novelsite Chapter 16 Hard Disk
Chapter 16 Hard Disk
One heart beat steadily at 68 beats per minute. There was the metallic scraping of a pistol slide at his waist, and the subtle clinking of a set of precision hex wrenches in his pocket—an engineer's habit. The other breathed slightly faster, at 24 beats per minute, carrying a long, thin object on his back… a shortened HK417 rifle, its barrel eight centimeters shorter than the standard model, fitted with a non-standard suppressor.
"Mr. Weber," Wang Zhengyang's voice rang out in the empty third workshop, but there was no echo, like a stone thrown into a deep pool, "I've arrived. Have your men retreat outside the factory perimeter wall; this is the basic goodwill required for the transaction."
The silence lasted for a full ten seconds.
The dim light of a kerosene lamp illuminated a makeshift cubicle deep within the workshop. An elderly man with gray hair, wearing oil-stained overalls, emerged. He carried no weapon, but his right hand remained suspended about twenty centimeters from his waist—the optimal distance for a quick draw. "You're punctual," Weber said in heavily Stuttgart-accented English, "but it's unwise to come alone. The road from Berlin to Potsdam has been rather unsafe at night lately."
"A trade doesn't need an audience." Wang Zhengyang stepped out of the shadows, letting the light shine on his face. He was young, but there was a calmness in his eyes that didn't match his age, like someone who had experienced too many long nights. His tactical jacket had tears and dark stains on the left arm, but his posture was as steady as a steel pillar cast in the foundation.
Weber scrutinized him for a moment, his deep-set eyes sharp as a scalpel. The old man waved towards the cubicle. A burly figure silently emerged, carrying a long, narrow tactical canvas bag. As he passed Wang Zhengyang, his gaze swept over him warily before disappearing into the exit at the other end of the workshop.
"Money," Weber said, succinctly.
"Inspect the goods first." Wang Zhengyang remained unmoved, his voice as calm as a mechanical bearing rotating in lubricating oil. "The complete technical package of the 'Thunder Matrix' energy deflection shield system: from the modified model of Maxwell's equations to the specific chemical formula of the multilayer composite medium, from the winding parameters of the superconducting coil for active confinement magnetic field to the capacitor array topology optimization algorithm for transient energy buffering. And all the mechanical drawings of the 'Earth Pulse' adaptive heavy chassis: including but not limited to the detailed drawings of the integrated motor-reducer module of the independent electric drive suspension, the chromium-molybdenum-vanadium alloy composition and gradient heat treatment process curve of the main load-bearing frame, the core logic flowchart of the all-terrain adaptation algorithm and the sensor fusion protocol."
He finished speaking in one breath, each technical term so precise it was as if retrieved from a database, his pronunciation without a moment's hesitation.
Weber raised an eyebrow slightly and moved his right hand two centimeters away from his side—a sign of relaxed vigilance. "You've memorized the technical specifications."
"What I paid for is technical assets with tolerances down to the micrometer level and an error range of one percent, not vague conceptual descriptions," Wang Zhengyang said calmly. "The samples you provided on your USB drive prove that you have real stuff. Now I need to verify its completeness and internal logical consistency."
The two stared at each other for seven seconds. Weber then turned and went into the cubicle.
"Come in, young man." Weber coughed as he walked in. "I'll get you the 'Thunder Matrix' technical documentation on the computer. With your level of expertise, you should understand it at a glance."
The cubicle was crammed with various electronic devices, boxes of yellowed blueprints, and disassembled mechanical parts, the air thick with the unique smell of rosin, machine oil, and old paper. Two old-fashioned ruggedized military laptops were connected to three external hard drive arrays via thick cables, their cooling fans humming low. Weber typed on the keyboard, bringing up a file directory tree—dense technical documents arranged hierarchically by system level, totaling 817GB.
Wang Zhengyang quickly scanned the directory structure, while his right index finger seemingly casually rested on the laptop's casing. His 0.41% supernatural perception, like invisible threads, penetrated the device's interior, capturing the subtle vibration frequencies of the hard drive platters, the current pulsations of the memory chips, and the electromagnetic radiation spectrum characteristics of the screen driver circuitry. He rapidly compared these fragments of information with the technical parameters of the "Thunder Matrix" prototype from his past life.
"Open Chapter 3, Section 7 of the 'Thunder Matrix' technology package, which contains the transient response simulation dataset of gradient magnetic field coils, with timescales ranging from microseconds to milliseconds," he said.
Weber typed on the keyboard. Complex time-domain waveforms and frequency-domain analysis matrices appeared on the screen.
Wang Zhengyang stared at the data, his brain entering overclocking mode. His engineering experience from his past life merged with his current supernatural perception, constructing a virtual testing environment in his consciousness. Three seconds later, he nodded: "The data logic is consistent, and the simulation step size is reasonable. Continue, Chapter Two, Section Four of the 'Earth Pulse' chassis, the finite element stress analysis report of the independent suspension system for heavy-duty wheels under extreme torsional conditions, focusing on the stress concentration coefficient in the area connecting the control arm root and the frame."
Another round of verification.
Within 21 minutes, Wang Zhengyang randomly checked the technical content of nine key nodes, covering multiple disciplines including electromagnetism, mechanics of materials, control theory, and thermodynamics. Each time, Weber smoothly retrieved the corresponding information, and his explanations of the technical details were not only precise but also contained profound personal insights—this was a true technology holder, an engineer who understood the value of the knowledge he possessed.
"That's enough." Wang Zhengyang took out three vacuum-sealed bags from the waterproof lining of his tactical vest and placed them on the oil-stained and scratched workbench. "Sixty thousand euros, all old banknotes printed before 2016. The serial numbers are random and unrelated, there are no fluorescent markers, no chemical tracers, and the paper fiber composition is consistent with the currency in circulation at the same time."
Weber opened the sealed bag, his fingers deftly flipping through the banknotes, examining the three-dimensional effect of the watermark, the inlay process of the security thread, and the optical characteristics of the paper at specific angles. After confirming everything was in order, he pushed over a silver-black encrypted hard drive with a military-grade fireproof interface.
"Password A7K9B2P4. Three incorrect entries will trigger a physical destruction process, causing the internal flash memory chip to overload and burn out." Weber paused, his deep-set eyes filled with complex emotions. "Young man, getting these things is like drawing a bullseye on your own back. There are at least four other groups in Berlin looking for these blueprints, two of which don't follow the rules."
"I know." Wang Zhengyang took the hard drive, ran his fingers over the cold metal casing, feeling the intricate circuitry inside, and then turned and walked towards the workshop door.
"Wait a minute." Weber took a titanium alloy box, about the size of a cigarette pack, from his desk drawer. The surface had been hand-polished. "This is for you. It's an engineering prototype of a broadband electromagnetic pulse suppressor, the seventh version I designed and built myself. It can provide a shielding window of up to fifteen seconds for precision circuits in strong electromagnetic interference environments with a peak field strength of 500kV/m—if you're really planning to build some kind of mobile fortress."
Wang Zhengyang took the box; it felt heavy, weighing about 300 grams. He opened it and glanced inside. It contained intricately layered circuits and miniature superconducting coils, with a level of craftsmanship reaching laboratory standards. He nodded without speaking, tucked the box into the inside pocket of his tactical vest, and disappeared into the night outside.
The motorcycle engine roared to life at the edge of the woods and sped away. Wang Zhengyang drove with one hand, his left hand touching the hard drive in his pocket—beneath the cold metal casing lay the seed of the "Dragon Abyss's" transformation, the genetic code of that future mobile fortress.
The wound on my right shoulder throbbed with a regular, sharp pain as the motorcycle jolted, but it was worth it.
At 1:17 a.m., he returned to the marshalling yard on the eastern outskirts of Berlin. In the darkness, the massive silhouette of the "Longyuan" lay silently on the tracks, like a steel behemoth gathering its strength.