Once We Lived in Nanjing

"How can we possibly win this?"

Bai Zhen and Wang Ning were both a bit shocked.

"Yeah, how can we possibly win this?" Zhao Bowen picked up a cup of water from the coffee table and drank it without caring whose it was, "But whoever it is doesn't care so much, no matter if Hei Yue is an alien or whatever, just do it, that's all. You guys have no idea how big a move this bunch has secretly made. The plans they put forward are terrifying. They want to deploy nuclear bombs in orbit beforehand, like laying a minefield, waiting for Hei Yue to arrive and then blow it up. The preliminary estimate for the first deployment plan is to launch twelve thousand nuclear bombs."

"Didn't you persuade them?" Bai Zhen asked, "Where's your silver tongue?"

"I'm not Zhuge Liang, how can I debate with a group of scholars from Jiangdong?" Old Zhao shook his head, "It's the first time I've met someone who slams the table louder than I do; I can't out-slam them."

"What about your 'wall thud'?" Wang Ning asked.

"The opponent's waist is too large, my hand can't reach the wall."

"Then mount the dragon and face-ride!" Bai Zhen said.

Zhao Bowen thought for a moment and furrowed his eyebrows, "But you have to be willing to stoop to that level, too."

Old Zhao's words were not an exaggeration.

While the Reverse Future World-saving Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Command Center was in operation, several other groups were also working in the shadows. It's unclear who took the lead, but each one boasted tremendously strong financial resources. Today, Zhao Bowen was called to a municipal committee meeting, and some deity went on stage to present a PowerPoint titled with four big characters: Hedgehog Plan.

The subsequent development scared Old Zhao out of his wits; these people seriously demonstrated how to set up a nuclear weapon minefield in low Earth orbit. Only then did Old Zhao understand that the so-called Hedgehog Plan intended to turn Earth into a gigantic super hedgehog—touch it and you'll get pricked. This grandiose plan involved deploying twelve thousand nuclear bombs in the first batch alone at an altitude between 300 and 500 kilometers. There would also be a second batch, a third batch, and a fourth batch to be deployed respectively in synchronous orbit, polar orbit, moon orbit, and on the Earth's surface. The presenter waved grandly, pledging that it would only take five years for the world's nations to go full throttle, completely roll out production lines, make missiles like sausages, lay nuclear bombs like laying eggs, and Earth would be covered with a strong protective shell, ensuring that Hei Yue couldn't return after coming.

Furthermore, they claimed that their team was already focusing on solving the diminished power of Three-Phase Bombs in a vacuum environment. Without a shockwave, the bombs would carry dense materials, and the high-temperature and high-pressure from the nuclear explosion would cause instantaneous evaporation, making their explosive power and expansion ratio far higher than that of conventional high explosives like TNT or RDX. The presenter proudly stated that comrades, this firecracker is much easier to manage than metallic hydrogen or azidotetrazole salts. If we can't come up with antimatter bombs in five years, this will be the most powerful weapon in the world!

The audience erupted in applause.

Old Zhao felt quite sour; why didn't his plan get such an enthusiastic applause?

Following that, a second team took the stage. If the previous group's main direction was defense, this team was focused on offense.

First page of the PPT: Missiles have no future.

Missiles are too slow, their reaction too sluggish, by the time the missile meets Hei Yue, it'll be right above our heads, the dish will have gone cold. Future wars in the universe will definitely belong to directed energy weapons!

Nothing travels faster than electromagnetic waves. Use X-ray lasers, use gamma-ray lasers—speed-of-light attacks, Hei Yue won't be able to dodge.

But to inflict effective damage on Hei Yue, the power requirement is astonishing, and the size needed is staggering as well. After the team's analysis, they believe that at least six thousand four hundred X-ray emitters must be assembled into a phased array, and an energy focusing mirror covering an area of forty-five thousand square meters. Something so big can't even be installed on a gimbal, so they plan to find a suitable site in the mountainous areas of Guizhou or Sichuan, and set it up in the mountains like building the FAST radio telescope or an Arecibo.

Such a super laser could consume the daily electricity usage of a city with two million eight hundred thousand people in a single blast. Its peak instantaneous power reaches twenty million gigawatts, releasing 1.19×10^14 joules of energy in one go. Therefore, a larger energy storage pool must be prepared for it, hollowing out an entire mountain to install capacitors, or preparing two hundred thousand Ford-class aircraft carriers to supply its power.

Team leaders claimed that it could instantly destroy any object known to humankind from a distance of 380,000 kilometers. Constructed with the scale of a super laser equipped with two energy storage pools, it could fire two shots within an hour. If twelve super lasers were built globally, it could cover the entire celestial sphere without any dead angles, ensuring that the Dark Moon's descent from any direction would face at least a barrage of four shots from two laser cannons combined.

This would be the largest weapon ever manufactured by humans, which Old Zhao referred to as the Human Cannonball Plan.

Zhao Bowen told Bai Zhen and Wang Ning about the Hedgehog Plan and the Human Cannonball Plan, leaving both old guys utterly astonished. Damn, that's some grand gestures. Compared to their own Reverse Future World-saving Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Command Center, which only had a longer name, they seemed to lag behind by miles.

That's what's called cool, that's what's called sci-fi, and that's the scene for intergalactic warfare.

Their own motley crew was simply unfit for the big league.

Zhao Bowen said, "What do you know? We are the secret front!"

Are the invisible battlefronts insignificant just because the main battlefields are crucial? We are engaged in espionage, undermining and attacking the enemy's weaknesses, setting fires in their backyards. No matter what grand scenes those people set up, without our assistance, they wouldn't have a clue which way the Dark Moon was farting.

At the same time, he also complained that not so long ago, he, Zhao Bowen, begged and pleaded, hustling everywhere to the point of nearly prostrating himself. But no one would believe him, thinking he was just talking nonsense. Then, solely relying on his wit and exerting all his efforts, he finally managed to secure a rocket and a satellite, displaying a firework show set twenty years in the future to the entire world—That sure caused a stir, and everyone finally believed, getting a real wake-up call.

Now they're making these grand moves one after another. What were they doing before?

All those skeptical looks you guys gave me, Zhao Bowen, I remember them all!

"Sounds like century-defining projects, can they be accomplished?" Bai Zhen was sceptical.

Whether it's the Hedgehog Plan or the Human Cannonball Plan, neither is a trivial matter. Setting up tens of thousands of nuclear bombs in orbit or creating super laser cannons in the mountains, their engineering challenges might not be any less than those of large particle accelerators or controlled nuclear fusion—are they possible to complete within five years?

"Who knows," Zhao Bowen shook his head. "We're still in the evaluation phase. To turn the Earth into a nuclear bomb workshop, such a massive project, such a huge plan, it can't be decided in just a day or two."

"Old Zhao, could you pull some strings?" Bai Zhen asked, "I want to join that Hedgehog Plan or even the Human Cannonball Plan. Do you have any contacts?"

"What, you don't want to be the deputy leader anymore?" Zhao Bowen rolled his eyes.

"What future could I possibly have, sticking around here?" Bai Zhen said, "Look at them, with nuclear bombs! Rockets! Laser cannons! Super projects! That's what saving the world looks like, that's where the true sense of grand participation lies. Old Zhao, can't you also pull some strings to get a laser cannon here?"

"Pah!"

"If you can't find the contacts, just forget it," Bai Zhen said.

"Does saving the world necessarily have to be so earth-shattering?" Zhao Bowen snorted, "How vulgar!"

"We are exactly that - vulgar."

Bai Zhen and Wang Ning proudly embraced their vulgarity.

"We are the core of everything," Zhao Bowen also declared proudly, "Without us, they couldn't achieve anything. Now, here, in the Qinhuai District of Nanjing City at Meihua Villa, this is the center of the world. It may seem calm on the surface, but beneath, the currents run deep. Before a tsunami hits the shore, it's just wavelets a few dozen centimeters high. But when they reach us, you'll see what true upheaval means."