No matter how Yao Ruoning asked, she couldn’t get any information about Old Wang.
Jin Luan and Huan Hong were still hiding it, even deliberately teasing her by talking about how reliable and useful Old Wang was.
‘Damn it, what exactly does Old Wang do? Why does he know Magical Girls? And why is he so close with Jin Luan and Huan Hong?’
‘Are you kidding me? Is there some rival?’
Yao Ruoning’s internal alarm bells rang loudly as she felt a faint sense of crisis.
Seeing Yin Lin looking a bit anxious, they chatted even more happily.
Yao Ruoning simply put down her phone, calmed her mind, and looked at the scenery outside the window.
They had already arrived at a very strange industrial zone.
It was full of factories she didn’t recognize, and she had no idea what they were for.
She looked at the metro station information.
The stations ahead were no longer clearly labeled with their purpose but were represented by codes, such as LB Station and LR Station. They were all codes she couldn’t understand at all.
The carriage was also nearly empty, as desolate as an apocalyptic ruin.
Yao Ruoning couldn’t help but feel a sense of desolation and loneliness.
Those workers came to these places to work day after day, maintaining the normal operation of Yiri City and the entire human world.
It was just too boring and lonely.
No wonder there were so few people on the road.
If Old Song were to work here, he would probably just live in the factory dormitory with his coworkers.
Except for going out together on holidays, he probably wouldn’t want to commute by metro every day.
It was impossible to endure this kind of back-and-forth every day.
Thinking about these tedious jobs, even she felt a bit exhausted and wanted to take a nap.
She set an alarm for 30 minutes.
However, she couldn’t fall asleep at all during the journey.
It felt like a heavy stone was pressing on her heart; the pressure was too great for her to sleep.
After a long time, the train finally reached its destination.
It was already at an unknown depth of hundreds of meters underground. This was the terminus of the train and also a restricted area that ordinary people could not enter or leave.
After getting off the platform and walking out, she could see a very long corridor from a distance, as well as a guard post manned 24 hours a day.
Those people were armed with live ammunition and kept a close watch. There were even City Defense Cannons pointed in every direction.
This was only the first level of checkpoints.
Even after passing this, it was said there were second and third levels. Only internal personnel knew exactly how many defensive lines there were.
Yao Ruoning didn’t go over to embarrass herself; she knew very well she couldn’t get in.
A regular underground pass couldn’t enter such a high-risk area.
She found a corner on the platform to hide and began to study the structure of the facility.
After thinking for 10 minutes, she couldn’t come up with any feasible way to enter.
Even flying wouldn’t work, as there were height restrictions here.
Even if freight trucks or freight trains wanted to enter, they would be thoroughly searched.
Whether it was the roof or the bottom of the vehicle, everything would be checked clearly.
Freight vehicles couldn’t even use pneumatic tires but had to use Honeycomb Tires instead. Guards would also measure the dimensions of the carriages to prevent items from being hidden in secret compartments.
They would only be allowed through after ensuring everything was foolproof.
First was a round of conventional inspections, followed by another round using high-tech equipment.
Such tight security made Yao Ruoning’s scalp tingle; she couldn’t think of any possibility of sneaking in.
She continued to observe and even saw their shift change process.
She had originally thought there might be a loophole during the shift change, but it turned out even more people arrived then — one group of guards taking over the shift and another group specifically supervising the change to prevent anyone from causing trouble during the transition.
“Holy crap! If movie security were filmed according to this standard, 007 movies wouldn’t be able to continue at all.”
Yao Ruoning stayed there for several hours.
She didn’t perceive any Mana, nor did she find any obvious loopholes, so she decided to take the train back.
She had originally thought the people of the Eastern Alliance were all useless, just like the Special Task Force and the Defeated Team.
Their performance had once made people mistakenly believe the entire Human Alliance was incompetent.
But in reality, they did an outstanding job in these details.
Once she had a signal, Yao Ruoning contacted Huang Yi and asked specifically about the nuclear power plant.
Huang Yi brought in an Expert to answer her questions while he asked his own.
Yiri City was a very important city that received a large amount of resource tilt.
As for the specifics of that tilt, it was not convenient to disclose at the moment.
Regarding the security of the nuclear power plant, Yao Ruoning had actually been discovered long ago.
Her actions had already been reported to the Countermeasure Center.
She wasn’t surprised by this and continued to listen.
Huang Yi introduced some basic security measures.
In addition to what she had seen with her own eyes, the nuclear power plant also had complete defenses against various extreme situations such as tunneling, nuclear strikes, and cutting off water and food supplies.
It was a system designed by a think tank composed of top elites.
Most of the attack methods humans could think of had already been considered by the Eastern Alliance.
Huang Yi appeared very confident — the nuclear power plant wouldn’t have any problems and was absolutely safe.
“Everything is prepared; we only fear heavenly lightning.”
“What is heavenly lightning?”
Huang Yi explained, “It’s just a metaphor. So-called heavenly lightning refers to earthquakes.”
If a powerful earthquake really occurred, there was indeed no way around it; what should be destroyed would be destroyed.
However, an ordinary-scale earthquake would not affect the nuclear power plant because earthquake-resistant plans had already been considered during the initial design.
Looking at Huang Yi’s confident expression, Yao Ruoning still felt somewhat uneasy.
Unfortunately, her thinking ability hadn’t reached the level of those Experts in the Eastern Alliance, and she couldn’t figure out exactly where the problem lay.
After chatting with Huang Yi, she always felt as if a link was still missing.
Huang Yi asked her again if she had discovered anything underground.
Yao Ruoning thought for a moment but decided not to mention those materials with Mana.
She planned to report them to the Distribution Center after investigating further.
She simply recounted some of what she had seen underground and lamented:
‘So, the ones maintaining the normal operation of this world are such a group of unknown, hardworking workers, laboring diligently in the dark underground.’
Seeing that she was moved, Huang Yi took the opportunity to start instilling his own views.
“The Human Alliance is currently at a very dangerous turning point. If we don’t continue to develop technology, human technology will be locked down and can never be improved again.”
He spoke in a long-winded speech of thousands of words, with only one core meaning —
Humans must continue to invest resources, constantly promote technological progress, and develop both light and heavy industry.
Once a key technology or industrial chain broke, it would trigger a chain reaction, eventually leading to the collapse of the entire system.
Besides the nuclear power plant potentially leading to the destruction of Yiri City, there were many other key industries.
If any one of those links went wrong, the entire City would fall into crisis.
“For example — the Nuclear Fuel Production Facility.”
Huang Yi only gave this one example, and Yao Ruoning already understood what he meant.
Back on the surface, she walked out of the subway station and looked up at the blazing sunlight overhead.
Yao Ruoning suddenly had a feeling of being reborn.
Being able to see the sun was truly wonderful.