120: Chapter 120 Forty-Five Minutes! A Chip Stops a Barrage of Missiles!

Bunker No. 3, 4:40 AM.

The second movement of the Golden Dome countdown: forty-five minutes.

Su Che crumpled the Snickers wrapper into a ball and tossed it at the trash can. He missed; it hit the rim and rolled onto the floor.

He didn't pick it up.

Saturation strike.

Sea-based medium-range missiles have a range of 1,500 to 4,000 kilometers. Flight time from launch to impact is twelve to eighteen minutes.

The forty-six-nation coalition's sea-based platforms are distributed in three directions around the Long Kingdom. If they launch simultaneously, over a thousand missiles will flood the skies above the six southeastern coastal provinces within fifteen minutes.

The Yu-01's laser can hit satellites and slice through aircraft carrier decks, but it only has one cannon.

Using one cannon to intercept a thousand missiles is like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks—theoretically possible, but practically absurd.

Su Che sat back down at the console, pulled the architecture diagram of the newly redeemed Yi Ren Intelligence General Cognitive Kernel from his mind, and spread it out on the military supercomputer's screen.

The complete Yiren AI Core requires a Quantum Computer cluster, brain-like computing chips, and large-scale training datasets. It would take months to finish.

He didn't have months.

He had forty-five minutes.

Su Che stared at the bottom-most module in the architecture diagram: "Non-Human Logical Reasoning Core."

This module is the seed of the entire Yiren AI.

It doesn't need training data or brain-like chips. Its reasoning chain is purely mathematical; it just needs to run on a quantum chip.

Peel this seed out separately and inject it into the Yu-01's flight control system. It won't be able to "think," but it will be able to "react."

What's the difference?

Thinking is: The enemy is coming from three directions; which one should I hit first, why, and is there a better solution?

Reacting is: One thousand targets are coming from three directions; I simultaneously calculate one thousand interception trajectories, pick the maximum number the laser can cover, and toss the remaining coordinates to friendly forces.

It doesn't need to be smart.

It needs to be fast.

Su Che created a new compilation environment on the supercomputer and dragged the code framework of the Non-Human Logical Reasoning Core into it.

The bottom layer of this module in the architecture diagram is a set of multi-dimensional parallel decision trees, completely different from the serial reasoning of traditional AI.

Traditional AI walks down one path to the end, while this thing walks ten thousand paths simultaneously and then picks the optimal one in 0.01 milliseconds.

Running this requires the parallel computing power of a quantum chip.

How much computing power remains on the 3-nanometer quantum chip on the Yu-01?

Su Che pulled up the resource monitoring panel of the flight control system.

Flight attitude control: 12%; weapon fire control: 8%; communication module: 3%.

Remaining: 77%.

Enough.

He started writing code.

Not from scratch.

The core algorithm's pseudocode was already laid out in the architecture diagram provided by the system. All he had to do was translate the pseudocode into machine instructions that the quantum chip could run and then map the interfaces to the Yu-01's flight control bus.

His fingers slammed onto the keyboard, moving faster and faster.

Only the clatter of the keyboard and the low-frequency pulsation of "Kua Fu" remained in the bunker.

4:46 AM.

The walkie-talkie rang.

"Chief Engineer Su, General Peng has forwarded a situation report from the Western Theater Command Joint Operations Center." Zhou Qihang's voice was very low.

"Read it."

"The forty-six-nation coalition's sea-based platforms have entered launch preparation status. The launch window is expected to open in thirty-nine minutes. The Long Kingdom's existing anti-missile system has been fully activated, but due to the Golden Dome's electromagnetic interference, the efficiency of ground-based early warning radar has dropped by sixty percent, and the communication links for the sea-based Chinese Aegis interception system have been interrupted."

"Estimated conventional anti-missile interception rate: less than forty percent."

Less than forty percent.

Sixty percent of the missiles would penetrate the defense network and land in the six southeastern coastal provinces.

Su Che's hands didn't stop; the code kept pouring out.

"Colonel Zhou, connect me to General Peng."

Five seconds later, General Peng's voice poured in.

"Speak."

"General, the early warning radar for conventional anti-missile systems has been suppressed by the Golden Dome, but the Sky-Breaking Bow's Quantum Communication network is still alive."

"I know. Communication hasn't been cut."

"It's not about communication." Su Che said while typing code. "The thirty-six provincial-level quantum nodes of the Sky-Breaking Bow each have a set of quantum entangled particle sources. When these particle sources are working, they produce a by-product: quantum state environmental scanning."

General Peng didn't say anything; he was listening.

"The Golden Dome's seventy-two electromagnetic pulse arrays are operating at full power, and the electromagnetic characteristics of each array have been recorded by the quantum nodes. I can use this data to reverse-locate the precise coordinates of every array."

"We have satellite reconnaissance imagery of the arrays' coordinates."

"Satellite reconnaissance imagery is static. What I'm giving you is real-time." Su Che paused his typing. "General, I can tell you the coordinates of where a missile is launching the moment it ignites, with accuracy down to the meter."

The sound of a chair moving came from the other end of the phone.

"You mean…"

"The Sky-Breaking Bow is not just a shield; it is also an eye."

"Feed the real-time coordinates to the conventional anti-missile system. It doesn't matter if the early warning radar is suppressed; I will tell your missiles exactly where to fly."

General Peng's breathing grew noticeably heavier.

"How much can the interception rate be increased?"

"Eighty percent, with conventional anti-missile systems combined with my real-time guidance." Su Che compiled a segment of code and switched to the next module. "The remaining twenty percent will be handled by the Yu-01."

"One aircraft will handle twenty percent?"

"I'm giving it a brain transplant right now."

Su Che pulled the compilation window to the foreground; the progress bar had reached 61%.

"Within thirty-five minutes, the Yu-01 will be equipped with a new decision-making kernel. It won't be remote-controlled by me; it will calculate and fire on its own. I only need to tell it one thing: intercept everything that slips through."

General Peng didn't ask about technical details anymore.

"What do you need?"

"Aggregate the quantum state environmental scanning data from the Sky-Breaking Bow's thirty-six nodes to my terminal in real-time. Also, open the fire control interface of the conventional anti-missile system to me. I'll write a data bridging program to inject the coordinates directly."

"Done."

He hung up.

5:12 AM.

Compilation progress 78%.

Su Che typed code with his left hand and wrote the bridging program on the tactical tablet with his right.

Two screens, two sets of code, advancing simultaneously.

The blast door opened a crack.

Lin Waner didn't come in; she just passed an enamel mug through the crack in the door and placed it on the threshold.

Su Che caught a glimpse but didn't turn around.

"Thanks."

The door crack closed.

5:15 AM.

Compilation complete.

[Non-Human Logical Reasoning Core · Minimal Viable Version compiled. Errors: 0. Warnings: 0.]

Su Che pushed the compiled kernel to the Yu-01, which was on its way back, via a quantum encrypted link.

The injection progress started running.

At the same time, the bridging program was finished, tested, and pushed to the anti-missile fire control system on General Peng's end.

5:20 AM.

Injection complete.

Su Che entered a command into the flight control terminal.

[Yu-01, abort return, turn to the southeastern coast, maintain near-space altitude, and stand by.]

On the screen, the Yu-01's flight path drew an arc, turned around, and dove toward the southeast.

5:22 AM.

The quantum state scanning data from the Sky-Breaking Bow's thirty-six nodes flowed into the terminal.

Su Che fed the data into the bridging program, and real-time coordinates began flowing into the conventional anti-missile system.

On the screen, the locations of the seventy-two Golden Dome arrays changed from fuzzy satellite reconnaissance markers to real-time latitude and longitude coordinates accurate to two decimal places.

Beside every array, a missile launch platform was parked.

Su Che picked up the enamel mug on the threshold and took a gulp.

It was cold.

The ginger soup had sat too long; the spiciness had dissipated, leaving only the sweetness of brown sugar.

He placed the mug back on the console and stared at the dense patch of red markers on the screen.

5:24 AM.

The tactical tablet popped up an encrypted message.

General Peng.

[Anti-missile system has fully integrated the real-time coordinate data. Fire control calculation efficiency has increased by 340%, and all interception channels are open.]

[The enemy launch window has entered the final 60-second countdown. All anti-missile units are at Level 1 combat readiness, standing by for interception.]

Su Che pulled the Yu-01's flight control interface to the front.

The newly injected Non-Human Logical Reasoning Core was performing a background self-check. The quantum chip's computing power allocation was automatically reorganized: flight attitude 8%, weapon fire control 6%, communication 2%, reasoning core 84%.

It had eaten up the vast majority of the computing power.

Self-check complete.

A line of prompt in a format Su Che had never seen popped up on the screen.

It wasn't the system's blue and white panel.

It was generated by the reasoning core itself.

[Situational Awareness: Connected to Sky-Breaking Bow quantum state scanning network.]

[Threat Modeling: Detected 42 sea-based missile launch platforms, estimated total volley of 1112-1178 missiles.]

[Interception Plan: Generated, waiting for execution command.]

It calculated it itself.

No one taught it what a missile was; no one told it what interception was.

Using the data from the Sky-Breaking Bow, it figured it out itself in 0.3 seconds.

Su Che stared at those three lines of text, the sweat on his back sticking his hoodie to the back of the chair.

This was non-human logic.

No learning, no imitation, no understanding.

Pure calculation.

He typed a line of command on the terminal.

[Execute. Don't let a single one slip through.]

The Yu-01 didn't reply with text.

Its flight path on the screen suddenly accelerated, changing from a smooth arc to a set of jagged, pre-set interception trajectories.

It was already positioning itself in advance.

5:25 AM.

On the tactical tablet, the first red marker began to flash.

Launch signal.

Su Che picked up the enamel mug and found it was already empty.

He turned the mug upside down on the table to keep the dust off.

Then, all the red markers lit up at once.