177: Chapter 177 Racing Against Time

Fu Haoran stood in the central core open space of the DYB Technology factory.

In his initial plan, this plot of land was reserved for the headquarters building; it was perfectly located, shielded on the outside by workshops and storage areas, invisible to outsiders at a glance, and rarely passed by internal staff.

Fu Haoran opened the system panel and selected the redemption item.

"Do you want to spend 150,000 Universal Points to redeem the Planetary Outpost Landing Base?"

"Yes."

A mountain appeared out of thin air in mid-air, and air currents and sand swept across the entire open space.

The dust slowly dissipated, and a 12-story-high octagonal giant metal fortress landed steadily on the open space, its outer layer made of matte reactive armor, and its heavy retractable landing struts at the bottom were deeply embedded into the bedrock.

It looked like a pyramid, but the edges were too hard and the lines too cold, making it look more like a fortress.

Father Karen stood nearby, his optical lens flashing red, his mechanical tentacles trembling as they reached toward the cold armor surface, and a series of binary garbled code spewed from his speaker.

The translator stammered: "A product... of the Golden Age?"

"A holy relic of the Machine God... the omnissiah is above..."

He was about to kneel on the spot, but Fu Haoran grabbed him and hauled him up.

"Stop worshipping and get to work."

"In a moment, have someone print the DYB Technology R&D headquarters logo on it, the bigger the better. Tell the outside world that this is a modular mobile research headquarters."

Father Karen's mechanical tentacles jerked to a halt, his optical lens flashing so fast it seemed about to explode, and his tone carried a kind of repressed grievance peculiar to a Tech-Priest, even his speaker emitting electrical static: "My Lord, this fortress is a holy relic bestowed by the Machine God; you want to print a civilian logo on it?"

"Yes."

"Can you at least make the logo smaller? Or replace it with our Adeptus Mechanicus gear-skull emblem? I am willing to trade three months of prayers to prevent the holy relic from being tainted by a secular logo!"

"No."

Father Karen was silent for a full five seconds, the red light of his optical lens dimmed, his mechanical tentacles hung powerlessly, and his back looked bleak and desolate, like a child whose candy had been stolen.

Fu Haoran ignored the mentally broken Father Karen and walked straight into the production workshop.

He adjusted the ingredient list on the control panel and found the plastiform.

This material had both the lightness of plastic and the tensile strength of steel alloy, and it possessed broadband radar stealth capabilities by nature.

In a sense, plastiform was an upgraded version of carbon fiber, stronger than carbon fiber, lower in cost, and did not require stealth coating spray.

The three islands of Japan wanted to use carbon fiber to throttle us, but now it has become a joke.

Fu Haoran directly changed tracks and overturned their rice bowl.

Early the next morning, when he arrived at the fortress again, he almost thought he had gone to the wrong place.

The originally angular metal fortress was now covered with unnaturally smooth black stone slabs on its outer walls; no seams or rivets could be seen between the slabs, and they shimmered with a faint green light in the sunlight.

There were no curves or decorations typical of human architecture.

Two towering obelisks stood on both sides of the main entrance, with glowing hieroglyphs floating at the top.

The entire fortress now looked like a pyramid brought directly from the Pharaoh era, re-plated with a shell that did not belong to this era by some alien civilization using nanotechnology.

Father Karen was squatting at the entrance of the fortress, his optical lens so red it was almost dripping blood, emitting a humming sound on the verge of overload, and his mechanical tentacles were gouging deep pits into the ground.

Seeing Fu Haoran walk over, he stood up abruptly, and a wail mixed with binary garbled code spewed from his speaker: "My Lord! You turned the Golden Age fortress into an antique building of an alien civilization!"

"When did I ever say I wanted to change it?" Fu Haoran looked confused.

Lucifer walked out of the shadows, holding a cup of jasmine tea, admiring her masterpiece, her green eyes showing a rare hint of satisfaction.

"Didn't you want to modify the appearance? So I had the Scarab Beetle decorate it according to my preferred style."

"My dear, do you think it looks good?"

Fu Haoran's experience told him that whenever Lucifer said "My dear," it wasn't because she suddenly remembered they were "lovers," but because she was declaring her dominance.

Heh, women are all like this.

"It looks good." Fu Haoran said, conscience-stricken, feeling no psychological pressure.

Father Karen's mechanical tentacles trembled as they pointed to the gear-skull flag, saying unwillingly: "That flag... that is not the sacred emblem of our Adeptus Mechanicus!"

Fu Haoran patted his shoulder.

"Father Karen, you must learn to accept reality." Fu Haoran said in the tone of someone who had been through it all.

Father Karen let out a low mechanical groan.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Office of the Deputy Director of the Pentagon Logistics Agency.

Major General Bradley was flipping through the intelligence briefing that had just been delivered, and stopped when he reached a certain page.

There were only a few lines on the briefing: Warhammer Industries, a subsidiary of DYB Technology, has submitted an application to the Zhuhai Airshow Organizing Committee to participate, including static display of actual aircraft and flight demonstrations.

He placed the briefing on the table, leaned back in his chair, stared at those few lines for a good while, and then laughed.

He was no stranger to this DYB Technology company.

The previous military uniform procurement case, and the later Washington alien incident, both had the shadow of this Asian behind them.

This guy has some tricks, Bradley admitted.

But that was all.

As far as he knew, the only aerial equipment this company could show off was a batch of Soviet antiques collected from an auction in Kazakhstan, all second-hand goods from the Cold War era.

Then they tinkered with them in the workshop, changing the skin, adjusting the engines, and selling them after refurbishing.

What kind of big deal could a merchant dealing in second-hand fighter jets make?

As for the F-22 written on the exhibition application, it was probably just a gimmick to attract attention.

Putting a few empty airframe skeletons there and hanging an F-22 sign, what they were really selling was probably still those refurbished Soviet-style aircraft.

However, having said that, the Zhuhai Airshow has been held for so many years, and this is the first time an America company has taken the initiative to sign up for the exhibition; even if it was just a reseller of second-hand fighter jets, it could be considered breaking new ground.

If he wasn't afraid of losing face, why should he stop him?

Major General Bradley stamped his approval directly.

North America, DYB fighter jet production workshop.

Brightly lit, machines roaring, non-stop for twenty-four hours.

Fu Haoran looked at the F-22 airframe slowly moving on the slide rail, turned to Li Jianguo and said: "Too slow. Before the airshow, I want enough stock to fill the deck of a roll-on/roll-off ship."

Li Jianguo was stunned for a moment.

"Mr. Fu, our current speed is already at the limit, 12 aircraft per month on a single line, 144 aircraft per year with all four lines running, which has no precedent in the history of global aviation manufacturing..."

"That's others; we don't need to compare with others." Fu Haoran interrupted him, "All complex parts will be directly produced and off-lined by the new R&D headquarters, no need for further processing, no need for further measurement, just install them directly onto the airframe."

"Also, dismantle all processes on the pulse production line that do not require human judgment, and hand over all these positions to the Servitor."

Li Jianguo opened his mouth. "Mr. Fu, what is a Servitor?"

Fu Haoran realized he had slipped up, but as the boss, Fu Haoran did not explain too much: "Automated mechanical arms, new equipment from the R&D headquarters."

He picked up the tablet, pulled up the operating parameters of the Servitor and Servo-skull, and handed it to Li Jianguo.

"Divide each line into two types of workstations: manual stations concentrated on avionics, flight control, and final assembly, and Servitor stations covering welding, riveting, and skinning."

"Recalculate the rhythm of the scheduling system to allow seamless docking between Servitor stations and manual stations, with no waiting time in between."

Li Jianguo stared at the parameters on the tablet for a good while, then looked up, his eyes changed.

He had spent his whole life in aviation manufacturing and had never seen this kind of workshop configuration.

It wasn't that there were no automated devices, but that no one had ever used this kind of large-scale human-machine hybrid assembly line in fighter jet production.

But he could understand those parameters, and every number was telling him: This is feasible.

As for the "Servitor" the boss mentioned, he didn't ask much.

Having worked for Mr. Fu for so long, from the super batteries for new energy vehicles to the mysterious printer that could make fighter jet parts with a precision of 0.01 millimeters, the boss had too many black technologies in his hands.

Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, just do your job well; this was the survival rule he had long ago figured out.

After a rough calculation, Li Jianguo gave the answer: "If the Servitor stations and manual stations can seamlessly dock, the assembly efficiency can at least double."

"Plus the parts are already all pre-fabricated, the monthly capacity of a single line can be pushed to over 25 aircraft."

"With all four lines running, nearly 100 aircraft can be off-lined in a month."

Li Jianguo himself couldn't quite believe this data.

Fu Haoran nodded.

"Just go with this plan, transfer the Servitors and Servo-skulls directly from the R&D headquarters, and get them into the workshop tonight."

"All workers, five times the salary, three shifts, people stop but machines don't."

"Before the airshow, I want to see enough stock to fill a roll-on/roll-off ship."

Li Jianguo gasped: "Mr. Fu, this is too rushed! I'm afraid it can't be done."

"It must be done." Fu Haoran didn't have the slightest intention of negotiating, "Once the F-22 is made public at the airshow, all of America's competitors will pounce like crazy to stop us from selling."

"Global orders are a piece of cake, first come, first served."

"We let our stock do the talking; customers can pick up the goods as soon as they pay, without having to wait three to five years for delivery like Lockheed Martin."

"As long as the first batch of orders lands, we can use the deposit to expand the production line, drive costs even lower, and create a snowball effect."

"Recoup funds, expand, and leave no room for anyone else to survive."

Li Jianguo understood in an instant.

This was no ordinary product launch; it was a high-stakes gamble in a race against time, and even more so, a blitzkrieg on the global fifth-generation fighter jet market.

Zhuhai Airshow Organizing Committee Office.

Old Song had been working at the organizing committee for nearly twenty years and had handled countless registration materials from exhibitors, but today's document made him stare for a full three minutes.

At the very top of the application form, the company name field read "DYB Warhammer Military Technology Group," with its place of registration in Texas, America.

— —

Old Song flipped the application form to the next page, then flipped it back.

He took off his reading glasses, rubbed his eyes, put them back on, and read the form from start to finish again.

"What's wrong?" a colleague nearby leaned in.

"A company from America is coming to participate in our airshow."

The colleague was stunned for a moment.

"An arms dealer from America? Don't they ever come to our airshow?"

That was true.

If you flipped through the exhibitor lists of all previous Zhuhai Airshows to the very end, you would almost never see the presence of major mainstream American military industry giants.

Those giants simply didn't bother to come.

The few American companies that occasionally came were all second or third-tier suppliers of avionics or engine components.

"So what's the story with this one? Warhammer Military? Never heard of them."

"Could it be a shell company?"

"It's possible, but they paid the exhibition fee in full and even applied for airspace for a real-aircraft flight demonstration."

"The venue and insurance fees alone are not a small amount."

"Never mind, I'll go report the situation." Old Song stood up and left.

In the conference room of the Zhuhai Airshow Organizing Committee's director's office, the air was thick with smoke and heavy with gloom.

The airshow was only a month away, yet the core team of the organizing committee had been in meetings for an entire afternoon, with anxiety written all over everyone's faces.

Director Zhang Jun stubbed out his cigarette, tapped the table, and said in a hoarse voice, "Let's all speak up. What issues remain unresolved for this year's airshow?"

Wang Lei, the deputy director in charge of investment promotion, spoke first, his tone full of helplessness: "Director Zhang, the pressure for investment promotion is too great."

"Mainstream European and American arms dealers simply won't come. Boeing and Airbus have only sent a small delegation this year, and they aren't even bringing real aircraft."

"Most private exhibitors are into drone models or aviation accessories. Three large outdoor full-aircraft exhibition booths are still vacant. If we can't rent them out, we won't meet this year's revenue targets, and the higher-ups will definitely hold us accountable."

"It's not just investment promotion." The deputy director in charge of publicity chimed in, his expression even worse, "After the last airshow ended, the higher-ups' instructions stated that our international influence was severely lacking."

"Search for the Zhuhai Airshow on Google, and the first two pages, aside from that biased piece from 'Voice of America,' are all our own media press releases. The mainstream Western media simply ignores us."

"Look at the Paris Air Show and the Farnborough Airshow; global media chases after them to report. As for us, apart from domestic coverage, there's absolutely no splash overseas."

Zhang Jun's brows furrowed even tighter.

"And the supporting forums!" the person in charge of conference affairs added, "The higher-ups specifically criticized us for that. The Paris Air Show has the European Air and Missile Defence Conference, and Farnborough has the Global Aerospace Forum. We only have a few small industry seminars, not even a decent international defense and security forum."

"And regarding maritime defense, we don't even have a proper maritime defense exhibition. The higher-ups require us to address this shortcoming this year, but we can't even find a company to host it."

"The security pressure is also high." The head of security sighed, "After the incident with the high-precision scanner illegally scanning equipment during the last show, State Security issued a notice. This year, they require absolute perfection, but we are tight on both manpower and budget, and we simply can't handle such immense pressure."

"And regarding the audience," the person in charge of the cultural tourism sector said with a bitter face, "In the last show, the audience complained that star products didn't appear and interactivity was poor. Aside from watching flight performances and taking photos, there was nothing to do."

"The tourism buzz generated by the airshow didn't translate into economic benefits at all. Hotels and restaurants are complaining that they can't keep people."

The room full of people went back and forth, all discussing problems that couldn't be solved.

Zhang Jun leaned back in his chair, feeling a massive headache coming on.

The Zhuhai Airshow had been held for so many years; while it looked larger and larger in scale, the underlying problems were accumulating.

International influence wasn't rising, mainstream Western manufacturers weren't coming, supporting facilities couldn't keep up, profitability was getting harder year by year, yet the demands from above were getting higher every year.

Just as the entire conference room fell into a dead silence, the office door was lightly knocked.

Old Song pushed the door open and entered, his face filled with unbelievable excitement, clutching an exhibition application in his hand: "Director Zhang! Deputy Director Wang! There's a new exhibition application! A big client!"

Wang Lei instantly sat up straight: "What big client? Did Boeing or Airbus relent?"

"No, it's a private company from America called Warhammer Military." Old Song handed over the application.

"They want to rent our largest outdoor full-aircraft exhibition booth, the 1,200-square-meter core indoor exhibition hall, and they also want to book the No. 3 branch venue to host a three-day International General Aviation and Defense Forum. They are even handling all the guest invitations and conference execution themselves!"

The people in the conference room instantly perked up.

The vacant exhibition booths and the supporting forums they had been worrying about for so long—weren't they just delivered to their doorstep?

Zhang Jun picked up the application, flipped through two pages, and his eyes widened: "The rent is fully prepaid?"

"Yes! Their finance department has already wired the deposit, saying that as long as the booth is approved, the remaining balance will be paid immediately!" Old Song nodded and added a bombshell piece of news.

"Also, they applied for a berth of over ten thousand tons at the Zhuhai Port, saying they need to dock their transport ship for the exhibition equipment. They've chartered it themselves, and the Port Authority is asking for our opinion on whether to approve it."

The room full of people looked at each other, all seeing pleasant surprise in each other's eyes.

It was like someone handing you a pillow just as you were falling asleep; it couldn't be more perfect!

The vacant exhibition booths, the supporting forums, investment promotion revenue, and even the berth revenue at the Port Authority—everything was filled!

Wang Lei was the first to react and quickly asked: "What does this Warhammer Military do? What exhibition category did they declare?"

"They declared new types of general aircraft and foreign trade defense equipment, and they also applied for qualifications for a real-aircraft flight performance." Old Song answered truthfully.

"A company registered in America?" Zhang Jun suddenly sat up straight, his eyes lighting up, "Even if it's a small private company, it's the first American military-related enterprise to voluntarily sign up for the exhibition!"

The deputy director of publicity next to him instantly reacted: "That's right! With an American company participating, won't our international influence for external publicity go up? The higher-ups have been harping on this point in their criticisms, and hasn't this solved it?"

The room full of people became even more excited.

Originally, they thought just a wealthy patron had arrived, but now they had directly filled the two biggest shortcomings of this year's airshow: investment promotion revenue and international influence.

"Huh? They also want a real-aircraft flight performance?" Wang Lei was stunned for a moment, then smiled, "What kind of real aircraft can a private company have? At most, it's small private planes, agricultural drones, or maybe modified sports aircraft."

"I guess the boss has money and wants to use the airshow to grab attention and build a reputation for the company."

The people nearby echoed: "Definitely. The name sounds intimidating—Warhammer Military—but in reality, it's just a small company involved in general aviation."

"Who cares what they do, as long as they pay! The booths that have been empty for so long are finally rented out, and we can complete more than half of our revenue target!"

"And they're even helping us host the defense forum, which perfectly fills the shortcoming required by the higher-ups. This is truly help in our time of need!"

Zhang Jun finished flipping through the application and felt relieved.

Regardless, they were willing to spend money, rent the venue, and host the forum, solving the biggest headaches currently facing the organizing committee. That was enough.

He immediately made the decision: "The booth is approved! Give them the best positions, both indoors and outdoors! Reserve the best Hall No. 3 for their branch venue! I'll personally contact the Port Authority to approve the berth for them!"

He paused and specifically instructed Old Song: "They are a big client, fully prepaid, and they've solved so many problems for us. We must provide the highest standard of VIP reception."

"Arrange for dedicated personnel to be responsible one-on-one for customs clearance, security, and conference coordination during the exhibition period. There cannot be any mishaps."

"Understood, Director Zhang. I'll handle it immediately!" Old Song took the application and ran out excitedly.

The gloom in the conference room was swept away, and smiles appeared on everyone's faces.

No one took this obscure Warhammer Military seriously, assuming it was just a wealthy patron who had arrived to help them fill the gaps in this year's airshow.

No one knew that inside that ten-thousand-ton ro-ro ship about to dock was a fighter jet capable of overturning the global arms trade market.

And no one imagined that this small private company in their eyes would, a month later, cause the entire world's aviation industry to tremble.