves? You call this calming your nerves? Whose family calms their nerves by building a wonder of the world?

"What... what exactly are you panicking about?" Academician Chen Shuyin acutely sensed something was wrong.

Given Jiang Chen's personality, even if Mount Tai collapsed in front of him, he would dare to set up a stall nearby and sell tickets. For him to be this anxious, staying up all night to build an elevator to escape, it definitely wasn't a simple "lunar crisis."

"Ahem, it's nothing." Jiang Chen's eyes darted away, and he quickly changed the subject. "Uh... the cabin has been installed. The first batch of supplies is about to be transported up. Do you want to come to the moon and take a look?"

"Supplies?" Academician Chen Shuyin glanced at the boxes being loaded nearby.

They weren't precision instruments, nor were they weapons or ammunition. They were cardboard boxes labeled "Haidilao Hot Pot Base," "Premium Snowflake Beef," and "Chongqing Broad Vermicelli." There were even a few crates of ice-cold beer and a sack of garlic.

"This is what you call... strategic supplies?" Academician Chen Shuyin felt her temples throbbing.

"Yeah!" Jiang Chen righteously hoisted a crate of beer and stuffed it into the sci-fi-looking transparent elevator cabin. "Food is the paramount necessity of the people, after all."

"That place on the moon is a desolate Wasteland; if I don't bring some good food up there, won't I starve to death?"

"Besides." He turned back, flashing Academician Chen Shuyin a brilliant yet slightly "refugee-like" smile. "In case... I'm just saying, in case."

"In case some uncontrollable 'disaster' (meaning a romantic showdown) really happens on Earth. We'll be hiding on the moon, eating hot pot and singing songs, wouldn't that be wonderful?"