60: Chapter 60 The US's 10 Billion

Inside the small dark room on the USS mastin.

The stealth drone pilot was a bit dazed. He had tried many methods, but the display remained blank. Finally, he had to speak up.

"Report, Captain! Our drone seems to have... seems to have lost contact!"

"Seems? Are you joking with me? Pull up the video from one minute before the loss of contact, check it frame by frame, and then tell me what happened!"

George Wells was angry. He was very angry. He hadn't come all this way just to be a delivery boy.

A few minutes later, the drone pilot still shook his head, his expression dejected.

George Wells felt like a deflated balloon as he slumped into his chair. Having spent half his life acting overbearing and powerful, he felt an unprecedented sense of frustration today.

"I said something felt off. Have we been caught in a Chinese conspiracy from the start? And today's scene at sea—China wasn't like this before."

The Americans were still the same; conspiracy theories were their panacea.

The stealth reconnaissance drone had lost contact, but the fleets at sea were still in a tense standoff. George forced himself to pull it together; he had to report this emergency to the base immediately.

Guandao Base in Country R.

Commander Kyle brewed himself another cup of coffee. He sat leisurely with his legs crossed, his eyes glancing at the monitoring screen.

"Report: The Captain of the USS mastin is requesting to speak."

"Oh? Is it done? Thank God, George finally did something right this time."

Kyle took the phone, one hand holding his coffee and the other the receiver, looking perfectly composed.

Gradually, the smile vanished from his face. He stared blankly for a moment, then his hand trembled, and the coffee cup slipped from his grasp, hitting the bright marble floor with a 'thud.'

Coffee splattered everywhere, sliding far across the smooth floor.

The officers and soldiers in the command room were startled by the sound and looked up one after another.

"Alright, George, contact the Chinese fleet and tell them you're withdrawing from that area. Leave the rest to those guys in Washington. Yes, right now, withdraw immediately!"

Kyle shouted loudly and slammed the phone down, still panting heavily.

On the blue sea, the scene of the 'Gouji' game.

On the destroyer 'Xining,' Xu Kai put down the phone, a look of confusion on his face.

"Captain, what did the Americans say? Should we ram the bastards?"

Beside him, Old Lei was full of excitement.

"Ram what? He's backing off to leave. If you ram him now, are you trying to start a world war or something?"

To be honest, Xu Kai was also a bit disappointed. Damn, after all that, this was it?

The officers and soldiers at sea didn't know that the Prism Tower had already finished the job. Since the main character was dead, the play naturally couldn't go on.

The Americans came fast and left even faster. Tens of minutes later, the two warships and the planes in the sky had vanished without a trace.

After reporting the situation to the base headquarters, Xu Kai followed the 'mastin' from a distance for a while until he was certain it was returning home. Only then did he turn back toward the Q City Naval Base.

Besides America and China, there was actually another country watching the whole time: the Maritime Self-Defense Force of Country R. While the Chinese and American fleets were in a standoff, their planes were circling in the airspace behind them, and reconnaissance aircraft were constantly transmitting live footage to the rear.

It was like the first two countries were in a boxing ring, and Country R was the spectator in the stands, cheering and waving flags frantically.

So when both sides withdrew so 'amicably,' the Self-Defense Force commander, Hiroichiro Hirota, was absolutely stunned. How could this happen?

You couldn't blame him for being disappointed.

Upon hearing the news, he had urgently summoned the Self-Defense Force staff for round after round of wargaming, making himself busier than the two actual parties involved.

He just hadn't expected things to be resolved so quickly. Hiroichiro Hirota was a bit frustrated and slammed the table hard.

China.

Q City Naval Base, a lush pine forest. This was the area marked in red on the computer.

Chu Ge, Commander Meng, and the others were standing on a small hillside. The base guards had arrived early and set up a cordon around the scene.

Inside the yellow cordon, the wreckage of a fairly large grey-black drone was still burning. Base firefighters were putting out the flames.

"Commander Meng, it seems this stealth drone is a new model developed by America. Should we notify the experts from the Military Industry Institute to come and haul it back to be dismantled?"

Commander Wan of the base was a bit excited.

"Dismantle it if you want; I'm not interested. It's just a pile of scrap metal, right, Little Chu?"

Commander Meng turned to look at Chu Ge, his heart filled with pride.

"Huh? Everything else aside, we can compare their stealth materials with ours. The electronic and flight control systems are also worth studying. Drones will be a major branch of the military in the future, whether on Earth or in outer space."

Chu Ge analyzed seriously. Although he had the Military-Industrial System, it was still necessary to learn from others' strengths to offset his own weaknesses. Moreover, many of the armaments and technologies from the Military-Industrial System were upgrades based on existing versions.

"But will the Americans come and ask us for this wreckage?"

Chu Ge didn't quite understand the games played between nations yet.

"Haha, I'm afraid they don't have the face for that. There will be specialized personnel to deal with them. But in my experience, it's usually kept quiet with both sides bickering. To put it another way, if they want it, they have to provide a justification for asking, right?"

"Haha, that's true!"

Chu Ge half-understood.

In America, it was around 2:00 AM.

In an old-fashioned hotel, various unsightly clothes, adult toys, and medicine boxes were strewn across the dark red carpet...

John Wilson, the boss in charge of the East Asia intelligence system, was sound asleep. Lying naked beside him was a female subordinate from his department, heavily made up and energetically scrolling through TikTok.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz." The phone screen on the table lit up. The woman looked at the phone, then at the sleeping John, curled her lip, and turned back to continue scrolling through videos, occasionally chuckling softly.

James, the Director of the Strategic Intelligence Office at the Pentagon, put down the phone.

"That damn John, who knows where he's off fooling around again. He's sleeping soundly while—FUCK! A new stealth reconnaissance drone that cost 10 billion is scrapped just like that. How am I supposed to explain this to those bastards in the military? Oh, that damn John Wilson, I'll have your skin tomorrow!"

...

Chu Ge didn't leave Q City immediately today. He had spent over a year stuck in that weapons research institute. Having longed for military life since childhood, he had to experience it today, especially with the cool-looking Navy.

Of course, this also suited the intentions of the Navy's Commander-in-Chief, Meng Shichang.

"Little Chu, come on, I'll take you to meet the naval officers. They just returned from the open sea. I heard they even hoisted the Z-flag during the standoff with the American fleet. Their courage is commendable. As their commander, I must personally welcome our heroes."

"Yes, sir!"