46: Chapter 46 Blizzard Seals Mountains, Locks Down National Scholars; US Satellite Probes the Sky

Tonghui County Guesthouse.

The air conditioning and heating were running at full blast, and a thick layer of condensation had formed on the windows.

John wiped his mouth with a snow-white napkin and gently placed his knife and fork beside his plate.

Opposite him, the county official rubbed his hands together, his forehead covered in sweat.

"Mr. John, look at this weather..."

"The snow is too heavy. The road to the village has collapsed in three places, and it is currently impossible for anyone to get through."

John picked up his coffee and took a sip.

"A landslide?"

"I understand."

"It is a natural disaster, after all, a force majeure."

John put down his coffee cup and stood up.

He walked to the window, watching the howling wind and snow outside, as if talking to himself.

"However, my time is very precious."

"I need to confirm whether the Dragon Country is truly 'doing its utmost' to clear the way."

After saying this, he ignored the official who was on the verge of tears and turned to walk into his room.

The door closed.

He took out a palm-sized, matte black satellite phone from a specially made suitcase.

He dialed a number.

"It is me."

"Activate 'Eagle Eye-3'. Conduct all-weather, high-precision optical and thermal imaging reconnaissance on the area at 110.34 degrees East longitude and 28.12 degrees North latitude."

"I need to know exactly what is hidden beneath every snowflake there."

...

The next day, the twelfth day of the first lunar month.

Su Family Village.

The sky was as gloomy as a block of iron.

The wind and snow did not stop; instead, they grew heavier.

A dull, air-tearing roar approached from the distance.

A dark green Z-20 helicopter, braving the gale like a stubborn iron bird, struggled to hover over the threshing floor above the village.

The cabin door opened.

Captain Li Jun leaned out halfway and shouted downwards.

"Engineer Su! Catch the cargo!"

A huge cargo basket was slowly lowered, filled with various alloy plates shimmering with metallic luster and precision electronic components.

Su Che, wearing a thick military overcoat and accompanied by a few young men from the village, stumbled forward through the deep snow.

"Che'er, slow down!"

Su Pingan shouted from behind, his voice fragmented by the wind.

The wind and snow were too strong for the helicopter to stay for long.

After unloading the first batch of supplies, it roared again and disappeared into the grey-white sky.

In the studio, Su Che took off his overcoat, rubbed his frozen, red hands, and his eyes were filled with a gleam of excitement.

Looking at those aerospace-grade alloys radiating a cold aura, he felt as if he were seeing his most beloved toy.

"Let's get to work!"

The sparks from the cutting machine and the arc light of the electric welder lit up this simple room once again.

Outside, the wind and snow raged across the sky.

Inside, the work was in full swing.

Lin Waner did not disturb him.

She organized a few women from the village to boil a large pot of piping hot ginger soup on the big stove at the village committee office.

She then led people to visit the lonely elderly and left-behind children in the village house by house, checking the medicine and food supplies in each home.

"Grandma Wang, do you have enough blood pressure medication left?"

"Xiao Hu, have you finished your milk powder? The teacher still has a spare can here."

She was no longer that frail female teacher who only knew how to stand at the podium.

This sudden natural disaster had completely ignited the resilient strength within her.

Evening.

Lin Waner pushed open the door to the studio, carrying a bowl of steaming ginger soup.

Su Che was lying on a huge metal frame, focusing on adjusting a complex hydraulic transmission shaft, his head covered in sweat.

"Drink something to warm yourself up."

She handed the bowl to him.

Su Che did not turn back, his eyes still fixed on his work.

"Just put it there."

Lin Waner did not speak; she just placed the bowl beside his hand.

She picked up a clean towel, stood on tiptoe, and gently wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Su Che stopped what he was doing.

He turned his head and looked at her.

The girl's face was slightly flushed from the smoke of the stove fire, and there was a bit of ash on the tip of her nose, but her eyes were strikingly bright.

"You..."

"I am fine."

Lin Waner smiled.

"Everything in the village has been arranged, and everyone's mood is still stable."

A certain part of Su Che's heart softened completely.

He did not say anything more, picked up the bowl, and drank the piping hot ginger soup in one gulp.

"It is sweet?"

"I added brown sugar."

...

The next day, the thirteenth day of the first lunar month.

Grandma Wang's grandson in the village suddenly developed a high fever, and the fever-reducing medicine had run out.

Su Pingan, confident in his familiarity with the terrain, braved the wind and snow to go to the old Chinese doctor in the neighboring village to help get medicine.

Su Che was still busy in the studio.

The leg frame of the mecha had basically taken shape.

Su Che was installing the core [Bionic Hydraulic Deformation Drive] module.

This was a device that looked like a work of art, composed of dozens of micro-hydraulic cylinders and complex transmission linkages.

He looked at the 3D blueprints provided by the system, but his brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

Something was wrong.

The mechanical model of this core component, when undergoing high-frequency expansion and contraction, had an internal energy transmission and loss method...

Why did it look so familiar?

On a whim, he opened the military supercomputing terminal and used the special authorization granted by the military to pull up the scanned copy of his grandfather's notebook.

He flipped through it quickly.

Suddenly, his finger stopped on one of the pages.

On that page, there was a complex molecular structure diagram, and next to it, lines of deductive formulas regarding how the internal particle arrangement of the Kunlun Alloy material would undergo a certain "ordered collapse" under a strong electromagnetic field.

Su Che placed that formula and the mechanical model from the system blueprints side-by-side on the screen.

One was macroscopic mechanical transmission.

The other was microscopic particle physics.

They seemed completely unrelated.

But the underlying mathematical logic, the core algorithm describing how energy is transmitted within a specific structure with the lowest possible loss...

It was exactly the same!

This was no longer a coincidence, but a "bloodline" connection spanning physics and engineering!

Su Che froze in place.

So, these black technologies provided by the system were not conjured out of thin air.

They... originated from the same source as his grandfather's Nantianmen Project back in the day!

Just at the moment his mind was violently shaken.

The phone in his pocket suddenly "buzzed" and lit up.

On the screen was a newly received text message.

The sender was Su Pingan.

The message was very short, consisting of only four characters and a shocking exclamation mark.

[Che'er, save me!]