Chapter Twelve: Manipulating the Core

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The entrance to the Crimson Lotus cockpit was located at the nape of the neck on the back, slanting downward into the body of the machine. This was one of the three core components of the Crimson Lotus—the control core. The engineers designed the cockpit’s position on the back because they believed it was the safest spot, protected by multiple layers and most convenient for ejection escape. The cockpit itself was a spherical pressure-resistant shell forged from high-strength titanium alloy, with a compressive strength exceeding 110 megapascals—strong enough to withstand the Mariana Trench’s depths without deforming, providing ample protection for the pilot—at least, ample by Earth standards.

“This isn’t quite what I imagined,” Shang Lu said as he stepped one foot into the cockpit, looking around and raising his head. “I thought it would be more complicated.”

He had expected the cockpit to have seats, displays, control sticks, and countless buttons—something mechanical and instrument-heavy like a fighter jet’s cockpit. But surprisingly, the interior was a smooth spherical space, with no seats, no monitors, no buttons or joysticks—only simple handles on the white inner walls.

“It’s definitely different from what you thought,” Shen Jiang said, donning her helmet and crawling inside as well. “But it’s more complex than you imagine.”

The space inside the cockpit wasn’t spacious; it comfortably accommodated one person who could move freely and turn around, but adding another made it cramped. Shang Lu and Shen Jiang squeezed in like on a crowded bus. Shang Lu tried to move aside to keep some distance, but the floor wasn’t flat, and the spherical inner wall was slippery and unstable. When he stepped down, he slid back up.

Shang Lu could only reach out and grab the handle on the inner wall to steady himself.

The inner and outer cockpit doors slowly closed and sealed shut, cutting off the last sliver of light. Darkness enveloped them completely, and silence followed.

In the darkness, Shang Lu breathed silently.

So did Shen Jiang.

Suddenly, the girl said, “Hold on tight.”

Instinctively, Shang Lu gripped the handle firmly. Immediately, as if the elevator cable had snapped and they were in free fall, the floor beneath them vanished. Shang Lu could feel the spherical cockpit tilting and sliding deep into the body of the giant machine.

In less than a second, the cockpit slid into the bottom of the slide rail. The two swayed from inertia and bumped into each other.

“Checking respirator—no problems. Checking communicator—no problems. Checking force feedback system—no problems. Checking neural interface—no problems,” Shen Jiang said, moving her limbs as she spoke. Gradually, the cockpit lit up.

Every inch of the cockpit’s inner wall glowed with a soft white light. Shang Lu looked around in amazement. It felt as if they were inside a spherical daylight lamp, with 360-degree illumination casting light on his gray baggy shorts. Judging by this, it was no ordinary cockpit. It was indeed more complex than Shang Lu had imagined.

“External view activated,” Shen Jiang announced.

As soon as she spoke, the white inner walls of the cockpit seemed to turn into transparent glass with almost no blind spots. Shang Lu’s eyes widened in astonishment.

He stood as if fifty meters above, overlooking the entire workshop. At this moment, he was the Crimson Lotus.

Truly advanced.

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“Crimson Lotus giant apparatus pilot number one, Shen Jiang. AHDA406619890713266. Voiceprint verified. Iris verified. Fingerprint verified,” Shen Jiang recited. “System activated.”

More complex windows and data floated on the inner walls, forming a virtual control panel that Shen Jiang manipulated at will. Her fingers tapped and flicked on the cockpit’s inner surface, adjusting parameters of the giant machine beneath their feet.

“Injecting IRGF.”

The level of a pale blue transparent liquid rapidly rose from the floor. Shang Lu poked and pinched it with his fingers—it was a bit viscous. Before he could do more, the liquid had already risen past their waists.

Shen Jiang continued to operate the control panel expressionlessly, glancing sideways at Shang Lu, who looked around like a curious monkey.

“Make sure to wear your respirator properly. If it fails, you’ll drown here,” Shen Jiang warned. “This isn’t an EVA suit—there’s no breathing here.”

“What’s this liquid for?” Shang Lu asked.

“For shock absorption and to provide a zero-gravity effect,” Shen Jiang replied.

As the liquid level continued rising, soon surpassing their heads, the zero-gravity effect Shen Jiang mentioned began to manifest. They slowly floated up and hovered in the center of the spherical cockpit.

Shang Lu had never learned how to control his limbs in zero gravity, so his arms and legs drifted about, which utterly annoyed Shen Jiang. She lamented not bringing a rope to tie him up like a crab. But for Shen Jiang, who was already adept, the advantage of operating the giant machine in zero gravity was clear. She nimbly flipped her body within the buffer liquid like a fish, effortlessly touching any point on the cockpit’s inner wall.

“You’d make a great astronaut,” Shang Lu said.

Shen Jiang gently pushed off the wall and began to sink slowly. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “I don’t want to go to space.”

“Is there anywhere else you want to go?”

“The Crimson Lotus’ basic setup is complete.” The girl flipped over and curled up in her heavy equipment, then spread her arms and spun once. “As you can see, this is the Crimson Lotus’ control core.”

The transparent cockpit walls made her appear as if floating in midair.

This was the control core of the Crimson Lotus. Shang Lu hadn’t expected it to look like this. For a giant weapon designed to resist higher-dimensional invasions, it was excessively beautiful.

“All data and information display on the surrounding screens. This is a spherical screen with no blind spots. You can perform any operation you want,” Shen Jiang said, gesturing around. “I mentioned that the core task in fighting the angels is calculation. Operating the arms and legs of the giant machine is comparatively simple. Simple actions can be completed by the computer itself. If manual operation is needed, it’s done through this force feedback exoskeleton system I’m wearing.”

“Simulated operation?”

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Shen Jiang nodded. “You can’t control the arms and legs with joysticks. The best way is—her hands are your hands, her legs are your legs.”

“But she has four arms.”

“Assisted by the neural interface system,” Shen Jiang explained. “This system was developed by your automation department, Supervisor—that’s the unit you came from.”

Shang Lu held onto the handle, floating in the transparent pale blue buffer liquid. Bubbles rhythmically rose upwards. Back to back, each faced opposite directions. Shang Lu tried tapping the spherical screen. The interface was more sensitive than he expected; a light tap brought up a flood of incomprehensible pop-up windows.

This was an operating system he didn’t understand.

Not Windows, not Linux, not any system he had ever seen. It contained many characters that looked both familiar and strange.

He had once seen these in courses on complex functions and differential geometry but had long since forgotten them all.

“You’re not going to start it up, are you?”

“No,” Shen Jiang replied. “The Crimson Lotus’ body hasn’t been unlocked yet.”

“Why not design it as a two-person cockpit? Having an extra person could share the workload,” Shang Lu asked curiously. “Fighter jets have two seats—one for flying, one for navigation or weapons control.”

“Because the efficiency gain is minimal. It’s like handing over a math problem you’ve half solved to someone else—they still have to start from scratch,” Shen Jiang said. “The giant machine doesn’t need a second pilot. Most of the time, the angels won’t give you time to discuss or verify answers. When facing angels, you have to make decisions alone—either right or wrong.”

Shang Lu turned his head. Through their helmet visors, he could see only half of her pale profile.

There was a pause in the headset before she added:

“In the most critical moments, only one person can make the decision.”