Chapter 28: Blueprints and Hidden Reefs

Deep inside the abandoned maintenance warehouse, the air was thick with the stale scent of machine oil and rust.

The pale, flickering light of an emergency lamp cast shifting shadows across Duan Peng’s face. He stared at Xu Yan in disbelief, then glanced at the massive metal surface that had been crudely repurposed into a workbench—it was scattered with papers covered in complex formulas and structural diagrams.

"Building a spaceship? Here? Xu Yan, did the water pressure at Relic Island crush your brain?"

He lowered his voice, each word squeezed through his teeth with a sense of absurd shock.

Xu Yan did not smile. His eyes were startlingly bright as he looked straight at the backlit figure standing in the warehouse doorway.

"Captain, you heard him."

Jing Zhimin’s tall silhouette emerged fully from the shadows, his face ashen, like metal frozen by a biting frost.

He approached step by step, the sound of his leather boots striking the concrete floor echoing through the vast, empty warehouse, heavy as if each footfall were landing on Duan Peng’s heart. He stopped in front of Xu Yan, the sheer pressure forcing Duan Peng to subconsciously hold his breath.

Jing Zhimin suddenly raised his hand. Duan Peng almost thought that palm, wide as a fan, was about to strike—but it ultimately slammed down onto the cold metal tabletop with a thunderous bang!

"Xu Yan!"

Jing Zhimin’s voice grated like sandpaper. "What do you think the Jinjiang Special Forces is? A toy factory? Or your own personal mad scientist laboratory?! Building an interstellar spaceship? Do you have any idea how much money, how many resources, and how many layers of approval that requires? This is enough to get you court-martialed; I could have you shot ten times over and still have ammunition to spare!"

Spittle nearly hit Xu Yan in the face.

Xu Yan’s body remained motionless, his gaze meeting the captain’s fury like a nail driven into wood.

"Captain, please listen to me first."

His voice was unnaturally calm, forming a jarring contrast to Jing Zhimin’s rage. He picked up the most critical diagram on the table, which sketched out the prototype of an intricately structured ring chamber.

"This isn't a warship, Captain. It cannot even fly very far."

Xu Yan’s finger pressed firmly into the center of the diagram. "This is the 'Cocoon Chamber'—the core validation prototype for an environmental stabilization system. Its sole objective, inside the ship," he paused, his gaze sweeping over Duan Peng’s stunned face before returning to Jing Zhimin’s eyes, "is to create a 'bubble' that simulates the gravity, air pressure, and temperature of Blue Star!"

"A bubble?"

Jing Zhimin’s fury was interrupted by the peculiar term; his brows knit into a tight knot.

"Yes, a bubble!"

Xu Yan’s voice carried a near-fanatical conviction. "Think about it! Why is the selection for interstellar soldiers so difficult? Why is the attrition rate so high? The fundamental shackle isn't willpower or skill; it’s that our bodies cannot withstand the inhuman, drastic changes of interstellar travel! The G-force of high-speed jumps, the erosion of zero gravity, the infiltration of radiation, the psychological collapse in confined spaces... these are the real obstacles!"

He flung his arms wide, as if to embrace the void of the entire warehouse.

"But the 'Cocoon Chamber' can break these shackles! It uses an energy field to weave a 'shell' that encapsulates the environment of Blue Star, wrapping it around the people inside! As long as this 'shell' is strong and stable enough, the person traveling through the stars won't need to be a one-in-a-million superman. It could be any qualified Jinjiang soldier who has completed basic training!"

The rage in Jing Zhimin’s eyes was extinguished as if doused with ice water, leaving behind only swirling shock and a trace of... an extremely dangerous spark of ambition, forcibly ignited.

He stared fixedly at Xu Yan, his voice dropping, hoarse as if after a storm. "You... you mean to say that even ordinary team members could..."

"Exactly!" Xu Yan replied decisively. "This 'spaceship' is just a cover, a shell to load the 'Cocoon Chamber' for space environment testing. Its significance lies in validating this core system! Once it succeeds, Captain," Xu Yan’s voice was filled with a seductive power, "the Jinjiang Special Forces will no longer be a reserve battalion for the Interstellar Force; it will be the cradle of interstellar soldiers! We can continuously supply interstellar soldiers who don't require the physique of a superman! The bottleneck? We will smash that bottleneck with our own hands!"

Jing Zhimin fell silent.

The only sounds in the massive warehouse were the heavy breathing of the three men and the faint, distant echoes of training chants. He turned around, his back to Xu Yan and Duan Peng, his broad shoulders tensed as if bearing an invisible weight.

Time ticked by, the air growing stiflingly thick.

Duan Peng’s palms were slick with sweat. He looked at Xu Yan’s statue-like, determined profile, then at the mountain-like back of the captain.

Finally, Jing Zhimin turned back around.

The rage and shock had vanished from his face, leaving only the resolution and exhaustion of a gambler staking his entire life on one final bet. He walked up to Xu Yan, his hawk-like gaze seemingly piercing straight through his soul.

"Technical route?" His voice was raspy but exceptionally clear.

Xu Yan immediately pulled out a paper covered in symbols and molecular formulas. "The core is energy field weaving and spatial field stabilization. Materials: We need high-energy-conductive lattice substrates (we can dismantle parts of the old radar in our current inventory), superconducting constraint rings (non-standard parts, need to be procured secretly), and this—"

He pointed to a highly complex energy converter design. "This is the heart. It requires custom fabrication. I have a simplified plan, but the risk is energy overflow..."

"Energy requirements?" Jing Zhimin interrupted, speaking rapidly.

"In the preliminary validation phase, the base's backup reactor can barely handle it, but it requires an isolated circuit. It will create a significant disturbance," Xu Yan said bluntly.

"Probability of failure?"

"Theoretical validation is seventy percent, but engineering implementation... is less than fifty percent." Xu Yan did not evade the question.

Jing Zhimin closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the rust-filled air. When he opened them again, only a desperate, cold light remained in his eyes.

"Fine." A single word, heavy as a thousand pounds.

He turned sharply toward Duan Peng. "Duan Peng!"

Duan Peng snapped to attention. "Sir!"

"From today on, you are Xu Yan’s shadow! His assistant, his shield! This warehouse is a restricted zone. Any person—including the Commander—who approaches, you have the authority to use any means necessary to stop them! Project codename: 'Cocoon Weave'! Your life is now tied to this blueprint!" Jing Zhimin issued an order that shocked even himself.

"Yes, sir!" Duan Peng straightened his back. Blood surged through his veins, his fear replaced by an unprecedented sense of mission.

Jing Zhimin looked at Xu Yan one last time, his expression intensely complex. "I will find a way to secure the funding and special materials. But Xu Yan, remember this," his voice was low and hard as iron, "if this leaks out, or if it turns out in the end that you were just playing me..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but the lingering intent to kill was sharper than any words.

Xu Yan met his gaze calmly. "We share the same goal, Captain. For the future of Jinjiang."

Jing Zhimin said nothing more. He turned and strode toward the warehouse exit. The heavy iron door boomed shut behind him, plunging the warehouse back into gloom and silence.

He cut across the edge of the training grounds, heading toward the administration building. His pace was steady, but his brows were locked tight as he frantically calculated several high-risk, gray-market channels that had remained dormant for years.

Inside the warehouse, Duan Peng exhaled a long breath, feeling as though his back was soaked through. He looked at Xu Yan, who was carefully tucking away those earth-shattering diagrams, his eyes focused and bright.

"Xu Yan," Duan Peng’s voice carried a trace of an imperceptible tremor, "can this... really work?"

Xu Yan looked up, the corner of his mouth curling into a faint arc. There was little mirth in it, but a heart-stopping certainty.

"It must work. This is our... other path to the stars."

He picked up a pen and, on a critical parameter of the 'Cocoon Chamber' energy core, drew an extremely tiny, Ram-star symbol that only he knew the meaning of.

The lines on the diagram seemed to come alive in his eyes, weaving together a future that was fraught with risk but shimmered with endless possibility.

Meanwhile, in a corner of a city far from the Jinjiang base, inside an unremarkable office, a high-sensitivity financial monitoring terminal emitted a soft beep.

On the screen, a record of a capital flow—routed through multiple layers of anonymous jumps, small in amount but with an extremely concealed origin and destination—was highlighted in red. In the associated remarks column, it displayed a vague pointer: "Jinjiang Special Forces Logistics (Abnormal Procurement?)".

A hand in a black glove moved the mouse and marked the record as "Pending Investigation."