Chapter 304: An Ominous Premonition

Something has finally gone wrong in Central Asia!

Sun Cheng had not forgotten that a month ago, when he returned to reality from the world of 【Transformers】 and ordered Xiao Wu to attempt to connect to this world's internet, the first news he saw online was that a military coup had occurred in Astana, with the Kazakhstan Army Chief of Staff announcing the abolition of the pro-China president.

Initially, Sun Cheng did not take this news to heart, and just like Yang Fei and the others, he treated it as nothing more than a bit of extra gossip, forgetting about it in the blink of an eye.

But when Ada Wong appeared in Sun Cheng's field of vision again a few days ago alongside Ye Qi, it was only while constantly thinking about and deliberating on the reasons for her sudden appearance that Sun Cheng finally recalled this matter, and it was also because of this that he sensed the anomaly within it.

That's right, an anomaly!

Because Sun Cheng then discovered that there was not a single shred of memory in his head regarding the Western Regions Governor, Cheng Shitao!

Although he was a student at a science and engineering university, that did not mean his history was poor.

In fact, had it not been for his obsessive love for Ye Qi and his desire to achieve something in the future to win the beauty's heart, Sun Cheng might very well have chosen a history major upon entering university, and perhaps he would have become a teacher educating students in some region.

Sun Cheng's history was not bad; although he could not say he remembered the modern history he was interested in with perfect clarity, he still had a general outline of it.

In 1911 AD, the Republic of China President Yu Chen, following the orders of Mr. Zhongshan, returned to the country from the United States to command the uprising. Just after crossing the river and before arriving in Nandu, he encountered a unit of the Ninth Division's 33rd Regiment whose uprising had failed. In the midst of the crisis, Yu Chen took over command of the routed troops, fought successively in Shencheng, Jiangzhe, and even across the entire country, and ultimately, under his leadership, crushed the Manchu Qing, defeated Yuan Shikai, and even the East Asian power—Japan, achieving the great feat of expelling the barbarians and reviving China.

If Sun Cheng remembered correctly, the records regarding Central Asia in the modern history he had learned from history books in the past mentioned that China, taking advantage of the convenience of World War II, marched troops into Central Asia and, after four major battles, completely crushed the Soviet Union's Central Asian Military Region in September 1942 AD, reclaiming the northern border territories that had been ceded during the Tsarist Russian era.

Almaty had also become the location of the command headquarters for China's Northwest Military Region from that time on, with an Army General leading troops to guard this place forever, and the Ninth Army stationed in the outskirts of Almaty was even known as the strongest army in Asia, standing in confrontation with the Soviet Union for over half a century without ever retreating a single step.

This was once a piece of modern history that all Chinese people were most proud of; naturally, it was impossible for Sun Cheng to have remembered it wrong.

However, even if he racked his brains, he could not find a single word or phrase about the name "Cheng Shitao" in any corner of his memory.

Yet, the data Xiao Wu searched for online showed, without exception, that this person was not simple at all.

So, the problem arose!

Who exactly is "Cheng Shitao"?

Perhaps startled by Sun Cheng's extreme expression, Yang Fei and the others looked at him with surprise in unison.

"Cough, cough..." Sun Cheng hurriedly coughed twice to cover up the unease beginning to brew in his heart; he actually already had the answer, but unfortunately, this was definitely not an answer he wanted to see.

"Fighting has broken out in Almaty? That really is big news..."

Pretending to say this as a cover, Sun Cheng did not want to get too involved in this topic and looked straight at Wang Lu, saying: "Manager Wang, later tomorrow, the factory will send over the first batch of completed hard drives, totaling two trucks and over 70,000 drives of various specifications. You go talk to the property management side later; we need a warehouse!"

"The goods are here? So fast..."

Upon hearing this, joy was immediately evident on Wang Lu's face.

Recently, the company's publicity had gradually accelerated, especially after Sun Cheng changed his mind; the promotion regarding the binding of the Cybertron Cloud Drive and the hard drives was already imminent.

Wang Lu had been holding back on the publicity side, not because he doubted the company's technology—in fact, after Sun Cheng repeatedly brought in various hard drive products of different specifications and capacities, he was already convinced that his young boss truly possessed a new, revolutionary storage device technology.

It was just that one feels no panic when they have supplies in hand; because he could not see the products manufactured in large quantities by the factory assembly line, he could not correctly evaluate the company's production capacity and strength, so he could only hold back on the publicity side, fearing that problems might arise.

"The production speed at the factory is currently about 100,000 units per month. However, I have already given instructions that the production speed will gradually increase, and in another half a month, it should be able to reach about 300,000 to 400,000 units per month..."

This casually blurted-out data was not Sun Cheng talking nonsense, but rather data he arrived at after personally inspecting the production capacity of factories under some semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the domestic southeast coastal region; it was roughly equivalent to the capacity of a medium-sized foundry, consistent with data that would match a startup company.

The Cybertron Technology hard drives were naturally not produced by any foundry; they all came from Base No. 1 in Huwangling, manufactured by those two D Printers that Sun Cheng brought back from another world.

It would be no exaggeration to call these two pieces of equipment, designed and manufactured by the Decepticon Workers, divine artifacts, because they extensively applied Cybertron Technology and craftsmanship that were at least a hundred years ahead of Earth; they could maintain long, uninterrupted work and were extremely efficient. If the raw materials were sufficient, Sun Cheng did not even doubt that the number of hard drives they could produce every day would exceed this figure.

Although it was a bit of a waste to use two universal devices capable of manufacturing even precision instruments and combat robots to produce hard drives, at least for the moment, it saved him a lot of trouble.

After giving a few simple instructions, Sun Cheng walked away and returned to his office.

He closed the door behind him, walked to his desk, and with a serious expression now on his face, he quickly walked to his desk and opened the laptop on it.

After the computer finished booting up, Sun Cheng quickly clicked on the browser. He first entered the four characters "Almaty" in the search bar, and just as he was about to hit the Enter key, he hesitated and deleted it, changing it instead to the name "Cheng Shitao."

Following a slight delay, a long list of news columns quickly popped up on the browser. Looking closely, the most frequently appearing sets of words were none other than—"Almaty Conflict," "Nuclear Weapon General," and "Four Great Governors"!

Clicking on an encyclopedia page about him, one could see that the introduction regarding "Cheng Shitao" was densely packed.

"The most well-known general in the country... As the Western Regions Governor, he, along with Northern Border Governor Xiao Ri, Liaodong Governor Xian Hui, and Southern Border Governor Dai Hongkui, are known as the 'Four Great Governors'... holding up half the sky of present-day China... Ridiculous, truly ridiculous... A governor position that was abolished in the early years of the Republic of China has now appeared again in a grand manner, yet apart from me, no one else has sensed the anomaly... 【Command & Conquer: Generals】, is it..."

Muttering in a low voice, the vigilance in Sun Cheng's eyes grew increasingly intense.

He had a very ominous premonition; the conflict in Almaty might just be the beginning. With the integration of the world named 【Command & Conquer: Generals】 two or three months ago, the real world probably wouldn't have many more days of peace!