Chapter 50: The Philosophy of Rigidity

The new director of the Operations Office was a legendary figure; the entire 110th Workshop system knew it.

In the process of mouth-to-mouth transmission, the rumors inevitably became distorted and exaggerated. Initially, Shang Lu was merely an elite engineer dispatched to the base by the Automation Research Institute of the Science City. Soon, he transformed into a once-in-two-decades super genius leader from the Automation Research Institute who had spearheaded the comprehensive development of the BCI system. Immediately after, he acquired a brand-new identity as the director's own nephew, only to be groundlessly exposed as having mediocre academic qualifications. In the end, Shang Lu’s titles grew as long as those of the Queen of England: an engineer dispatched by the Shenyang Institute of Automation, a super genius, a nepotistic nephew with academic misconduct, an ambitious careerist who used pull to secure a position in the grassroots frontline to gild his resume, and the designated successor to the chief engineer.

Shang Lu did not consider himself a legendary figure at all. He had simply spent more time than others in the narrow, niche field of MEG-BCI, getting a slight head start. Any ordinary person could beat Usain Bolt if given a sufficient head start, but that did not mean his sprinting ability surpassed that of top athletes. Shang Lu acknowledged that he possessed no superhuman attainments in other fields. Perhaps geniuses truly existed in this world—Shen Jiang was a genius, and other colossal mech pilots were geniuses, but he was not.

"If I were a genius, would I still be tortured to the verge of agony by this damn Riemannian geometry?"

Shang Lu sighed, leaned backward, and covered his face with the lecture notes.

"Little Chief Engineer, geniuses aren't omnipotent." Chen Yu pulled up a small wooden stool and sat at the doorway, taking off his socks to clip his toenails. "Even Einstein, Maxwell, Dirac, Landau, and old Lord Newton wouldn't be able to beat me if we had a competition reciting ancient Chinese poetry."

"Damn it, what you're saying makes so much sense," Shang Lu said, his voice muffled.

"Of course. I am the synthesis of the staunch-ism philosophical school in the post-arrival era." Chen Yu pinched the nail clippers, snipped off a thick, half-moon-shaped toenail, shoved it into his mouth, and held it between his teeth. "In an era where no one studies philosophy, I am undoubtedly the world's top thinker."

"What on earth is staunch-ism?" Shang Lu asked.

"The core idea of this school is: victory is out of the question; holding on is everything." Chen Yu bit off the toenail in his mouth.

"Did you say that?"

"Rilke said it," Chen Yu replied. "He was a great poet."

"Is he still alive?"

"He's been dead for nearly a hundred years," Chen Yu answered. "Staunch-ism believes that all suffering in this world is endless. There is no redemption, no savior, no heaven, and no hell. Amidst the endless suffering, every one of us is a trapped beast standing against a torrential current, unable to advance. Everything we do is simply to hold on; we have no other choice."

"What are we holding on for?"

"We hold on simply to hold on," Chen Yu said. "Holding on is the goal, the meaning, the everything—aargh!"

He let out a final, piercing howl. Shang Lu pulled the general relativity lecture notes off his face and turned his head to look. It turned out Chen Yu had clipped too close to the flesh on the inner side of his toenail.

Chen Yu pinched his own toe, sucking in sharp breaths of cold air with a hissing sound. It looked like he had really trimmed it too deep.

Shang Lu sat up, turning around. "Do you need me to find some medicine for you?"

"No," Chen Yu said through gritted teeth. "Hold on!"

Shang Lu couldn't help but burst out laughing; he almost wanted to applaud Chen Yu.

"Little Chief Engineer, you're truly famous in the base this time. Even I, all the way over in the General Staff Office, have heard about it. The staff officers in the Operations Section asked me if we were roommates. Your workshop system really knows how to make a spectacle," Chen Yu said. "Guess what the Chief of Staff said?"

"What did he say?"

"He asked if any of you used to be directors or producers from CCTV Channel 10's science and education program *I Love Invention*," Chen Yu said. "He wants to pay his respects because he's obsessed with that show where rural guys build their own airplanes."

Shang Lu spread the lecture notes across his thighs. The level of mathematics required to study general relativity clearly exceeded his current capabilities. The mathematical foundations required for studying the BCI system differed vastly from those needed for theoretical physics—at least studying BCI did not demand mastery of geometry. This forced Shang Lu to make up for all the courses he lacked. Differential geometry was a terribly vexing thing. Every time Shang Lu faced tensor equations in utter frustration, he would inevitably recall Shen Jiang's slightly smug face—that woman could calculate those things in her head.

It takes all sorts to make a world.

"You guys won against the Planning Office. How did the other side react? Were they convinced?"

Shang Lu looked up at him and shook his head. "I didn't win."

Chen Yu was slightly startled.

"In the field of robotic arm operation, Shen Jiang is the top expert in the entire human society. She crushes me in every aspect; there's no way I could possibly win against her," Shang Lu explained. "The reason it ended up the way it did is because she's afraid of shit."

"She's afraid of dying?"

Chen Yu thought Shang Lu was slurring his words.

"No," Shang Lu said. "She's afraid of shit."

The true outcome of the robotic arm competition was known only to Shang Lu and Shen Jiang. Between the two of them, Shen Jiang defeated Shang Lu; outside of the two of them, Shang Lu defeated Shen Jiang. Perhaps Shen Jiang truly dreaded that future where people died awash in excrement and urine, or perhaps she was merely finding a reason to convince herself. After all, judging by the ultimate conclusion, neither of their fates would end well. They could be described as grasshoppers tied to the same rope—one would die a hideous death, and the other would be torn to pieces without a whole corpse.

What would be Chen Yu's ultimate fate?

This question suddenly popped up, leaping into his mind and giving Shang Lu a chilling jolt. Subconsciously, he raised his head.

"What's wrong?" Chen Yu looked bewildered, not understanding.

Shang Lu shook his head.

He did not know. He did not know what kind of destiny Chen Yu would face. In a world of over a billion people, the destinies he could glimpse were merely a select few.

Only one thing was certain: if the defense line constructed by Base 151 was breached, no one would survive.

Around the entire Sichuan Basin, humans had built a total of six frontline bases. These bases were sturdy bridgeheads, but they were merely independent strongpoints rather than continuous city walls. The reason the bases could provide comprehensive protection for the Sichuan Basin—an area exceeding 260,000 square kilometers—was that they were all established at geomagnetic low points. Angels were four-dimensional manifolds carrying weak electrical charges, and their movements were influenced by magnetic fields. To them, Earth's magnetic field was like a vast ocean teeming with undercurrents. In most cases, they drifted with the currents, wandering aimlessly across the Earth's surface, but occasionally they got caught in valley torrents. There were a total of six magnetic field valleys leading to the Sichuan Basin, and frontline bases guarded the end of every single one.

Such magnetic field valleys were referred to as "Angel Corridors." Base 151 guarded the largest Angel Corridor. On the map, it resembled a gigantic trapezoid with an upper base exceeding 45 kilometers in width, a lower base exceeding 270 kilometers in width, and a height of over 400 kilometers. This mountainous region, spanning more than 25,000 square kilometers and nearly matching the size of the entire Sichuan Basin, was considered Base 151's sector of defense.

This was a terrifying figure. Chen Yu had told Shang Lu that as an operations staff officer at the base, his daily job consisted of sketching and plotting on geomagnetic maps, predicting from which angle and direction the Angels would arrive, and formulating combat plans. Yet everyone knew that such armchair strategizing was completely useless. When the Angels truly descended and rolled over everything in their path, humanity's only method remained sending up colossal mechs to hold the line.

The more familiar one was with the Angels, the stronger this feeling became: compared to monsters or extraterrestrial beings, the nature of the Angels seemed more akin to natural disasters. They felt like a part of the universe—cold, ruthless, not treating you as a deliberate target, yet not minding crushing you into dust.

They were like an oncoming tsunami, wave after wave, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to escape. And humanity's only response was to forge gods wielding immense power, smashing through the giant waves when they struck! Smashing through them again! Smashing through them over and over again! Until they were smashed to smithereens.

Shang Lu thought to himself that perhaps all of humanity was practicing the philosophy of staunch-ism.