Chapter 20 A First Glimpse of the Military

After Li Jiajun ended his livestream and went off, satisfied with calculating how much money he had made, he did not know that the art show he had personally directed had only just begun to unveil its true influence.

That performance, titled "The Hive," was recorded immediately by quick-fingered Netizens.

Immediately following that, after countless edits, musical scores, and secondary creations, it swept through all the Social Media Platforms in the Eastern Country in a viral manner within just a few short hours.

Douyin, Kuaishou, Social Media Platform, Bilibili...

Countless short videos were given various sensational titles and spread like wildfire.

"Isn't this more impressive than special effects? A new peak for domestic CG technology!"

"Cameron would be silent after watching, Lucas would shed tears; a domestic master created epic drone special effects all by himself!"

"The most shocking footage of 2025, bar none! Thousands of drones blotting out the sun, a scene comparable to a sci-fi blockbuster!"

"I watched it a hundred times with a microscope and finally found the Streamer's special effect flaw!"

The video's comment section completely evolved into a massive, nationwide debate about reality versus falsehood.

The special effects camp and the reality camp quickly assembled, engaging in epic confrontations in major comment sections, with the flames of war even spreading to major forums and bulletin boards.

"I bet this is definitely special effects! You look at the flight path of the drones; it's too smooth. There's no delay or jitter at all. It's impossible to be this perfect in reality!"

"The person above must be dreaming, right? You look closely at the dust kicked up by the rotors on the ground, and then look at the real-time changes in light and shadow on the drone bodies as they fly past the searchlights! If this were CG rendering, the cost would burn down Alibaba and Tencent's servers on the spot!"

"Isn't the most critical point of doubt the control? One person, one game controller, controlling thousands of drones?"

"What's wrong with the control? When the Streamer was livestreaming before, he derived the 'Swarm Drone collaborative combat algorithm' right in front of us! You newcomers don't understand at all! We old fans have witnessed it with our own eyes! The Main Streamer is a god!"

"Hahaha, this old fan above has fallen into a cult of personality. Algorithm? Do you really believe a toy factory director could come up with this kind of thing? Let it go, it's just a top-tier CG artist showing off their skills."

This debate was so intense and widespread that it quickly broke out of its original niche.

Even some official media outlets, though not top-tier ones, were attracted and conducted neutral and objective reports in a cautious yet curious tone. Of course, as for the so-called neutral and objective, those who know, know.

"A certain livestream platform Streamer showcases ultra-realistic special effects technology, which may lead a new revolution in the domestic film and television industry."

"A network carnival about truth and falsehood, behind which lies the Netizens' anticipation for the rise of domestic technology."

These reports undoubtedly further expanded the influence of the event, causing the terms "Li Family Toy Factory" and "toy swarm drone" to surge onto the trending lists of major platforms with unprecedented heat.

For a time, the entire internet was discussing that god-like special effect, and discussing that mysterious young Factory Director Li.

And just as the entire network was immersed in this carnival of the digital age, in a place in the Eastern Country far from the noise and hype, with no markings on any map, this video quietly landed on the computer screen of an office desk.

...

Eastern Country, a certain highly classified technical research institute.

There were no influencers here, no noisy barrage comments, only hurried researchers wearing white lab coats.

Technology Application Department Three, Minister's office.

Sun Danian, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his early forties with slightly thinning hair and black-rimmed glasses, was frowning and staring at the computer screen.

He was the person in charge of Technology Application Department Three. His position wasn't the highest, but in his position, everything he came into contact with was the most cutting-edge military technology project in the Eastern Country.

What was playing on the screen was exactly that "Swarm Drone" performance video that had already gone completely viral on the internet.

This was sent to him by a young researcher under him, as an internet curiosity.

"Teacher Sun, take a look at this. The special effects on the internet have reached this level now. It's practically just like the real thing; it's amazing."

Sun Danian's first reaction was the same as that young researcher, and the vast majority of people online.

'Hmm, not bad CG,' he thought to himself, 'This camera movement, this lighting and shadow, these particle effects... the domestic film and television industry has indeed made great progress.'

He was even thinking that perhaps he could poach this team to do some packaging for their weapon system promotional videos; the effect would certainly be good.

He picked up the cup of tea on the table that had already been steeped until it had no flavor, prepared to close the video and continue processing the simulation data report on the aerodynamic layout of a certain key project at hand.

But just at the moment he moved the mouse and was about to click the close button, his finger stopped, as if by some strange coincidence.

Something was wrong.

An indescribable sense of dissonance welled up from the bottom of his heart.

His brain told him that this was just a well-produced special effects video. But his intuition, that professional intuition honed from twenty years of immersion in the military industry, having analyzed countless sensor data and simulation images, was frantically sounding alarms for him.

His brow furrowed tighter and tighter as he dragged the video progress bar back to the beginning and clicked replay.

This time, his gaze was no longer appreciative, but scrutinizing.

He stared fixedly at the scene on the screen where the swarm of drones poured out of the shipping container and quickly assembled into a "cloud" in the air.

It was too smooth... Smooth to the point of being excessive.

Sun Danian felt his scalp tingle slightly.

This wasn't the kind of artistic, deliberately arranged smoothness found in movies. It was a kind of absolutely rational smoothness, filled with cold mathematics and physical laws. Thousands of independent units were performing real-time dynamic adjustments at the same time, following some complex algorithm that he couldn't understand but clearly existed. There wasn't a single frame of stutter, not a single pixel of clipping, and even the light refraction beneath each drone's rotor caused by airflow changes was flawless.

This didn't look like it was "rendered." It looked more like... a "record" of something that actually happened.

'This scale of distributed collaborative algorithm... its real-time data exchange volume would be an astronomical figure... what about its anti-interference capability and fault tolerance?'

One professional question after another uncontrollably popped up in Sun Danian's mind.

'If this is a special effect, then the underlying physics engine that created this CG, its own technical content...'

One thought after another surfaced in his heart.

Subconsciously, he paused the video again, freezing the frame on the stick figure made of drones that was "kneeling and kowtowing" to the camera.

His fingers tapped unconsciously on the desk, and he fell into deeper thought.

Just then, the office door was pushed open violently. A young researcher rushed in, drenched in sweat, holding a document, his tone extremely anxious.

"Teacher Sun! It's bad! One of the latest test data we just received has a serious problem! When the model was simulating a certain key stage, the attitude adjustment parameters had a catastrophic chain reaction, and the entire model disintegrated right in the air!"

This news was like a bucket of cold water, instantly pulling Sun Danian back from his musings about the drone video to the cruel reality.

"What?" Sun Danian's face sank immediately. He stood up abruptly, "Transfer all the raw data to my terminal immediately!! Now! Immediately!"

"Yes!" The young researcher immediately turned and ran out.

Sun Danian walked quickly toward the conference room, his brain already racing, thinking about the possible problems.

After walking a few steps, he paused, his gaze falling once again on that paused video frame.

He hesitated for a second.

But immediately, he walked out of the office without looking back, his expression grave, his mind already completely filled with that parameter.

As for that "special effects video" that had shocked the entire internet, it had been completely thrown to the back of his mind.

...

Let the bullets fly for a while.