DLWAV CH82

What Xia Lewen could think of, how could the government not have thought of — in fact, the government had thought of even more.

So as early as a week ago, the moment Magellan Corporation had just made contact with Geng Province Tire Co., Ltd., Ao Ruize had already been intercepted.

Only the person who intercepted him was Professor Liu.

“Mr. Xia, you’re in Qian City too right now?”

He said in rapid succession: “Perfect timing — do you have a moment? There’s something I’d like to ask for your help with.”

Ao Ruize: “What’s going on?”

Professor Liu: “Have you heard of the ‘Flaming Mountain’ in the neighboring Liu City?”

Ao Ruize: “I’ve heard of it.”

Liu City’s “Flaming Mountain” was nothing like the one in Journey to the West — that legendary stretch of eight hundred li, scorched by raging flames where not a blade of grass could grow. In reality, it was an enormous coal mine.

The deposits were so extraordinarily rich that vast quantities of coal lay exposed directly at the surface. Under the erosion of wind, sand, and microorganisms, large amounts of coal had broken down into fine fragments.

These fragments would absorb more oxygen and undergo oxidation reactions, releasing tremendous amounts of thermal energy.

The lower layers of the coal heap naturally had poor heat dissipation. Once the temperature within the heap exceeded three hundred degrees Celsius, the coal would spontaneously combust.

On top of that, Geng Province had a dry climate with extremely low annual rainfall. So since the Qing Dynasty, the fires of the “Flaming Mountain” had never once been extinguished, and every year the burning area expanded outward at a rate of fifty meters.

“Just last month, while Academician Chen from Li Province was leading students on a survey of the ‘Flaming Mountain,’ he discovered that it had already silently expanded to the foot of Changming Mountain, not far from the outskirts of Xia City.”

Professor Liu was furious: “Originally, there was no way the ‘Flaming Mountain’ fire could ever have reached Xia City, because between the two lay a small mountain range that separated the coal deposits of the ‘Flaming Mountain’ from those beneath Xia City.”

“But over the past decade or more, local villages and townships — in the name of economic development — have been turning a blind eye to illegal private coal mining operations.”

“In order to secretly transport the coal they dug out, they gradually leveled the entire small mountain range that stood between the ‘Flaming Mountain’ and Xia City. On top of that, they had no understanding of geological principles whatsoever — they simply mined by brute force — and now the entire mountain range has been completely hollowed out.”

“Bad as that is, the truly critical issue is this: Changming Mountain is a dormant volcano, and now, stimulated by the underground fires of the ‘Flaming Mountain,’ it has begun to show signs of eruption.”

“Meanwhile, Xia City has been expanding outward aggressively in recent years. When land elsewhere ran short, they set their sights on a stretch of flatland in front of Changming Mountain. They built three industrial parks there, two high-precision laboratories, one national-level grain reserve warehouse… and the permanent resident population in that area has already exceeded two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Academician Liu says that at the current rate, the Changming Mountain volcano will erupt in no more than half a month.”

It didn’t take much imagination to picture the scale of destruction that a volcanic eruption would cause.

Even if every single person were evacuated in advance.

In theory, the solution was actually quite straightforward.

All they needed to do was extinguish the fires of the “Flaming Mountain.”

“But the problem is that the burning coal seams of the ‘Flaming Mountain’ run extremely deep. Even if the surface fires are put out, the interior of the coal heap may still be burning intensely. The moment even a single ember remains, the entire ‘Flaming Mountain’ could reignite within no more than a week.”

“The province did a rough calculation — unless water or mud slurry is continuously pumped into the section of the ‘Flaming Mountain’ closest to Changming Mountain for an uninterrupted month, there is no way to extinguish the underground fires in that section. But our province is already water-scarce to begin with, and if we divert water from other provinces, the cost would directly exceed the estimated losses from the volcanic eruption itself.”

“So the province is at its wit’s end right now. They’ve convened a symposium at the National University of Chemical Technology to see if anyone can come up with a viable solution.”

“Alright.”

Ao Ruize glanced at the black sedan trailing behind Professor Liu and gave a nod.

Professor Liu immediately said: “Good, then let’s head to the National University of Chemical Technology right now. By this point, most of the chemical engineering and geology experts and professors from inside and outside the province who could make it should already be there.”

The National University of Chemical Technology wasn’t far from where they were, so they arrived in just over ten minutes.

And just as Professor Liu had said, every chemical engineering and geology expert and professor who could attend — from both inside and outside the province — had already gathered.

“No, that won’t work. Yes, the toxicity of Professor Zhao’s newly developed polymer gel fire suppressant is far lower than ordinary dry powder extinguishers on the market — but keep in mind, the underground fires of Changming Mountain can’t be put out with one or two bottles. When we’re talking about pumping in thousands of tonnes, maybe tens of thousands of tonnes, are the millions of residents of Xia City still supposed to live there afterward?”

……

They hadn’t noticed Ao Ruize and Professor Liu at all.

Ao Ruize and Professor Liu didn’t mind in the slightest, and simply found a couple of empty seats and sat down.

“Then the only option is a non-toxic fire suppressant.”

“Non-toxic fire suppressants generally have poor effectiveness, and on top of that they’re expensive to produce. At that price, you might as well divert water from another province.”

……

“Then there’s simply no solution.”

Hearing these words, quite a few people fell into silence.

It was right at this moment that a middle-aged man — who had somehow slipped into the seat beside Ao Ruize without anyone noticing — suddenly spoke up: “Does Mr. Xia have any good ideas?”

Mr. Xia?

Everyone looked toward Ao Ruize.

They recognized him immediately.

Surrounded by a room full of experts and academicians, Ao Ruize showed not the slightest trace of nerves. He thought for a moment, then said: “Since the cost of diverting water to fight the fire is too high, and using fire suppressants carries too much risk — why not just use carbon dioxide?”

Before anyone else could even respond, Professor Liu lowered his voice and said: “Mr. Xia, the ‘Flaming Mountain’ has many ravines and gorges, which is why the burning coal seams run so incredibly deep — some reaching three or four hundred meters down.”

To get dry ice down that deep, you’d essentially need a bunker-buster bomb to deliver it.

Setting aside the fact that the cost alone would be at least ten times higher than diverting water —

The best bunker-buster bomb in the world today had a penetration depth of only about one hundred and fifty meters.

But in the very next second, everyone heard Ao Ruize say: “Is that even a problem?”

Then, reaching for the paper and pen on the table, he began to draw.

In no time at all, the schematics of a rocket-propelled vehicle took shape on the white paper.

The middle-aged man — who had originally only intended to probe Ao Ruize, to see whether he could produce a new, highly effective, non-toxic fire suppressant technology on the spot, so as to determine whether the technologies he possessed were his own inventions or rewards handed to him by some rumored system — “……”

It was his subordinate who snapped back to his senses first, exchanging a meaningful look with the others.

Reading the signal, the others smoothly and quietly escorted all the experts and professors out of the room.

It was not until a full hour later that Ao Ruize finally set down his pen.

He rolled his wrist, then handed the entire stack of draft papers directly to the middle-aged man.

“Barring any unexpected complications, this bunker-buster’s penetration depth should be able to reach eight hundred meters.”

And right at that moment, a series of increasingly excited voices came crackling through the middle-aged man’s earpiece.

“Can this really increase the warhead’s hardness to that degree?”

“……So that’s why — no wonder our bunker-busters always detonated mid-penetration.”

“Wait — eight hundred meters of penetration depth?”

Hearing those words, the middle-aged man couldn’t help but draw a slow, deep breath.

If this bunker-buster could truly reach eight hundred meters underground, then it could be said that eighty percent of the underground command centers and underground shelters constructed by the world’s major powers today would fall within its strike range.

And most critically of all — since a bunker-buster could drill into the earth, it could naturally drill through frontal fortifications as well……

Only then did the middle-aged man manage to press down the storm of shock surging within him. He lowered his phone, and took the stack of draft papers.

In their original hypothesis, Ao Ruize might truly be carrying the legendary system — but they also could not rule out the possibility that some extraordinarily learned old scientist had been reborn into Xia Ruize’s body.

Yet now, looking at the draft papers — at those schematics so precise and immaculate they rivaled computer-generated models, drawn entirely by hand — the middle-aged man felt increasingly certain that Ao Ruize was the latter.

After all, no ordinary person, without any drafting tools whatsoever, could produce technical drawings of this accuracy by hand alone.

And most critically, right at that moment, another voice came through his earpiece.

It was the team leader of the micro-expression analysis unit they had brought in: “Mr. Xia’s attention remained focused on the drafting paper throughout. His gaze strayed for no more than three seconds at any point, and his movements were entirely natural. We can essentially rule out the possibility that he was copying from some reference or template.”

The middle-aged man understood.

He stopped dancing around it: “Mr. Xia — could it be that you were once a weapons expert?”

Because in the face of cutting-edge weaponry, things like electronic displays and synthetic rubber could only be considered minor pursuits.

So Ao Ruize must once have been a weapons expert of considerable renown.

But Ao Ruize said: “No.”

“My main area of expertise before was flood control and water management.”

Water management?

The middle-aged man and the others: “？？？？”

You couldn’t say there was even the faintest connection between those three fields of knowledge — they were worlds apart, separated by a hundred thousand li.

They suddenly felt that Ao Ruize seemed far more like someone carrying the legendary Academic God System after all.

It was right then that Ao Ruize rose to his feet: “Alright, since the matter is settled — if there’s nothing else, I’ll head back.”

Beside him, Professor Liu had a sudden flash of realization.

Of course. With this new bunker-buster in hand, the government would be more than happy to use the “Flaming Mountain” as a testing ground.

Then he caught himself.

Hadn’t they come here to attend a symposium?

What a bizarre turn of events this had all become —

The middle-aged man immediately said: “Allow me to see Mr. Xia out.”

At the door, he held the car door open for Ao Ruize himself, then said gravely: “Mr. Xia, please rest assured — the state will never do anything that goes against conscience, nor will it ever fail a good person, regardless of where they come from.”

Even if, at the outset, their intention had indeed been to invite Ao Ruize to cooperate with them in various research projects as much as possible.

But now — wasn’t a single hair on the head of a national-treasure-level scientist worth infinitely more than any of those experiments??

“As for the Xia family, rest assured……”

He had originally intended to say that they would help Ao Ruize eliminate the threat the Xia family posed — unless, of course, the Xia family turned out to be completely clean, just like Ao Ruize.

But then, thinking again about how it had always seemed to be Ao Ruize toying with the Xia family in the palm of his hand all along —

The middle-aged man changed his words: “Then we wish you a good time.”

There was only one concern remaining: the middle-aged man and his colleagues believed that whatever they could think of, other countries could think of as well.

So they had to do something.

For instance — manufacturing rumors that Xia Ruize had in fact been remarkably intelligent since childhood. That he had long since seen through Xia Yuanzheng’s family’s schemes, but chose to conceal his abilities in order to grow up safely and avenge his father.

And that the three technologies he had brought forward were not recently invented at all — he had already begun researching them back when he was in high school……

Now that the narrative was in place, witnesses naturally couldn’t be lacking.

This was the reason why, a week later, the middle-aged man would lead a team to pay the Xia family a visit.

Though their original purpose had been to hypnotize the members of the Xia family — to plant the idea in their minds that Xia Ruize had always been exceptionally gifted from a young age.

What no one had anticipated was that after Xia Lewen was placed under hypnosis, he let slip one additional sentence:

“……No wonder — even though I was reborn, I was still no match for Xia Ruize——”

The middle-aged man and the others: “……”

Ao Ruize, upon learning of this: “……”

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