52: General Ye personally came to visit: "Young Lu, give me some face!"

"About... maybe one million tons."

When that understated yet terrifyingly weighty sentence from Lu Chen, enough to make the entire Earth tremble, clearly echoed in this huge auditorium...

Ye Qingcang and Long Weiguo, these two super bigwigs of the Xia Kingdom!

Were completely... petrified!

They stood there frozen like two statues that had been instantly weathered, unable to move!

Their brains, already numbed by shock, completely... crashed at this moment!

One million tons... of thrust?!

This... what the hell kind of god-tier concept is this?!

You have to know that back in the day, the Saturn V launch vehicle, the greatest in human history that sent Apollo to the moon!

Its payload capacity to low Earth orbit was only a mere... 140 tons!

And this thing right in front of them, which the young man called a "little gadget"!

Its thrust is... nearly... ten thousand times that of the Saturn V?!

This is no longer about building an engine!

This is clearly about building... a god!

A god of steel... capable of forcibly taking the entire human civilization out of its cradle, the Earth!

"Gulp." Someone swallowed hard, breaking the deathly silence.

Ye Qingcang slowly, slowly turned his head.

All the color had drained from his weathered old face!

Replaced by an unprecedented, bone-deep... paleness!

He looked at Long Weiguo's face, which looked just as if he had seen a ghost.

His lips trembling, he asked: "Old... Old Long..."

"Am... am I, perhaps, getting old and having... auditory hallucinations?"

"You... you, what did you hear him say it was just now?"

Long Weiguo did not answer.

He just slowly raised his hand and, in a near-sleepwalking motion, gave himself a hard... slap to the face!

"Slap!" A crisp, loud slap resounded throughout the entire auditorium!

"Hiss—" Long Weiguo gasped in pain!

The burning sensation on his face clearly told him—this was not a dream!

All of this... was really, truly real!

He suddenly turned his head, his sharp eyes, burning with raging flames, locked tightly onto the young man who looked so innocent!

His breathing became incredibly heavy!

His chest heaved violently!

He was like a prehistoric tyrannosaurus about to devour someone!

Step by step! He walked towards the podium!

Just when everyone thought this hot-tempered Old General was about to "lose his temper" on the spot because he couldn't handle this huge stimulus, he did something that made everyone's jaws drop!

He walked up to Lu Chen.

Then... his old face, usually full of majesty and murderous aura, was instantly filled with a fawning... smile, brighter than a chrysanthemum!

His voice also became unprecedentedly gentle and... kind!

It even carried a hint of... humility, like a grandson begging his grandfather!

"Th-that..." "Li-Little Lu..." He rubbed his large, calloused hands, his face smiling like a blooming sunflower.

"You see..." "I've lived a few decades longer than you, so I'll be presumptuous and call you Little Lu, that's okay, right?"

Looking at the Old General whose attitude had done a 180-degree turn, Lu Chen couldn't help but twitch his mouth hard.

What else could he say? He could only chuckle dryly and nod.

"No... no problem, Old General Ye."

"Hey! Good! Good!" Ye Qingcang slapped his thigh, smiling even more happily!

"Little Lu!" He grabbed Lu Chen's hand, his affectionate posture making anyone who didn't know better think that Lu Chen was his long-lost grandson!

"Look, you've already created this 'Dragon Bone' alloy."

"And you've also drawn up this, what is it, 'anti-gravity engine'."

"Then..." He looked at Lu Chen, his clear eyes filled with irrepressible desire!

"Then that, what is it, aerospace carrier..."

"Could we... also, by the way, put it on the schedule?"

"This..." Lu Chen looked "troubled".

"Old General Ye, you also know that our 'pangu' project team is currently focusing most of our energy on the 'virtual reality' project."

"Between the batteries, the alloys, and the engines..."

"I, really... am a bit stretched thin."

He said this half-truthfully.

After all, the system refreshed a new piece of black technology every week.

How could he have so much time to implement them one by one?

However... these "excuses" sounded completely different to Ye Qingcang's ears!

This kid! He's playing coy with me!

He's putting on airs!

He's bargaining with me!

Thinking of this, a flash of decisive determination instantly crossed Ye Qingcang's cloudy old eyes!

He knew! To deal with a tech geek like Lu Chen who "eats soft but not hard"!

Trying to be tough definitely wouldn't work!

He could only... play the victim!

"Sigh!" Ye Qingcang suddenly slapped his thigh, and his face instantly changed to an expression of heartbreaking, tearful grief!

His voice also became incredibly desolate and... tragic!

"Little Lu!"

"You don't know!"

"We old folks who have spent our whole lives working on equipment, our hearts are bitter!"

He tearfully complained, snot and tears streaming down his face:

"Back in the day, the Western Alliance's aircraft carriers sailed right to our doorstep, flaunting their power! We couldn't even pull out a decent piece of equipment!"

"What does that taste like?!"

"It's stifling!"

"It's pathetic!"

"It makes one wish they could tear apart their own old bones, use them as cannonballs, and fire them out!"

"Now!"

"We finally waited, hoping against hope, and you finally arrived!"

"We finally see a glimmer of hope to stand tall and be human!"

"How can you..."

"How can you have the heart to just cut off the only wish of us old folks in this lifetime like this?!"

His tearful, "genuine" complaint left Long Weiguo, standing nearby, dumbfounded!

Good heavens! This old guy is really wasting his talent not winning an Oscar for Best Actor!

This acting skill... is even more masterful than that old fox, Hans!

As for Lu Chen, he had an even bigger headache!

What he feared most was dealing with this kind of old rascal who uses their age to bully others and has no shame...

"Alright, alright!" He had no choice but to raise his hands in surrender.

"Old General Ye, please stop crying."

"About this matter..."

"I'll agree to it, okay?!"

"Really?!" Ye Qingcang instantly stopped his tears!

The speed of his face changing was faster than Sichuan opera!

He grabbed Lu Chen's hand, his face once again filled with a brilliant smile!

"Great! Little Lu!"

"I knew you were a righteous, good kid!"

"Then..." He rubbed his hands and asked cautiously: "Tell me, when can we... start?"

"Well..." Lu Chen pondered for a moment and then held up three fingers.

"Three months?" Ye Qingcang's eyes lit up! Lu Chen shook his head.

"Three years?" Ye Qingcang's brows furrowed. Lu Chen still shook his head.

Then, under the gaze of Ye Qingcang, who was full of confusion, he slowly said something that almost gave him a myocardial infarction on the spot.

"I mean..."

"At least..."

"Thirty... thirty years."