152: Chapter 152 Quantum Steelmaking in the Dark

Underground Level 3 clean room.

The backup diesel generator set erupted with a piercing roar. Thick black smoke filled the air everywhere.

Wei Jianguo gripped the edges of the blueprint tightly. The pages were already crumpled.

He widened his eyes, his voice completely distorted: "Factory Director Lu, are you playing for real? Controlled nuclear fusion? All those old professors around the world are just using this kind of theoretical PowerPoint to scam research funding. You're now ordering me and Old Song to build it from scratch in this broken basement in just one night?"

Song Changming had just taken off his clean suit. Turning his head and hearing this, he couldn't even catch his breath. He wiped the sweat from his face and dashed to the control console in a few steps.

"Old Wei isn't talking nonsense." Song Changming pointed to the temperature warning line on the screen. "The amethyst cutting lens is fine. You want to smelt a fusion core using a quantum furnace? If the parameters are off by even 0.1 millimeters, there won't even be ashes left of us."

Lu Chen's expression was icy. He strode closer. His index finger knuckle knocked heavily against the core data area of the blueprint.

"Listen clearly." Lu Chen spoke rapidly. "There is still three hundred jin of amethyst ore remaining. The quantum gravity furnace can hold out for at most another six hours on backup power. Outside, there are one hundred thousand people waiting to eat and work."

Wei Jianguo swallowed his saliva: "But..."

"Before dawn, cut out the engine core components." Lu Chen's eyes were sharp, devoid of emotion. "If you can do it, start immediately. If you can't, leave right now. Chenguang Electronics doesn't need dead weight."

Song Changming ground his back teeth, producing a chilling, crisp sound. His retreat was completely cut off. He grabbed the heavy anti-radiation isolation suit from the corner and violently pulled it onto his body.

"Let's do it." Song Changming growled in a hoarse voice, striding toward the control panel. "Old Wei, adjust the coolant limit. Lock the safety threshold at three hundred percent for me."

Wei Jianguo gritted his teeth, his fingers typing frantically on the keyboard.

Time shifted to 3:00 AM. A private VIP room in a top-tier club in Jiangcheng.

The crystal chandelier illuminated the room as bright as day. The central air conditioning was cranked to the maximum. The table was filled with high-end foreign liquor and luxurious seafood.

Deputy Director Chen Hai of the Municipal Power Bureau raised his wine glass and clinked it with the middle-aged man opposite him.

"President Wang, the matter is handled. That plot of land in the north of the city can't even see a sliver of light, not even from a wild cat." Deputy Director Chen Hai tilted his neck back and swallowed the red wine.

President Wang, the special representative of the East China General Chamber of Commerce, let out a cold laugh. He leaned back comfortably into the leather sofa, picked up a piece of chilled abalone, and tossed it into his mouth to chew.

"Lu Chen is probably begging everyone in the world for diesel right now." President Wang spat out half a toothpick. "Those one hundred thousand bottom-tier laborers who just reported for duty are huddled in the pitch-black mud pit. How long do you guess they can hold out?"

Deputy Director Chen Hai gripped the base of his glass: "The power cut is the most reliable move. Regardless of how much foreign currency he has in his hands, if he can't buy energy, the Lithography Machine is just a pile of scrap metal. Once the equipment is ruined, the breach of contract penalties from the various car companies will be enough to make him lose everything down to his underwear."

President Wang picked up his tea to rinse his mouth: "Drag it out until tomorrow noon, and the hungry workers will definitely riot. When tens of thousands of people go crazy, they'll be able to smash his crappy factory director's office to pieces."

Deputy Director Chen Hai let out a hiccup: "President Wang, how are the arrangements with the suppliers?"

President Wang adjusted the collar of his expensive suit: "I've already notified all material suppliers in Jiangcheng. Any company that dares to secretly sell Lu Chen even half a screw won't be able to make a living in the East China region ever again. This is called cutting off the roots."

"Brilliant." Deputy Director Chen Hai gave a thumbs up. "No materials, no electricity, no reinforcements. Lu Chen's place is a dead city."

"Let's go." President Wang stood up. "Let's go upstairs for a massage and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, we'll go full of energy to receive the surrender documents from the car companies like Great Wall and BYD."

4:00 AM. The newly built prefabricated housing living area of the Chenguang Electronics Factory.

The night sky was devoid of starlight. The stretch of muddy ground emitted a foul stench.

One hundred thousand newly hired employees were huddled together on the cold ground. Everything around them was deathly silent.

Not a single person was making a loud noise or causing trouble.

Li Tiejun held a plastic bowl, biting into a hard, cold steamed bun. He swallowed the piece of cold beef with blood streaks in his mouth, looking up toward the pitch-black office building.

"Brother Jun, why does it feel like something's wrong?" A young man beside him spoke in a low voice. "The power outage is too suspicious. Everyone outside is saying our factory director offended a major conglomerate."

"Shut up and eat your food." Li Tiejun reprimanded him with a straight face.

The young man shrank his neck: "I heard those big bosses are vicious. If the power doesn't come back on, will our factory really go under?"

"Stop talking nonsense." Li Tiejun slapped his thigh hard. "Boss Lu gave us settlement fees with real money. He gave everyone a raise. That's treating us like his own brothers. Those vampires outside can't stand to see us poor people living a good life, so they deliberately caused trouble and cut the power. That's just jealousy."

Several middle-aged men around them nodded in unison.

Old Wang leaned over, took out a worn-out flashlight, and shook it twice: "Tiejun is right. I've lived more than half my life and been to over a dozen construction sites. I've never seen any employer who would stuff our pockets with cash in advance. Factory Director Lu is our benefactor."

"So if we run around causing trouble now, that would be being ungrateful wretches." Li Tiejun looked around: "Everyone, put your hearts at ease. Even if the sky falls, we must protect the Chenguang Electronics brand with our lives."

The young man nodded vigorously: "Understood. I'm strong. If anyone dares to come to the factory to look for trouble tomorrow, I'll be the first one to smash their head with a shovel."

Tens of thousands of eyes silently stared at the core main factory area. The backbone of the bottom-tier laborers was completely ignited by this blatant power-cutting suppression. The darker it was, the more determined they felt. In the personnel backend monitoring server, the loyalty data of the one hundred thousand people remained firmly fixed at the maximum value of one hundred. There was no fluctuation.

At the same moment, the scene cut back to the very center of that eight-thousand-acre vacant lot in the north of the city.

The night wind whistled sharply.

Da Biao, covered in mud, commanded two thousand elite security team members. The roar of excavators, bulldozers, and heavy trucks wove into a web. Soil flew everywhere. They had forcibly dug out a giant circular pressure-resistant foundation pit twenty meters deep.

"Hurry up, everyone. If we can't finish before dawn, Boss won't spare us." Da Biao shouted at the top of his lungs.

The brothers below were all shirtless, sweat mixing with black ash as it streamed down.

"Don't worry, Brother Biao. We're working through the night, we definitely won't mess this up." The team leader waved a shovel in response.

5:00 AM. The sky was pitch black like ink.

A heavy explosion-proof transport vehicle slowly crawled out from the underground garage slope. The headlights pierced through the fog. The vehicle came to a steady stop. The rear trunk slowly opened.

Inside sat a hemispherical device wrapped layer by layer in thick lead plates.

The surface had no seams whatsoever. It radiated an extremely high temperature that made one's scalp tingle. The nearby air twisted and fluctuated violently due to the heat.

A giant crane rumbled into the scene. Steel cables slowly lowered.

The operator gripped the joystick with both hands. Accompanying a dull thud, the heavy metal lump collided heavily with the concrete platform at the bottom. The hemispherical micro-fusion engine was steadily placed in the center of the foundation pit.

Da Biao tore off his tattered shirt, which was covered in mud and water. He leaped directly into the deep pit.

"Drag the main cable over here!" Da Biao roared at the top of his lungs.

A dozen burly men carried eight special superconducting cables, each as thick as an adult's arm, on their shoulders, sprinting through the slippery mud to reach the front. Da Biao snatched the cable ends and personally, violently plugged them into the main power distribution hub port of the Chenguang Electronics Factory area.

The buckles locked tightly. A cluster of ghostly blue electric sparks erupted from the gap.

The eastern horizon finally began to show a faint, pale white. The wind died down.

Wei Jianguo scrambled up from the bottom of the pit, rolling and crawling. His legs were shaking uncontrollably. Mud and water covered his entire body. His hands held a military-grade startup terminal, and he moved step by step toward the off-road vehicle.

Lu Chen leaned against the car door. He pulled out a transparent plastic lighter, clicked it, and lit the fourth cigarette of the night.

"Factory Director Lu... everything is connected." Wei Jianguo handed over the terminal control panel, his breathing extremely rapid. "Old Song is still in the basement guarding the furnace to force it to cool down. Can this thing really work?"

Lu Chen did not respond.

His deep gaze stared straight at the source at the bottom of the pit, which looked crude on the outside but contained deadly, destructive energy. Lu Chen slowly raised his right index finger, hovering it precisely over the blinding red ignition button on the control console.

"Those pigs from the East China Chamber of Commerce think that cutting off the city grid is enough to manipulate Chenguang Electronics." Lu Chen exhaled a thick cloud of blue smoke. "Today, I'll build them a true god."

His finger pressed down.