Military Pickup

P.S.: Fellow readers, you can invest in this new book. The daily 3,000-word updates are nearly complete, and investing now can still bring in a return. By July, it should be going premium, which means another round of returns.

Over the past few days, a rumor had been circulating within Future Technology: the company was preparing to make another major move. Unfortunately, aside from those involved, no one else had managed to learn anything specific.

As for the internal testing of the Star Operating System, the IT department had enough self-awareness not to air its dirty laundry in public.

As for ceo Xiong Kexuan and the others, there was even less chance of them leaking anything.

It had to be said that human habits were completely different from those of Artificial Intelligence. After several days of testing, Li Zhou had not received a single reported bug. Instead, there had been quite a few suggestions regarding usage.

Li Zhou carefully reviewed every suggestion. Whenever one was reasonable, he had Weixi optimize the Star Operating System immediately.

After several days of continuous internal testing and use, the Star Operating System had shown absolutely no problems.

However, there was still one crucial issue before Li Zhou: the ecosystem!

No matter how good a system was, if no one used it, it was no different from a pile of data.

Fortunately, software in the country was now basically developed using the Han Language, so the Star Operating System could easily achieve compatibility.

This operating system belonging to the people of Xia Country was now ready. All it needed was an order before it could be released publicly for external beta testing. Once it was confirmed that there were no major issues, it would undergo a mid-scale public beta, and if everything remained problem-free, the official version of the Star Operating System would be launched.

But Li Zhou was not in a hurry at all. According to Xiong Kexuan, releasing the Star Operating System together with the Photonic Computer would produce the best results.

Li Zhou was not as professional as Xiong Kexuan in this area. Whenever Xiong Kexuan wanted to release it, they could release it. Li Zhou had decided, anyway, that he absolutely would not go on stage this time!

Monday.

Today was the day Yuan Jingsong had come to collect the goods. After suffering through an entire week, Yuan Jingsong had finally received Li Zhou's call at noon after anxiously waiting all morning.

Yuan Jingsong thought that if Li Zhou had not called today, he would have called Li Zhou himself to ask what was going on.

On the national highway from Huo County to Future Technology's headquarters, five vehicles traveled along the winding road.

Of the five vehicles, only the one in the middle was a fully enclosed cargo truck. The other four were passenger vehicles.

This time, to ensure that the Photonic Supercomputer and Artificial Intelligence could be safely transported back to the research institute, twenty fully armed special forces soldiers had come, including Yuan Jingsong himself. They had even brought an RPG.

Some might have thought Yuan Jingsong was being too conspicuous, practically telling their enemies that he was transporting something important.

But who could guarantee that news of Yuan Jingsong coming alone to Future Technology to collect the goods would not leak? If it really did leak, could Yuan Jingsong alone protect the Photonic Supercomputer and Artificial Intelligence? Clearly, that was unrealistic.

Therefore, for the sake of safety, rather than worry about what-ifs, it was better to collect the goods from Future Technology openly and fully armed.

Besides, Xia Country no longer feared any challenge. There was no need to hide anything anymore. What did the people of Xia Country have to fear in battle!

Of course, though the world might be at peace, forgetting war would inevitably invite danger. One could not go a single day without remaining vigilant.

In Xia Country, where knives were strictly regulated, Yuan Jingsong did not believe anyone could take down a fully armed twenty-man special forces unit in a short time. Huo County was not even near the national border.

Yuan Jingsong spoke sternly into his earpiece. "All combat personnel, keep watch on your surroundings at all times. Be alert for suspicious individuals or vehicles following us."

"Zero-zero-one, received!"

"Zero-zero-two, received!"

In Future Technology's underground laboratory, Li Zhou was conducting the final adjustments on the Photonic Supercomputer that would be delivered to the military.

This was the first Photonic Supercomputer Li Zhou had sold. If some minor issue damaged its reputation, it would not be easy to sell them in the future.

The pure profit from one Photonic Supercomputer amounted to several billion yuan. How could Li Zhou not take it seriously? Selling one more of these was far faster than making money from netizens buying game skins.

"Boss, the military personnel have arrived at the company entrance."

Only after Li Zhou finished the final tuning of the Photonic Supercomputer did Weixi's reminder make him realize that it was already ten o'clock without him noticing.

"I got it."

Soldiers attracted attention wherever they went, especially fully armed special forces soldiers.

The moment the five military vehicles stopped, Future Technology's employees curiously gathered by the windows and looked at them.

Some of the male employees in particular, upon seeing the fully armed special forces soldiers, blurted out "holy shit" several times in a row.

Quite a few people looked at those who could only say "holy shit" with disdain. They had not bothered to memorize their lessons in school, and now "holy shit" was all they could say whenever they saw anything.

After getting out of the car and sweeping his gaze around, Yuan Jingsong made a hand signal. The next second, everyone quickly spread out from around the five military vehicles in all directions.

Watching his brothers secure the perimeter, Yuan Jingsong took two men with him toward Future Technology's headquarters building.

The moment he entered the building, Yuan Jingsong saw Li Zhou approaching with a grin, his hair unwashed and flip-flops still on his feet.

"Old Yuan, that gear of yours looks pretty cool. You're almost as handsome as one-third of me."

The two men who had entered with Yuan Jingsong could not help twitching at the corners of their mouths when they saw Li Zhou so shamelessly praising his own looks.

Yuan Jingsong, on the other hand, was not surprised in the slightest. It was not as though he did not know what kind of person Li Zhou was.

What a joke!!!

"Where are my goods?"

Li Zhou scratched his somewhat itchy scalp. To produce the Photonic Supercomputer ordered by the military, he had not washed his hair for three days.

Li Zhou shot Yuan Jingsong a resentful glance, then turned and walked away without looking back.

"Follow me."

After reaching -10F, Li Zhou looked at Yuan Jingsong, then at the two special forces soldiers closely following behind him.

Li Zhou's meaning was obvious: Yuan Jingsong alone was enough to go down.

Yuan Jingsong frowned. "You can trust them."

Unfortunately, Li Zhou was completely unmoved.

Left with no choice, Yuan Jingsong had the two men wait on -10F while he went down with Li Zhou to bring up this batch of "goods."

In the laboratory, the Photonic Supercomputer before them appeared to be functioning normally.

Li Zhou glanced at Yuan Jingsong, who was touching the Photonic Supercomputer all over.

"Old Yuan, let me make this clear first. The Photonic Supercomputer I'm handing over to you has been tuned and tested by me, and there are no problems with it. I don't care what you do with it after taking it back, but if you dismantle it without authorization, fail to put it back together, and cause problems, I won't be responsible."

Li Zhou pulled a USB drive from his pants pocket and handed it to Yuan Jingsong.

"The Artificial Intelligence is in here. As long as you plug it into this Photonic Supercomputer, it will automatically install and activate. The USB drive can only be used once; after it is used, it will automatically self-destruct.

A friendly reminder: all Artificial Intelligence starts out like an infant. Your experts understand what that means better than I do. I assume you wouldn't want one with a personality like Weixi's, would you?"