106: Chapter 106 You're taking advantage of me? I'll drain you dry, even your life savings!

Taklamakan Desert, Bunker No. 3, 2:40 PM.

The monitoring screen on the console was divided into sixteen grids.

The eight grids on the left were real-time thermal images of the groundwater veins, with blue representing the direction of water flow and red representing areas of water loss.

The eight grids on the right were satellite cloud maps of the surface, refreshing every thirty seconds.

Su Che leaned against the console and tossed the paper stick of his last lollipop into the trash can.

The first change after the activation of "Kuafu" appeared at the seventh minute.

In the third grid on the left, the blue arrow that had originally been flowing westward stopped.

It was like a rushing river that had been slapped on the head by someone.

Academician Li Zhengyang leaned toward the screen, his reading glasses nearly bumping into the monitor.

"The water flow... stopped?"

Su Che didn't say anything, staring at the data.

The ninth minute.

The blue arrow turned around, changing direction from "West" to "East."

It wasn't a slow turn, but a direct 180-degree flip.

The entire groundwater vein was like it had been gripped by a giant hand and dragged back by force.

The spectrometer in Academician Wen Bo's hand nearly slipped; he gripped the instrument and crouched on the ground, staring at the screen.

"It reversed... the water flow reversed!"

Academician Li Zhengyang held onto the console, his body leaning forward, his forehead almost touching the screen.

The data was jumping—the water flow speed reading, which refreshed every second, jumped from 0.3 cubic meters to 1.7, then to 4.2.

It was still rising.

"This isn't pumping water." Academician Li Zhengyang's voice was tense. "This is siphoning. The entire water vein has become a one-way pipeline."

Su Che finally spoke.

"That's enough."

He tapped the keyboard twice, expanding the bio-electric field radiation radius of the "Earth Mother Box" from 50 kilometers to 120 kilometers.

On the satellite cloud map on the right side of the screen, the green grid covering the desert surface suddenly expanded, spreading out like an invisible giant net.

"Have the seeds been spread yet?" He turned his head to ask Zhou Qihang.

Zhou Qihang confirmed via the communicator and replied, "The first batch of seeds has been completely deployed, covering an area of 12,000 square kilometers."

"That's enough."

Su Che pulled over a chair to sit down and propped his feet up on the console.

"Just wait and see."

At the same time.

Forty kilometers west of the Dragon Country's western border, the Eagle Sauce "Garden of Eden" base.

Smith was standing on the observation platform on the second floor of the dome building, looking down through the bulletproof glass at the "Glutton" cultivation area below.

Everything looked normal.

The vines were still wriggling, the root systems were still expanding eastward, and the water pumping data on the monitoring screen remained stable.

Until 2:51 PM.

"Beep, beep, beep—"

The alarm suddenly blared, and all the red warning lights inside the dome lit up simultaneously.

Smith was so startled by the sound that the tablet in his hand nearly slipped out of his grasp.

He looked down at the data panel.

Groundwater flow rate: Negative value.

A negative value meant water was not flowing in, but flowing out.

"What's going on?!"

He lunged to the console and pulled up the groundwater vein monitoring chart.

The blue water flow arrows had all turned around; they were no longer flowing from the direction of Dragon Country toward them, but from their location, rushing frantically toward Dragon Country.

"Impossible!"

Smith's voice went shrill.

Their "Glutton" vines relied on the groundwater from the Dragon Country. The reversal of the water flow meant the supply was cut off, and the groundwater on their own side was also being drained.

"Sir, the moisture content of the 'Glutton' root system is plummeting!"

A technician's shout came up from the lower level.

Smith leaned over the railing to look down.

He saw the most bizarre scene of his life.

Those thick, dark green vines, like leeches drained of blood, had their skins rapidly collapsing and shriveling.

The thorns became brittle and broke at a touch.

The root systems retracted from the sand and soil, curling up out of the ground to reveal withered, white fibrous roots.

The temperature of the entire cultivation area was plummeting because the moisture inside the vines was being drained at an incredible speed.

The "Glutton," which had been expanding frantically thirty seconds ago, was now a patch of withered, yellow scrap.

"Close the dome! Cut off the connection to the external soil! Hurry!"

Smith's roar echoed inside the dome.

The technical team scrambled to activate the isolation procedure, and huge steel partitions rose from the bottom of the dome, attempting to separate the cultivation area from the external ground layer.

It was useless.

That power came from deep underground; it was the reverse siphoning of the entire groundwater vein, and the steel plates couldn't block the flow of water.

The "Glutton" was dying faster than it had grown.

Five minutes later, the entire cultivation area had turned into a patch of scorched yellow, withered vine remains, emitting a rotting, sour stench.

Smith held onto the railing, staring at the ruins before him, his mind blank—no, he was desperately trying to think about what had happened.

His phone rang.

Adam's voice came through the receiver, sounding impatient.

"Smith, why did the data cut off?"

Smith swallowed hard.

"Sir... the 'Glutton'... is all dead."

There was silence on the other end of the line for three seconds.

"Repeat that."

"The Dragon Country... used some kind of method to reverse-extract all the groundwater. Our 'Glutton' all withered and died within five minutes."

His voice was trembling.

"Not only that, the groundwater level beneath our base is dropping at a rate of 0.3 meters per minute. If we don't evacuate... this area will become a permanent arid zone within 24 hours."

A dull thud came from the other end of the line, like something being slammed onto a table.

Adam's voice sounded again, cold and low.

"What did they use?"

"I... I don't know. Our satellites didn't detect any known energy release characteristics."

Taklamakan Desert surface, 3:20 PM.

The pilot of the first returning helicopter reported a message via radio.

"Base! Base! This is Falcon 3!"

"In the northeast direction of the deployment area, there is an anomaly on the surface! There is... there is green! A large area of green!"

Zhou Qihang took the communicator and walked to the surface exit of the bunker.

He pushed open the hatch, and a heatwave laden with sand and dust rushed toward his face.

On the distant skyline, a touch of pale green was spreading between the sand dunes.

That was not a mirage.

He pulled out his binoculars, and the image in the lens made him freeze in place.

The surface of the sand dunes was sprouting.

Tiny green seedlings were emerging from the yellow sand, dense and thick, covering every inch of ground within his line of sight.

They were still growing.

Jointing, tillering, heading—the speed was as fast as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button.

Zhou Qihang lowered the binoculars and turned to rush back into the bunker.

"Chief Engineer Su! The surface has sprouted!"

Su Che's feet were still propped on the console, and he was resting with his eyes closed.

He opened one eye.

"How large is the area?"

"Within visual range... it's everywhere."

Su Che put his feet down, stood up, and stretched his neck.

"Let's go, let's go up and take a look."

He took Lin Waner's hand and walked out of Bunker No. 3.

The sunlight was blinding.

But the scene before them was even more blinding than the sunlight.

Looking out from the bunker exit, the Gobi, which had originally been filled with yellow sand, was being covered by a layer of green that was continuously thickening.

The seedlings were already half a person tall, and the rice ears were turning from green to golden yellow.

The wind blew over, carrying the fresh scent of soil and grain.

Lin Waner gripped Su Che's hand, standing at the bunker entrance, looking at that desert that was turning golden, unable to say a word.

Academician Li Zhengyang and Academician Wen Bo also followed them out.

The two old men stood side by side, watching the waves of rice in the distance.

Academician Li Zhengyang took off his reading glasses, wiped them vigorously twice, and put them back on.

It was still golden yellow.

It was not a hallucination.

He crouched down, pulled a mature rice ear from the sandy ground at his feet, rubbed open the husk, and revealed the plump rice grain.

He put the rice grain into his mouth and bit it.

Then he took out an old pocket watch from his jacket pocket. The watch cover was polished shiny, and the copper clasp was loose.

He opened the back cover, which contained a fingernail-sized black-and-white photo of a group of young people in white coats standing on the Gobi beach, with an erected iron tower in the background.

He placed the pocket watch on the sandy ground beside his feet, laid the rice ear next to it, and whispered a sentence.

"Old friends, do you see this? Food is growing in the desert."

Academician Wen Bo walked over and patted his back, his own hands also trembling.

Su Che did not look at them.

He looked at that continuously expanding expanse of gold in the distance, took his phone out of his pocket, and sent a message to General Peng.

"General, the first batch of grain is ripe."

"Arrange for people to come and harvest it."

"By the way, the grass next door is all dead."

The phone screen lit up, and General Peng replied in seconds with three words.

"How many mu?"

Su Che looked up at the endless waves of rice on the horizon, thought for a moment, and replied.

"I didn't count, but it's bigger than your backyard."

General Peng's second reply came even faster.

"You rascal, I don't have a backyard."

The third one followed immediately.

"I'll be there immediately; the Chief wants to watch the live feed."

Su Che put away his phone and turned to look at Lin Waner.

"Wife, we're having new rice for dinner tonight."

Before Lin Waner could answer, Zhou Qihang's communicator rang again.

This time, it was the monitoring center of the base's highest command tower.

"Report! There are signs of large-scale personnel evacuation at the Eagle Sauce 'Garden of Eden' base outside the border!"

"At the same time—"

The communicator's voice suddenly lowered.

"Four hundred kilometers to the north, a group of unidentified aircraft has been detected, numbering twelve, approaching our country's airspace at high speed."

"Flight altitude 25,000 meters, speed 3.7 Mach."

"It is... the Eagle Sauce B-21 stealth bomber formation."