Defend Namsan Park

Chapter 102 The Switchman of Human Fate
"So cool!"

Chen Yu lowered his head from the upper bunk.

"You know what, Chief Engineer? Wei Mao is the ideal mecha pilot I've always imagined."

Pokeweed rolled its eyes:
"You imagine your ideal mecha pilot to be a stutterer?"

"A silent stutterer, all alone, taciturn, but he is the king of the nutshell! In his small, independent world, he is invincible."

Shang Lu leaned back on the bed, resting his head on his arm.

"Then you, the King of Nutshells, had better rescue us from this dark and damp cave soon. It's already autumn, and in another half month, this cave will be so damp it will rain. When it rains heavily outside, it will drizzle inside, and we'll have to sleep with umbrellas."

"Can he do it?"

"Ok?"

"Can he rescue us from this dark and damp cave?" Chen Yu lay on the edge of the upper bunk, looking straight at Shang Lu lying on the lower bunk. "Chief Engineer, you're close to him and have firsthand information. Tell me your judgment."

"What use is my judgment? Only his judgment is useful." Shang Lu grinned. "Although in most of the time, the power to make decisions is held by a minority in our society, there has never been such an extreme situation since ancient times... Think about it, life and death are entirely in the hands of one person. This is not dictatorship, but a last resort, because others can't help even if they want to. If the vast river of human history has had many important nodes, turning points and passes in the past tens of thousands of years, then the next pass it has to pass through will be the narrowest, because it can only accommodate one person."

Shang Lu sighed. He recalled what he had said to Wei Mao during their meeting earlier that day: it was a conspiracy orchestrated by one person. On the surface, everyone was pooling their wisdom and efforts to help, but the entire plan was actually built on one person's understanding and confidence. Could anyone in this world truly understand Wei Mao? Understand his mind? Perhaps some did, perhaps some didn't. Shang Lu didn't know which was truly unfortunate. They should be grateful that their dwindling human society still had someone like Wei Mao who could be used to their advantage, yet they were inevitably alarmed that this tiny fulcrum was going to move the entire earth.

Chen Yu stood there for a long time before finally uttering a sentence:

"So cool!"

"Is that all you're going to say?" Shang Lu frowned.

"This is just what I felt," Chen Yu said. "We must seize fate by the throat! Human history has reached a crossroads on a narrow, winding path. One wrong step and it's all over. Only one person can be that switchman! To be honest, Chief Engineer, this pressure is so great that I would have had a mental breakdown on the same day. It takes a lot of people to be able to withstand it."

“You’re right, so most of the giant machine pilots are somewhat mentally ill, some congenitally, some acquired. Healthy people can’t do this job,” Shang Lu said. “But then again, in this world, mentally sound people are rare. Everyone has mental illness. A group of mentally ill people selects the most severely ill minority to save a twisted and collapsing world—what kind of victory is that?”

"Holding on is everything!" Chen Yu immediately chimed in.

They both laughed.

In the dim light, a chilling wind blew through the tunnel. Shang Lu pulled the thin blanket over his shoulders. He wondered if, in the lonely, tormented, pessimistic, and nihilistic mind of the brilliant Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke more than a hundred years ago, in his turbulent and arduous life, there was even a brief moment when, with the vision and perspective of a part of human destiny and history, he foresaw the end of this mighty river.

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Tang Di, as the deputy chief engineer and director of the planning office of the 151 support base, launched a new plan today. He decided to maintain and upgrade the power system and all forty-seven giant deep groove ball bearings of the giant machine "Da Yi". This is a task that is neither too big nor too small. It is not big because it is only 1% of the extremely large and complex system engineering of the giant machine. It is not small because the power system is the core component of the giant machine, and the maintenance and repair of the bearings is a task with extremely high requirements for processing technology. The largest bearings used by the giant machine can fit three or four adults standing side by side, but the processing precision requirements are still at the level of a hair. Therefore, Tang Di sent letters on behalf of 151 to the major factories under the base, requesting them to reserve the next three to six months of production schedule to fully support the upgrade plan of Da Yi.

Currently, the Planning and Construction Office has a total of 46 staff members, and the Construction Office has a total of 71 staff members, totaling 117 people. All of them work under Tang Di's leadership. Tang Di is one of the few people who can both lead the Planning and Construction Office and understand mechanical processing. No wonder Old Man Ji promoted him to the position of Deputy Chief Engineer of Unit 151. Shang Lu couldn't do this job. Tang Di can calculate the base circle lead angle of an involute worm gear, but if it were Shang Lu, he could only ask: "What is that?"
At 8 p.m., the office was brightly lit as everyone worked overtime, the clatter of keyboards and the constant ringing of telephones mingling together.

"This forging must meet at least Level IV as specified in JB755-85 'Technical Conditions for Pressure Vessel Forgings,' understand? It's JB755-85! What? You don't understand? Go look it up in the process manual!"

"What is the HB after heat treatment? 260? If you can't handle the raw material yourself, then outsource it. We'll coordinate and process it for you up to the pre-nitriding stage. Remember to perform two stress-relieving treatments!"

"It is crucial to ensure that the rolling sleeve and the rolling body fit together tightly, with no delamination allowed!"

The comrades in the planning office and the construction office made phone calls one after another, calling Factory 312, Factory 313, Factory 505, Factory 603. All the repair shops, manufacturing plants and logistics support departments under the 151 Base were mobilized, leaving no one out.

At the far end of his office was a large desk that offered a panoramic view of everything. He was leisurely answering the phone:

"Yeah, it's pretty simple. First, forge it with a hydraulic press, then do rough machining, and after rough machining, do heat treatment and tempering. It's all standard procedures, including sampling, semi-finish turning, surface hardening, tempering, and finish turning. You should have a complete pipeline on your end..."

"Director, there's a small problem here."

A young technical staff member, holding blueprints in one hand and a bowl of noodles in the other, cautiously approached.

There were chopsticks stuck in the bowl of noodles. No one in the planning office dared to mention Wang Xiangbing and his fork in front of Tang Di. When everyone was working overtime, they didn't dare to use forks to eat instant noodles and used chopsticks instead.

"The calculation results don't match." He bent down and whispered in Tang Di's ear.

Tang Di covered the microphone on the phone receiver, twisted his neck, and glanced at it.

"The worm gear tooth thickness tolerance is incorrect."

The problem was immediately apparent.

"What is the pitch circle diameter?" Tang Di asked.

"2500 millimeters."

"Modulus?"

"10."

"Accuracy?"

"9."

"260." Tang Di answered without hesitation, then waved his hand, "Go."

The young people idolized him to the point of worship.

Even experienced workers would spend ages looking up tables for tiny data like gear tolerances, but Director Tang had it all memorized. He must have grown up eating spreadsheets.

Although no one dared to use a fork in front of Tang Di, his old subordinates knew that this man was notoriously narrow-minded and petty, never holding a grudge overnight. "You stab me with a fork, I'll kill your whole family," they'd say, "A drop of kindness is repaid with a flood." Having suffered such a humiliating defeat, he appeared calm on the surface, but who knew he might be cursing in the middle of the night—he was definitely going to retaliate. But how? Even the lowly soldiers couldn't figure it out. The Construction Office had the deep roots of Shang Lu, and Shang Lu had the towering pillar of Wei Mao. Each backer was more powerful than the last, at least within the human realm. Wei Mao's decree, if not an imperial edict, was a powerful warrant, essentially a "dragon-slaying sword, commanding the world, none dare disobey."

— Director Tang arrived first and spent every day with Wei Mao, so how did the Construction Office manage to poach him?

While they certainly wouldn't dare say this to Tang Di's face, they couldn't stop some of the older cadres in the Planning Office from privately grumbling that Tang Di wasn't much worse than Shang Lu in terms of looks, appearance, temperament, and knowledge. What despicable bewitching methods did the latter use?

Everyone glanced at Tang Di, who was still smiling and instructing his subordinates on installing special clamps on the production pipeline. The crowd became even more cautious. If he didn't retaliate, he would definitely take it out on their own people. It was best not to provoke this big shot for the time being.

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Meanwhile, Wang Xiangbing, clad in a heavy exoskeleton, stood atop the high platform, like a superstar.

Every worker passing by in the workshop turned a sidelong glance. No one dared to use a fork in front of Tang Di, but in Workshop 112, just a wall away, Wang Xiangbing's heroic feat of appearing out of nowhere had become a legendary tale. That day, like Zhang Fei breaking through the Dangyang Bridge or Zhao Zilong charging through Changban Slope, he displayed unparalleled bravery, taking Tang Di's head straight from the chaos of battle. From then on, Wang Xiangbing's reputation resounded throughout Workshop 151. For many years, the Operations Office had always been overshadowed by the Planning Office. Tang Di was arrogant, haughty, and disliked; he was meticulous in his work, petty, and always acted innocent after taking advantage of others. The people in the Operations Office hated him, but they couldn't do anything about it. This time—it was satisfying!
"Director Wang, what's that thing on your body?"

Someone is curious.

"The Chaofeng Armor!" Wang Xiangbing shouted, then patted his chest. "The Chaofeng's control system, look how cool it is!"

Coolness was Wang Xiangbing's primary goal in designing the giant weapon Chaofeng. As the saying goes, beauty is also a form of combat power. Throughout history, there have been no excellent weapon designs that were ugly—except for the British aircraft.

Boiler-assisted operating systems were last seen in the steam engine era. To others, what the engineering department was doing was akin to forging a well-equipped medieval warhorse on the battlefield of the Battle of Kursk, where steel torrents clashed—so Wang Xiangbing, this remnant of the old era, was a Don Quixote-like figure, about to ride his warhorse to battle windmills. Of course, this remnant of the old era, like Don Quixote, had his own set of logic: Are tanks necessarily better than horses? Not necessarily, because tanks burn oil. What is petroleum? Petroleum is the sediment of ancient plants and animals. Ultimately, rounding off, tracing back to the source, tanks also eat grass. From an energy utilization efficiency perspective, they are less efficient than horses, because horses directly eat grass.

On the design drawings of the engineering office, Chaofeng's operating system was an extremely complex set of levers—and a strenuous one at that, so it needed a boiler to drive and assist it. Wang Xiangbing vividly described to the technical team his vision of Chaofeng: it would have a fiery, surging heart, which might burn oil, uranium, coal, hydrogen, or methane. Whatever it burned, it would burn fiercely to the ends of the earth. It would stand on the coast, on the plateau, and on the mountaintop, forging humanity's last monument with its raging flames!
The technical team watched his passionate speech with indifference, then turned around and gave the order: "The ones who burn coal."

Wearing the exoskeleton, Wang Xiangbing paced back and forth on the platform, gesturing wildly as if doing calisthenics. He was probably trying to test the freedom of movement of the armor's joints, but he was out of breath after just a few steps. This prototype was handcrafted from cast iron by a master craftsman in the factory, weighing a total of 65 kilograms. Wearing it was equivalent to carrying an adult on his back. Wang Xiangbing plopped down, panting heavily, and pointed at Li Wenxuan, asking, "The finished product can't be this heavy, can it?"

Li Wenxuan raised an eyebrow:
"Aren't you Armor Hero? Armor Hero can't carry this much weight?"

“Human form!” Wang Xiangbing emphasized.

Li Wenxuan scoffed, he had never liked his uncle's childish old boy behavior.

"The actual device uses engineering plastics and aluminum alloys, and its weight will be 70% lighter than the prototype you are wearing. It will feel about the same as carrying a backpack."

Whose backpack is so heavy?

“Every family’s schoolbags are this heavy,” Li Wenxuan said. “Didn’t they receive nine years of compulsory education?”

"Alright, I know you've always been hardworking since you were little. You even filled your schoolbag with third-grade textbooks when you were in first grade," Wang Xiangbing waved his hand, "but I still haven't seen you get into Tsinghua University."

Li Wenxuan missed Tsinghua University's admission notice by a mere 170 points in the college entrance examination. More than ten years later, he still feels regretful whenever he thinks about it.

"Are you still going to try?" Li Wenxuan's eyes flashed with a fierce light.

"Let's try it, of course we should try it!" Wang Xiangbing rolled on the spot, then scrambled to his feet. "Come on, let's test the quality of this thing!"

As planned, today is the first test of the Giant Machine Chaofeng Operating System. The mess left by Old Man Ji was just an empty shell, but the Operations Office pieced it together and actually installed its brain, nerves, and muscles.

The work platform was quickly emptied.

The cockpit entrance of the giant machine "Chaofeng" is located in its head and neck, with a total of three entrances: one main passage and two emergency evacuation exits. The main passage can accommodate one adult, and the emergency exits can accommodate half an adult. Li Wenxuan said that in an emergency, separating the upper and lower body allows for faster evacuation. Unlike the mainstream giant machines currently in service, it does not have an elevator-like sliding cockpit; the pilots of "Chaofeng" can only slowly crawl in. Wang Xiangbing and Li Wenxuan crawled into "Chaofeng's" massive head one after the other.

“You’re absolutely right.” Wang Xiangbing looked around. The giant machine was powered on, with several high-powered light bulbs shining overhead. “The cockpit is like a small duplex with one bedroom and one living room. How big is the building?”

"The building area is about 18 square meters, and the actual usable area is 37 square meters. The only problem is that the ceiling is a bit low."

Li Wenxuan stood atop Wang Xiangbing's head. The cockpit had two levels, and he occupied the commander's position. He was fully covered in a thick gray high-voltage work suit. The "Chaofeng" had a high-voltage system, with a maximum voltage of 300kV. In the event of a leak, a person could be instantly ignited like a kerosene-soaked lamp wick. Li Wenxuan always meticulously followed the workshop's safety regulations.

But Wang Xiangbing doesn't wear it. As the number one electrician in the industry for 151 years, he can tell whether there is high voltage electricity just by touching it – this is his signature skill.

The eldest uncle tapped the wall behind him with his knuckles, producing a crisp metallic sound. He remembered what was inside:
"Seven hundred kilograms of compressed biscuits and 1.8 tons of purified water were stored in here?"

"Yes, when we were doing the head weight balancing, we couldn't find a suitable counterweight, so we brought in compressed biscuits from the warehouse next door to fill in. Those things are like bricks, they are dense and easy to stack."

"Where did all these compressed biscuits come from?"

"God knows, I don't know who left it here. I looked at the production date, it was 1986."

"What about purified water?"

"Haha, it's a 1.5L bottle. I guess it was purchased by some lab and then forgotten about. We're the ones who benefited."

The cockpit of the "Chaofeng" has no portholes or any direct-access optical sights. The commander and the pilot each have a periscope, which are second-hand items salvaged from who-knows-where, with incomprehensible Russian printed on the shell. The place is strictly sealed, and once the hatch is closed, it is like a submarine, requiring an internal oxygen supply.

According to the blueprints, a whole host of equipment, including lidar, sonar, and Riemann probes, need to be installed, but they are currently empty; it's an unfinished, bare-bones building.

"When I was a kid, I watched 'Magic King' on TV and I was so envious of the main characters. Xuanzi, have you seen it?"

"I've seen it. It's the one called 'One Cut in Two, Ruyi Divine Sword,' the one about the Light Energy Messenger. The protagonist takes a light energy gun, fires a spinning top, and the top draws a big circle on the ground, summoning a mecha."

"Oh yeah, that one, the main character stands on a floating platform, and whatever he does, the mecha does too. When I was a kid, I always wondered what would happen if he fell off."

"You won't fall, don't worry, the armor plates beneath your feet are as thick as those on a battleship."

Li Wenxuan looked down and could see the top of Wang Xiangbing's head. The latter was locking the steel cable lock onto himself. Currently, "Chaofeng" could only move his upper body, or more precisely, only his two arms and neck. His lower body was still paralyzed. The force feedback system of his dexterous hands was not yet implemented. There were a total of seven joints in his two arms and neck. These seven joints required twenty steel cables to control them. Each steel cable was about the thickness of a little finger. Wang Xiangbing held them and threaded them through the loops and tubes on his waist, abdomen, shoulders, back, and arms. Finally, he tightened the bolts and locked them to the joints of the exoskeleton.

"Xuanzi, I'm ready."

Wang Xiangbing took a deep breath, stood at his driver's position, and looked ahead.

"Are you sure?"

"Confirmed."

Li Wenxuan pulled down the control lever above his head.

The steel cable tightened instantly, and Wang Xiangbing exclaimed, "Holy crap!"

Immediately following was a dull thud as a skull collided with metal.

Li Wenxuan was terrified. He lay prone on his battle position, looking down into the distance.

Wang Xiangbing was suspended like a puppet by a taut steel cable, his feet off the ground, arms outstretched, shoulders, back, and elbows tightly stretched, his head drooping, motionless. Clearly, the sudden tightening of the cable had dragged Wang Xiangbing against the inner wall of the giant machine's cockpit with tremendous force, possibly stunning him or killing him.

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(Author's note: Today I went to the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study to lay a bouquet of flowers for Professor Yang Zhenning. Literature is an eternal affair, its gains and losses known only to the heart. Yang Zhenning's century-long life is an eternal chapter shining among the stars of humanity; may he live on forever.)