Chapter 25: Putting the Finishing Touches on the Thesis

When Crimson Lotus sprints, it must tuck in its limbs to minimize frontal wind resistance. It carries its two right arms one in front of the other, while using its two massive palms to cradle its precious head—one giant hand covering its face, the other supporting the back of its skull. Once the joints are unlocked, the computing core enters a shutdown and sealed state; no one wants these precision detection and calculation devices rattled into scrap metal. The supercomputer might survive the impact, but whether the gravity gyroscope can withstand the force is left to fate.

At the Chun-Tian-Ling observation station, Ding-Xiang gazes at the jagged silhouette of the giant as it is bathed in the beams of searchlights. In the blink of an eye, it has covered a vast distance, quickly shrinking into a small, red-glowing speck.

"Currently proceeding along Tea Garden Road, countdown 124 seconds! 123 seconds! 122 seconds! Approaching the first waypoint—"

"Chang-Yan-Gou-One-One passed! Countdown 120 seconds! 119 seconds!"

"Xiong-Jia-Wan-One-One passed!"

"Lan-Ma-He-One-One passed!"

"Yang-Jia-Lin-One-One passed!"

"Tong-Jiang Avenue Interchange-One-One passed! Riemann probe unresponsive! LiDAR tracking shows no anomalies! One-One, One-One, this is Zero-One, what is your status?"

"The soil is soft here, and the road doesn't look easy to navigate." Shen-Jiang floats within the cockpit, looking left and right. Crimson Lotus is traversing a massive, pitch-black abandoned residential district. The high-rises on both sides are nearly level with the giant mecha’s height. As it passes through them, it is like a colossus walking through a jungle of steel and concrete, stirring up howling gales and shattering windows with every step.

02:52 AM, Chengdu Time.
Stopwatch: 61:12:32.
Lighthouse Contact Countdown: 71:44:28.
Mecha Termination Countdown: 238:44:28.
Defense Line Breach Countdown: 17:58:33.

The path behind Crimson Lotus is a scene of utter devastation. Its feet, landing alternately like gargantuan pickaxes driven downward, crush green belts and paved roads alike. Lush weeds and shrubs are uprooted along with the soil, flung dozens of meters into the air, leaving behind deep, crater-like footprints.

It just rumbles forward with a rhythmic "boom, boom, boom." Shen-Jiang doesn't need to worry about what she is stepping on; she knows that whatever Crimson Lotus encounters, it certainly won't be the one to be pulverized.

Her power is invincible.

"Xin-Long-Wan passed!"

"Dao-Shi-Zui passed! Countdown 55 seconds! Countdown 54 seconds! 53 seconds! One-One, One-One, this is Zero-One, you are 4 kilometers from the target."

"Jiang-Nan-Shui-An passed! Countdown 44 seconds!"

02:53 AM, Chengdu Time.
Stopwatch: 89:13:34.
Lighthouse Contact Countdown: 43:43:26.
Mecha Termination Countdown: 210:43:26.
Defense Line Breach Countdown: 17:58:34.

"Riemann probe unresponsive, LiDAR tracking shows no anomalies—"

By now, Crimson Lotus has completely vanished from everyone’s field of vision, leaving only a blinking red dot moving across the map. The Joint Command Center watches as it sprints toward the Ying-Long-Lake Reservoir, where a larger, blinking blue dot sits on the water's surface.

Everyone holds their breath.

"Xiao-Dong-Ping passed! Countdown 37 seconds! 36 seconds!"

Beyond Xiao-Dong-Ping, there are no more tall man-made structures—no residential buildings or apartment complexes—only vast stretches of lush forest. The evergreen broad-leaved trees grow as tall as three or four stories, yet beneath the feet of Crimson Lotus, they are as low as grass. An amber, transparent pop-up window projects before Shen-Jiang, signaling that she is nearing the destination.

"Huang-Ming Road passed! Shuang-Gu-Chong passed!"

"Countdown 20 seconds! 19 seconds! 18 seconds—"

"Shuang-Gu-Chong—Zhao-Jia-Shan—Fu-Yuan Avenue passed! Fu-Yuan Avenue, Qing-Yun-Shan, Tian-Wan passed! One-One, attention, approaching destination! Countdown 10 seconds! 9 seconds! 8 seconds!"

"Countdown 3 seconds!"

"Ahead is the Chongqing Ring Expressway, ahead is the Chongqing Ring Expressway! Prepare to brake—"

Shen-Jiang counts down in her mind. The second the clock hits zero, the left foot of Crimson Lotus crosses the finish line—the wide pavement of the Chongqing Ring Expressway. Simultaneously, the upper body of Crimson Lotus bends backward with a flexibility impossible for a human, performing a textbook "iron-board bridge" maneuver. The two long arms guarding its head spread wide, palms slamming into the ground to grip it tightly, while its two long legs extend forward and splay out, the stabilizing spikes on its calves deploying!

Brake!

The massive weight of over six thousand tons continues to surge forward with irresistible inertia. Crimson Lotus acts like a giant plow, shoveling up vast quantities of earth and carving deep trenches over a hundred meters long as it decelerates.

"GAAS-017 Crimson Lotus, destination reached. Weapon system self-check, all joints locked—" Shen-Jiang, pressed against the bulkhead of the cockpit, says through gritted teeth. She clenches her fist with force, and Crimson Lotus responds, its slowly decelerating body straightening back up. Its two arms lift from the ground, one above the other, palms opening.

The floodlights atop the mecha’s head and chest ignite, illuminating the reservoir water a hundred meters away.

"Computing core initializing!"

***

Shang-Lu shivered slightly in the evening breeze; for some reason, he felt a biting chill.

The workshop behind him remained brightly lit, but everyone on duty knew there was no point in staying. Crimson Lotus had gone to settle the score, to decide life or death. If it won, another entry would be added to humanity's book of military merit; if it lost, that book—and all of humanity—would be finished.

Regardless of the outcome, Shang-Lu didn't consider either to be particularly bad.

"Aren't you sleepy?" Shang-Lu asked.

Bai-Shu shook her head. "How could anyone sleep at a time like this?"

"Worrying is useless," Shang-Lu said. "In most cases, the situation is beyond our control. Think about it: humanity has six frontier bases. Even if we achieve perfection here and keep every Angel at bay, if any single position fails to hold... whether it’s 153 or 161, if just one point is breached, humanity is doomed."

"Yes," Bai-Shu nodded.

"Perhaps at this very moment, on the other side of the Sichuan Basin, the base on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is locked in a bitter struggle, its defenses about to collapse," Shang-Lu continued. "If Crimson Lotus comes back victorious later and we hold a celebration, drinking and cheering, only for the Joint Command Center to call and say the defense line at 153 has been breached and the Angels have reached Deyang—well, that would be a farce."

Bai-Shu chuckled.

"In the late Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor tried everything he could think of, sending Sun Chanting to guard Liaodong. But before the Guan-Ning line could be broken, Li Zicheng had already stormed the capital," the girl said. "What can you do? Even if Zhu Di were reborn, he couldn't save it."

"So what good is it to put a white hat on me?" Shang-Lu continued. "Why do you think I'm the one who can rewrite the fate of all humanity?"

"There were equally perilous moments in the Ming Dynasty before. During the Zhengtong era, the elite Ming army was wiped out at the Tumu Fortress, and the Oirat leader Esen reached the city walls of Beijing. Yet, Yu Qian turned the tide and propped up the collapsing empire," Bai-Shu said. "Why couldn't you be such a person?"

*You really think highly of me, miss,* Shang-Lu thought. *What merit do I have to be mentioned in the same breath as Minister Yu?*

Forget the heroic statesman Yu Qian; he could barely compare to the comedian Yu Qian from the Deyang Club—and even that was a stretch, as he couldn't perform crosstalk, let alone smoke, drink, or get a perm.