411: Chapter 411 Banning? Live Broadcast Slaps in the Face

Another video showed a small apartment in London's East End, where a young mother holding a child said to the camera: "My husband received a remote work invitation from Shuguang Technology last month—AI Trainer, no degree required, just pass an online test. He finished the test and scored over eighty points. Now he works from home for six hours a day, and his income is double what he earned moving goods in an Amazon warehouse before. We don't have a visa, and we don't need one—the salary goes directly into a digital wallet, and we can use whatever currency we want to buy whatever we want. My child registered at an online hospital in Myanmar; AI initial diagnosis, human doctor review, consultation fee three dollars. Three dollars. We've been waiting in line for the UK's National Health Service for eleven months, and it's still not our turn."

Zhang Cheng closed the briefing and looked up at the holographic map of the three countries hanging on the wall of the secret room.

The blue control zone extended from the mountains of northern Myanmar to the Gulf of Thailand, then covered the entire territory of Cambodia to the east, and reached the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel to the west.

The statistics in the bottom left corner of the map jumped in real time: total control zone area of 1.9 million square kilometers, total coastline of 7,400 kilometers, containing one-fifth of the world's rare earth reserves, one-third of natural rubber production, and the newly tapped natural gas fields in the Ruvuma Basin within the control zone.

He was preparing to pull up Zhao Yuxun's border defense situation map when Li Lanzhi pushed the door open, holding an encrypted telegram in her hand.

"A secret telegram from Zhao Gang." She placed the telegram on the table. "Urgent."

Zhang Cheng tore open the seal and scanned the six lines of text.

His expression didn't change, but when he finished reading the last line, a very slight curve appeared at the corner of his mouth—a curve that made Li Lanzhi stop what she was doing.

She had been with this man long enough to know that the curve meant someone else had delivered themselves to his doorstep to get beaten.

The telegram's content was simple: Anthropic had just announced that due to "mismatched values," their new generation Claude large model would be permanently prohibited from providing API services to the Federation of Myanmar, the Kingdom of Thailand, the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Dragon Country.

Their CEO, Dario Amodei, publicly stated at a press conference: "We cannot let the most advanced AI fall into the hands of unfree nations—this is not just a business decision, it is a moral duty."

The telegram included a handwritten note from Zhao Gang: "They think AI is chili sauce—if they don't sell it to you, you can only eat bland food. The Chief asked me to convey: Let them block it."

Zhang Cheng crumpled the telegram into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket.

Then he pressed the intercom button and connected to the Shuguang Technology Group CEO's office—the CEO was Chen Lan, a Death Soldier customized three months ago using the "Tech Pioneer" module, an MIT PhD, former Nvidia Vice President, and founding member of the Facebook AI Research Lab.

"Chen Lan. Open the equipment list for the Tianshu Laboratory. The quantum computer blueprints I just redeemed have arrived in Dagon; sign for them personally. Also, I want to see our first version of the large model in three days—train it using 'Tianshu,' don't skimp on the parameter scale, and don't limit the API interface concurrency. Once testing is complete, live-stream it globally and open-source it at the same time."

Chen Lan's voice came through the encrypted communication link, steady and clear: "Received. Model codename?"

Zhang Cheng glanced at the blue and white Claude icon in the screenshot of the Anthropic official website on his desktop, then closed the page. "Pangu."

He hung up the phone, and Li Lanzhi handed over another document—it was the construction progress report for the Kra Canal.

She opened the first page and pointed to the massive array of black tunnel-boring robots stretching across the isthmus in the aerial photo: "The main channel has been excavated for seventeen kilometers, and the foundations for the supporting deep-water berths are being poured. The engineers from the Dragon Country Communications Construction Group say the construction precision deviates less than five centimeters from the blueprints. They have never seen such efficiency."

Zhang Cheng took a look at the photo. On the canal construction site, hundreds of giant tunnel-boring machines redeemed from the system were cutting through the Malay Peninsula day and night.

On both sides of the canal, newly built highways, railways, and utility corridors were advancing in parallel, forming a comprehensive transportation corridor three kilometers wide.

The western end of the corridor connected to the Andaman Sea, and the eastern end connected to the Gulf of Thailand. After it opens to navigation, the first cargo ship to cross the Kra Isthmus will sound its whistle under the flag of the Federation of Myanmar.

He put the photo down. "Zhao Gang said the Pu'er tea is ready. On the day the canal opens, take Li Lanzhi back to the country for tea."

Li Lanzhi smiled and put away the folder. "Before that—the Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting overnight yesterday. Brent crude oil futures have fallen below fifty-five dollars per barrel, and bankruptcy filings from shale oil companies are piling up. The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story this morning: 'The US dollar's share in global commodity settlement has fallen to 29%—the lowest point since 1973.'"

She paused and looked into Zhang Cheng's eyes. "They won't be able to sit still for much longer."

Zhang Cheng stood up and walked toward the door of the secret room. As he passed the holographic map on the wall, his shadow fell over the blue control zone extending from Yangon to Maputo, like a chess piece placed in the center of the board. "Then let them stand," he said, "we have plenty of time."

Three days later, 2:00 PM Yangon time.

Top floor of the Shuguang Technology Group building, the global press conference venue. Three hundred journalists from forty countries packed the hall, with two rows of cameras set up in the aisles, all lenses aimed at a curved holographic screen three meters high and six meters wide in the center of the stage.

The screen was dark now, with only a line of small white text flickering in the bottom right corner: "Shuguang Technology Group—Tianshu Laboratory's First Public Demonstration."

Zhang Cheng sat behind the one-way glass in the second-floor control room. On the desk in front of him, six monitor screens displayed the live stream signal, real-time viewership data, social media sentiment analysis, a global IP access distribution map, the cybersecurity situational awareness interface, and the core operating status of the "Pangu-1" large model.

Live viewership: 120 million—and still climbing at a rate of 40,000 per second.

Chen Lan stood on the stage, wearing a dark gray suit, with a Shuguang Technology Group badge pinned to her collar—a golden sun rising from the horizon, its rays converging into the patterns of a chip.

She had no speech script, no assistant, and no PPT remote. There was only a microphone in front of her, and the holographic screen behind her transitioned from dark to a dynamic star map—ten thousand pale blue light points suspended in the black void, each representing a computing node of one thousand qubits.

"Good afternoon, everyone." She said, her voice lowered by half a degree by the microphone, creating a strange affinity in the hall, "Three days ago, an American AI company announced that due to 'mismatched values,' they were permanently prohibiting the provision of their AI services to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Dragon Country. Their CEO said this was a 'moral duty.'"

She paused. There was a low whisper from the reporters in the audience, but it quickly quieted down.

"I want to thank him." Chen Lan said, "Thank him for reminding us—when a technology monopolist is confident enough to think that a blockade can hinder others' progress, they are no longer progressing themselves. Also, I want to welcome him—welcome him to watch our press conference online today, because we just learned that his company has frantically registered over four thousand fake accounts in the past three hours, attempting to access our live stream. His IP has been automatically blocked by our firewall, but he can change his IP; we won't block the second one."