Chapter 160 Cooling Crisis
At 5:20 AM, the horizon of the Gobi Desert was just beginning to turn a pale, fish-belly white.
In the control room, Li Xiao's eyes were already bloodshot, but she didn't dare to blink. On the screen, the response time of the cooling water control system was still slowly rising—3.7 milliseconds, 3.8, 3.9...
With every 0.1-millisecond increase, her heart skipped a beat.
Lin Mo stood behind her, staring at that curve without saying a word.
Right then, a piercing alarm suddenly blared.
"Beep beep beep—Cooling water system pressure abnormal!"
"Beep beep beep—Pump No. 1 outlet temperature rising!"
"Beep beep beep—Pump No. 2 flow rate dropping!"
Three rows of red alerts flashed simultaneously on the screen, so bright they made one's eyes ache.
Li Xiao's hand jerked violently. "President Lin! The pressure is plummeting!"
Lin Mo's gaze swept over the frantically jumping numbers. Pressure: dropped from 0.8 MPa to 0.6 MPa and still falling. Temperature: rose from 25 degrees to 32 degrees and still rising. Flow rate: dropped from 300 liters per second to 270 liters and still falling.
All the curves were deteriorating at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Switch to the backup pump!" Lin Mo's voice was terrifyingly calm.
Li Xiao's fingers were already flying across the keyboard. Three seconds later, she looked up, her voice trembling:
"The backup pump... won't start."
The control room instantly fell into a deathly silence.
At 5:23 AM, the phone in the duty room rang.
The duty officer, Xiao Zhang, grabbed the phone and heard Zhao Gang's voice from the other end, urgent and low:
"Something happened to the cooling system! Notify all duty personnel immediately to enter Level 1 Emergency Status!"
Xiao Zhang froze for a second, then jumped up and lunged toward the broadcasting station.
Three seconds later, the piercing alarm echoed throughout the entire base.
"Level 1 Emergency Status! All personnel to your stations! Repeat, Level 1 Emergency Status!"
In the dormitories, technicians who had just laid down rolled out of bed and grabbed their clothes as they ran out. At the construction site, workers who were working overtime stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. Security guards on the perimeter tightened their grip on their weapons, their eyes fixed on their surroundings.
The entire base instantly awoke amidst the sound of the alarm.
At 5:25 AM, when Chen Xueming received the call, he was crouching in the equipment room.
He hadn't slept all night, staying by those valves, waiting for Lin Mo's command. Hearing the phone ring, his heart tightened, and he answered immediately.
"Teacher Chen!" Li Xiao's voice came through the phone with a sob. "The backup pump won't start! The pressure is about to drop to 0.4!"
Chen Xueming's head buzzed.
0.4 MPa was the minimum safety threshold for the cooling system. Below this value, the temperatures of the Divertor and the First Wall would spiral out of control.
He threw down the phone and lunged toward the manual valve nearby.
"Old Zhou! Old Li!" he roared. "Follow me!"
The three of them rushed to the massive pipe. The pipe's diameter exceeded half a meter, and the cooling water inside was flowing at a rate of several hundred liters per second. The manual valve was a disc one meter in diameter, requiring two people to turn it.
"On my command!" Chen Xueming grabbed one side of the valve. "One, two, three—turn!"
The disc didn't budge.
"Again! One, two, three—turn!"
It still didn't move.
Veins bulged on Chen Xueming's forehead as beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks. He knew this wasn't an ordinary jam—it was that damned backdoor fighting them for control.
"Everyone, all together!" he roared.
Two more workers rushed over. Five people grabbed the massive disc, gritted their teeth, and used all their strength—
"Creak—"
The valve moved.
At 5:28 AM, in the control room.
Li Xiao stared at the pressure numbers on the screen, muttering under her breath: "0.45, 0.44, 0.43, 0.42..."
With every 0.01 drop, her heart sank a bit further.
Lin Mo stood behind her, his fists clenched white, but his voice remained calm: "How is it going at the manual valve?"
Li Xiao glanced at the communication panel. "Teacher Chen hasn't reported yet..."
Before she could finish, a line of green text suddenly popped up on the screen:
"Manual valve opened, bypass channel flow restored."
Immediately after, the drop in pressure numbers stopped.
0.41.
0.41.
0.41.
Then, it began to slowly rise.
0.42, 0.43, 0.44...
Li Xiao suddenly slumped into her chair, her strength feeling as if it had been completely drained.
Lin Mo let out a long breath and picked up the walkie-talkie:
"Teacher Chen, beautiful job."
Chen Xueming's heavy breathing came through the walkie-talkie, but with a hint of a smile:
"Beautiful? I almost threw out my back."
A long-suppressed burst of laughter rang out in the control room; as they laughed, some began to wipe away tears.
At 5:35 AM, the pressure returned to 0.6 MPa, the temperature began to drop, and the flow rate returned to normal.
The alarm was cleared.
But everyone knew this was only temporary.
That backdoor was still there, that code was still there, that chip was still there. It could flare up again at any time, and next time, it might be even more violent than this.
Lin Mo stood by the window, watching the sky outside gradually brighten.
Chen Xueming came up from the equipment room, drenched in sweat, his work uniform sticking to his body. He walked over to Lin Mo and handed him a cigarette.
Lin Mo shook his head. "I don't smoke."
Chen Xueming lit one for himself, took a puff, and blew out a cloud of smoke:
"President Lin, the manual valve saved us this time. What about next time?"
Lin Mo was silent for a few seconds, then said:
"Next time, I won't give it the chance."
Chen Xueming looked at him. "You have a way?"
Lin Mo nodded, then shook his head:
"I have an idea, but it will take time."
He turned around and looked at the tired but determined faces in the control room:
"From now on, everyone will be divided into three shifts to watch the cooling system twenty-four hours a day. Send people to guard the manual valve in shifts, ready to switch at any time."
He paused and added with emphasis:
"There are still nineteen days. In nineteen days, we ignite. Until then, no matter how many times it flares up, we'll suppress it."
Li Xiao was the first to stand up. "Understood!"
The others followed suit. "Understood!"
Lin Mo looked at them, a warm current surging in his heart.
Outside the window, the sun finally rose.
Golden sunlight spilled over the Gobi Desert, over that massive device.
A new day had begun.