Chapter 39: 12 Billion
A large prompt box appeared on the computer screen in front of Gu Changshan at Apocalypse Base No. 7.
“Material No. 66548, huh…”
He sent a search instruction to the Tianji System, and information about this material immediately appeared before him, including its chemical formula, preparation method, cost, raw materials, and so on.
As well as the most important: which domestic factories have the production capacity for this material, the factories’ output value, scale, number of workers, and so on.
Afterward, he issued two instructions simultaneously.
The first instruction was transmitted to the action teams on standby in various cities.
In an instant, dozens of convoys roared out from barracks, national security departments, and other places across regions, rushing toward the factories on the list.
“Immediately gather all workers, stop all current production, perform inspection, maintenance, and upkeep on the production lines, then urgently adjust to devote all production capacity to producing this material?”
The factory head looked incredulously at the guard in front of him: “This, this… our factory has heavy production missions, we’ve signed contracts, there are liquidated damages…”
“We will handle all matters.”
The guard in front of him remained stern in expression, his words still filled with unshakeable authority and resolve: “Liquidated damages, we will compensate;
In case of legal disputes, we will respond;
All expenses and costs, we will pay at no less than double the original amount;
As per legal provisions, in emergencies, we have the right to conscript all civilian or non-civilian facilities.
Now, this factory has been conscripted by us. Execute immediately—this is an order!”
“…Yes!”
Similar events occurred in factory after factory, with progress fed back in real time to the computer screen in front of Gu Changshan.
He shifted his attention from this to the implementation of the second instruction.
Simply screening it in the laboratory does not mean it can definitely be applied in reality.
Real-world environments and variables far exceed those in the laboratory. To truly use this material, experiments must still be conducted in reality.
Conscripting those factories in advance and starting production is merely to save time.
In a certain factory laboratory, a container made from this material had already taken shape.
It was a cylinder 2 meters long and 0.9 meters in radius, looking just like an ordinary white plastic large bucket—something people on the street would probably be too lazy to glance at.
But the people involved in this experiment knew full well that this ordinary plastic bucket alone cost as much as 50,000!
Because it possessed near-absolute stability. When holding pure water, the particles composing it hardly diffused into the water, causing only a negligible amount of pollution.
At this moment, pre-prepared pure water was slowly poured into this huge white plastic large bucket in a high clean room, then tightly sealed.
It was placed on a test bench.
Once sealed, the test bench immediately began shaking randomly and irregularly—sometimes gently, sometimes quickly, sometimes violently, sometimes lightly.
This was simulating the transportation process in a real environment.
After shaking for more than two hours, the experiment ended. A group of experimenters wearing white coats, dust-proof caps, and glasses immediately gathered around, took water samples, and began analysis.
The test results appeared in real time in front of Gu Changshan.
“After 150 minutes of simulated transportation testing, the average impurity particle concentration in the water was 26ppb, an increase of about 18% from the 22ppb before the experiment, below the 30% upper limit.
Actual simulation verification shows this material meets the demand!”
Seeing this result, Gu Changshan shifted his attention to another section.
He saw that all 36 factories on the list had completed conscription and had begun production.
In about one hour, the first batch of 50 plastic buckets, each capable of holding 1 ton of pure water, would be produced.
Afterward, plastic buckets of 1.5 tons, 2 tons, up to 5 tons, and various other sizes would be produced.
Of course, production would continue only after usable conclusions were obtained from the laboratory.
Otherwise, the on-site working group would immediately notify the factory to stop production, lift the conscription, compensate for losses, pay expenses, and withdraw.
One helicopter after another roared into the air and landed in front of the respective factory buildings. Once the first batch of plastic buckets was produced, they would immediately be hoisted and transported to other factories that were previously determined to be close to Sen Mountain Base and qualified for pure water production.
Pure water is typically used for scientific research value, and there is also certain market demand, so the number of corresponding production factories is not small.
Of course, the pure water previously produced by these factories still fell short of the neutrino telescope’s standards, and the containers did not meet requirements.
Now raising the purity standard again greatly reduced their production capacity. But no problem—this could be addressed by conscripting more factories, running them at full power, and providing sufficient manpower, electricity, and logistical support.
One helicopter after another landed in the pre-determined factories, and filling began.
In the high clean room, nearly completely transparent pure water entered the plastic large buckets, slowly and steadily filling their internal space completely and displacing all the high-purity air inside.
After sealing, it was placed into a steel large bucket custom-made to fit its shape perfectly.
Although the plastic large bucket was pure, its strength was insufficient and prone to breaking. Nesting it in a steel large bucket for support solved the issue.
Pure water plus container totaled six tons in weight.
A heavy helicopter roared into the air, pulling this large bucket straight toward Sen Mountain Base hundreds of kilometers away.
Helicopter sling-load transport had to be used, not large trucks. Even the smoothest roads have bumps, which would cause impurity concentrations to exceed limits.
A single trip could transport at most five tons of pure water. But Gu Changshan knew the neutrino telescope required 50,000 tons of pure water.
Accounting for losses and such, they needed to transport a full 60,000 tons of pure water. At an average of 2 tons per helicopter trip, that meant 30,000 helicopter trips.
At an average transport cost of 400,000 per helicopter trip, 30,000 trips amounted to a total of 12 billion.
This did not even include the previous series of expenses for conscripting factories and so on.
But…
It didn’t matter.
These costs were worth it.
One after another plastic large bucket with a steel shell was placed outside the ground building of Sen Mountain Base.
Five cargo elevators ran nonstop, shuttling frantically, stacking these large buckets one after another next to the neutrino telescope main body in the underground base, quickly piling them into a small mountain.
