244: Chapter 244 A New Type of Food for a Million People

In the control room of Underground Level 3, there was a deathly silence; Old Zhou gasped, his eyes fixed and his legs trembling.

Lu Chen put down the red encrypted phone that lacked any dialing keys and tapped his fingers on the desk twice.

"Old Zhou, wipe your drool."

Lu Chen sat back in the black leather chair, picking up the plastic lighter on the table to play with.

"Go handle the handover with the officials regarding those few million tons of empty quotas outside; they provide the land, we provide the rice."

"Boss, does this mean we've become suppliers for a major state-owned enterprise?"

Old Zhou wiped away cold sweat, his voice still trembling.

"Suppliers? That's nothing; from now on, we set the rules on this path."

Lu Chen tossed the lighter onto the desk, making a crisp sound.

He turned to look at Wei Jianguo behind the workstation.

"Old Wei."

Wei Jianguo stood up straight immediately, still clutching half a pencil.

"Boss, what new equipment are we making?"

"Check your internal email."

Lu Chen tapped on the keyboard.

Wei Jianguo quickly lowered his head to check the tablet in his hand; two seconds later, his eyes widened, his pupils almost sticking to the screen.

"This… this data structure is incredible."

Wei Jianguo's lips trembled, his hand holding the tablet shaking uncontrollably.

"Using the most common corn starch, soybean protein powder, and mixing in those scraps of bone powder from the high-dimensional creatures that Da Biao and the others brought back—after this high-pressure mixing process, it can turn into high-energy nutritional blocks?"

"Can you make it?" Lu Chen interrupted him.

"Yes, but while the blueprints for this machine look complex, the core principle is too domineering."

Wei Jianguo swallowed hard.

"If built, a bar the size of a thumb can sustain an adult's full-load consumption for three days, without even needing to drink much water."

"Factory Building Zero has already been cleared; go to the machining workshop to pull people and weld ten production lines overnight; I want to see the product before dawn."

Lu Chen's tone was calm, leaving no room for negotiation.

Wei Jianguo took off running.

"I'll go grab the manpower now; Da Biao, lend me two hundred of your brothers as movers."

After Wei Jianguo ran off, Old Zhou leaned in.

"Boss, what about the hundred thousand tons of premium rice we snatched back? Are we not distributing it to the workers outside?"

"Keep the rice to stabilize prices for the people of Jiangcheng; as for the people in our factory, they are changing their diet starting today."

Lu Chen lit a cigarette.

"Eating that ordinary food is useless for this group of people."

The next morning.

At daybreak, the employee plaza was packed with people; a million workers on paid leave stood in dozens of phalanxes according to their workshops.

Dozens of heavy trucks were parked at the edge of the plaza, their rear compartments open, loaded with piles of black, coal-like objects.

A stubbly welder stood in line, standing on tiptoes to look ahead; his name was Li Tie, and he had been in the factory for three years; he usually had a huge appetite, eating three large bowls of white rice in one sitting.

"Brother Zhang, what is this they're handing out?"

Li Tie's stomach growled, and he tugged at the person in front of him.

"We've been hungry for two days; what happened to the promised white rice and braised pork?"

The man in front, named Zhang Daqiang, looked equally confused.

"It was distributed from the workshop ahead; they said it's called a high-energy nutritional bar, and everyone only gets two."

"Two?"

Li Tie got anxious and jumped up, shouting.

"It's so small, not even enough to get stuck in my teeth; has the factory really run out of food?"

A young worker next to him curled his lip.

"This thing is pitch black and smells a bit fishy; even rat poison looks better than this; it must be that the Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce really blocked us off, the factory manager is out of options, and is trying to fool us with tree bark."

Beside the convoy, Da Biao, wearing a floral shirt, walked onto the high platform carrying a huge woven bag.

"What are you all clamoring about?"

Da Biao roared, his powerful voice drowning out the loudspeaker.

"Line up! Two per person; anyone who dares to take more, I'll break their legs."

Once Da Biao stood there, it went quiet below; the security team's deterrence was immense.

The line moved forward quickly, and Li Tie received his two nutritional bars.

He squeezed them in his hand; they were rock hard, with a slightly rough, granular texture on the surface.

"Can this really fill me up?"

Li Tie was so hungry he couldn't take it anymore; he closed his eyes and took a bite.

Crunch.

"Ouch, I almost broke my tooth."

Li Tie held his cheek, his face full of disgust.

This thing had no sweetness, only a faint salty, fishy taste; chewing it and swallowing it felt like swallowing a lump of dry mud.

"Brother Zhang, this tastes terrible; I thought the factory manager would bring some delicacies."

Li Tie sighed and reluctantly chewed a few times before swallowing it into his stomach.

"What use is this? If I do heavy work today, I'll definitely pass out from hypoglycemia."

The surrounding workers were also complaining, the sound buzzing.

"This thing is harder to chew than compressed biscuits."

"If the factory manager doesn't have money to buy food, just say so; it's not like we can't handle hunger."

"We've probably been tricked; The Four Major Grain Merchants have already surrounded Jiangcheng."

Less than a minute after Li Tie finished complaining.

He suddenly felt a boom in his stomach, and an indescribable heat surged up; this heat flowed along his spine and instantly shot through his whole body.

Li Tie widened his eyes, his hands clenching tightly.

He had broken his legs twice at a construction site, and his knees would ache painfully on rainy days; with the strong wind this morning, his two legs were already cramping.

Now, the rheumatism and old injury pain that had plagued him for over a decade had vanished completely under the scouring of that heat.

Not only that, his stomach was full and round; it was an extreme feeling of satiety, as if he were full to his throat.

"Holy shit."

Zhang Daqiang next to him suddenly shouted, punching the solid iron railing beside him.

With a muffled thud.

The solid iron railing was actually dented by his punch.

Zhang Daqiang was stunned, staring at his own hand.

"Li Tie, I… I didn't use much strength just now; why do I feel like I have endless strength?"

Li Tie rotated his shoulders, his joints popping like firecrackers; he jumped in place twice, light as a monkey.

He looked down at the remaining half of the black nutritional bar in his hand, a light of extreme shock slowly emerging in his eyes.

"Brother Zhang, this thing is miraculous."

Li Tie's throat felt dry.

Within ten minutes, the complaints from the dozens of phalanxes around them turned into gasps of astonishment.

One million people, one million different old injuries and hidden ailments.

All were greatly relieved by this thumb-sized black bar.

Many old workers who had done manual labor for decades and whose bodies had completely broken down even threw away their belts after eating, walking with long strides on the plaza.

"This isn't dry rations; this is an elixir."

"What kind of treasure did the manager give us to eat? My lumbar disc herniation is completely healed."

"I feel like I could punch a cow to death right now."

The frenzied emotion spread like a virus across the plaza; the people who were complaining just now were now wishing they could pick up the crumbs on the ground and lick them clean.

Da Biao stood on the high platform, looking at the chaotic crowd below, and rubbed his bald head.

"Making a fuss, haven't seen anything before."

Da Biao took a nutritional bar out of his pocket and tossed it into his mouth, crunching loudly.

"With this stuff, who would want to eat rice in the future?"

The workers looked at the black blocks in their hands, no longer showing any disgust; some even carefully wrapped them in clean cloth strips and hid them in their inner pockets.

The Jiangnan Chamber of Commerce cut off food?

Good riddance.

If they hadn't cut off the food, they would never have eaten this good stuff that could transform a person's entire being.

At this moment, the hearts of one million people were firmly tied to the giant ship that was Chenguang Electronics Factory; if anyone dared to speak ill of Lu Chen, these one million people could tear him apart alive.

Underground Level 3, control room.

Lu Chen leaned back in his leather chair with his eyes closed.

Others couldn't see it, but a data tsunami was occurring on his retina.

The system's light blue interface popped up automatically, and lines of golden numbers scrolled crazily upward.

[Ding. Detected registered employee Li Tie consuming the new nutritional solution, body ailments repaired, strength increased by 12%. Loyalty increased to 100 (maximum value, die-hard loyalist).]

[Ding. Detected registered employee Zhang Daqiang consuming the new nutritional solution, body functions rejuvenated. Loyalty increased to 100.]

[Ding. Detected epic-level resonance in employee group emotions. The loyalty of all one million registered employees has broken the 90 threshold.]

[Number of employees currently meeting the criteria for generating tech points: 1,050,000.]

[Daily tech point settlement mode has been automatically changed to: Max Value Critical Strike Settlement.]

The corners of Lu Chen's mouth slowly curled into a cold, hard arc.

So this was the true value of these blueprints; it didn't lie in solving the food problem for a few days.

It elevated these one million ordinary people to the stage of high-level consumables that could produce massive amounts of tech points for him; internal hidden dangers vanished in the face of dimension-reduction level technology supply.

Lu Chen opened his eyes and clicked on the attribute panel.

[Host: Lu Chen]

[Fund pool balance: Skyrocketing automatically every day (no longer necessary to track)]

[Tech point balance: 290 million (surging at a terrifying speed).]

Lu Chen casually picked up the plastic lighter on the table; click, sparks emerged.

He lit a cigarette.

Deeply inhaled.

With this foundation of one million max-loyalty followers, and tens of millions of tech points coming in every day, there was no blueprint he couldn't redeem; that blueprint for the interstellar frigate fleet would eventually be brought out to make its debut.

Old Zhou looked at the documents showing the recovery of various indicators and let out a long breath.

"Boss, our food crisis is completely resolved."

Old Zhou smiled so hard his face wrinkled like a bun.

"This morning, the management of the grain reserves in Zhongzhou and Jiangbei provinces all took the initiative to call and sue for peace; they are willing to unconditionally hand over all channels to us."

"Leave them hanging for three days."

Lu Chen exhaled a puff of smoke.

"Doing wrong things has a price; they want to surrender, but I haven't said whether I'll accept it."

Old Zhou quickly nodded and wrote it down.

Lu Chen tapped the table.

"Wu Dong, what about the public opinion online?"

Wu Dong, sporting two dark circles under his eyes, was still typing rapidly on his keyboard.

"Boss, those foreign media and public intellectuals outside have all shut their mouths; Wall Street is in chaos; the Federal Reserve announced an indefinite network outage for maintenance; now the whole world's eyes are on the joke of The Four Major Grain Merchants filing for bankruptcy liquidation, and no one dares to mention Jiangcheng."

Lu Chen extinguished the cigarette butt.

"Old Zhou, find a clean underground vault to store the three thousand tons of physical gold bricks that Da Biao brought back; we won't sell this for now; keep it as ballast."

Everything was proceeding according to plan; the situation in Jiangcheng had not only stabilized, but it had also used this opportunity to complete a thorough reshuffle.

Now, as long as the outer armor was finished, that inverted triangular chassis could be lifted up to dock with the main body of the Aerospace Carrier.

Just then, the airtight door of the control room suddenly made a muffled opening sound.

As soon as the door cracked open, a figure stumbled in.

It was the chief engineer, Song Changming.

He was covered in sweat, his white anti-static uniform was stained with unknown black oil, and his hair, usually combed meticulously, was now a mess.

Song Changming clutched a tablet reader tightly and scrambled to Lu Chen's desk.

"Manager, something's wrong."

Song Changming's voice was sharp, with a noticeable crack in it.

Old Zhou was startled and quickly went over to support him.

"Old Song, what happened to you? Were you chased by dogs?"

Lu Chen frowned slightly, his body motionless.

"Take a breath, speak properly."

Song Changming swallowed hard, his fingers sliding frantically on the tablet, bringing up a complex wavy chart; he pushed the screen toward Lu Chen.

"Manager, that chassis of the Aerospace Carrier you asked me to watch."

Song Changming's hand was shaking so hard he almost dropped the tablet.

"Although the armor shell at the bottom has been fully laid out according to the blueprints, and it can float in a zero-gravity environment, but…"

Song Changming took a deep breath, his eyes full of terror.

"But at its levitation critical point, an abnormal distortion vortex appeared in the gravitational field at the edge."

Song Changming gritted his teeth.

"It's like tearing open an invisible black hole right here in our Underground Level 3."

Old Zhou didn't understand the terminology and was so anxious he slapped the table.

"What black hole? Will it suck people in?"

Song Changming shook his head.

"It's even scarier than that; its gravitational waves are radiating outward uncontrollably; if this distortion point cannot be corrected within three hours…"

Song Changming stared into Lu Chen's eyes, his voice filled with despair.

"Its anti-gravity waves will trigger a geomagnetic reversal resonance, and the entire crust of Jiangcheng will be flipped over directly from the middle."