Better to Bear a Lifetime of Infamy Than Deny Future Generations a Better Life

After taking an elevator and winding through passage after passage, they stepped through an alloy door, and the view suddenly opened up.

Lin Mo's eyes widened as far as they could at the sight before him.

They stood on an observation platform surrounded by poured concrete walls.

Ahead lay an enormous cavern beyond anything words could describe.

The ceiling was rough bedrock, being reinforced with modular concrete sections in what looked like a suspended-ceiling installation.

Countless construction lights as brilliant as suns hung like stars in the darkness, casting magnificent pillars of light.

Below them, a city was rising from a skeleton of steel!

Dozens of gigantic gantry cranes, each a hundred meters tall, glided silently along crisscrossing tracks.

With every movement, they placed an entire prefabricated building module precisely where it belonged, as if stacking toy blocks.

Thousands upon thousands of tower cranes and construction vehicles moved through the city's arteries like industrious worker ants.

Welding arcs flashed like lightning, and cutting lasers sliced through the gloom.

Trains laden with supplies roared along track after track, leaving streaks of light in their wake.

A low, continuous rumble filled the entire space.

It was the symphony of tens of thousands of machines running at once, the most defiant battle anthem human civilization could raise in the face of the apocalypse.

"This is spectacular. What unimaginable power!" Lin Mo stared in awe, unable to stop marveling.

"Did they... hollow out the entire underground?"

Wu Suowei explained:

"Sir, this Ark underground city is called Kunlun One. Its designed depth is twenty-five hundred meters below ground, and it is planned to accommodate a permanent population of three million."

"What you're looking at is the construction site for the first-phase residential district and central hub."

"Three million..." Lin Mo smacked his lips.

The place where he had previously worked odd jobs was merely a logistics and transportation point on the outermost fringe of this enormous project, and even then, he had thought its scale was outrageous.

Only now, standing here, did he understand what "the tip of the iceberg" meant.

This was no mere infrastructure project. They were recreating an entire civilization inside the planet!

"This is truly astounding. Is this the power of a nation?"

"What's that tallest building, the one shaped like a giant kidney?" He pointed at an enormous domed structure in the center of the city, where the roof was being completed.

Wu Jiandao immediately answered:

"Sir, that is the central support column. It will also house the ecological dome equipment. Once complete, it will project a simulated natural sky to prevent the various psychological problems residents might develop from feeling confined."

Lin Mo nodded, then pointed toward a recessed, pitlike area in the distant wall.

It looked distinctly out of place, disrupting the hemispherical structure.

"What about that area that looks so out of place?"

"That is the energy center. It will eventually be isolated from the rest of the city and house three medium-sized nuclear power plants. One alone can power the entire city. The other two are backups, just in case."

Lin Mo listened, repeatedly taken aback.

He was about to ask something else when steady footsteps sounded behind him.

"You won't learn much just by looking."

At some point, Zhao Gang had appeared behind them. He, too, was looking at the steel jungle before them.

"Big Brother Zhao!" Lin Mo turned to greet him.

Wu Suowei and Wu Jiandao immediately saluted.

Zhao Gang waved them off, walked over to Lin Mo, and stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

"Impressive, isn't it?"

"Impressive doesn't begin to cover it," Lin Mo said with heartfelt wonder.

"I feel like my understanding of 'human determination can conquer heaven' used to be far too shallow."

"This isn't about conquering heaven." Zhao Gang's voice carried an unwavering strength.

"When heaven seeks to destroy us, we choose... to replace it!"

Lin Mo was stunned. Why couldn't I come up with something that badass?

Zhao Gang pointed toward the ceaseless tide of construction below.

"Behind every machine and every steel plate you see are tens of thousands of people supporting the effort."

"The finest scientists, the best engineers, the most skilled workers, and countless ordinary people like you once were, quietly contributing on the outermost fringes."

"We spent one year completing the plans, then another two turning those plans into the reality before your eyes."

Lin Mo suddenly fell silent.

Zhao Gang turned, seemingly noticing the change in his mood.

"What's wrong?"

Lin Mo said quietly:

"I was thinking about how I used to live, and the other workers. Ordinary people... have suffered so much."

Honestly, he did have grievances. Life at the bottom was simply too hard.

At those words, Zhao Gang's voice sounded somewhat subdued amid the rumbling machinery.

"There's no other way. All of this is a race against time."

"A project of this magnitude, for the nation and its people, inevitably demands sacrifices. Just like when we resisted invasion back then, it's so our descendants won't have to endure the same suffering we did, so our people can survive..."

"If we don't step forward, grit our teeth, and shoulder the burden, our descendants will be the ones who suffer."

A saying suddenly came to Lin Mo.

"Better to bear a lifetime of infamy than deny future generations a better life?"

Zhao Gang smiled easily.

"You could put it that way."

He took a deep breath and gazed into the distance.

"According to the latest data, the rate at which the planet's rotation is slowing has increased another 0.03% compared with last month. That figure seems tiny, but in real terms, it means the frequency of earthquakes and volcanic activity worldwide has risen by 12%."

"Kunlun One is only one of the thirty-six Heavenly Dipper-class Underground Cities we have planned."

"But even if all thirty-six cities are completed, they can only accommodate a little over three hundred million people."

"In short, the nation is already doing everything it can to strike a balance. If we try to build more underground cities, the people won't be able to bear it. There will be unrest."

Lin Mo frowned.

"What about the other several hundred million people?"

Zhao Gang was silent for a long moment.

"According to our big-data projections, many more people will die over the next two years. By then, we should have enough room for those who remain."

Lin Mo's mouth fell open, his eyes full of disbelief.

From well over a billion people at the start, only seven hundred million remained after the apocalypse's natural and man-made disasters-and in the end, only a little over three hundred million would survive?

He had still underestimated the horrific devastation caused by Blue Star's slowing rotation.

For a family of six, that meant an average of roughly four deaths per household.

He suddenly thought of his dead parents, and his chest tightened painfully.

He wanted to vent, but there was nowhere to direct his strength.

Blame the nation for being cruel, for leaving people to die?

But the nation had already done everything it could!

Then what? Blame heaven and shake a fist at the sky?

What good would that do?

"Fuck!!!"

All he could do was curse.

Hadn't his irreverence and devil-may-care outlook also come from the upheavals of the past two years, leaving him with the attitude that dying just meant lying down in a coffin?

In truth, it was more like defiance and mockery of fate.

Heaven wanted to see me suffer?

What a joke. I was born unbowed, and I damn well liked to laugh!