187: Chapter 187 A Bet That Could Topple a Nation

"Refund them. Treat them as freebies. Buy tickets again."

Secretary Zhou listened to Lu Chen's words, his Adam's apple bobbing twice. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva mixed with rainwater and looked down at the black canvas bag in his arms.

The fully stamped VAT invoices in this bag had now become a pile of waste paper.

Secretary Zhou was trembling inside. This was the General Logistics Department in the capital. His boss said he wouldn't meet them, so he wouldn't; he said he didn't want the 100 billion, so he didn't. And now he was selling tickets. These tickets probably couldn't even be bought with gold bars.

The humming sound at the bottom of the foundation pit suddenly rose in pitch.

A low-frequency vibration swept outward. All the accumulated water within a ten-meter radius was instantly shattered into a fine mist.

The puddle of muddy water at Secretary Zhou's feet exploded on the spot. He instinctively took two steps back and landed hard on a piece of precast concrete.

At the bottom of the pit, that pure black, inverted triangular metal chassis, two hundred meters in diameter, began to move.

There was no air jet, no thruster ignition, and no exhaust flame consistent with modern aerospace engineering logic.

It simply, forcefully, defied the Earth's constant gravity and slowly detached from the reinforced concrete base at the bottom of the pit.

One meter. Three meters. Five meters.

The behemoth ascended silently.

It finally hovered steadily in mid-air, ten meters above the bottom of the pit.

Beneath the chassis, an absolute vacuum, rain-free zone was formed.

The torrential rain pelting the top of the chassis was deflected by that layer of azure, vein-like light, cascading down along the two-hundred-meter edge to form a circular wall of water.

Five kilometers away, on the top floor of an abandoned, unfinished building in the northern suburbs of Jiangcheng.

Three white men in black raincoats lay prone in front of a window frame without glass. The man in front pressed his right eye tightly against a high-powered military infrared night-vision telescope.

In the eyepiece of the night-vision device, a massive, deep-blue energy source was hovering in mid-air.

The man's breathing stopped. His eyelids turned outward, and his teeth crushed the chewing gum in his mouth.

"God. This is impossible," the man muttered frantically in English. "No aerodynamic shape. No visible power source. They've lifted an iron mountain. This overturns Newton's laws."

His companion, responsible for recording, leaned over and asked in a low voice.

"Are you sure it's an optical camouflage projection?"

"Projection, my ass," the man said, his hands trembling violently. "A two-hundred-meter-wide solid armor. Infrared signatures show the internal temperature is extremely low. This is the real thing. This is dimensional reduction technology."

Clang.

The man's grip failed, and the high-powered telescope, worth over a million dollars, smashed against the concrete floor, its lens shattering into pieces.

Ignoring the debris on the floor, he grabbed the satellite communicator.

"Connect me to Langley headquarters immediately. Connect to the Twelve Elders Roundtable direct line. An unconventional gravity anomaly has appeared in Jiangcheng. Repeat. Gravity anomaly detected."

On the edge of the eight-thousand-acre construction site, at Guard Tower No. 3.

Colonel Lone Wolf gasped. He felt his scalp tingle, an electric current shooting up his spine to the back of his head.

The high-powered telescope slipped from his hands. The walkie-talkie hanging on his chest also fell directly into the puddle at his feet.

Lone Wolf didn't bother to pick up the telescope; he dropped to one knee with a splash and fished the walkie-talkie out of the puddle. Muddy water mixed with rain flowed into his eyes, but he didn't even blink.

He tremblingly felt for another pure black, rectangular communicator at his waist. This was the top-secret terminal with a direct line to the General Command Center of the military in the capital.

Lone Wolf pressed the red emergency button.

"This is Lone Wolf. Codename Great Wall 03," Lone Wolf rasped, his voice completely hoarse as he roared into the communicator. "Requesting direct access to the Supreme Leader's dedicated line. An unknown level of ascension has occurred in Jiangcheng's defense zone. Repeat. I have seen... a miracle."

There was a second of silence on the other end of the communicator.

Then, an extremely stern voice came through.

"Lone Wolf. Mind your discipline. What do you mean by a miracle? Report the specific physical characteristics."

Lone Wolf looked up, staring fixedly at the massive black shadow suspended in the torrential rain.

"A pure metal lump with a two-hundred-meter diameter. It's floating. Right before my eyes," Lone Wolf gasped. "There's no engine. It's just parked in mid-air. The rain above it has stopped completely. Requesting activation of the Sky Eye satellite for real-time synchronization of the feed from Jiangcheng Area 3."

Three minutes later.

At the edge of the foundation pit, the vibration in Lu Chen's pocket stopped.

The countdown on the system panel flashed a glaring red warning.

Lu Chen glanced at the chassis hovering in mid-air. The deep blue veins on its surface began to flicker slightly. The energy reserves of the micro-fusion reactor and the pressure resistance of the diversion pipelines had reached a critical point.

Lu Chen remained expressionless and spoke directly into the microphone on his collar.

"Song Changming. Pull the switch. Cut off the energy feedback."

At Underground Level 3, Song Changming was drenched in sweat; his clothes could be wrung out. Upon hearing Lu Chen's command, he didn't hesitate, gripping the lever with both hands and pulling it back with all his might.

The blinding white light vanished instantly.

Deprived of the fusion energy support, the blue light on the surface of the black chassis quickly extinguished.

The behemoth, weighing hundreds of thousands of tons, was recaptured by gravity.

Boom.

The chassis slammed heavily back to the bottom of the foundation pit.

A violent earthquake erupted across the entire northern suburb of Jiangcheng. The steel-structured factory buildings in the distance emitted a teeth-grinding sound of twisting metal. Secretary Zhou was knocked over by the shockwave, landing face-first in the mud.

Lu Chen remained standing straight. Water splashed onto his old jacket, but he didn't even frown.

Wei Jianguo, accompanied by several engineers, scrambled up the steel ladder from the bottom of the pit like a madman. Using their hands and feet, they rushed directly to Lu Chen.

"Boss. Success. The preliminary hovering test was a success." The muscles on Wei Jianguo's face were contorted with extreme excitement as he shouted at the top of his lungs, "The chassis frame is intact. The energy-shaping fluid is evenly distributed."

Lu Chen pulled out his cigarette case, extracted a double happiness that had become slightly soft from the moisture, and bit down on it.

"Bring me the energy consumption data and the list of follow-up materials," Lu Chen said in a flat tone.

Wei Jianguo hurriedly pulled a military-grade tablet from its waterproof case, wiped off the rainwater, and handed it to Lu Chen.

Lu Chen lowered his head and scanned it. He only read the first three lines before his eyes darkened.

The figures on this material list were absurdly high.

To make this thing fully formed, or even to assemble it into a true aerospace carrier for long-term flight, the amount of special metal required was a value that could not be measured by conventional units.

Wu Dong had spent an exorbitant price tonight to buy up the spot supply of special steel in most of East China, and had even swallowed up all the prime movers of the ocean shipping lines to transport the goods.

For this thing, those twenty-two thousand tons of special steel weren't even enough to fill the gaps between its teeth.

"The logistics network we just acquired doesn't have the capacity to keep up," Wei Jianguo said, lowering his voice, his tone filled with anxiety. "Boss. Even if we emptied the warehouses of the twelve financial tycoons of Jiangnan, it wouldn't be enough. This thing needs high-purity special titanium alloy. And aerospace-grade aluminum. You can't buy this kind of quantity on the market."

Da Biao stood to the side, clenching his mechanical hand.

"Boss. Whichever company has it, I'll take the brothers and go rob them," Da Biao said in a voice like a booming bell.

Lu Chen exhaled a puff of white smoke mixed with rainwater, ignoring Da Biao.

You couldn't rob it. Industrial raw materials of this level were only found in the national strategic reserves of a few major powers in the world.

Private capital and enterprises, even if they were the richest in the world, couldn't buy it.

Just then.

Secretary Zhou, who was lying in the mud, shivered.

An old, outdated mobile phone clipped to his waist began to ring frantically.

The ringtone was monotonous and grating. But when Secretary Zhou heard this sound, his face turned pale.

This was the dedicated line number left by his old leader. It never rang under normal circumstances. Once it rang, it meant it was calling directly from that courtyard in the capital.

Secretary Zhou scrambled to his feet, holding the phone in both hands, and tremblingly pressed the answer button before handing it to Lu Chen.

"Bo... Boss. A line from the capital," Secretary Zhou said, his voice trembling.

Lu Chen didn't take the phone. He tilted his head slightly and leaned in toward the receiver in Secretary Zhou's hand.

From the receiver came an old, yet undeniably authoritative voice.

"Lu Chen," the old man's voice was calm.

Lu Chen didn't speak, listening quietly.

"You've caused too much of a commotion," the old man coughed twice. "Air raid sirens have sounded across half the capital. The radar network of the Southern Theater Command has lit up entirely. Do you really intend to ignite a fire in Jiangcheng and burn a hole in the sky?"

Lu Chen took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it with his finger into the deep pit beside him.

"I'm not burning the sky. I'm just following the rules," Lu Chen said, his tone devoid of emotion. "Your people came to my territory this afternoon. They brought 50 billion in paper to teach me how to do things. I'm showing you some real stuff."

"Director Zhao failed in his duties. I apologize to you on his behalf," the old man said, without any air of superiority, so candidly that it was frightening.

Lu Chen still didn't respond to that.

"Those three minutes just now," the old man's voice paused slightly, revealing an undisguisable excitement, "The General Staff Department received real-time data from the Sky Eye satellite. Newton's laws of mechanics have failed in Jiangcheng."

"That is my private property," Lu Chen cut off the other party's probing directly.

"I understand," the old man let out a long breath. "You want materials. You want massive quantities of special titanium alloy, aerospace aluminum, and tungsten steel."

Lu Chen's eyes flickered.

"National-level reserves are open to you," the old man's voice instantly became stern and decisive. "The highest authorization for the three old Third-Front military industrial bases in the Southwest will be handed over to you tomorrow morning. All production lines in the heavy industrial bases of the five Northwestern provinces will be halted to make way for you. The Ministry of Railways will specially lay ten military-grade railways directly to Jiangcheng for you."

Secretary Zhou felt his scalp about to explode. Any one of these sentences mobilized a terrifying power capable of toppling a medium-sized nation.

"Conditions," Lu Chen spat out the two words.

"I want to see it fly. I want it painted in the colors of Huaxia," the old man said in a low voice. "Also. Director Zhao is still in Jiangcheng. Let's renegotiate the cooperation on the Exoskeleton. This time, we'll do it by your rules."

Lu Chen reached out and took the phone from Secretary Zhou's hand.

He glanced at the pitch-black sky, then at the behemoth in the foundation pit.

Lu Chen pressed the speakerphone.

"Have Director Zhao bring a blank contract and stand by at the South Gate 2 immediately," Lu Chen said. "And bring a message."

The other end of the phone fell silent.

"If that's all your sincerity amounts to," Lu Chen's eyes were ice-cold, "you can only buy standing-room tickets."

Lu Chen pressed his finger down, cutting off the call directly.

Secretary Zhou completely collapsed to the ground. His boss was bargaining with the supreme will of the entire nation, his attitude wildly arrogant.

Lu Chen turned to look at Da Biao.

"Go to South Gate 2," Lu Chen issued the order. "Set up the venue. Get ready to collect tickets."

Da Biao clicked his heels together.

Fifty heavily armed security guards raised their hands in unison, their mechanical Exoskeletons emitting a uniform, metallic crash.

Lu Chen strode forward.

Meanwhile, on the other side. In the courtyard in Houhai, Beijing.

The old man listened to the dial tone on the receiver, stunned for a full half-minute.

Secretary Zhou, standing outside the study door, was so terrified his legs were shaking, and he dared not make a sound.

The old man suddenly put down the receiver and slammed his hand on the purple clay tea table.

He wasn't angry. He burst into loud laughter.

"Good lad," the old man laughed until he coughed violently. "Ruthless enough. Tough enough."

The old man stopped smiling and looked toward the door.

"Prepare the car. Go to the West Mountain underground command post," the old man's eyes erupted with intense fighting spirit. "Notify the heads of the SASAC, the General Armament Department, and the Ministry of Railways. All of them are to be online for a meeting in ten minutes. I'm going to empty the national treasury and go crazy with this Lu fellow."

Secretary Zhou nodded repeatedly and turned to run out. He had barely taken two steps when Secretary Zhou's phone rang.

He answered the phone, and his expression changed drastically.

"Leader," Secretary Zhou turned to look at the old man, his lips pale. "Something happened in Jiangcheng."

The old man's gaze locked onto him instantly.

Secretary Zhou swallowed hard.

"That middle-aged man from the Red Flag Department. He didn't wait for your orders. He took his people and forcibly broke into the Municipal Public Security Bureau, detaining Director Li Jianguo," Secretary Zhou said, his voice panicked. "He wants to thoroughly audit all the ledgers of Chenguang Electronics in Jiangcheng. His convoy is already almost at the gate of Chenguang Factory."

The old man's expression turned incomparably gloomy in an instant. The walnuts in his hand were crushed to pieces.

Jiangcheng. South Gate 2 of Chenguang Factory. The torrential rain fell even harder.

A dozen black Red Flag sedans with special capital license plates arrogantly smashed through the outer plastic road barriers. The wheels splashed up large amounts of mud, and they braked sharply, stopping dead in front of the locked iron gate of South Gate 2.

The car doors opened.

Dozens of fully armed special agents in black raincoats jumped out of the cars.

From the car in the middle, the middle-aged high-ranking official stepped out, his face livid.

In his hand, he clutched a freshly issued detention warrant stamped with a red seal.

He looked up at the iron gate.

Behind the gate.

Da Biao was dragging that five-meter-long special pure steel I-beam.

The I-beam plowed a deep groove into the concrete floor. Da Biao's hydraulic mask slowly rose, revealing an extremely ferocious smile.

"The boss has ordered," Da Biao raised the megaphone in his hand, his voice drowning out the thunder. "Unauthorized personnel. Step back."

The middle-aged man's eye twitched violently. He took a step forward and raised the detention warrant.

Da Biao didn't waste words; he swung the half-ton I-beam with one hand.

In the next second, he was about to smash this steel column directly into the lead armored Red Flag sedan.

It was a critical moment.

Lu Chen's voice came from the shadows behind Da Biao.

"Da Biao. Let him in."

The curtain of rain was torn open. Lu Chen, with his hands in the pockets of his old jacket, slowly walked out from under the eaves of the guardhouse. He looked at the middle-aged man outside the gate as if looking at a dead person.

"I want to see," Lu Chen said in a calm tone, "what class of ticket he can afford."

Da Biao's arm paused, and he slammed the I-beam onto the ground.

The iron gate slowly opened. The middle-aged man, with a cold face, stepped inside. His hand slowly reached toward his lower back.