Chapter 8: Preparing Liquid Explosives, Su Chen's Plan!

Chapter Eight: Preparing Liquid Explosives, Su Chen's Plan!

[Brothers, I'm new here. Isn't this supposed to be a livestream about a murderer? Where is the murderer? Why do I only see a police officer?]
[...You didn't see wrong. This is a murderer dressed in a police officer's skin.]
[Holy crap, that's some serious skill.]
[Su Chen has already heard the experts' plan. Shouldn't he quit while he's ahead and run for it? Why did he volunteer to work the night shift with his colleagues?]
[He's not the type to do unnecessary things. I have a feeling he's definitely about to stir up some trouble...]
[How? He's surrounded by two police officers. If he doesn't run now, once the cyber police mobilize the city-wide surveillance, he won't be able to escape even if he wants to.]

In front of the giant screen, Chief Director Chen Qiming looked at that "he's definitely about to stir up trouble" comment, his hand holding the water glass trembling slightly. Even though Su Chen's actions had pushed the "Manhunt Live" viewership to over three million, he would have preferred that Su Chen just run away. Su Chen fleeing, the police chasing, Su Chen having nowhere to fly—that was how this show was supposed to go!

Su Chen was too much of a wildcard now. The veteran director, who had filmed over eighty movies, feared that if Su Chen pulled off another crazy stunt, things would spiral out of his control.

"There are over a billion people in the country; why did I have to pick this genius as the murderer?" Director Chen sighed.

But he had to face it. He took a deep breath, calmed his emotions, steeled his nerves, and gritted his teeth as he spoke to the staff beside him: "Put Su Chen's live feed on the big screen. I want to see what he's up to."

The staff hesitated for a moment before bowing their heads to work. Since the start of the show, twenty-two "Sky Eye" cameras had been activated to provide feeds for the experts and close-ups of various team operations. The background screens were packed like a mosaic. For the director to open a dedicated big screen just to monitor Su Chen was a special privilege indeed.

The feed was quickly projected. On the screen, Su Chen had changed into a black hoodie and was wearing a baseball cap. He walked along the street without stopping and soon ducked into an inconspicuous little shop. It was a makeshift lab converted from a storefront, located next to the Jinling Friendship Middle School. Because the high school entrance exam included a chemistry lab component, many such labs had popped up near middle schools, rented out specifically for students to practice their experiments. However, these small labs were usually run opportunistically, and their management was far from professional.

"I'd like to rent a small lab for my younger brother. I need a private room, something quiet, for two hours," Su Chen said to the middle-aged shopkeeper sitting at the entrance, his tone natural and seasoned, as if he were a regular.

"Sure, one hundred per hour." The middle-aged man didn't hesitate; he pulled a key from his keychain, handed it to Su Chen, and added, "You need to pay a two-hundred-dollar deposit in advance."

Su Chen nodded and pulled out a wallet—a wallet he had swiped from one of the show's crew members. When he first saw the paper money inside, he had been momentarily stunned; in this era of mobile payments, cash was rare. This money was likely the private stash the crew member hid from his wife to avoid her checking his phone bills.

As Su Chen easily entered the private lab room, the chat was buzzing with heated discussion.

[Think about it, the management of these loopholes-ridden labs is indeed chaotic. Letting middle school students play with chemical reagents—how dangerous!]
[No choice, the entrance exams require it. Look, the rooms are basically all rented out. One hundred an hour—that's easy money!]
[I've noticed that in education, as long as it's linked to entrance exams, the profits are high. My kid takes one-on-one tutoring, and it costs two or three hundred an hour!]
[Uh, am I the only one who noticed Su Chen is using the show crew member's money...]
[Hahaha, me too! Even though it's expensive, Su Chen isn't spending his own money! That guy is truly pathetic; he's still lying in the trunk of the car!]
[But why is Su Chen in a lab? These shitty little labs have pathetic amounts of reagents, and they're all weak ones. They're useless for anything other than exams.]
[Yeah, I'm getting anxious for him. The cyber cop, Duan Yu, has already started setting up his monitoring net. If Su Chen wastes time here and his identity as an imposter is exposed, he's done for!]

While the audience was anxious, Director Chen Qiming in the control room breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Fortunately, Su Chen's chemistry knowledge didn't seem high. The reagents in such a small lab were too few, and the equipment was too crude; there was no way he could whip up anything dangerous. However, in the livestream, Su Chen looked so confident and composed that the director's heart remained uneasy.

Su Chen walked past rows of glass cabinets, quickly selecting pieces of equipment, and then began assembling them on the lab bench with nimble hands. He placed a round-bottom flask under an alcohol lamp, gently inserted a glass tube into a rubber stopper, and connected it to a condenser and a collector, all supported by an iron stand. Within ten minutes, a complete reaction and purification setup sat on the table. His professional movements and the unique, focused expression on his face left the viewers stunned.

[Holy crap, if I could've been that efficient during my entrance exam, a perfect score would've been easy!]
[The person above, are you sure middle schoolers can do this? That's way beyond the curriculum!]
[With this level of standardized operation, I refuse to believe Su Chen hasn't spent two years in a lab.]

Watching Su Chen's unhurried actions, the staff behind the scenes of "Manhunt Live" were breaking into a sweat. In this crappy little lab, he shouldn't be able to make anything... right?

Inside the lab, after finishing the setup, Su Chen opened his bag. Inside were two heavy transparent glass bottles and one brown glass bottle! A pungent odor wafted out and drifted through the ventilation duct. Concentrated nitric acid, concentrated sulfuric acid, and glycerin!

Su Chen carefully took out the reagents, pouring them while silently contemplating. When he heard the cyber cop Duan Yu's plan in the expert office earlier, he had indeed been startled. Once the high-density camera network was built, not only would his previous actions be exposed, but he would become a turtle in a jar! With countless eyes watching his every move, he might as well just turn himself in. This monitoring network was like the eyes of the expert team, and now, he had to blind those eyes for a while.

The method was simple and brutal. He planned to use nitroglycerin—liquid explosives. To Su Chen, manufacturing this was not difficult; it was merely a matter of cooling and mixing fuming nitric acid and glycerin, then purifying the resulting oil.

Dragon Kingdom regulations forbade selling sulfuric acid to those without a chemical certificate. However, as it was a material for middle school chemistry exams, many small shops sold it privately in small quantities for students to practice. As long as it wasn't bought alongside glycerin, no one would be suspicious.

After obtaining the [Alchemy] skill from the Star Map, it felt as if all these operations were etched into his memory. Su Chen hummed a tune, his white latex-gloved hands dancing among the reagents. Under the heat of the alcohol lamp, reddish-brown nitrogen dioxide gas surged out of the tube, passed through the concentrated sulfuric acid to dry, and was injected into the concentrated nitric acid at the other end, bubbling away.

A moment later, Su Chen took the supersaturated concentrated nitric acid out of the ice bath and added some neutral desiccant powder with a spatula to absorb the remaining moisture. Finally, in the flask, a brownish-yellow liquid was newly synthesized, and white smoke even wafted from the bottle neck—a testament to the substance's dangerous nature!

Fuming nitric acid. With it, he was only one step away from nitroglycerin.

The subsequent preparation was simple: mixing the fuming nitric acid and glycerin at low temperatures, separating and collecting the yellow oily layer that formed at the bottom. Repeat, purify, collect. After tedious, repetitive steps, Su Chen had gathered half a beaker—about two hundred milliliters—of nitroglycerin.

With a slight shake, the brownish-yellow oily liquid churned in the beaker, reflecting the sunlight like amber—dangerous, yet mesmerizing. Su Chen was extremely careful, as this liquid explosive was highly sensitive; even a certain degree of vibration could trigger it! If the two hundred milliliters in his hand exploded, the force would be no less than three or four hundred grams of TNT. By then, this whole lab would be reduced to rubble.

When the viewers saw what was in Su Chen's hand, the entire chat went silent for a few seconds.

[Ho...ly crap, what is that? Looks impressive, but what's it for?]
[This... this is an explosive, a liquid explosive! It was often used in railway tunnels in the nineteenth century, but was later banned because it was too easy to detonate!]
[I think I've heard of this. There was an old news story about a ship carrying liquid explosives exploding at a pier, and the entire pier was wiped out. The power is terrifying!]
[Damn, did I see that right? Preparing liquid explosives requires extremely advanced purification and reaction techniques. Su Chen actually made it in a crappy little lab?!]
[Amazing. I couldn't do this in my university lab. He absolutely has a chemistry degree!]
[It's too dangerous. Thankfully, this is just a show and Su Chen is just playing a fugitive. We should be glad someone this capable hasn't gone down the wrong path!]

Back at the headquarters of "Manhunt Live," Director Chen Qiming and the staff stared at the shimmering liquid in Su Chen's hand as if they had seen a ghost. They stood frozen for a long time.

"This... if this thing explodes, what will the consequences be?" Chen Qiming asked, his voice trembling.

"Equivalent to six or seven hand grenades... flipping an SUV wouldn't be a problem," a staff member with chemistry knowledge said uncertainly.

Hearing this, Director Chen felt his vision go dark, as if he had developed Su Chen-PTSD! What kind of talent had he hired? He had intended to hire an actor, but had he accidentally hired a master criminal?!

"Call all the backup staff to assemble!"
"Yes!"

Before long, a group of young men in black clothes and pants with the show's logo gathered in the studio hall. "Manhunt Live" had arranged for over a hundred backup personnel, known as the "Men in Black." Their role was similar to those in other variety shows: delivering task cards and information to the guests. But at this moment, in Director Chen Qiming's eyes, these people were his only hope!

"Go now! Follow Su Chen in real-time and ensure the show doesn't lose control!"
"Take the company cars!"
"Understood, Director!"

The lead "Man in Black" nodded, and then, leading the squad, they vanished from the hall like lightning. While they were speaking, Su Chen in the livestream had already returned his lab deposit, packed the explosives into his backpack, and walked out.

"Track Su Chen's trajectory and location!" Chen Qiming wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his breathing rapid.

The studio became a flurry of activity; the sound of keyboards clicking was relentless. After ten seconds, a technician suddenly looked up from his computer: "Su Chen is currently heading toward... the power distribution center in the southern district of the University City!"

*Clang!*

The water glass in Chen Qiming's hand fell to the floor.

"What is he going there for?!"