Chapter 220

At nine in the morning, inside the administrative building of the Dragon Chant Research Institute, Feng Yan had just finished a coordination meeting on the construction progress of the Moon Base, still holding a 3D‑printed model of the first‑phase module of the Vast Cold Palace.

It was a silver hemisphere the size of a palm, its surface covered with a honeycomb‑like structure.

"President Feng, you have an encrypted urgent document." The secretary knocked and entered, her expression somewhat solemn.

"It was just sent over by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

It was actually a red seal, which meant that the urgent document's confidentiality level was at least Mysterious Yellow level, and it required the president's personal signature to be received.

Feng Yan set down the model and took the metal‑cased sealed box.

The box bore no markings, only a fingerprint lock and an iris‑scan area.

After verifying in sequence, there was a soft click, and the lid sprang open.

Inside lay only a paper invitation and an accompanying electronic storage device.

The invitation was bilingual, its header showing the joint emblem of the Foot Basin Chicken Defense Ministry and the Eagle Country Defense Department.

The title read: "Invitation to the Joint Military Exercise of the Peace Guardians."

The main content stated that the Foot Basin Chicken and Eagle Country would hold a joint exercise in an international water area of the East Sea seventy‑two hours later, showcasing their newly developed Eight‑Forked aerospace platform prototype and the Ares high‑speed penetration system.

To enhance regional military peace, a "sincere invitation" was extended for Longguo to dispatch an observer delegation and the Penglai to come to the site for guidance.

At the bottom were two signatures: Foot Basin Chicken Defense Minister Yamada Kenji and Eagle Country Defense Secretary Robert Mitchell.

"An invitation for guidance?" Feng Yan saw this, smiled, and said, "This is clearly a show of force."

He inserted the electronic storage device, and the screen displayed the exercise's detailed contents:

The planned exercise area lies only eighty‑seven nautical miles from Longguo's East Sea oil and gas field.

The participating forces include, besides the Foot Basin Chicken's newly modified Sea Fog quasi‑carrier, the Eagle Country's Reagan carrier strike group.

They intend to demonstrate the vertical takeoff and landing capability of the Eight‑Forked platform and the hypersonic penetration ability of the Ares system.

At the bottom there is a small line: the observer seats are set on the flight deck of the Reagan carrier, allowing full‑time observation of the entire exercise, which is also the best viewing angle for this drill.

"Best viewing angle…" Feng Yan closed the document, saying, "They want us to watch up close so we can see just how big the gap is."

At that moment his phone suddenly vibrated; upon checking, it was an encrypted video‑conference request.

After Feng Yan answered, three windows popped up on the screen: Lei Jindong in the Ministry of Defense office, Li Yang on the bridge of the Penglai, and Chen Guang at the Dragon Chant Control Center.

"Have you all received the documents?" Lei Jindong got straight to the point.

"Just finished looking at them." Feng Yan said, "They're in a real hurry with this exercise—it starts in seventy‑two hours."

"The Foot Basin Chicken side can't wait any longer." Li Yang called up a satellite photo.

"Our monitoring shows that the Eight‑Forked prototype only finished its final assembly last week, and ground testing has been done just three times."

"Rushing it out like this either means they've made a genuine technological breakthrough, or…"

"or they want to take advantage of our Penglai just entering service and seize the initiative." Chen Guang picked up the thread.

"According to Torch Dragon's monitoring and analysis of social media and dark‑web information, Eagle Country's think tank has released seven articles in the past week about Longguo's space hegemony; their public‑opinion groundwork is already done."

Lei Jindong tapped his fingers on the desk: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' opinion is that we should just watch and not respond for now."

"We can first issue a statement saying this is normal military exchange and send a battalion‑level observation team just to go through the motions."

"And then just watch them flex their muscles right on our doorstep?" Li Yang frowned.

"What's your opinion?" Lei Jindong looked toward Feng Yan.

Feng Yan picked up the Vast Cold Palace model on the desk, turned it in his hand, and said, "They've already set up the stage and invited us to watch the show; not going would be inappropriate."

He paused: "But the seat from which we watch the play is also something we must choose ourselves."

At the same time, inside the Dragon Chant Reserve Training Base in the eastern suburbs of Yanjing.

Zhou Ming was wearing a training uniform, sweat pouring down his forehead as he stood before the treadmill.

This is no ordinary treadmill; it is a specially made training device for pilots of the Sky‑Lord mech, capable of simulating various motion states of the mech in complex terrain.

"Next item: weighted sprint!" Instructor Qin, who has a scar on his right cheek—said to have been left from a border mission early in his career.

Zhou Ming took a deep breath and pressed the start button.

The treadmill belt began to turn, and simultaneously holographic projections on either side generated a forest‑mountain terrain.

Slope, gravel, simulated mire… the system adjusts resistance according to real‑time data.

At first it was fine; Zhou Ming could still keep his pace.

But after three minutes of running, he suddenly recalled the operating habits from yesterday's test of the Sky‑Lord mech.

That prototype's leg thrusters respond extremely quickly, requiring fine ankle movements to control output.

Thus he unconsciously applied that same set of operating patterns to the treadmill.

He lightly pressed down with his right foot, imagining the thruster igniting.

"Warning: abnormal right‑foot pressure!" the system announced.

But Zhou Ming ignored it, continuing to mimic the mech's stepping pattern—lift the leg high, land lightly, keep the center of gravity steady…

"Warning: step frequency does not match the load! Energy consumption has exceeded the threshold!"

Instructor Qin had been writing something in his notebook; hearing the warning, he suddenly lifted his head, saw Zhou Ming's actions, and raised an eyebrow.

Only to see the power readout on Zhou Ming's trainer jumping wildly: 120%, 150%, 200%…

"Zhou Ming! Stop quick—" the instructor hadn't finished speaking.

With a "Bang!"

The treadmill's motor spat out a puff of blue smoke, and the belt seized up completely.

Zhou Ming staggered, nearly falling off.

The other reserve trainees in the room watched, almost dumbstruck.

"I… I just wanted to simulate the mech's step…" Zhou Ming stood up, embarrassed.

Instructor Qin walked over, glanced at the smoking machine, then at Zhou Ming, and suddenly burst out laughing.

Come on, you kid, running on the treadmill like you're operating a mech—you're still the first.

He patted Zhou Ming's shoulder: "Not a bad idea, but you're using the wrong tool; wait until this afternoon, go to the simulation cabin, and let you play with the real thing."

Zhou Ming's eyes lit up instantly: "Thank you, instructor!"

"Don't thank me yet." Instructor Qin pointed at that scrapped training device: "The maintenance fee for this treadmill can be deducted from your allowance."

Zhou Ming: "... Ah?"

Suppressed laughter broke out around them.

YunChuan City, Zhixing Logistics North China Dispatch Center.

Liu Fang was controlling the latest model of the Porter-3 engineering mech, loading a batch of special cargo onto the vehicle.

These cargo's packaging boxes are special: not cardboard nor wooden, but a gray-white composite material box with fine scale-like patterns on the surface.

"Fang Sis, this batch is headed to the Northwest Research Base; they're all fragile precision instruments." The young dispatcher said over the comms, "Be careful when loading."

"Got it." Liu Fang maneuvered the mech's robotic arm, steadily gripping a box.

The box is about two meters long, one meter wide and high, with a marked weight of three hundred kilograms.

But according to the robotic arm's readout, the actual weight is just over two hundred kilograms.

"This material is pretty light," she muttered to herself.

The loading went smoothly; twelve boxes were neatly stacked in the heavy truck's cargo bay.

But just as they were about to close the cargo door, an accident occurred.

Truck driver Old Zhang was a veteran, but today for some reason he misjudged the angle while reversing, and the rear of the cargo bay slammed with a bang into the steel column of the loading platform.

The impact was not small, denting the steel column.

"Oh shit!" Old Zhang hurriedly got out of the truck.

Liu Fang also jumped in fright, quickly maneuvering the mech over to check.

The box at the rear of the cargo bay happened to be right at the impact point; its side was visibly dented with a large pit, and the composite material even showed cracks.

"It's over..." Old Zhang's face turned pale: "This thing looks expensive at a glance; I couldn't afford to pay for it even if I sold it..."

The dispatcher also rushed over, seeing the damaged box, and stamped his feet in anxiety:

"These are special supply boxes from the Longyin Research Institute! I heard they contain space-material samples inside! Now we're in trouble..."

Liu Fang was about to say something when she suddenly froze.

She saw the dented box slowly but visibly undergoing self-repair...

At the crack, the material flowed as if alive, gradually filling the gap.

The dented part also seemed to be pushed outward by an invisible hand from within, gradually returning to its original shape.

The whole process lasted about thirty seconds.

In the end, the box's surface returned to smooth, only its color slightly lighter than the surroundings, like newly grown skin.

The whole scene fell silent.

Old Zhang gaped, finally managing after a while: "... Could this box be alive?"

The dispatcher hurriedly pulled out the cargo specification and read: "The packaging box uses self-growing material technology, capable of self-repairing minor damage... Damn, this technology actually exists?"

Liu Fang looked at the box, now restored to its original state, and suddenly recalled the news a few days ago about the self-healing dragon-scale material in space.

She laughed: "The things our country makes nowadays are getting more and more like magic tricks."

Longyin Research Institute, underground three levels of the control center.

This is the main engine room of the Torch Dragon-3 quantum fusion system.

Unlike previous versions, Torch Dragon-3 is no longer a centralized supercomputer but a distributed quantum computing network.

The core nodes are at the Longyin headquarters, while auxiliary nodes are distributed across seven locations: the Deep Sea Dragon Palace space station, Penglai bridge, Northwest test base, etc.

Chen Guang stood before the main console, seeing that the system's completion rate on the screen had reached 95%.

"Final full-system self-check." He told his assistant.

"Quantum bit stability test passed."

"Entanglement state synchronization rate has reached 99.9997%."

"Average inter-node latency is only 0.3 milliseconds."

"Very good." Chen Guang entered a few commands.

"Activate the global situation simulation module, load the latest intelligence data."

The screen switched, displaying a three-dimensional map model.

Countless light points flowed across the model, showing global military deployments, economic data, public opinion, satellite trajectories, submarine cable traffic...

All public and non-public data are being real-time captured, analyzed, and correlated by Torch Dragon-3.

Chen You marked the area of the East Sea exercise: "The true intention behind the simulation of the Foot Basin Chicken–Eagle Country joint exercise."

The system began operating.

The light points of the quantum computing units sparkled like a galaxy.

Three seconds later, the results appeared:

【Exercise publicly claimed purpose: to demonstrate technology and maintain regional stability—credibility 23%】

【Actual potential intent: to conduct military coercion, test Longguo's reaction, and build momentum for a subsequent technology alliance—combined probability 87%】

【Special alert: Abnormal electromagnetic fluctuations detected in the Yamata no Orochi prototype's signature, inconsistent with published technical parameters, suggesting it may carry an undisclosed subsystem.】

"An undisclosed subsystem?" Chen Guang frowned, "Pull up the development roadmap for Yamata no Orochi."

On the screen appeared a "technology tree," showing Foot Basin Chicken's investments over the past five years in the aerospace platform field.

Most branches are normal, except one that extends from "thermal protection material" and is marked "data insufficient."

And the source of this branch, surprisingly, points to the leaked simplified formula from the Dragon Chant Materials Laboratory one month ago.

Chen Guang nudged his glasses and smiled.

Fish, it's taken the hook.