Chapter 154 The Twin-Tailed Scorpion's First Flight! President Wang's Ambitions!

The hangar doors, pushed by hydraulic rods, let out a low mechanical groan as they slowly slid open to both sides.

The previously dim space was instantly flooded with the afternoon sunlight.

At the center of the shifting light and shadows, a massive steel beast lay quietly in wait.

Its entire body was painted in a high-tech matte dark gray. Its slender wings, like two sharp sabers, stretched out to their limits on both sides; their wingspan was so wide it made one doubt if it could even fly. Most striking were the two tail booms extending backward from the rear of the fuselage, curving slightly upward and connecting to an inverted V-tail, making it look exactly like a desert scorpion ready to strike.

Beneath the nose, a large electro-optical pod designed for navigation flickered with a faint blue light, resembling a cold, cyclopean eye.

This was the twin-tailed scorpion.

President Wang stood at the hangar entrance, looking up at this giant with a wingspan of over twenty meters, a hint of shock flashing in his eyes.

Though he had seen the design drawings on a PPT, when the physical object was actually placed before him, the overwhelming industrial violence aesthetics still made this business tycoon, who was used to grand scenes, feel his breath hitch.

This thing... looks a bit too fierce.

No matter how you looked at it, it didn't look like it was for delivering packages; it looked like it was ready to carry two missiles and blow up a bunker at any moment.

...

Li Jiajun stood to the side, observing President Wang's expression, his heart racing a little.

After all, this appearance was indeed a bit hardcore. What if the financial backer thought it was too scary and didn't dare use it?

“That... President Wang,” Li Jiajun rubbed his hands, attempting to explain, “To pursue ultimate aerodynamic efficiency and structural strength, the exterior might look a bit... well, you know. But rest assured, it’s absolutely a gentle deliveryman at heart.”

However.

President Wang's reaction was completely beyond his expectations.

“Good! This is great!”

President Wang slapped his thigh hard, strode forward, and reached out to firmly pat the cold, hard fuselage, producing several dull thumps.

“That’s it! This is exactly what I wanted!”

President Wang turned around, his face brimming with an irrepressible ecstasy and satisfaction:

“Delivering packages needs to be sturdy! It needs to be durable! Those dainty little planes that wobble when the wind blows—how can they guarantee punctuality? This plane looks solid; it looks powerful! Speeding up! It can definitely help our Express Delivery Company speed up!”

Li Jiajun's mouth twitched.

Solid?

This was an Ultra-lightweight Bionic Truss Structure. Although it looked big, it was actually ridiculously light.

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But as long as the financial backer was satisfied, then it was solid!

“That’s a must!” Li Jiajun immediately puffed out his chest. “President Wang, just looking at it is useless. Shall we take it for a flight?”

“Let’s fly!” President Wang waved his hand grandly.

As the command was given, the atmosphere inside the hangar instantly became tense and busy.

“Tractor in position!”

“Startup power connected!”

“System self-check... Navigation module normal, power system normal, AI takeover ready!”

With a low and powerful turbofan whine, the twin-tailed scorpion's Intelligent Variable Cycle Engine, which had been heavily modified by Li Jiajun, began to roar.

It wasn't a heart-wrenching scream, but rather a hum unique to precision machinery, full of a sense of power.

Taxiing, accelerating.

After a short takeoff run of just a few hundred meters, this behemoth lightly lifted its nose and pierced the sky with a nearly vertical ascent!

On the large screens of the ground monitoring center, various flight data began to jump frantically.

“Altitude: 3,000 meters... 5,000 meters... 8,000 meters... Broke 10,000 meters!”

“Airspeed: 400 km/h... 600 km/h... Stable cruise speed at 800 km/h!”

“Fuel consumption...”

When they saw the data in the fuel consumption column, all the Express Delivery Company executives present gasped.

“How is this possible?”

A Vice President pointed at the screen, his eyes wide as if he had seen a ghost. “Flying this fast at ten thousand meters, how is the fuel consumption lower than our trucks? Is the sensor broken?”

Li Jiajun calmly took a sip of tea and entered internal snark mode, muttering to the air:

“Tsk, that’s the price of being uncultured. This is High-altitude Power Soaring Mode, don't you know? It's surfing right now; the engine is practically idling. How could it waste fuel? If it used any more fuel, I’d feel like I was letting down that Master Craftsman from the Albatross project.”

Though President Wang didn't understand power soaring, he understood numbers.

Low fuel consumption meant low costs.

Large payload plus high speed meant high profits.

President Wang stared fixedly at the plane on the screen as it shuttled through the clouds, his breathing becoming rapid.

He could already see the image of the Express Delivery Company's stock price skyrocketing, leaving all competitors far behind.

He suddenly turned around and grabbed Li Jiajun's shoulder with so much force that Li Jiajun almost winced.

“Xiao Li! Well done! You’ve really done a fantastic job!”

President Wang leaned into Li Jiajun's ear and, in a voice only the two of them could hear, growled excitedly:

“This technology must be kept secret! Once the testing is mature, we will immediately expand the production line!”

He brandished his fist, filled with heroic ambition:

“We want mass production! Not one or two, but a hundred! A thousand! We will form our own Express Delivery Company Aerial Legion! By then, in any corner of the country, as long as a customer places an order, our Scorpions can air-drop the goods to their doorstep within a few hours!”

Listening to these grand words, a sense of pride also welled up in Li Jiajun's heart.

See?

This is pure civilian use!

This is a commercial dream!

Who says the things I build can only go to the battlefield? Aren't they shining bright in the field of logistics now?

“No problem, President Wang!” Li Jiajun promised solemnly. “As long as the funding is there, I’ll max out the production line for you! We’ll grow bigger and stronger, and reach new heights of glory!”

The maiden flight was a complete success, and the plane landed smoothly.

But President Wang was in no hurry to leave; he circled the plane several times, liking it more the more he looked at it.

“Xiao Li, flying a circle around here looks good, but we’re going to be running nationwide.”

President Wang rubbed his chin and raised a new requirement. “True data can only be measured in extreme environments. With that eight-thousand-kilometer range and that Starlight Geomagnetic Navigation thing, if we don't take it out and put it through its paces, I won't feel at ease. So, you have to keep testing.”

When Li Jiajun heard this, it was exactly what he wanted.

He also wanted to see just how far this industrial crystallization, which gathered the wisdom of the Albatross, Ant, and Pigeon, could go.

He walked over to a giant map, his gaze passing over the bustling eastern coast and landing on that vast, desolate, and extremely complex region—the Northwest Plateau.

There were continuous snow-capped mountains, thin air, and unpredictable high-altitude currents.

That was a forbidden zone for aircraft, and also the best touchstone for the twin-tailed scorpion.

“President Wang is right.”

Li Jiajun picked up a red pen and drew a long line spanning thousands of kilometers on the map, stabbing straight from Baishui City into the heart of the Northwest.

He turned his head to look at President Wang, his eyes shining with the light of confidence:

“Since we’re testing, let’s go big. I’ll prepare over the next two days and have the twin-tailed scorpion fly to the Northwest to test its extreme range and plateau adaptability.”

To test the stability of the twin-tailed scorpion on complex routes and under high-altitude long-endurance conditions, Li Jiajun and President Wang decided to conduct an extreme long-endurance test flight.