158: The weight of victory

The biting cold wind swirled with ice crystals, like countless tiny knives scraping against one's face.

Chen Feng knelt on one knee in the knee-deep blizzard, gasping for breath. His combat uniform was torn in multiple places, and a layer of white frost had already formed on his exposed skin.

"Where... are we?"

"quick hand" Fili's voice trembled in the wind. His four eyes looked around blankly; there was nothing but white. Endless snow, endless wind—it was as if the entire world had died.

"I don't know," Chen Feng said succinctly. He glanced back.

Eve was gritting her teeth, working with the dazed Fili to drag a makeshift life-support stretcher. On the stretcher, Reno was encased in a layer of cold gel, motionless.

The power indicator on the side of the stretcher had changed from a steady green to a frantically flashing red, signifying extreme danger.

"His life-support system can't hold on anymore," Eve's voice carried a hint of a sob. "At most... ten minutes left."

Ten minutes.

On this frozen wasteland of death where one couldn't even distinguish direction, ten minutes was no different from ten seconds.

Despair, like this pervasive cold wind, seeped into their marrow bit by bit.

Just then, an engine roar, distinct from the sound of the wind, pierced through the raging blizzard.

A blinding beam of light descended from the heavens, tearing through the grayish-white sky.

A medium-sized Snow Shuttle, its hull painted with the familiar Hanhai Trade logo of gears and stars, hovered before them like a goddess descending from the sky.

The hatch opened with a "hiss."

A slender figure wearing heavy cold-weather gear stepped down. She took off her goggles, revealing a face that appeared incredibly haggard from a long-term lack of sleep, yet her gaze remained as sharp as a blade.

It was Su Li.

She looked at the ragged, wounded Chen Feng, at the bedraggled Eve and Fili behind him, and at the life-support stretcher flashing with red light.

A thousand words ultimately condensed into a single, raspy, trembling sentence.

"Welcome home."

Hanhai Trade Base, Medical Center.

Reno was rushed into the highest-grade medical pod in the base. The brief joy of surviving the disaster left everyone with a weary smile on their faces.

However, when the technical supervisor, Lao Mo, walked out with his medical team, their expressions grim, all smiles froze on their faces.

"How is he?" Chen Feng was the first to ask.

"Boss..." Lao Mo's voice was incredibly dry. "The situation... is very bad. Supervisor Reno's body tissues... are being rewritten at a fundamental structural level by a power we completely fail to understand. All our medical equipment and all our drugs are completely ineffective on him."

He paused, then delivered the most desperate conclusion.

"We... are powerless."

The shadow of death, like a maggot on a bone, once again loomed over everyone.

Half an hour later, in the base conference room.

Chen Feng sat in the primary seat, listening in silence. Su Li, Eve, Lao Mo, and the core supervisors of all departments sat in a circle, the atmosphere as oppressive as a slab of lead.

"Before I report, I want to say, welcome back." Su Li's gaze swept over Chen Feng and Eve; this was the second thing she had said tonight. "What you have brought back is the future of Hanhai Trade."

"But," she shifted her tone, her voice becoming cold and realistic, "before we welcome the future, we might first die tonight."

"During these two months the base has been under siege, we have halted almost all production. Energy reserves have dropped to fifteen percent, and food reserves are only enough to sustain everyone for twenty days. More importantly..."

Su Li looked toward Eve, and everyone's gaze focused on this legendary technical genius.

"We are all counting on you, Ms. Eve. We're counting on your technology to pull us out of our current predicament."

Eve stood up, her face still pale from the crash. She pulled up a file and spoke calmly:

"I have reviewed Mr. Lao Mo's production logs and material lists. To achieve mass production of the Phase Deflection Shield, we need to completely overhaul the three existing production lines. Furthermore, we need to establish an independent Material Purification Center to ensure the material purity of core components reaches over 99.97%."

She paused, then stated her conclusion: "According to my plan, as long as I am given triple the resources and two months, I can..."

"We don't have two months, and we certainly don't have triple the resources!"

Su Li's voice suddenly rose. She practically slammed the table as she stood up, projecting another crimson financial report into the center of the conference table.

"This is our current balance sheet! Forget triple—we can't even sustain our current consumption for a month! Ms. Eve, your plan is asking us to commit collective suicide!"

Su Li took a deep breath, suppressing her anger, and proposed her own solution.

"I have an emergency plan. Abandon the pursuit of perfect performance and use secondary materials to produce a 'neutered version' of the shield with only half your theoretical performance, but at one-tenth the cost. We can only survive by using it to quickly open up the market and recoup funds!"

"Neutered?" Eve's face instantly flushed red; the word felt like the ultimate insult to her. "No! Absolutely not! That is a profanation of technology! It's ruining our reputation! Once users discover our products are flawed, Hanhai Trade's credibility will be completely finished!"

"Credibility?" Su Li spoke as if she had heard the funniest joke. She pointed toward the medical center and asked sharply in return, "Then tell me, once Supervisor Reno is dead and everyone in the base has starved to death, how many credit points will our credibility be worth? You, a scientist who only lives in theory—do you even know what reality looks like!"

"You!"

"Enough."

Chen Feng's voice was calm and not loud, yet it instantly suppressed all the arguing.

Eve and Su Li both stopped, looking toward the man in the primary seat who had been silent from start to finish, their anger and disappointment impossible to suppress.

The core members in the entire conference room also held their breath.

Everyone watched him, waiting for his final verdict.

Chen Feng slowly raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the two women who were sharply opposed due to their conflicting ideologies. On his terminal, the latest report just sent from the medical center showed Reno's vital signs taking another cliff-like plunge.

For the first time, he truly felt the thousand-pound weight carried by every choice a leader must make between 'ideals,' 'reality,' and 'the lives of comrades.'

His decision would determine whether this teetering new power would move toward integration or fall apart completely.