After returning to his room, Jiang Chen closed the door.
Graceful hands circled his waist.
When he felt the coolness, Jiang Chen smiled and gently squeezed Liu Yao’s hand.
“Don’t want to do it?”
“Can you withstand it?” Looking at her bright eyes, Jiang Chen smirked.
When she recollected her desperate pleading last night, Liu Yao’s face turned red, but she acted calmly.
“I can withstand-”
“But rather than withstanding it, I enjoy it more when you are also enjoying it.”
A glimpse of emotion appeared and quickly faded on her face. She lowered her head and pouted her mouth.
“Thank you.”
“Rest early tonight, it has been a long day.” Jiang Chen combed the hair in front of Liu Yao’s forehead with a smile.
“Mhmm.” Her eyes turned teary for a second and she nodded.
Half because of his money, half because of his character. Regardless, she loved him. Although she knew Jiang Chen would only treat her as a mistress, she didn’t mind.
She knew, him accepting her perhaps had nothing to do with love, or maybe even as a reminiscence to what didn’t happen in the past, a recollection of his time. By the lake at Wanghai University, when she wore that white dress and appeared in front of him like a student. His lost eyes made her read the meaning behind them.
But none of those things mattered. Even if she was just a mistress, she could still feel his gentleness.
The only thing that made her afraid was, at the bottom of her heart, she wondered if she was just a tool to unleash his desire.
But fortunately, he is not like that…
…
After a shower, the two slept.
It was around midnight when Jiang Chen opened his eyes.
The breathing beside his ear was rhythmic. Due to spending too much energy during the day, Liu Yao was sleeping deeply.
After sneaking out of bed, Jiang Chen put on his shirt, went into the washroom, and locked the door before commencing interdimensional travel.
It was quiet in the mansion. Sun Jiao should already be sleeping.
Jiang Chen didn’t go wake them up as he took a thick winter suit and covered himself up. He stood beside the living room, getting used to the drastic change in temperature. Then he opened the door of the mansion and walked into the snowy night.
Although it was already late into the night, the base still remained bright and noisy.
The heavy snow could not cover the orange flame shining from the factory window. The roaring sound inside the building diffused around the base. With the outdated production equipment, they could only make up the lack of speed through labor. The lack of sophisticated equipment meant that they had to operate through an around the clock shift schedule to reach the necessary volume.
But no one complained because this place was the wasteland. Being full and warm with the opportunity to work was almost a luxury.
The unmanned highly sophisticated factories from before the war had almost all turned into shambles during the nuclear explosions. Although Jiang Chen had thought about sending people to the ruins to dig through some “garbage”, given that it was around ten something years into the apocalypse, he gave up on the thought.
Anything good was probably raided.
The snow removing vehicle modified out of a truck would occasionally drive by. The fully equipped soldiers patrolled the base.
When they saw Jiang Chen, the leading patrol immediately stood straight and saluted to the general.
“Don’t mind me, you guys continue to patrol.” Looking at the young man with a red nose, Jiang Chen smile.
“Yes, sir!” The young man raised his head with rosy cheeks and saluted again before telling the soldiers behind him to walk forward.
At the young man’s chest, Jiang Chen saw a golden emblem.
He just remembered that he seemed to have canonized two hundred something knights at the base. These knights were absolutely loyal to him and were the first batch of slaves he bought from the Sixth Street. They were the pioneers that dug the first shovel among the ruins. Now, these pioneers all have been promoted as the central force of the base, acting as management or mid to high-level military leaders.
The person following the young knight was an upper citizen. Although he was not implanted with the slavery chip, Jiang Chen still saw deep respect and worship from his eyes.
“The size of the base is beginning to grow?” Standing in the snow, Jiang Chen scanned the territory he ruled and a smile emerged on his face.
With the Fishbone base gradually growing in size, with the base as the core foundation, it began to expand into its fourth newly plotted area. New residential area meant that they could intake new immigrants. Combined with the survivors from Shenxiang town, Fishbone base had over 1000 in population.
But the growth on this side was stagnating. The materials gathered by the scavenger team could not satisfy the appetite of this industrial monster. Only if he managed to obtain his own land in the modern world could he move tons of aluminum, steel, or even rare earth metals to the apocalypse.
After staying a bit longer, Jiang Chen began to walk to the aerospace laboratory at the corner of the base.
He pressed the doorbell as he put his face closer to the camera and said concisely.
“It’s me.”
Shortly after, the lock made a “clang” sound.
Pushing open the door, he carried with him the chilly wind and snowflakes. But the snowflakes on the carpet were soon melted into droplets of water by the heat inside.
He closed the door behind him and put his winter suit on the hook by the door before he walked inside.
“So late. I almost thought the kinetic skeleton production line had an accident.” Jiang Lin in pajamas yawned as he came to the door with messy hair.
Parts were thrown everywhere, making the first-floor living room challenging to find a place to place one’s feet. But the still sleepy guy managed to quickly walk through the pile of spare parts and didn’t step on a single bolt.
By this alone, this guy spent too much time inside.
“This is?” Jiang Chen pointed at the parts and diagrams on the ground feeling puzzled.
Jiang Lin grabbed a chair for Jiang Chen and then sat on the other one before he replied, “You asked to research the K1-b type kinetic skeleton… For real, is this thing really necessary?”
K1-b kinetic skeleton is the amphibious version of the K1 model. Maintaining the current defense ability, it adds a resistant layer against water pressure, while modifying the back to allow for water booster and an air storage cylinder.
Of course, this model would not be used in the apocalypse, but Jiang Chen didn’t want to explain to him as he started to ask about the research progress.
“Is this thing functional?”
“Probably not. Considering that most waters possess a radiation level exceeding normal levels. I still need to add a layer of heavy organic metal within the pressure resistant layer-” Jiang Lin was prepared to explain to Jiang Chen the technicals, but Jiang Chen who didn’t understand at all interrupted him mercilessly.
“Let’s put the radiation problem aside for now. Other than that, what else is needed? Is this thing done?” The water in the modern world has no radiation, it would be useless to add anti-radiation material.
“The design is complete. Sample parts have been created, it only needs to be assembled together before it can be used.” After hesitating for a moment, Jiang Lin nodded.
“Then assemble a sample for me, that shouldn’t be a problem right?”
“There is no problem, but the performance data has yet to be collected, it may not be good to use it right away-”
“Battle is the best way to test the equipment.” Jiang Chen smiled.
“Okay.” Jiang Lin didn’t try to convince Jiang Chen. He shrugged before he walked towards the workbench.
The K1-b type kinetic skeleton was much heavier compared to the original K1 model. Considering that the amphibious equipment would mostly be used underwater, the removable polyethylene board was sealed shut to avoid water leakage.
Other than that, Jiang Lin also designed a full helmet for this kinetic skeleton.
Just from the appearance alone, this kinetic skeleton covered every single part of the body with the pressure resistant material. Other than the fact that it didn’t have a turbine engine, steel armor, nerve connected computer, as well as other high tech equipment, this set of armor was similar to the power armor. On the other hand, it could be classified as something between “light infantry armor” to “heavy knight armor”. The cost was three times more than the original K1 model.
“The booster equipment is in the back. The air storage can be charged by allowing the opening to come into contact with air. It takes around an hour to charge to full and can be used up to three hours.” Jiang Lin pushed up his glasses as he began to explain to Jiang Chen the equipment he designed.
[Automatically replenishing oxygen, what, how insane is that?]
As he listened to Jiang Lin, Jiang Chen was shocked.
“When engaging in a crossfire, avoid getting the breathing apparatus in the back of the neck damaged… Of course, that would not be much different than if you were shot in the head.”
“The helmet is not bulletproof?” Jiang Chen knocked on the helmet as he felt the special organic material.
“It is underwater equipment. I have to control the overall density, the majority of the bulletproof ability is focused on the front chest and stomach area. Of course, the helmet can defend against one or two bullets, but I don’t recommend you try it. With the kinetic power of the reaper assault rifle, even if the helmet could deflect a shot, most people’s neck would not be able to withstand that kind of force. This is not the power armor after all.” Jiang Lin shrugged.
“What about this? Pistol?” Jiang Chen picked up an odd-looking weapon.
“That’s alright. But it can’t be used in water.”
“Is the Type-11 pistol not good? I remember the power of that thing is pretty high.” Jiang Chen held onto the gun as he played with it, the feeling couldn’t be more strange.
Jiang Lin paused for a second as he looked at Jiang Chen strangely.
“The bullet with a higher initial velocity would travel a shorter distance in the water. Even if the bullet in the base has a steel core, while it would not be crushed by the water pressure, it will begin to roll in a few meters.”
The higher the velocity, the shorter the distance? How is that possible?!
“But I saw in movies-” Jiang Chen said dumbfoundedly.
In his memory, the images of machines guns weaving a net made by bullets were common in war movies.
“It is a movie after all.” Jiang Lin laughed as he put a box of elongated bullets into Jiang Chen’s hand, “If you use Type-11, you are better off using a laser weapon. Although the optical density of laser beams also degrade quickly in water, it will still shoot further than conventional weapons.”