bioinnovel Chapter 443 4 Spirits Combined 1!
Chapter 443 4 Spirits Combined 1!
The underground laboratory lights shone a stark white light onto the fist-sized black crystal on the workbench.
The star map flowing on the crystal surface has disappeared, but Zhang Yan knows that the coordinates pointing to the far side of the moon have been engraved into the system's underlying protocol.
He stared at the crystal for three minutes.
Nie Qingcheng's footsteps echoed in the stairwell, light and quick.
When she appeared at the lab entrance, she had changed into a sharp black suit, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and she was holding a tablet.
She glanced at the isolation pod on the worktable.
"Finished the analysis?"
"Not yet." Zhang Yan resealed the crystal into the isolation chamber, whose lead inner walls prevented any possible signal leakage.
"But this thing is alive; it's receiving signals from the far side of the moon."
Nie Qingcheng walked to his side, turning the tablet screen towards him.
The above is a satellite access request form. The applicant is "Tianji Security" and the reason is "deep space object monitoring".
She pressed the send button. "Qin Xiao has already given instructions; the military satellite will pass over the far side of the moon in forty minutes, with the resolution set to maximum."
Zhang Yan looked at her. "When did you contact Qin Xiao?"
"When you come downstairs," Nie Qingcheng placed the tablet on the worktable, "I guessed you'd want this picture."
Zhang Yan remained silent.
He walked to the control panel in the corner of the laboratory and brought up the system interface.
The Heart of the Celestial Craftsman felt a slight warmth in its chest as it continued to analyze the residual data from that star chart.
"The far side of the moon." Nie Qingcheng leaned against the control panel. "If there really was a base of the Mohist civilization, it would have been buried by dust and craters long ago, after 30,000 years."
"The base may be buried, but the energy won't." Zhang Yan pulled up the real-time monitoring interface of the seven global gateways. The shielding efficiency of six nodes was stable at 96.4%, but there was no data for the lunar direction. "The gateway network only covers the Earth itself; the moon is a blind spot."
Nie Qingcheng was silent for two seconds. "You mean, the colony might bypass the gate and establish a base directly on the moon?"
"It's not a possibility." Zhang Yan pointed to the scan data of the crystal on the control panel screen. "This thing is a remnant of high-dimensional matter, and its energy characteristics are the same as those of the external community, but the frequency of the signals it receives..."
He pulled up a waveform graph, which showed regular pulses in a certain frequency band.
"The maintenance frequency of the gate network is exactly the same."
Nie Qingcheng narrowed her eyes.
"Is it a fragment of a key?"
"It's more likely a listening device," Zhang Yan said. "The community knows that repairing the door requires a key, so they may have been looking for similar entities a long time ago, or... copying the key."
The laboratory fell into a brief silence, broken only by the low-frequency hum of the servers running.
Nie Qingcheng broke the silence. "If there really is a settlement on the far side of the moon, it's too far away for your mech to fly there."
"We can't fly there in the normal mode." Zhang Yan turned around and looked at her. "But if I modify the mecha into a form that can fight on the lunar surface..."
He paused.
"It needs energy, a lot of energy, and the power supply network for this laboratory is insufficient."
Nie Qingcheng raised her wrist and glanced at her watch. "How much do you need?"
Zhang Yan retrieved a set of calculation data on the console. The numbers on the screen kept fluctuating until they finally stabilized at an astronomical figure.
"A continuous power supply of at least 300,000 kilowatts for 48 hours without any interruption."
Nie Qingcheng didn't even frown. She picked up her tablet and dialed a number.
She only said one sentence after the call was connected.
"Start up the backup reactor at our nuclear power plant in the West District, run a dedicated line to the Tianji Security underground laboratory, and set the power to maximum."
The other person seemed to be saying something, and their tone was urgent.
Nie Qingcheng interrupted him.
"I'm not discussing this. In twenty minutes, I need to see the load curve of that dedicated line start to climb. If you don't, you don't need to do it."
She hung up the phone and looked at Zhang Yan. "Is that enough?"
Zhang Yan looked at her, his lips twitching slightly. "When did you buy the nuclear power plant?"
"Last month," Nie Qingcheng said calmly, "when you went to Antarctica to repair the gate, I checked the global energy market gap and bought it on a whim. I originally planned to use it to reduce the operating costs of Qingcheng International, but now it's for you to use."
She walked to the control panel and pulled up the real-time data for the nuclear power plant.
The icon for the standby reactor has changed from gray to green, and the power output curve has begun to slowly climb.
"It will reach full capacity in four hours," she said. "The dedicated line will be connected before then."
Zhang Yan didn't say anything more.
He walked to the worktable and turned on the maintenance terminals for all the mechs.
The holographic projections of six mechs—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, Xing Tian, and Black Scorpion—are arranged in the air, each bearing varying degrees of battle damage.
"The renovation will take time," Zhang Yan said. "I might have to stay up for several nights in a row."
"I set an alarm for forty-eight hours for you." Nie Qingcheng took a key out of her suit pocket and tossed it to him. "It's a lounge next to the lab. There's a bed and a bathroom inside. I'll come down to check every six hours. If you're not there, I'll cut off the power."
Zhang Yan caught the key, the coolness of the metal seeping through his fingertips.
"You really will lose power."
"You can give it a try." Nie Qingcheng walked to the door, glanced back at him, and said, "Zhang Yan, last time when your hands were shaking, I almost couldn't resist tying you to the bed."