Chapter Eighteen: Revising the Thesis

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Name: Shang Lu.
Gender: Male.
Ethnicity: Han.
Parents' names and workplaces... Shang Lu rested his pen against his chin, paused silently for a few seconds, then skipped this section and continued reading down the form.

In Chongqing during August and September, the heat was still intense. The sun would not set until seven in the evening. After finishing work, Shang Lu did not go inside the dormitory but sat on the stairway landing, using the natural light to fill out the form.

Suddenly, someone wrapped their arms around his shoulders from behind, pressing their weight onto him.

"Chief Engineer!"

It was Chen Yu.

"Off work?" Shang Lu asked.

"Getting ready to start." Chen Yu peeked at the form on Shang Lu’s knee, then opened his mouth wide. "Oh? A social registration... an application form? Are you preparing to go on a blind date?"

Shang Lu shrugged.

"The colleagues in the office suggested it. They said there’s a subsidy after marriage. I don’t have much going on anyway, so I might as well fill it out."

"Then fill it out." Chen Yu chuckled. "You never know these days. It’s good to settle down early. Have you talked with your parents? Do they have any standards for your future wife?"

Shang Lu pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"They were all lost in the Great Evacuation."

Chen Yu was taken aback for a moment.

"What about other relatives?"

"I have an older sister," Shang Lu replied. "Tall, good-looking, very kind to me, a physics PhD candidate at Peking University."

"Where is she now?"

Shang Lu gestured around him:

"Floating in the air."

Chen Yu fell silent, released Shang Lu’s shoulders, and sat down beside him on the steps. Shang Lu lifted his head, eyes fixed on the few pedestrians scattered along the path outside the courtyard gate, and spoke softly:

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"In my county, there were only three survivors. One and a half million people left not a single corpse—everything shattered into powder. The Angel obliterated everything within a 40-square-kilometer radius. Our home was on the edge of the affected area. I watched with my own eyes as my father, mother, and sister turned into red smoke in the blink of an eye, then fell as rain from the sky."

Chen Yu took a deep breath, removed his cap. "It was Angel 041."

"All living things turned into rain. That deep crimson downpour lasted for two hours."

After finishing, Shang Lu lowered his head and continued filling out the form. Chen Yu watched him write carefully, stroke by stroke. He wasn’t sure if Shang Lu genuinely wanted to go on a blind date. To someone like Chen Yu, this young roommate always seemed to harbor something beneath the surface. He rarely spoke or showed emotion. For such a person, you couldn’t help but speculate that no matter what he did, there was always another motive—yet maybe not. At this age, perhaps he simply wanted to find a wife and settle down.

After the Great Evacuation, the near-collapse of human society required rebuilding. The government encouraged young people to start families early to restore population and productivity.

Currently, human society’s age structure was an unprecedented inverted triangle: many young people, few elderly. Early on, angels appeared unpredictably and suddenly, making it impossible for humans to devise thorough plans or concentrate resources. In the chaos of the hurried, panicked evacuation, the top priority was protecting and relocating the young. Thus, the Sichuan Basin had become a massive orphanage housing over a hundred million people.

Amid the howling winds, more rockets launched beyond the mountains. Shang Lu looked up in awe. This was likely the fourth or fifth batch of rockets launched at once, each salvo carrying a base amount of ammunition. The roar and whistle shook the air. Gazing at the rocket artillery streaking across the sky under the evening glow was not an experience afforded to many. A grand military operation was unfolding, and Shang Lu was witnessing the resurgence of human martial power.

"They’re launching smoke pots with rocket artillery, distributing them from the tea plantations to Jiazaigou. We estimate the smoke will reduce the effectiveness of high-energy lasers." Chen Yu stood and took a few steps forward, tilting his head back to watch the rockets disappear over the mountaintop.

"The Lighthouse Angel has arrived?"

Chen Yu nodded gravely. "Third-level contact was triggered ninety minutes ago. There’s been no sign it has changed direction. We expect it to cross the Wujigang ridge tonight and reach Yinglong Lake reservoir by dawn. The Joint Command Center will soon issue Contact Alert 092 for the Lighthouse Angel to the entire city. All units must enter Level One combat readiness. The command headquarters will be on duty all night."

"What about Red Lotus?" Shang Lu asked.

"All tests are complete. It’s currently on standby," Chen Yu replied. "Waiting for the Joint Command Center’s order. Expected deployment will be in the latter half of the night, intercepting near the outer ring expressway by early dawn—Chief Engineer, listen."

From one direction came a faint sound of the wind screw siren, quickly followed by alarms rising from all sides. At first, the sounds were rhythmic and intermittent, then transformed into a long, sustained wail. The piercing screech drowned out all other noise. People finishing their shifts at the base froze. One second later, everyone hearing the alarm ran back frantically as if mad.

"I’m heading to my post." Chen Yu stepped forward and patted Shang Lu’s arm hard. "Chief Engineer, protect yourself at all costs. Also, I’ve taken the liberty of writing your will and locked it in the safe."

Shang Lu was stunned.

"What does it say?"

"Screw this damned world—we go first and second." Chen Yu gave a thumbs-up.

Shang Lu stood up and hugged him tightly. Chen Yu patted his back.

"It’s nothing. Don’t worry."

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After parting from Chen Yu, Shang Lu sprinted toward the cave bunker. Amid the blaring alarms, everyone was running wildly. The massive war machine that was Base 151 kicked into full power the moment the alarm sounded, rapidly entering anti-angel deployment. Combat duty personnel took their positions, while non-combat posts withdrew to safe zones outside the battle area. Shang Lu technically belonged to the latter. According to his base officer manual, he was supposed to evacuate to the rear immediately upon a Level One combat alert. But Shang Lu had no intention of obeying that rule.

Everyone knew Base 151 itself was the strongest shelter. Everyone knew that if the giant war machines could not hold the front lines, hiding anywhere was useless.

Shang Lu ran with the crowd beneath the towering dome of the 104 Shrine, crossed the cooling water channel, and prepared to take the elevator.

A large group waited at the elevator. When the doors opened, people surged inside. Shang Lu tried to follow but was grabbed by the arm.

He turned to see Old Ji, clad in a dirty white lab coat.

"Kid, where the hell do you think you’re running off to?"

Old Ji’s aged face twisted in concern.

"Office." Shang Lu pointed upward. "Going to the office for duty."

"What does your manual say?"

"Immediate evacuation."

"Then evacuate immediately!" Old Ji panted. "Don’t run around here. This isn’t a game. If something happens to you, I can’t explain it to your advisor. There’s still time—go evacuate! Now!"

Seeing the boy’s dazed expression, Old Ji pushed him again.

"Go evacuate!"

He glanced at his watch, pivoted on his heels, ran a few steps forward, then came back to shove Shang Lu again before turning to run with the crowd. After running far, he looked back and shouted:

"Evacuate!"

Old Ji disappeared into the tunnel’s end. Seconds later, his shouts echoed:

"Evacuate—!"

The elevator doors opened, and Shang Lu was swept inside by the rushing crowd. He ascended to the office; no one else was there. The room was empty. The operations office was not a combat post, and under Level One alert, there were no assigned tasks. The entire 110 workshop system was logistics and maintenance, and the anti-angel mission logic dictated that once the giant war machines left port, logistics was removed from the mission chain until the next arrival.

Shang Lu stood by the office’s observation window. Outside, the workshop was brightly lit. Red Lotus was performing weapon loading.

It was Shang Lu’s first time seeing Red Lotus load weapons. Its four arms stretched out, red armor plates spread like scales. A narrow hatch on the wrist was open. A crane was loading a black cylindrical object horizontally into the arm. This was Red Lotus’s ammunition. Clearly, all four arms were gun barrels, but each barrel held only one bullet. After loading, the cylinder slid deep into the magazine, the hatch closing and locking. Judging from the height of the people on the operation platform, these black cylinders were four to five meters long, reflecting light like mirrors under the lamps.

These were the greatest secret of Base 151—the weapons humanity used to annihilate the angels.

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