208: Chapter 208 Red Phone Call, Privileges and a Million-Dollar Recruitment Order

The heavy casing of the military-grade red phone was pressed tightly against his ear.

Lu Chen turned around, avoiding the blast of high-heat air blowing toward him. At the bottom of the foundation pit, the fully automatic pouring array emitted a piercing mechanical whir. Sixteen superconducting magnetohydrodynamic nozzles were frantically spewing out molten dark-red special titanium alloy. The high temperature evaporated the muddy water, filling the surroundings with white mist.

Wu Dong stood in the mud on the edge of the flood embankment with one foot bare. He gripped the seams of his trousers tightly with both hands, panting heavily.

"Lu Chen. Acknowledge if you can hear me." A hoarse voice came from the receiver of the red phone. The person on the other end was breathing heavily, their emotions clearly in great turmoil.

"It's too noisy here. Give me a minute." Lu Chen's tone was calm.

He strode forward, stepping over the rubble as he climbed the slope. He pulled open the door of the black off-road vehicle and sat in the driver's seat.

Wu Dong didn't even bother to put on his shoe. He scrambled to open the passenger door and dove inside, huddling obediently on the leather seat, not daring to let out a breath.

The car door slammed shut, isolating most of the mechanical roaring outside.

Lu Chen felt his pockets, pulled out half a pack of double happiness, bit out a cigarette, and lit it.

"Alright. I can hear you clearly now." Lu Chen exhaled a cloud of thick smoke.

"You kid is truly a madman." The old man on the other end of the phone completely stopped suppressing his emotions. "Fifty sets of individual combat armor. Three silent nuclear submarines. You went straight past The White House's underwater defense line and struck into New York. You cornered Steven and that group of Freemasons elders in their basement and crushed their spines."

The old man paused for two seconds, then suddenly burst into hearty laughter. The laughter traveled through the encrypted channel, making the car cabin hum with vibration.

"Well done. That resounding slap knocked the teeth out of those old geezers who flip the table at the international table every single day." The old man's tone became gleeful. "The 7th Fleet's sonar scanned the seabed a dozen times, and they didn't even find a single hair of yours. The Pentagon smashed three conference tables last night."

"Their eyesight isn't very good. Da Biao led his men and swaggered right through the shallow waters." Lu Chen tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "They put a thirty-billion bounty on my head, so I had to send people to teach them how to spend their money."

"That's how rules have to be fought for." The old man's voice lowered, revealing an endless iron-blooded intensity. "In this world, forbearance cannot buy respect. We need a wild blade like you to pierce through the old ceiling they've set. I've flipped through Captain Wang Hai's top-secret report in my drawer a dozen times. That chassis you're building in the eight-thousand-acre pit completely transcends existing industrial common sense."

Lu Chen stared at the night sky outside the windshield. "The chassis is a bit large. I'm building a rack to haul cargo myself, so I don't get my ships detained every time I go overseas to transport ore."

Wu Dong sat nearby, cold sweat pouring down his face. He had seen that two-hundred-meter-wide monster in the pit. And this guy called it a rack for hauling cargo.

"I won't ask about your technical details. I don't understand those things." The old man's voice became extremely serious. "I'm calling this special line today to ask you one thing. How do you need the country to cooperate with you?"

This was exactly what he was waiting for.

"My schedule here is very tight. This iron plate must be formed in one piece in a short amount of time." Lu Chen exhaled smoke. "The commotion during this period will be significant; it won't be able to stay hidden from the eyes in the sky. I don't want anyone coming to this area to point fingers. Not even half a fly is allowed to fly in."

"Granted." The old man didn't hesitate at all.

"Starting at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, the entire airspace over Jiangcheng will be closed. It won't matter who pleads for mercy." The old man immediately made his promise. "I will personally sign the Number One Combat Directive. I'll pull three full-strength ace fighter squadrons from the Southern Theater Command. They will patrol with live ammunition twenty-four hours a day. Without your nod, any unidentified flying object that enters this area will be warned and shot down immediately. I will shoulder all international public opinion and consequences."

Lu Chen leaned back against the seat. "With your word, sir, I can work with peace of mind."

"Additionally, I want to give you an explanation." The old man continued. "That person in charge of the Red Flag Department who was throwing his weight around everywhere—the disciplinary committee already paid him a visit to 'have tea' yesterday. He has already processed his early retirement. He can just spend the rest of his life planting flowers at the retirement home. As for those idlers under him with high-level designations, they will all be dismissed and disbanded tomorrow."

Lu Chen bit down on the cigarette filter, his tone cold. "It would be a pity to just disband them. My factory happens to be preparing to build a new large cafeteria. We're short on dishwashers. If they don't mind, they can have a base salary of 2,500 a month with room and board."

Wu Dong bit his lip hard, terrified of making a sound. Using high-level national commissioners as dishwashers—in all of China, only the man beside him would dare to say such a thing.

There was another burst of laughter from the other end of the phone.

"You kid really has a wicked mouth. You don't need to worry about those messy affairs anymore." The old man took a deep breath and played his final trump card. "The Mitsui Zaibatsu of Sakura Country was wrecked by you. Their Ministry of Foreign Affairs' protest letters are piling up on my desk. I told them all to use them as scrap paper. From today on, except for me personally, no one or any department in the country has the authority to question any action of Chenguang Factory."

"I am granting you unrestricted immunity privileges." Every word the old man said landed with immense weight. "Go ahead and do it."

"Understood."

A beep sounded. The old man cut the communication.

Lu Chen casually tossed the heavy red phone into Wu Dong's arms.

Wu Dong scrambled to catch the red lump, feeling his hands burning. This thing could connect directly to the pinnacle of power, and now it was in his own arms.

"Hold onto it steady. From now on, you are exclusively responsible for answering the special line from the capital." Lu Chen flicked the cigarette butt, which had burned down to the filter, out the window.

"Boss... just how much authority did they give us?" Wu Dong's voice was trembling.

"The sky over Jiangcheng belongs to us now. Tomorrow, fighter jets will come to guard the machine in the pit. Go notify Da Biao and tell him to make sure his anti-aircraft missiles don't misfire and hit our own people." Lu Chen closed the car window.

Wu Dong's mouth hung open. His brain was buzzing.

"How much liquid cash is left in the hidden accounts that we can use at any time?" Lu Chen turned to look at him.

Wu Dong immediately pulled out his portable military-grade tablet. His fingers slid rapidly across the screen.

"The funds intercepted from those people on Wall Street. After laundering, deducting the transport fees for the brothers and factory expenses, there is currently 280 billion USD sitting in the number one pool. In our domestic independent accounts, there are also over 400 billion in reserves." Wu Dong read out the numbers, which were enough to buy a medium-sized country.

"After dawn tomorrow, go and acquire all large human resources companies and headhunting agencies in the five prefecture-level cities surrounding Jiangcheng. Don't negotiate the price; just throw money at them and take actual control." Lu Chen crossed his fingers on the steering wheel.

Wu Dong suddenly looked up. "Acquire human resources companies? Boss, our entire factory's production lines are fully automatic high-precision machine tools. Aside from the security companies and administrative staff, the production lines don't need any manual intervention. Why buy agencies?"

"I want people." Lu Chen's voice carried a sense of absolute control.

"How many people?"

"Bring in one million people first. If that's not enough, add more." Lu Chen stared straight ahead.

Wu Dong gasped. He almost threw the red phone in his arms onto the floor mat. One million people. This was equivalent to single-handedly supporting the entire workforce of a super prefecture-level city. Even if he only paid a base salary of 3,000 yuan per person, this was a bottomless pit burning tens to hundreds of billions every month. Even a landlord's family couldn't afford to burn money like that.

Lu Chen didn't explain; he started the off-road vehicle's engine.

In front of his vision, the previously dim system panel suddenly erupted with a blinding deep blue light. A series of dull electronic notification sounds exploded in his mind one after another.

[Ding. System detects that the host has successfully obtained the highest level of unrestricted immunity privileges.]

[National-level barrier construction complete. Hidden interfaces fully unlocked.]

[The Ultimate Good Boss System's million-level ultimate expansion plan prerequisites have been met. Global recruitment mode is fully activated.]

Lu Chen watched the instruction stream jumping frantically on the virtual panel. A cold arc curved at the corner of his mouth. Previously, he could only engage in small-scale antics within the system's framework, but now, all restraints had been torn away completely by that one phone call from the old man.

Three lines of huge, blood-red text slowly appeared in the center of the panel.

[Time-limited task triggered: Million-Person Fire Expedition.]

[Within thirty days, increase the total number of employees on the payroll of Chenguang Factory with legal labor contracts to over one million. No nationality threshold, no educational threshold. Only need to pay full social insurance and housing fund, and pay a salary higher than the local average.]

[Final reward for task completion: Unlock the full manufacturing blueprints for an interstellar planetary-class Aerospace Carrier and its escort fleet, as well as the supporting production line for Genetic Enhancement Fluid.]

Lu Chen slammed on the accelerator. The off-road vehicle roared on the muddy ground, flinging a large spray of mud.

One million people in exchange for an escort fleet. This deal was a huge profit.