Chapter Eight: The First Day on Duty

After the cable car arrived at the station, the two parted ways on the platform. Chen Yu was headed to the command headquarters to take his shift in the operations section, while Shang Lu continued walking forward, crossing a long bridge over an artificial underground river. The bridge was built inside a vast mountain cavity, filled with the thunderous roar of cascading water. A grayish-white waterfall plunged from the height of six or seven stories into a dark pool below. This water was drawn from the Jialing River, powered by twelve water pumps that pushed two hundred cubic meters per second through a four-kilometer-long, four-meter-diameter pipeline, channeling the water from the river to this point and then onward to various reservoirs.

If one were to accidentally fall from the bridge, their body could end up anywhere within the base—even caught in the cooling water filtration system of the nuclear reactor.

Beyond the pool lay the 110 Cave Depot, also known as Workshop One for the giant machinery. The entrance arch soared thirty meters high, and passing beneath it felt like entering the realm of giants. The alloy steel doors, half a meter thick, rested on rails and pulleys. Each door weighed five hundred tons, so together they totaled a thousand tons—sealed shut, they were impervious even to explosives.

Shang Lu adjusted his white safety helmet and squared his shoulders.

Today was his first day on duty.

The 110 Cave Depot covered an area roughly the size of a standard football field. Upon entering, the first thing one saw was the dark red giant machine directly opposite. Even from a hundred meters away, it compelled you to look up in awe. It stood against the cavern wall, surrounded by layered work surfaces and scaffolding, resembling a colossal sculpture carved from rock or a relic of some ancient civilization being unearthed. Sparks from laser welding and cutting rained down like droplets. Gazing up from afar, the machine evoked a powerful impression: the presence of the Red Lotus made the entire workshop seem like a vast shrine, with the giant machine as the towering deity within.

Objects of such immense scale naturally inspire a sense of divinity—human-made machinery is no exception.

A ring of solar lamps hung from the cavern ceiling, illuminating the entire workshop brightly. Each lamp emitted forty thousand lumens, dazzling enough to blind if looked at directly.

Under normal conditions, over a hundred workers would be on site simultaneously. The chief engineer was the highest authority here. Old Ji always wore a dirty white lab coat and stood tall atop the work surface. He had a unique style—sometimes wearing two pairs of glasses simultaneously, donning coveralls beneath his lab coat, holding a walkie-talkie in his left hand and a Geiger counter in his right. Maintaining the giant machine was a complex and hazardous task, requiring strict adherence to protocols to prevent accidents.

The Red Lotus was the third-generation giant machine, currently the most advanced and also the most intricate. Old Ji explained that when they first designed these giants, the humanoid engineering team faced the greatest challenges. Problems came in succession: first, why design it as humanoid at all; second, how to ensure it walked steadily; third, once stable, how to prevent its feet from sinking into the ground.

Then came the 041 Wave Angel. All non-humanoid giants under forty meters tall were shattered by it, solving the first problem for the humanoid engineering team.

From top to bottom, the Red Lotus had three major cores, seventeen modules, and 164 subsystems. The computing core was located in the head, the control core in the spine, and the power core in the chest and abdomen. These three cores formed the foundation for the Red Lotus’s normal operation—making it the most complex system mankind had ever built. Why the most complex? That would be explained later.

Shang Lu clutched a folder under his left arm, slinged a bag over his right shoulder, and dashed across the cave depot, shielding his head as he went.

Above him, steel cables were hoisting a twenty-meter-long arm segment—just a forearm. The entire arm stretched a full forty meters. To be honest, the name Red Lotus was less fitting than Liu Bei, considering the arm’s extraordinary length. At fifty meters tall, the forty-meter arm length meant its forearm alone extended well past the knees. The arm had eleven degrees of freedom, powered by sixteen high-powered three-phase asynchronous motors, assisted by four high-capacity six-axis traction motors and a hydraulic system—each motor exceeding 9000 kilowatts. A single arm was equivalent in power to four electric locomotives combined.

Old Ji once recounted an accident with the hoisting system: a component weighing eleven tons was being lifted when the cable snapped halfway, and it crashed down—luckily, no one was injured.

Shang Lu scoffed.

Old Ji jumped up at once, shouting, “Boy, don’t slack off! Safety production quality standards—human, machine, material, method, environment! Human first! Here, among all things, people are the most prone to mistakes.”

“Hey, handsome! Hey, handsome!” Someone waved from near a forklift, calling to Shang Lu, “Run faster! Don’t block the way!”

Shang Lu waved back and hurried on.

The workshop was piled high with aluminum alloy sheets, workers busy cutting and welding. Curious, Shang Lu glanced at them, wondering what all the aluminum was intended for. He skirted to the side and climbed the stairs to the overhead work platform step by step.

The work platforms spiraled upward like a mountain road, with workers on every level. Shang Lu kept calling out, “Excuse me, excuse me,” as he made his way to the highest point, where Old Ji stood—his dirty white lab coat planted firmly beside the Red Lotus’s massive head.

Today, Old Ji was to familiarize him with the work. As chief engineer, he oversaw the maintenance, repair, upgrading, and testing of the giant machinery—one of the most critical positions at Base 151. Aside from commanding operations, the chief engineer managed every aspect of the giants. Old Ji proudly said there were fewer than five giant machinery engineers in the entire human world with his level of experience.

While speaking, he handed Shang Lu a maintenance manual as thick as an encyclopedia.

“Don’t fear; youth isn’t measured by age. Young people have time, energy, talent, and ability. Look at the chief engineer of 161—only thirty years old,” Old Ji said. “Give you a few years, and you’ll be a hundred percent better than him.”

“Boy, your responsibility is enormous,” Old Ji added. “The survival of all humanity, the remnants of human civilization, rest on your shoulders. You know the five-year service agreement you signed with the base?”

“Yes.”

“How about changing it to fifty years?”

Panting, Shang Lu reached the highest platform and looked up—and damn.

Where was Old Ji?

That dirty white lab coat was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, there was a tall, slender young woman leaning against the platform railing. Like the other workers, she wore blue coveralls and a black baseball cap. She was chewing something, her short black hair fluttering in the warm breeze beneath the cap, her gaze unfocused.

Shang Lu froze.

A sudden transformation?

The sound of his footsteps on the metal floor caught her attention. The girl slowly turned her head, blew a white bubble, and fixed her gaze on Shang Lu—from head to toe, finally resting on his conspicuous white helmet.

She tilted her head.

“Inspector?”

Shang Lu was stunned for a moment, then, acting on impulse, pointed to his safety helmet.

“Supervisor.”