163: Chapter 163 Those are models! Figurines! You don't understand men's romance.

That heavy sigh echoed for a long time in the spacious second-level underground warehouse.

Tears were still hanging from Chen Nuo's chin.

She looked like a stunned goose struck by lightning.

Those big eyes were staring fixedly at Chen Yuan.

Her lips parted, but she couldn't make a sound.

"A... a figurine?"

After a full half-minute, Chen Nuo managed to spit out these two words with difficulty, like a rusty mechanical doll.

She turned her head and pointed at the terrifying behemoth, over five meters tall, with unknown nutrient fluid seeping out from its armor gaps.

"Brother, do you take me for a three-year-old!" Chen Nuo screamed.

Her voice carried an extreme anger at having her intelligence insulted.

"Whose figurine grows flesh!"

"Those muscles were twitching just now!"

"Don't think I didn't see that it was venting gas from its back just now!"

Faced with his sister's hysterical accusations, Chen Yuan didn't blush or skip a beat.

He even walked up naturally and patted the cold titanium alloy leg armor of that [bio-mecha: Avenger Type II].

"Bang, bang." The dull sound of metal striking metal echoed throughout the room.

"Nuo Nuo, you don't understand this, do you?"

Chen Yuan had one hand in his lab coat pocket and pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

His tone carried a thick sense of pride belonging to a hardcore geek.

"This is a custom one-to-one scale exclusive mecha model that I spent two hundred million US dollars on, specifically hiring top special effects teams from Industrial Light & Magic and Weta Digital in Hollywood, taking half a year to complete."

He pointed at the dark red biological fibers at the mecha's joints and began to spout nonsense with a straight face.

"See these twitching muscles? That's the latest high-molecular bionic silicone material. It has built-in micro-hydraulic pumps and a temperature control system. As long as it's powered on, it can perfectly simulate the muscle contraction and body temperature of a carbon-based organism. Realistic, isn't it?"

Chen Yuan even reached out and squeezed that piece of "silicone" hard. The slimy, warm, realistic touch made even him feel a bit nauseous.

But the expression on his face was as if he were displaying a perfect, top-tier work of art.

"To pursue the ultimate sense of realism, I also had them inject red lubricating oil into the silicone pipelines. As for the gas venting you saw earlier," Chen Yuan shrugged, his tone casual, "it's actually just the dry ice machine and exhaust valves at the bottom working, specifically used to create a battlefield atmosphere."

Chen Nuo was stunned. She looked at her brother's "I'm a chuunibyou but I'm proud of it" expression. Her originally rock-solid materialist worldview suddenly developed a tiny, extremely dangerous crack.

"Then... what about the missiles hanging on it!" Chen Nuo pointed unwillingly at the miniature Hellfire missiles under the wings. "How could the danger signs and metallic texture on them be fake!"

"Just plastic molding combined with top-tier military-grade paint technology." Chen Yuan spread his hands, revealing a helpless expression that said, "You don't understand a man's romance."

"Nuo Nuo, which man doesn't have a dream of piloting a Gundam in his heart? Now that I have money, is it too much to ask to have a hardcore big toy in my own basement to satisfy a childhood fantasy?"

Chen Yuan said this with righteous indignation, even carrying a bit of the unique grievance of a nouveau riche.

In the livestream room, the tens of millions of netizens who had just been scared into collective silence and were preparing to call the police, upon hearing this outrageous yet eerily logically self-consistent explanation, saw the direction of the comments begin to shift terrifyingly.

"Holy f*ck..." "Industrial Light & Magic plus Weta Digital? Two hundred million USD to build a figurine?" "Is this something a carbon-based lifeform can actually do?" "Wait, look closely at the muscle texture!" "It really does look like the top-tier silicone suits in Hollywood monster movies!" "So it was pulse-beating simulated by micro-hydraulic pumps?" "I knew it, how could there be a monster stitched together with flesh and machinery in this world!" "Phew, scared the hell out of me." "I almost dialed The Pentagon's anti-terror hotline just now." "After all that, it turns out it's just a hardcore toy for a hardcore mecha geek!" "The perverse tastes of the rich are truly unimaginable to ordinary people." "Those tech maniacs in Silicon Valley even spend hundreds of millions building rockets to go to Mars." "So what if President Chen builds a Gundam in his basement? He's spending his own money!" "As expected of President Chen! Even playing with a figurine is this hardcore!" "That oppressive feeling just now almost made me pee my pants, this special effects team is amazing!"

The panic dissipated as quickly as receding tide water. In its place was crazy teasing and exclamations about the luxurious lifestyle of a top-tier tycoon.

Chen Yuan watched the comments on Chen Nuo's phone screen become lively again, and the fine layer of cold sweat on his back finally dried up.

He had finally managed to fool these silly netizens.

As long as they didn't take it seriously, even if The Pentagon and the CIA intercepted the video, they could only stare helplessly.

After all, there is no US law that states you can't keep a large toy in your own basement.

"Is it... really a model?" Chen Nuo looked at the mecha that was still emitting a terrifying aura. Most of the fear in her eyes had faded. The curiosity belonging to a young girl began to regain the high ground.

"Of course." Chen Yuan smiled and stepped back half a step, making a "please" gesture. "If you don't believe me, come touch it yourself. But be careful, the lubricating oil on the silicone shell is very dirty. Don't get your new down jacket dirty."

He was gambling. Gambling that this girl wouldn't dare to actually touch those lethal weapons filled with high explosives. As long as she touched the armor a couple of times, this matter would be completely over.

"Then I'll just touch it once." Chen Nuo swallowed her saliva and boldly took two steps forward. She held up her selfie stick and cautiously approached the five-meter-tall steel behemoth, wanting to show her fans the "silicone texture" of this two-hundred-million-dollar figurine from all angles.

Chen Yuan stood to the side. On the surface, he was as steady as an old dog, but inside, he was panicking like crazy.

"Don't touch the missile fuze..." "Don't touch the cannon's ammunition belt..." He chanted frantically in his heart, his muscles tense, ready to drag his sister back at any moment.

However, fate always likes to play an extremely cruel joke when people are most off their guard.

Chen Nuo was looking up, her attention completely captured by the realistic "plastic missiles" under the wings. She completely failed to notice the floor under her feet.

Dr. Zola, this crazy mad scientist, never cared about tidiness when doing experiments. A black cable as thick as an arm—the main neural connection line used to connect the mecha's biological core to the external console—had been thrown on the ground by him in an extremely perfunctory manner.

The surface of that cable was also covered in a layer of slippery insulating fluid.

"Clatter." Chen Nuo's high-heeled foot happened to step right on that main neural connection line.

"Ah!" Her heel slipped violently. Chen Nuo instantly lost her balance, and her whole body screamed as she fell forward.

And right in front of where she was falling was that red external power startup valve that Dr. Zola had temporarily connected, which had no protective cover!

"Nuo Nuo!" Chen Yuan's eyes were wide with horror. He instinctively lunged forward, trying to grab his sister, but the distance was too short.

In order to find a support point, Chen Nuo's hand grabbed wildly in mid-air. Her palm slammed heavily onto that red startup valve.

"Click!" The crisp sound of mechanical engagement seemed so faint in the spacious basement, yet so lethal.

The next second, "Buzz—!" An extremely piercing, highly penetrating low-frequency electromagnetic hum exploded from inside the mecha.

The cold lights in the entire basement flashed wildly in that instant.

"Tick... tick..." The energy slot on the mecha's chest, representing the biological core, suddenly lit up with a blinding blood-red glow.

Immediately after, a visible, scalding white high-pressure steam sprayed wildly from the heat dissipation grilles on the mecha's back.

Chen Nuo lay on the ground, dazed. She watched that originally lifeless "figurine," in front of the livestream camera with tens of millions of viewers, slowly raise its ferocious mechanical head.

Two scarlet electronic eye beams, like tangible sharp swords, locked firmly onto the space in front of it.

"Brother..." Chen Nuo's voice carried an uncontrollable sob. "Your figurine... why are its eyes glowing? Is it... alive?"