Chapter 167: Rebuilding Base No. 1

Actually, placing Base No. 1 in Nandu in the real world was not a very good choice.

Ever since President Yu Chen defeated Yuan Shikai in the early years of the Republic of China, Nandu had defeated Beidu to reclaim its position as the capital, and it had always been the center of power for the new China.

From the very beginning, Sun Cheng had realized that placing Base No. 1 in Nandu was extremely dangerous.

Yet, he could not leave Nandu for the time being.

Moreover, it was located in the most prosperous economic zone of China; regardless of what machinery or equipment he ordered, he could basically have it delivered to his door within one or two days.

It was precisely this last point that persuaded Sun Cheng; acting on the mentality that "the most dangerous place is also the safest," he temporarily convinced himself to place Base No. 1 in Nandu first.

If it became convenient in the future, he would then choose a new location.

However, although he had made his choice, he couldn't just pick any random spot in Nandu for the base, because since ancient times, China's political center had naturally also been its military center.

Public information queried from the internet alone revealed that there was at least one mechanized division and two missile brigades of garrison troops within Nandu, and rumors online suggested there might also be an artillery unit of unknown size stationed in Nandu; furthermore, the Air Force had deployed at least two air divisions around Nandu, which showed that Nandu was definitely not a safe place.

Fortunately, Sun Cheng had no intention of causing a scene in the real world!

The reason for placing Base No. 1 in the real world was also out of caution.

After learning the secrets of the Moon from the Decepticons and realizing that the restless Autobots had finally begun to take action, he had prepared for the worst-case scenario: being hunted down by both the Decepticons and the Autobots after all his bases in the Transformers world were destroyed.

Perhaps due to the influence of Base No. 2 in the Transformers world, when preparing to rebuild Base No. 1 in the real world, the first thing Sun Cheng thought of was the mountains.

Nandu is located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, bordering the river and near the sea; the reason it had enjoyed the reputation of "Tiger Crouching, Dragon Coiling" since ancient times was precisely because Nandu is a hilly region dominated by low mountains and gentle ridges, with low mountains, hills, and ridges occupying more than half of its area, among which Huxi District and Tangyi County were the most suitable.

After spending two or three days running through several of the larger land leasing and brokerage companies in Nandu, and with a deliberate search, Sun Cheng finally had some results.

"... Manager Sun, please take a look at the data; these are the few suitable options selected according to your requirements..."

Inside the Nandu Tianqing Land Brokerage Company, Sun Cheng expressionlessly took a tablet computer from the hands of a short, fat middle-aged man; the screen was displaying a beautifully crafted PPT, and he took it and began to read.

As the center of power in China, Nandu had both skyscrapers reaching into the clouds and poor mountain villages, but as the capital of a country, this identity destined that as long as there was land listed for sale, there would never be a shortage of buyers.

If land was like this, one could imagine the difficulty of finding a private mountain in Nandu that had an owner willing to sell.

After searching for several days, he finally got some good news at this land brokerage company called Tianqing: Tianqing did indeed have mountains listed for sale, and not just one, but three together.

Scanning the introductory information on the PPT at a glance, Sun Cheng reached out to turn the pages from time to time, his eyes occasionally lingering on the aerial photographs displayed, and he began to calculate in his heart.

The three mountains listed for sale by Tianqing belonged to a mining company called "Hongyuan Group."

The PPT contained information on "Hongyuan Group," which was a private enterprise mainly engaged in stone processing.

According to the introduction, these three mountains were all typical low mountains no more than a hundred meters high, and the mountains had also been carefully surveyed, with no economic crops or mineral deposits.

The reason Hongyuan Group had bought them in the first place was that the main body of these three mountains was limestone, and limestone is one of the most commonly used building materials, so they bought the three mountains intending to quarry stone.

However, what Hongyuan Group had not expected was that less than half a year after they bought the three mountains, the Nandu Municipal Government issued an environmental protection act, prohibiting blind commercial development of mountain forests within its borders, with a particular focus on cracking down on quarrying.

Once this act was issued, it really screwed over Hongyuan Group; they had spent a significant amount of capital to purchase the three connected mountains, thinking they could make a big profit by leveraging their geographical advantage—after all, as the capital of the country, Nandu had luxury homes and high-rises starting construction almost every day, and the market prospects were broad—but alas.

However, what could they do if they were unwilling? Did the people at Hongyuan dare to rush into the municipal government building and go head-to-head with those officials?

That was how these three stone mountains ended up at the Tianqing land brokerage company, listed for sale.

The short, fat middle-aged man was named Du Wei, and he was the general manager of the Tianqing Land Brokerage Company.

He had been in the land brokerage business for over a dozen years and had truly trained a sharp eye.

And so, today, seeing a young man dressed in an extraordinary manner who, upon entering, asked about the three barren stone mountains in Huxi District that had been listed for months without any inquiries, Du Wei tried to probe for any information about the other party but failed; after taking the opportunity to give a brief introduction, he carefully sized the other party up for a while and found that his demeanor did not seem fake, so he enthusiastically began to introduce them to him; he had a premonition that this deal might actually go through.

Sun Cheng looked at the tablet for a long time, and only after reading it through a second time did he place the tablet to the side, look up at Du Wei, and say: "... Manager Du, is it convenient to contact Hongyuan and arrange for someone to take me to see the mountains up close? I am interested in purchasing these stone mountains, but the price still needs to be discussed..."

Although he didn't know what Sun Cheng wanted to do with three stone mountains, the fact that he gave a positive attitude right from the start made it hard for Du Wei to suppress the ecstasy in his heart.

One must know that the agency fee in land transactions starts at a minimum of ten percent, and some unscrupulous agents, after using their silver tongues to facilitate a deal, could even obtain an agency commission of over thirty percent, which was a windfall that often started at ten million.

Naturally, he was more than willing, so he hurriedly made a phone call to Hongyuan to tell them to make arrangements, and immediately sent a car to take him there himself.

The mountains purchased by Hongyuan were all located in the northeast corner of Huxi District, standing by the river; they were far from the city center, but only a dozen kilometers from Jurong County under the jurisdiction of Jiangzhen City, so the transportation was not bad.

When Du Wei personally arranged for a car to take him to the location, the person arranged by Hongyuan Group had already been waiting there for half a day.

"This must be Manager Sun, hello, hello, I am Liu Ju..."

After getting out of the car, a young man with slightly dark skin came up to greet him, his face full of smiles.

"Hello..."

Sun Cheng nodded at him with a plain expression, because this matter concerned Base No. 1, and he had no intention of letting others handle it.

However, doing it himself also had many inconveniences; to avoid exposing his true background, he would handle the verbal negotiation stage himself, but he still needed to be cautious in his words and actions.

After the subsequent contract was signed, Sun Cheng would naturally let Hanwei come forward to modify the data when reporting to the agricultural and commercial departments.

Seeing that Sun Cheng did not appear enthusiastic, Liu Ju was not angry; he still politely greeted three or four people and personally led him to climb the mountains one by one, not forgetting to introduce them as they walked: "This mountain is called Huwangling; it is said that during the Ming Dynasty, a prince liked this place very much and often came to hunt nearby. It is said that once he hunted a tiger, and in his joy, he gave it this name... This mountain is called Wuming Peak, which is just a homophone for 'nameless'... This mountain is called Wangjiang Mountain, from where you can overlook the rolling Yangtze River..."

The three stone mountains were all low hills no more than a hundred meters high; although the three mountains were adjacent, their total area combined was only a little over twenty hectares, not even enough to be a fraction of Huxi Mountain.

Because the main body of the mountains was limestone, there were many huge rocks exposed on the mountains, and although other places were green, they were only low shrubs; looking at them, let alone comparing them to Huxi Mountain, they had nothing outstanding even when compared to other nearby mountains.

Especially after Hongyuan Group bought these mountains, they acted quickly to blast the mountain for stone on Wuming Peak, which had already left indelible traces on nearly half of the mountain's body.

After spending more than two hours, accompanied by Liu Ju and the others, climbing up and down the three mountains for a long time, and carefully knocking on various places at the foot of the mountains, Sun Cheng felt secretly happy in his heart.

After coming down from the mountain, he immediately informed Liu Ju and asked him: "I am basically satisfied with these three mountains. Can you talk to me about the price?"

"Regarding the sale of these three mountains, we have already authorized the Tianqing Company. So, for the specific price, Manager Sun, you should go and talk to Tianqing..."

As it turned out, after going around in a circle, he was back at Tianqing.

After several rounds of repeated consultations and bargaining, three days later, he finally bought these mountains as he had wished.

The price paid was a sum of 84 million national currency, which he transferred from abroad to an account prepared for him by Hanwei, and it was immediately paid to Hongyuan Group.

After signing the agreement and obtaining these three dirt mountains as he had wished, he stayed in Nandu for another day, but still did not wait for the call from Nanjing University of Technology, so he had to give up waiting for the time being and devoted himself entirely to the transformation of the three newly acquired stone mountains.

He slept contentedly for a whole day during the day and only walked out of the camping tent he had placed on the mountain after nightfall.

Sun Cheng stretched, looked up at the moon hanging high in the sky, and whispered to himself, "... Then, let's begin!"

He reached out his hand and waved it gently toward the open space in front of him.

The next moment, three tall robots with metallic luster all over their bodies appeared on the open space in front of him.

Industrial robots!

These three industrial robots newly manufactured by the Base were precisely the trump cards Sun Cheng had prepared for his return to the real world to rebuild Base No. 1.

Although industrial robots are far inferior to Decepticon Workers in performance, their advantage lies in the fact that they possess neither the ability to think nor intelligence; therefore, with just a few control methods and safeguards, Sun Cheng could control them as easily as he controlled the Decepticon Scouts, Hanwei and Vengeance, whose self-awareness he had erased.

With that, he quickly walked over to the side of the industrial robots, his hand flickered slightly, and soon a control terminal that looked exactly like a mobile phone appeared.

He raised the control terminal, aimed it at one of them, and gently pressed the control key.

The next moment, a visible beam of dim blue light immediately submerged into the body of the leading industrial robot.

Subsequently, the industrial robot's chassis immediately began to tremble slightly, and soon a dense and subtle sound of parts grinding together echoed from within; after lasting for about twenty or thirty seconds, blue light suddenly lit up in its previously tightly closed eye sockets, and at the same time, a cold and stiff electronic voice rang out, "Data processing center operational... automatically loading chassis diagnostic functions... initiating core maintenance functions... Memory Chip synchronization starting..."

That voice was precisely a Chinese male voice, a sound source he had collected from a person of Chinese descent in the world of Transformers.

After another few seconds, it slowly sat up from the ground, and after its head swayed slightly for a moment, its gaze quickly settled on Sun Cheng, while two beams of dim blue light immediately shot from its electronic eyes, landing on his face and beginning to scan Sun Cheng's features.

"Facial scan complete, matches the data. Industrial Robot No. 7 reports to Master, please give your orders..."

After speaking, it braced itself against the ground and stood up, standing straight in front of Sun Cheng, speaking with its cold electronic voice.

Although industrial robots are far inferior to Decepticon Workers in performance, their advantage lies in the fact that they possess neither the ability to think nor intelligence; therefore, with just a few control methods and safeguards, Sun Cheng could control them as easily as he controlled the Decepticon Scouts, Hanwei and Vengeance, whose self-awareness he had erased.

With that, he quickly walked over to the side of the industrial robots, his hand flickered slightly, and soon a control terminal that looked exactly like a mobile phone appeared.

He raised the control terminal, aimed it at one of them, and gently pressed the control key.

The next moment, a visible beam of dim blue light immediately submerged into the body of the leading industrial robot.

Subsequently, the industrial robot's chassis immediately began to tremble slightly, and soon a dense and subtle sound of parts grinding together echoed from within; after lasting for about twenty or thirty seconds, blue light suddenly lit up in its previously tightly closed eye sockets, and at the same time, a cold and stiff electronic voice rang out, "Data processing center operational... automatically loading chassis diagnostic functions... initiating core maintenance functions... Memory Chip synchronization starting..."

That voice was precisely a Chinese male voice, a sound source he had collected from a person of Chinese descent in the world of Transformers.

After another few seconds, it slowly sat up from the ground, and after its head swayed slightly for a moment, its gaze quickly settled on Sun Cheng, while two beams of dim blue light immediately shot from its electronic eyes, landing on his face and beginning to scan Sun Cheng's features.

"Facial scan complete, matches the data. Industrial Robot No. 7 reports to Master, please give your orders..."

After speaking, it braced itself against the ground and stood up, standing straight in front of Sun Cheng, speaking with its cold electronic voice.