Chapter 1338 - 1337: Making a Hole
The Ancient Culture Research and Analysis Archival Room convened an emergency meeting.
"Lu Zheng went to Antarctica?"
"To help us drill a hole at Kunlun Station?"
"There’s a good thing like that?"
"What’s there to even discuss in a meeting, just say yes already. Miss this village and there won’t be this inn!"
"Don’t rush, we still have time. Let’s talk it through, see if there could be any negative impact."
"What negative impact? What, if we lose the drilling demand at Antarctica, it’s going to affect our related tech research or something?"
"Not to that extent."
"But we still have to think about how to explain it to the scientists at Kunlun Station, and..."
"How to handle other countries’ questions?"
"Exactly."
"Jumping straight from under a thousand meters to five thousand meters in one go, anyone with a brain can tell something’s off."
"We handled Red Chess River, how could we not handle a deep borehole at Kunlun Station?"
"I’m not saying we can’t handle it, I’m saying we need to think up a pretext first. Even if we’re not in a hurry to deal with other countries, we at least have to placate our own people."
"How do we placate them?"
"Tell them a couple of Immortals just happened to be traveling through Antarctica, saw how pitiful they were, and decided to lend a hand?"
"The Antarctic Immortal Elder, huh?"
"Or we say we’re testing a space-based weapon, using Kunlun Station as the test site, helping them open up a deep ice-cap borehole and conveniently making it easier for them to get ice cores from beneath the ice sheet?"
"You think we’re too idle in the public-opinion arena or what?"
"A space-based weapon that can go straight through five thousand meters of ice cap puts every country’s deeply buried nuclear weapons and nuclear bunkers around the world within our strike range."
"Forget the Lighthouse Country, even the Great Goose Country would blow up, scrambling to fish for intel from us."
"I actually think setting off a big rhetorical firecracker would be great, just like the old Star Wars program—drag the Lighthouse Country into an arms race with us, and let them self-destruct like the old Polar Bear."
"Nice idea, but it really doesn’t fit our development tone. The Lighthouse Country is on the path of global hegemony; we’re on the path of a shared Blue Star destiny. There are many things we can do but can’t say, let alone openly start an arms race with the Lighthouse Country."
"Fine, then what other excuse do we have? Don’t drag this out too long—Lu Zheng only dropped by there in passing and asked in passing. If we wait until he’s back, this whole thing will just be dropped."
"Mm, I’ve got an idea."
"Spit it out!"
"Is Lu Zheng going to go deeper on our existing borehole, or open a new one?"
"How would I know? But he should be able to do either, right?"
"Then how about we let... no, ask him to drill a hole at a spot not too far from Kunlun Station, but relatively remote."
"And then we notify the people at Kunlun Station, say satellite remote sensing found some kind of geological anomaly there, and tell them to go explore."
"Nature’s uncanny craftsmanship, a naturally formed cavity several thousand meters deep right in the glacier, and we don’t know why either."
"Of course, we’ll need to ship some construction materials down to Antarctica as soon as possible. I’m thinking Kunlun Station might soon find itself in need of a branch base out there."
"After all, we absolutely can’t admit we really have the capability to hit several thousand meters underground, right?"
Everyone, "..."
It had to be said: drilling through an ice cap hard as iron is far more difficult than drilling through ordinary soil and rock.
The Great Goose Country can drill a well more than twelve thousand meters deep on some island, but the Hua Country scientific expedition team can only drill a borehole under a thousand meters in the Antarctic glacier.
And a weapon that can drill several thousand meters into a glacier, once placed on the plains, might even be able to punch into magma for you.
This isn’t like digging out a river channel; this is a life-and-death kind of thing, you absolutely can’t casually admit to it.
...
Professor Ma closed the video conference, rubbed his head, still looking completely baffled.
Some secrecy department had suddenly approached him, handed him a topographic map of the area around Kunlun Station, and asked him to mark a few spots not too far from the station, but places people rarely visit and that aren’t too hard to get to.
What the hell kind of "want this but also that and that too" demand was that!
And they were in a massive hurry about it.
As a veteran researcher at Kunlun Station, Professor Ma could only pick out a few locations within the limited area that met the conditions.
Then they briefed him on confidentiality regulations regarding the matter and said someone would come shortly to have him sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Leaving Professor Ma both shocked and suspicious.
He’d only pointed out a few spots—how did that already warrant a nondisclosure agreement?
Professor Ma couldn’t help swallowing a mouthful of saliva. What was the higher-up planning to put there?
...
So, in less than half an hour, Lu Zheng received Lin Wan’s reply.
It had to be said, the efficiency of the Ancient Culture Research and Analysis Archival Room was still very high: not only did they come up with a pretext that pinned it all on nature, they even figured out where exactly "nature" was about to drill the hole.
Truly worthy of being a country that can make nature speed up its evolution to build islands.
They really are in perfect sync with nature!
Soon, Lu Zheng opened the latitude–longitude positioning system on his phone and arrived at one of the remote locations the Archival Room had urgently asked an expert to identify.
This place was five or six kilometers from Kunlun Station, basically a small valley. Its elevation was slightly lower than that of Kunlun Station, and its surrounding slopes were relatively steep, so coming down from above wasn’t exactly easy.
Cliffs on all sides, few people ever come here—indeed very fitting as the site of nature’s uncanny craftsmanship.
Lu Zheng didn’t pick the center of the valley; he shifted a bit toward the northern cliffside.
He pointed his hand, and a wisp of Phoenix Divine Fire flared to life at his fingertip.
The crimson Phoenix Divine Fire danced joyfully at his fingertip, yet not a trace of heat leaked out.
Then, with a light flick, that cluster of Phoenix Divine Fire flew off his fingertip and landed on the ground in front of him.
The next instant, the Divine Fire instantly burned away the snow and solid ice on the surface and sank into the ground. What remained on the surface was a fist-sized pit and curls of white mist.
After waiting a moment, Lu Zheng pinched a formula and began Casting.
The Phoenix Divine Fire, which had already fallen four or five thousand meters and was still burning while continuing downward, suddenly vanished.
"Done!"
Lu Zheng clapped his hands. "It’s just like a tiny leak in the crust, with magma flowing along the mountain and then sinking back down again due to crustal movement."
Shen Ying couldn’t help but laugh. "It really is naturally formed, no question about it."
Si Lingxi also couldn’t resist shaking her head, but since Lu Zheng didn’t want to reveal the extraordinary, she naturally wouldn’t casually make a move.
Actually, thinking about it, treating this place as a little getaway spot wouldn’t be bad at all.
Anyway, she has more than enough strength to handle any emergency.
...
Elsewhere, the researchers at Kunlun Station, who were busy with their respective work, suddenly received a notice from thousands of miles away.
"What? There was an unexplained crustal movement somewhere outside Kunlun Station?"
"We didn’t feel anything at all."
"Since when are our remote-sensing satellites this awesome?"