23: Chapter 23: The Traitor Has Made a Huge Mistake
In the desert, the two sides were locked in a stalemate, but no one knew that the internet outside had already exploded.
At first, it was just a few niche military forums where someone posted some mysterious threads.
"Have you heard? That 'Kuafu Project' in the Northwest seems to have run into trouble."
"What happened? Tell us quickly."
"Insider news says the Commander-in-Chief is a girl in her early twenties, spending all day messing around with 'arrays' and 'metaphysics,' treating a group of national treasure-level experts like monkeys. Now the project has failed, and billions have been thrown in without even a splash to show for it."
"Is that true? How could they let a young girl mess around with something this big?"
"Who knows? I heard her background is rock solid. Anyway, the project is in complete chaos right now; the engineering side and the metaphysics side are almost coming to blows."
These posts were written with vivid details, half-true and half-false, all designed to stir up trouble.
Soon, those self-media outlets that rely on clickbait and riding trends jumped on it immediately.
They took those few sentences from the forums, added their own embellishments, and cooked up terrifying headlines.
《Shocking! The country's hundred-billion-yuan "Kuafu Project" is being misdirected by a twenty-year-old "fairy"?》
《Turning the desert into The Oasis or emptying the national treasury? The absurdities behind the "Kuafu Project"!》
《National treasure-level experts pushed out, a metaphysical fraud in charge—what has happened to our super project?》
The articles were paired with a few long-distance photos from who knows where—large drilling rigs, silhouettes in the sand, ghostly symbols drawn on the ground—and it went viral online instantly.
With Director Zhou and his group pushing from behind, this smear campaign fermented faster than anyone could have imagined.
Suddenly, the internet was filled with curses.
"This is too much! They're playing around with our taxpayer money!"
"I felt something was wrong early on; that purification tower in the East Sea was weird too. It must be a scam!"
"Investigate! We must investigate to the end! Who gave this girl so much power? Is there something fishy going on behind the scenes?"
"I know Chief Engineer Wang Heshan; he's a pillar of our country's Infrastructure Construction! I heard the old man was angered to the point of illness on the project site! Is there no justice anymore!"
The vitriol was all directed at Jiang Ning and the high-level officials who supported her.
In the capital, at The Ninth Bureau headquarters, Director Zhao Lixin looked at the public opinion report, his face turning green with anger.
"Investigate! Investigate this for me! Who leaked this information!" He slammed his fist onto the table.
The "Kuafu Project" was top secret, and everyone who entered had signed the strictest non-disclosure agreements.
Now, the internal strategic disagreement had been leaked directly to the internet and twisted into this mess. There was a mole in the front-line command post!
"Director," a subordinate reported with a distressed face, "the public sentiment online is extremely unfavorable to us right now.
Not only are netizens involved, but even some prominent experts and scholars have begun to publicly question us, demanding that the project be made transparent and subject to public supervision."
"What the hell do they know!" Director Zhao Lixin fumed. "This is top secret! How can we make it public? How can we be supervised?"
He knew clearly that many of these so-called experts had connections with Director Zhou in the capital.
This was clearly a premeditated public opinion attack!
"Director, the most critical thing is that this matter has already reached the highest levels.
The General Office just called to ask how the project is doing and whether the stuff online is true or false."
Director Zhao Lixin's heart sank.
Whatever you fear most always happens.
The higher-ups had endured so much pressure to approve this project.
Now that such a massive scandal had erupted just after construction started, they certainly couldn't sit still anymore.
If there was no movement from Chief Engineer Wang Heshan's side, and Jiang Ning couldn't produce any results either, under such immense public pressure, the "Kuafu Project" would likely have to be halted.
The loss to the country would be immense.
"Connect me to the front line immediately!" Director Zhao Lixin grabbed the encrypted phone, his voice urgent and angry, slightly hoarse.
"I need to know how much longer it will take for Chief Engineer Wang Heshan to find water!"
The call went through quickly, and on the other end was the exhausted voice of Chief Engineer Wang Heshan's deputy.
"Director Zhao... we... we failed."
"What?" Director Zhao Lixin's mind went blank.
"The drill... it reached three thousand meters and hit a layer of rock so hard it couldn't be drilled through.
We've analyzed it; there... there can't be any water down there."
Director Zhao Lixin felt the world go black before his eyes; he had to grab the edge of the table to keep from swaying.
Chief Engineer Wang Heshan had failed.
Now, the last shred of hope rested entirely on Jiang Ning.
But on Jiang Ning's side, would that so-called "Water Diversion Array" really work?
Even he himself felt uncertain.
"What about Consultant Jiang?" he asked, clinging to a last sliver of hope.
"They... they are still on level ground, pouring that... that strange-looking foundation.
It looks like they are still a long way from finishing."
Director Zhao Lixin hung up the phone and slumped back into his chair.
For the first time, he felt so powerless.
Public opinion outside was pressing for their lives, one path inside was a dead end, and the other looked precarious.
The "Pangu Project," this great initiative that had been pinned with such high hopes, was facing its biggest crisis of confidence.
And Jiang Ning seemed completely unaware of all this.
She still sat cross-legged on the sand dunes every day, quietly "working," occasionally strolling around the construction site to give pointers to those bewildered engineers.
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo had wanted to tell her about the situation outside several times, but seeing her as usual, with an expression that suggested even if the sky fell it would have nothing to do with her, he swallowed his words each time.
He felt that telling her these things would likely be useless.
What this Chief Consultant cared about was never these trivial matters; she only cared about her "project."
But could her project really conjure a miracle and quell this storm that was about to drown everyone?
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo did not know.
He only knew that the three-day deadline Chief Engineer Wang Heshan had boasted about was almost up.
Everyone's fate was pressed onto that stretch of concrete, covered in incomprehensible, ghostly symbols.