778: Chapter 773 Respect for the Future

"Your idea of a prestressed structure, theoretically sound, is actually courting death in practice."

"Take my advice, stop construction early. Otherwise, if an accident happens, CEO Shen will be bankrupted along with it."

The surrounding workers all stopped what they were doing and looked over.

Liang Yibai sneered, pulled out a USB drive from his pocket, and tossed it directly into the arms of Expert Zhao.

"Go back and study the data model inside."

"That's the fluid dynamics simulation Chu Li ran for seventy-two hours on the supercomputer."

"You should keep your experience for building dormitories from the last century."

"Show our guest out!"

As Liang Yibai commanded, several burly security guards immediately surrounded the expert.

Expert Zhao was so angry his face turned purple, and his finger, pointing at Liang Yibai, was trembling.

"Good! Good! Good!"

"I'll just watch you die!"

"When the building collapses, don't come crying to us at the Survey Bureau!"

That group of people left dejectedly.

Liang Yibai turned around and looked at the somewhat wavering workers.

"What are you all looking at!"

"Get back to work!"

"Anyone who dares to question the blueprints again will be fired immediately!"

Shen Yan watched this scene from a distance, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly.

This was the ruthlessness he wanted.

Time was like a tireless thief.

Three months later, the foundation was complete.

It was an extremely bizarre underground structure, resembling a giant, black spiderweb deeply embedded in the earth.

Six months later, the core tube broke ground.

There were no signs of poured concrete; it was entirely composed of that cold, gleaming black tubing—military-grade carbon nanotubes that Shen Yan had acquired through system intelligence.

Wu Ya nearly ran her legs off to procure this batch of materials, mobilizing all of Ning Ke's smuggling channels overseas just to gather them.

Nine months later, the tower body surpassed three hundred meters.

The outside world's ridicule began to fade.

Because that tower was too beautiful.

It wasn't heavy like traditional skyscrapers; it resembled a crystal vine growing from the ground, spiraling upward, with every floor adjusting its angle as the height changed.

It swayed slightly in the wind.

This was originally a major taboo, but on this tower, the swaying generated a strange sense of rhythm, as if it were dancing.

The night Typhoon 'Hagibis' made landfall.

The entire Linhai New District was engulfed in gale-force winds and torrential rain.

All the workers had evacuated to the safe zone, but Liang Yibai adamantly refused to leave.

He tied himself into the driver's cab of the tower crane, acting like a madman, determined to observe the tower's wind resistance performance from the closest possible distance.

The walkie-talkie was filled with static.

"Engineer Liang! Wind speeds have exceeded Level 12!"

"Come down! It's dangerous!"

Chen Guangke stomped his feet anxiously below, his voice hoarse from shouting.

Shen Yan stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of the command center, watching the shadow of the tower violently shaking in the storm on the monitor.

In the footage, Liang Yibai showed no fear on his face.

Only a near-pathological fanaticism.

He was laughing.

Laughing at the lightning, thunder, and raging winds.

"Come on!"

"Blow harder!"

"Let me see if the wind of Nature is stronger, or if my bones are!"

Shen Yan pressed the call button, his voice cutting through the electrical interference.

"Liang Yibai."

"Don't die."

"If you die, I'll carve your name on the pillar of shame for failures."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the walkie-talkie, followed by Liang Yibai's gasping laughter.

"Boss, don't worry."

"This tower is as steady as Mount Tai."

That night, the typhoon directly hit the 'sky city'.

All the media outlets were waiting for the next day's headline—'80 Billion Gamble Ends in Vain, Shoddy Construction Destroyed'.

Some photographers even set up telephoto lenses, waiting to capture the moment the building collapsed.

However, the next morning, when the first ray of sunlight pierced the clouds.

Everyone was speechless.

The black giant tower still stood right there.

Washed clean by the downpour, the carbon nanotube materials refracted a diamond-like brilliance under the sunlight.

Not only did it not fall,

it seemed like a sharp sword, piercing straight through the gloom of the previous night.

That old man called Expert Zhao watched the live broadcast on television, spilling soy milk all over his lap.

One year and two months.

The 'sky city' was topped out.

Height: 828 meters.

That day, Shen Yan stood on the cloud-level observation deck at the very top of the tower.

Below him were the minuscule city and the azure coastline; above him was the reachable firmament.

The wind was strong, making his windbreaker flap loudly.

An Ran stood beside him. Even she, accustomed to grand scenes, felt her legs go a bit weak this time.

It wasn't because of the height.

It was because the floor beneath their feet was completely transparent.

That sense of weightlessness, suspended a thousand meters in the air, made the adrenaline surge.

"You won."

An Ran held the railing, looking at the ant-like traffic flow in the distance.

"This is hardly architecture."

"This is practically a temple."

"The people on Wall Street must be going crazy now, inquiring everywhere about who developed the technology behind this."

Shen Yan turned around and looked at Liang Yibai, who was standing behind him in a brand-new suit yet still couldn't fix his hunched back.

"Not me."

"Him."

Liang Yibai nervously rubbed his hands, a foolish smile on his face.

The man who was once trampled in the mud for a few hundred Euros at a construction site in Vienna.

At this moment, he stood at the highest point in the world.

"Boss, that..."

Liang Yibai scratched his head and pointed to a device at the spire of the tower.

"I left an interface up there."

"Chu Li said that once the Artificial Intelligence system is perfected, we can directly install the server array at this location."

"The temperature is low here, and the heat dissipation is good."

"Moreover..."

Liang Yibai paused, a trace of cunning flashing in his eyes.

"This spot is closest to the heavens."

"The signal will be the best."

Shen Yan smiled.

He patted Liang Yibai on the shoulder.

"Well done."

"This is just the beginning."

Shen Yan walked to the edge and looked down upon the land.

The system frantically refreshed prompts in his mind; wealth points and reputation points were soaring like rockets.

But he didn't care about those numbers.

What he cared about was that this game of chess had finally come alive.

With this tower serving as a base station, the subsequent deployment of Artificial Intelligence would be unstoppable.

"Wu Ya."

Shen Yan called out into the air.

Wu Ya, who had been waiting in the shadows behind, immediately stepped forward, holding a bottle of champagne.

"Boss."

Wu Ya's eyes were full of adoration; that light was even more dazzling than the sun.

"Open the wine."

Shen Yan took the champagne but didn't use a glass.

He poured half of the liquid directly toward the void outside the tower.

The crystalline liquid scattered at eight hundred meters high, turning into a golden mist and rain.

"This half is a toast to all the blind fools who looked down on us in the past."

Shen Yan raised the bottle and tilted his head back, taking a large gulp.

The spicy liquid rolled down his throat and into his stomach, igniting his long-suppressed ambition.

"This other half..."

"Is a toast to the future."

"A toast to the..."

"New World we are about to establish."