132: Chapter 132 A 50 Billion Yuan Scheme, Igniting the Ultimate Light Source!

Inside the warehouse, the pungent smell of ink from the mountain of red banknotes was overpowering.

"Move the tables, Da Biao. Use gunny sacks to pack the money." Lu Chen pulled over a folding stool and sat down.

Three security guards carried over several long tin tables and placed them in front of the mountain of money.

Da Biao held open a woven fertilizer sack. Another security guard grabbed bricks of cash—each worth 100,000—and tossed them directly into the bag.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Once fifty bundles, totaling five million, were packed, the bulging sack was dragged under the tin table.

"Open the side door. Let them in ten at a time." Lu Chen picked up an enamel mug and took a sip of cold water.

The small iron door swung open with a clang.

Ten workers, dressed in rags and covered in mud and dust, walked in.

As soon as they looked up, they were frozen in their tracks.

Spanning over twenty square meters, a pile of red banknotes was stacked as high as a person's chest. Under the cold white fluorescent lights, that mountain emitted a dizzying glow.

The man at the very front was missing two fingers. It was Li Tiejun, who had been setting up sheds in the northern part of the city last night.

Li Tiejun's knees went weak, and he fell to his knees with a thud.

"Don't kneel. When your name is called, come up to sign and press your thumbprint," Old Zhou shouted, holding a roster. "Li Tiejun."

Li Tiejun scrambled up and hurried to the table, wiping his hands vigorously on his tattered trousers.

Without using a money counter, Da Biao snapped the kraft paper bands off two bundles of cash, pulled out twenty thousand, and slapped it onto the table.

Li Tiejun's trembling hand pressed down on the red ink pad. He clutched the twenty thousand tightly to his chest, tears splashing onto his feet.

The people behind him came up one by one to collect their money, their eyes all red.

[Ding.]

[Detected dramatic fluctuation in employee group loyalty.]

[Employee Li Tiejun's loyalty has reached 100.]

[Employee Zhang Ergou's loyalty has reached 100.]

In Lu Chen's mind, the numbers representing loyalty skyrocketed. The notification sounds for reaching maximum value rang out in a chorus.

"Keep letting them in," Lu Chen tapped on the table.

Outside Gate 1, the loudspeakers were blaring.

Hearing the cheers from inside and the broadcast about cash being handed out on the spot, the thousands of people in line went wild, and the wire fence groaned under the pressure.

Meanwhile, at the exit of the Jiangcheng expressway toll station.

A convoy of twelve heavy semi-trailer trucks, painted in dark gray camouflage, roared through the toll gates.

In the cab of the lead truck, a short-haired woman in a leather jacket was biting on a lollipop, staring at the electronic terminal in the passenger seat.

"Sister Hong, the access road ahead has been cordoned off by the Jiangcheng SWAT team. The heavy trucks can't enter the Northern Development Zone," a voice came over the walkie-talkie.

The woman spat out the lollipop stick and pulled a black ID card bearing the national emblem from the inner pocket of her leather jacket.

"Force our way through. This batch of water curtain wall purification equipment is exactly what Chief Engineer Song requested. Whoever blocks the road, slap them with this ID." The woman floored the gas pedal, and the twelve heavy trucks sped toward Chenguang Electronics Factory.

At the same time, in a courtyard house in Houhai, Beijing.

An old man, his face covered in age spots, hung up the secure line from Jiangcheng.

The emerald walnuts in his hands stopped spinning.

"Thirty-four billion US dollars, specially approved by the General Administration, with fifty billion in taxes paid in a single day." The old man's voice was icy cold.

He suddenly grabbed the purple clay teacup from the table and smashed it violently against the blue brick floor.

Broken porcelain scattered everywhere, and the man in the suit trembled nearby.

"He isn't doing business at all!" the old man roared sharply, a flash of irrepressible fear in his eyes. "This is an open conspiracy! He's using this fifty billion in hard cash as a pledge of loyalty, forcing the entire state apparatus to act as his bodyguard!"

Northern Jiangcheng, Super Heavy Industry Zone, Underground Level 3.

The blast-proof doors isolated the vibrations of the pile drivers on the surface. The air in the corridor had been completely replaced, filled with the pungent, stinging smell of chemical dust suppressants.

Song Changming stared fixedly at the control console screen.

His eyes were filled with dense red blood vessels, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. Beside him, the marble ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts, some scattered along the edge of the control panel.

Two hundred and forty hours. Ten days and ten nights without closing his eyes.

Song Changming's right hand gripped a pointed screwdriver used for dismantling, its tip pressed against his thigh. Whenever his eyelids drooped, he would stab it in hard. His light gray work pants were already stained with dark red blood spots of various sizes.

"Report pressure parameters." Song Changming's throat was completely ruined; it was so dry he couldn't even speak clearly.

The young assistant beside him was trembling all over, his hands typing frantically on the keyboard.

"Pump pressure for number four is 300 Pa... Pump pressure for number six is 500 Pa... Filter circulation is normal..."

"Water curtain system, activate." Song Changming slammed his hand down hard on the red physical button on the main console.

Boom... A violent, muffled hydraulic sound echoed throughout the massive underground space.

Under the transparent dome that stood five stories high in front of them, water poured down with a roar.

This wasn't ordinary water; it was absolute pure water produced by the Quantum Smelting Center, constructed into a fully enclosed water wall by ultra-high-pressure nozzles. Millions of high-pressure water jets collided from top to bottom at terrifying speeds, sealing the core workshop tightly.

"Dust particle detector, report." Song Changming leaned forward, his fingers digging into the edge of the wooden table.

A few seconds of dead silence passed. The assistant swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the green digital box jumping on the screen.

"Three per million..." "One per million..." "Zero." The assistant stood up abruptly, and the chair behind him fell to the ground with a bang. He didn't bother to pick it up and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Engineer Song! It's zeroed out. The dust particle count inside the workshop, absolute zero."

Song Changming's tense back suddenly relaxed, and he slumped straight back into his chair.

He reached for the cigarette pack on the table, found it empty, crushed it, and tossed it into the trash can.

"Open the isolation chamber." Song Changming closed his eyes, his fingers still twitching irregularly from exhaustion. "Tell Old Wei that my job is done. Whether we live or die from here on out depends on the craftsmanship of those thousands of mud-legged workers of his."

...

Inside the water curtain wall. In the center of the dust-free chamber.

Hundreds of high-power, high-intensity incandescent lamps shone down from all directions.

A huge mechanical arm hovered in mid-air. Directly beneath it was a massive machine, three stories tall and wrapped in a dense web of pipelines.

Wei Jianguo and hundreds of core experts wearing heavy-duty dust suits were gathered around the light source excitation chamber of the Lithography Machine's hub.

Outside the workshop's bulletproof glass, over five thousand technical experts poached from various major factories were staring intently at the real-time parameters on the large outdoor screen.

"Attach the reflector hood. All team members, return to your positions." Wei Jianguo was drenched in sweat, which blurred his goggles, forcing him to blink hard.

Four engineers pushed a hydraulic shock-absorbing cart over. In the center of the cart, a circular lens, half a meter in diameter and polished to extreme clarity, was secured with soft padding.

"Begin slot alignment." "Push." "Slowly. Lock the stopper."

Click. The sound of metal colliding rang out.

The lens slid perfectly into the base of the excitation chamber.

"Optical ranging system, report." Wei Jianguo clenched his fists.

"Optical axis aligned. Error is 0.001 nanometers." A crisp response came from the outdoor master control.

"Ultraviolet light source preheating. Thirty-second countdown." Wei Jianguo stared fixedly at the pitch-black excitation chamber.

The breathing of the hundreds of experts became erratic.

For these ten days, they had been completely overdrawing their lives. Working in three shifts every day, they had meticulously scrutinized every detail of the god-tier blueprints provided by the system, hand-crafting tens of thousands of components. All logical proofs were perfectly closed-loop, with no scientific blind spots.

As long as this ultimate ultraviolet light source ignited and passed through this focusing lens, the extreme light used to etch the chips would be formed.

"Ten seconds." "Five seconds." "Ignition." Wei Jianguo's voice cracked as he roared the command through the microphone.

Hum... A deeply muffled, heavy low-frequency tremor erupted from inside the excitation chamber. Immediately after, an extremely blinding deep ultraviolet beam instantly burst to life within the chamber, its temperature skyrocketing exponentially in a tenth of a second.