Zhao Qiang said, "Let me explain to everyone. This dark gray layer is the earth's crust, and the empty space is the air bubbles in the earth's crust. The largest air bubble is naturally the underground world, and it is now spreading out smaller air bubbles upwards."
Yang Shiqi said, "So that means a bubble is about to reach the ground?"
Zhao Qiang said, "Yes, we didn't notice that before."
Yang Shiqi asked, "Then what do we do?"
Zhao Qiang said, "We must speed up the relocation as quickly as possible, and deploy our main forces and weapons in the location where this bubble may appear in the future. We must be prepared for both possibilities, regardless of whether the other side is friend or foe."
Yang Shiqi said, "Why don't you speed up the relocation work? It's already causing conflicts with the livelihoods of local residents."
Zhao Qiang said, "I know there are no official orders from above, and they are probably still hesitating, but we can't worry about that."
Yang Shiqi sighed and said, "Are you sure this bubble will spread to the ground? And that alien creatures will appear inside it?"
Zhao Qiang shook his head: "I'm not sure, I just want to be prepared." Actually, Zhao Qiang still leaned towards the idea that the underground intelligent beings would attempt to land on the surface. When he and Yang Shiyun sneaked into the spaceship to shut down the jamming devices, they encountered robots testing their flying saucers. Although they failed at the time, given the robots' intelligence and the extraterrestrials' wisdom, they would surely be able to improve it quickly. Did they only want to fly in that underground cavity after starting the flying saucer? Wouldn't the outside sky be more suitable for them?
Yang Shiqi said to the officers, "Gentlemen, since Advisor Zhao has made such a request of me, I can only place my hopes on you all. I hope you will do your best and achieve whatever you can."
In Chenguang County, Tian Zhenming and Tang Yuanfeng received the provincial working group, accompanied by city leaders, with serious expressions. It was impossible for the province not to inquire about such a major event in Chenguang County. However, the working group's arrival seemed to be aimless; they only wanted to observe the progress of the situation and report back to the province. Therefore, it was completely impossible for them to provide Tian Zhenming and Tang Yuanfeng with any professional guidance. County Chiefs Tian and Tang would soon realize this.
"The province attaches great importance to this matter," the leader of the working group said to Tian.
Tian nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, our county party committee has also organized key personnel to intervene, and the situation is currently under control."
The leader of the working group nodded: "It's the special forces division that's organizing this, right?"
Tang Yuanfeng said, "Yes, it's them. They're very arrogant. They even arrested me and Tian once."
The leader of the working group solemnly nodded: "I've heard about it. Their actions need to be reported to higher authorities; they're simply lawless." It was clear that the working group harbored considerable resentment towards the special forces division, so County Chief Tian and County Magistrate Tang grasped the key point and continued to slander the special forces division.
However, the leader of the working group seemed to be very wary of the special forces division. After hearing only a few words of slander against the special forces division, he stopped Tian and County Chief Tang from continuing. "Gentlemen, the special forces division is controlled by the Yang family, and its combat effectiveness is top-notch in the world. We can't afford to lose it. Let's continue to follow up on this matter and report to our superiors at any time."
The next day, Zhao Qiang continued to take photos of the bubbles he had seen the day before. Compared with the photos taken the day before, Zhao Qiang found that the trapped bubbles were closer to the ground. This discovery made him more worried, so he summoned Yang Shiyun to Wulong Mountain that day.
After looking at the sinkhole that was getting closer and closer to the ground, Yang Shiyun asked, "Could it be a natural phenomenon? Maybe the rocks in this stratum can't withstand the force and are collapsing downwards, eventually forming a bottomless pit."
Zhao Qiang said, "I hope so too, but we can't just think the best of things."
Yang Shiyun said, "It's a pity that the detectors on the drilling rig can only photograph the rock strata. It would be great if they could scan to see if there are any signs of life there."
Zhao Qiang said, "After all, you were once one of them, so give me some advice."
Yang Shiyun said, "Let's go down and take a look. Actually, my chip was formatted after I left the spaceship, and there is no data from before. I don't know if the other party is friend or foe."
Zhao Qiang already knew this. The two of them got on the drilling rig and started drilling underground. It took about twenty minutes to reach the G that was constantly extending upwards. Zhao Qiang first drilled a hole in the G wall, then retreated the drilling rig. The two of them got off the drilling rig and walked to the G entrance. It was pitch black all around. Looking down, it was the underground world, with faint light shining through. Because it was too far away, the light could not reach here, so it looked like a star.
“There are no interference signals here. I don’t know if it’s because we turned it off last time or because we’re close to the ground.” Zhao Qiang checked that his equipment was working properly, then he touched the wall and said, “It’s very smooth. This isn’t a sinkhole formed by natural collapse.”
Yang Shiyun also touched it and said, "Yes, it seems my idea has failed. Does the underground life really need to find a way to get to the surface?"
Zhao Qiang sighed, "We're not ready at all, and our weapons aren't in place. I wonder if it's because we disturbed them by entering the underground world. The fault lies with me." At this moment, Zhao Qiang was filled with guilt.
Yang Shiyun comforted him, saying, "You didn't want this to happen either. Besides, when we saw them, they were already test-flying the spaceship. Even if we hadn't gone down, they were probably planning to come up. So you're blaming yourself too much. Moreover, you've already done everything you could to stop them from coming up."
Zhao Qiang stared at the light below without speaking. This time, in order to set up defenses in Wulong Mountain, he had offended several important officials in Beijing. Of course, Zhao Qiang was not afraid of them. He had proven this to those old guys with his actions. He would accept any underhanded tactics they might try to pull. As for his own companies, those people might consider taking action, but they should think carefully. Each of Zhao Qiang's companies was a vital part of the country. To harm them would be to damage the country's vitality. Moreover, Zhao Qiang could completely ignore them because the products produced by his companies were in high demand. They were only producing at full capacity at the request of the state. In fact, Zhao Qiang was not short of money now, and he did not need to work so hard.
The light below seemed to be getting closer and brighter. Zhao Qiang zoomed in with his X-ray glasses. "Oh no!" Zhao Qiang grabbed Yang Shiyun and ran into the rig. The light below was rising rapidly and getting stronger, which meant that it contained a huge amount of energy and might generate high temperatures. Although both of them were wearing fireproof shirts, the protective capabilities of the shirts were limited, so they had to get back into the rig immediately.
Boom! An explosive wave swept through the tunnel Zhao Qiang had entered from. Although inside the drilling rig, Zhao Qiang and Yang Shiyun still felt intense heat and vibration. Then, a loud bang followed, then a continuous whooshing sound. The surrounding temperature and vibration subsided. Zhao Qiang separated his energy core to protect himself as he descended from the drilling rig and returned to the entrance. Debris was falling from above. The thing that had rushed up was a document—a petition from the people of Chenguang County. "I know you can't make the decision yourself. How about this, you hand the document to someone who can. This matter has blown up; it's bad for everyone, especially your army. The military and the people are like fish and water, but now you've become bandits and robbers! How can our local government explain this to the people!"
Volume 2 [775] Evacuation
Zhao Qiang glanced at Yang Shiyun. He knew the matter couldn't be suppressed any longer. If it wasn't a decision made independently by the province, then the central government's opposition had prevailed. Although Yang Zhaoxi and Hu Weimin hadn't informed him beforehand, Zhao Qiang's previous harsh words would have offended many people. Even if they disregarded the Yang and Hu families, they could still issue the order.
How could Yang Shiqi be intimidated by these people? With a sharp shout, she led Zhang Junpeng and his men to take the work team members, Secretary Tian, and County Head Tang hostage. The head of the work team, a vice governor, yelled, "What are you doing? Are you trying to rebel? Are you still the people's army? Do you have any military discipline or national law?"
Zhao Qiang had a headache. He used to hate those who forcibly demolished and relocated houses, but he never expected that one day he would become the head of this universally hated forced relocation operation. However, he had personally experienced the underworld and knew that it was always beneficial to make preparations when he didn't know whether the other party was a friend or foe. But why did things not go according to his plan?
Zhang Junpeng gave a signal, and immediately a soldier stepped forward and covered the vice governor's mouth to stop him from continuing. Yang Shiqi said, "Lock all these people up! Treat them as trespassers for trespassing on military territory!"
Tian Zhenming said, “You dare! I’m telling you, the people have spontaneously formed an anti-relocation organization, and they will soon be entering the mountains. What can you do then? I don’t believe that you soldiers would fire on unarmed civilians! You’d better stop your current actions, or it will be too late to regret it.”
Zhao Qiang wanted to say something, but couldn't find a suitable reason for it. Just then, his phone rang. Usually, it was an important person who called him, so Zhao Qiang didn't dare to delay and answered immediately.
It was Yang Zhaoxi. With such a big incident, it was impossible for him not to have heard a word. Given the current relationship between the Yang family and Zhao Qiang, Yang Zhaoxi should care about Zhao Qiang; otherwise, he would only be creating trouble for himself.
“Zhao Qiang, things are not easy. The majority of committee members oppose abolishing Chenguang County. After all, abolishing a county without any reason is unreasonable; it needs time to work out.” ‘Without reason’ actually means there are reasons, but they can’t be explained to ordinary people, otherwise it would cause panic. Zhao Qiang said, “Old Yang, what would you think if I told you things might get worse?”
"Getting worse? What's going on with your situation?"
Zhao Qiang said, "Yes, actually I originally didn't plan to get involved anymore and let this matter develop, but I didn't want too many people to get involved, so I decided to relocate most of the population of Chenguang County."
Yang Zhaoxi said, "Zhao Qiang, your idea is good, but if a special forces division can mobilize troops to forcibly relocate a county today, it can forcibly relocate a city tomorrow, or even interfere with the administrative work of a province the day after tomorrow. Others have deep concerns."
Zhao Qiang said, "There's no other way?"
Yang Zhaoxi said, "Old Hu and I have done our best. The feedback from below indicates that there is great public resentment and unstable public security in the area."
Zhao Qiang said, "I understand. If I were an ordinary citizen, I wouldn't want to leave either. But I've done everything I could to publicize it, and I've offered them housing and better jobs in the city. If they don't appreciate it, then so be it."
Yang Zhaoxi said, "We support you unconditionally, but the relocation involves too many aspects. It's no longer a decision that Lao Hu and I can make. People may seem to have a prominent position in this circle, but in reality, many things don't go according to their wishes."
Zhao Qiang said, "I understand, and I know what to do." With that, Zhao Qiang put away his phone.
Tang Yuanfeng was still struggling against the soldiers' restraints, saying, "You can't arrest me! I'm telling you, we represent the people. You'd better leave immediately and restore peace to Chenguang County, otherwise hundreds of thousands of people in the county will fight you to the end!"
Yang Shiqi was so angry that she was about to have someone teach Tang Yuanfeng a lesson when Zhao Qiang suddenly shouted, "Enough, Commander Yang, order the troops to prepare for withdrawal!"
Yang Shiqi didn't hear clearly: "What did you say? Retreat?"
Zhao Qiang said, "Yes, let's retreat. Forget about it, let's go."
Yang Shiyun said to Zhao Qiang, "Don't act rashly." If she hadn't seen the cave extending upwards from the ground, Yang Shiyun wouldn't have thought much of it, but now that she knows intelligent beings underground might be advancing towards the surface, withdrawing her troops is unacceptable.
Zhao Qiang said, "I'm not acting rashly. I said before that if I want to come back, a large portion of those sitting in Beijing must step down. I can't go back on my word, so we need to leave now. This also aligns with the wishes of the people of Chenguang County, right?"
Yang Shiyun retorted, "But the common people are just unaware of the situation, we can't afford to argue with them."
Zhao Qiang said, "Since it's a military secret, we can't explain it to them. So if they don't understand, they don't understand. Let's withdraw. Don't say anything more. Notify the transport helicopters to immediately transport the troops, weapons, and supplies away. As for the other brother units, let them withdraw as well. At the very least, they should withdraw from Chenguang County. We won't cause them any more trouble."
Tang Yuanfeng and Tian Zhenming exchanged a glance, their eyes both revealing joy. The struggle had been successful. Even the members of the work group were so happy they almost shouted. The tough special forces division also realized their mistake. This was the result of everyone's hard work.
Yang Shiqi stomped her foot angrily and pointed at Tang Yuanfeng and Tian Zhenming, saying, "You will regret this. You will pay the price for what you did today!" After saying that, Yang Shiqi said to Zhang Junpeng, "Pass on my order: retreat! Everyone retreat!"
The massive transport helicopters arrived quickly. The special forces were incredibly fast; six hours later, the entire camp was completely empty. Tang Yuanfeng and the others who witnessed the whole process exclaimed in admiration, "Our country's military strength is truly impressive. So many supplies and personnel were evacuated in just half a day!"
A muffled boom echoed, followed by a tremor beneath their feet. The deputy governor of the working group bent down to listen carefully and asked, "What's that sound? It sounds like someone's firing cannons?"
Tian Zhenming said, "I think it's the other troops that are withdrawing that are firing their cannons in protest. We don't need to pay attention to them. Let's go and welcome the people who are coming into the mountains and let them see our results. I think everyone should be satisfied now."
The uninformed people were indeed satisfied and thanked the leaders profusely. They decided to hold a bonfire party on the spot so that officials and civilians could celebrate without having to leave their homes. Tian Zhenming and Tang Yuanfeng naturally agreed to this, as it was a way to demonstrate their political achievements. However, since the area was deep in the mountains, they retreated a few kilometers and organized the event in the local town.
After the town leaders gave speeches and toasts, and after county, city, and provincial leaders also gave speeches, the event finally began. At this moment, there was another tremor underfoot, and the ground could be clearly felt shaking. Some people quickly grabbed the trees next to them, and a few even lost their footing and fell to the ground. "Earthquake!" This was the first reaction of most people. Fortunately, this was an open area, so there was no need to worry about anything collapsing.
"No, it's not an earthquake, everyone don't panic!" The town leaders were quite quick to react; the sound was like a cannon going off, and the shaking of the ground was caused by its explosion.
Tang Yuanfeng asked the town mayor, "What's going on?"
The town mayor replied in a panic, "Tang County, this really wasn't us, and the villagers nearby would never hoard explosives. We definitely checked the security carefully for tonight's event, so we don't know what happened either."
Tang Yuanfeng's expression was not good, but considering that something similar had happened before in the military camp, Tang Yuanfeng could not investigate the town's cadres any further. The commotion stopped and there was no further discussion, so everyone continued to celebrate in peace.
About half an hour later, just as the leaders were preparing to leave, there was another dull thud. This time the ground shook even more violently. Tang Yuanfeng fell to the ground with a thud, and several of the work group leaders, being older, also fell to the ground. This time the shaking lasted for a long time, followed by another deafening crash, as if something had collapsed, but looking around, there was nothing unusual.
“This place is very strange, let’s go.” The members of the provincial work group couldn’t stay any longer. Tang Yuanfeng and Tian Zhenming didn’t want to stay any longer either, so they hurriedly said goodbye to the town leaders, got into the car, and sped off towards the county town. Suddenly, there was another huge tremor, and a beam of light pierced through the distant sky, heading towards the mountains they had come from.
Zhao Qiang, who had been monitoring the situation, also received the signal. Yang Shiyun said anxiously, "They've finally broken through the ground! I didn't expect them to be so fast. What should we do? Let's stop them quickly!"
Zhao Qiang said, "No, we can't move now."
Yang Shiyun said, "Why? Are we going to leave them here until they've gained a firm foothold?"
Zhao Qiang said, "We have no legitimate reason to fight now, and do you know whether the other side is friend or foe?"
Yang Shiqi said, "Whether they are enemies or friends, let's control them first."
Zhao Qiang said, "It's not as simple as you say. Let's continue monitoring first and let the people from Chenguang County handle it."
The beam of light illuminated half the sky. At this point, it was impossible for the leaders to leave as if nothing had happened. Tang Yuanfeng and Tian Zhenming could only see off the leaders of the work group first, since most of them were old guys who couldn't handle the trouble. Then, Tang Yuanfeng and Tian Zhenming, along with the comrades from the town's police station, prepared to go into the mountains to check the situation.
The town leaders said, "Secretary Tian, County Chief Tang, we know you are dedicated and care about the safety of the people, but we don't know what happened over there, so let's send our people to check it out first."
Tang Yuanfeng said to Tian Zhenming, "Yes, Secretary Tian, do you think it might be the military that's behind this? They want to take this opportunity to get us to bring them back, so let's send the comrades from the town police station to check first."
Tian Zhenming nodded: "Alright, be careful, comrades. We must not let a single troublesome enemy escape. Any act of damaging the forest must be punished. Go on your way." Tian Zhenming assumed that someone was illegally cutting down trees.
Volume 2 [776] Landing
The town mayor, the town party secretary, and the town police station chief, along with about twenty men and several guns, set off on the mountain road. Troops had previously traveled along the mountain path, so the road conditions were relatively good. In truth, even with the good road conditions, the mayor and secretary didn't want to go into the mountains themselves, but with the county head and county party secretary watching from outside, they had to make a good impression.
As they approached the scene, they realized something was wrong with the beam of light. They had never seen such a thick and bright beam of light before. Even searchlights couldn't achieve that level of brightness. How could those logging people have such equipment? Even if they did, they wouldn't project the light into the sky, would they? Wouldn't that expose their location? No one would be so blatant as to do that.
As they got closer to the scene of the incident, the town mayor whispered, "Stop, let's discuss this first."
The head of the town's police station said, "Mayor, what are you waiting for? Just rush up and arrest them. I can already hear the mechanical sound; it must be a chainsaw."
The town mayor tapped the police station chief on the head: "Can't you think straight? Could that be a group illegally logging timber? How can they be so blatantly stealing timber? And they even let half the world see it."
The police station chief asked, "If it wasn't someone cutting down trees, then who was it?"
The town's Party Secretary frowned: "Why did the military designate this area as a military zone?"
The police station chief was taken aback: "What? This matter is related to the people who cut down trees over there?"
The town mayor glanced at the party secretary. This director was appointed by the party secretary, and he was obviously a brainless idiot. Such a person should have stepped down long ago. Letting him sit in the position is actually a waste of the country's food.
The Party Secretary said, "Let's approach quietly and observe first. No one is to act rashly without orders. Do you understand?"
Although everyone was confused, they nodded in agreement, as it was a decision made by the top leader. They then halted their cautious approach and finally reached the vicinity of the pillar of light after half an hour. After rounding a bend in the hillside, they could see clearly ahead, and what they saw startled them: the pillar of light wasn't from a searchlight, but was actually shooting out from a large hole underground!
The town mayor covered his mouth: "When did this big hole appear here?!"
The police station chief asked, "Could it be that enemy agents are trying to sabotage us?"
The Party Secretary snapped, "Shut up! What's there to sabotage in this desolate mountain? This isn't the coast. What can they possibly do if they try to cause trouble? This isn't the era when enemy agents were rampant."
The police station chief persisted, "Could it be a biological weapon?"
The mayor was also taken aback: "Yes, if that's the case, we need gas masks."