As soon as he finished speaking, only the sound of the wind remained on the rooftop.
Everyone looked at Shen Heng, waiting for his reaction—either despair or his final command.
Shen Heng listened quietly, his fingers unconsciously tapping lightly on the armrest of the chair.
His gaze returned to the direction of the cold chain center, and he remained silent for nearly ten seconds.
Then, he slowly turned his head, his face showing no trace of panic, only an absolute calm born of extreme exhaustion.
He spoke softly, uttering a question that seemed utterly unprofessional to all the experts.
"If members of our Linhai Supervision Bureau were to go there now, would there be any way to stop it? For example, to stop the leak, stabilize the pressure, or move the tank away."
This... he's completely clueless! Is it really okay for the person in charge to be like this?... Everyone looked at the young man in front of them with disbelief.
When I first saw him, I felt he was unreliable. How could such a young person be put in charge of a city?
The questions raised by the other party now further confirmed their suspicions.
Because of their identities, they couldn't say much and could only remain silent.
Unlike the others, Nie Xingping did not show any contempt. He looked at Shen Heng with his cloudy eyes, as if trying to determine whether the young person in charge was truly ignorant or was testing him.
He slowly shook his head, his voice carrying the patience of a scholar and an undeniable certainty:
"Pressure collapse and cascading leaks are irreversible physical processes. Simply put, the energy accumulated within the system and the leakage momentum have created a self-sustaining vicious cycle."
"In this situation, unless you can instantly Reconstruction the entire pressure system and sealing structure, it's impossible to interrupt. As for moving it..."
He paused, then looked at the man known as Engineer Liu, who was in charge of the cold chain center's technology.
"Storage tanks are connected to various pipes and supporting structures. If you want to move them, the first thing you need to do is safely disconnect these connections."
"But at this point, we can't attempt any forced separation. Any vibrations or stress changes could disrupt that fragile balance and directly cause the tank to tear or explode," Engineer Liu continued.
"Furthermore, even disregarding that, a significant portion of the storage tanks within the factory grounds weigh over a thousand tons, you..."
Engineer Liu paused here, looking hesitantly at Shen Heng.
After listening, Shen Heng showed no change in expression, only nodding very slightly, so slightly that it was almost imperceptible.
"So, the explosion was unstoppable, wasn't it?" He asked again, his voice lowering, carrying a sense of final confirmation.
"Yes!" Nie Xingping's reply was as heavy as a mountain.
Shen Heng leaned forward almost imperceptibly, his gaze fixed on Nie Xingping.
"Can you estimate the time of the explosion? Not exactly, just a rough estimate."
Nie Xingping pondered for a full five seconds, his gaze briefly meeting that of the other experts, and he saw the same solemnity.
"It's impossible to calculate; there are too many variables, and the data isn't accurate enough."
He slowly shook his head, then changed the subject.
"However, based on data such as the scale of the leak, the vaporization rate, the cloud diffusion trend, and the collapse curve of the tank pressure readings..."
"It will reach the critical point in as little as 45 minutes, and at the latest, it will not exceed two hours."
"If we evacuate completely from now on, how many people can we evacuate in an hour?" Shen Heng immediately turned his question to Fan Hong, speaking a fraction faster.
"Currently, there are eight roads leading to the outside world from Linhai. Including the airport, high-speed rail, and docks, if all available people are mobilized, we should be able to transport about 300,000 people out of the area per hour!" Fan Hong quickly reported the figures he had envisioned for his position.
After the words were spoken, the rooftop fell even more silent.
Even at 300,000 per hour, and even if it's at most two hours, it's only 600,000 people!
This number is just over one-tenth of Linhai's current permanent resident population.
Shen Heng paused for a moment, then looked at Fan Hong.
"Go and arrange the evacuation of everyone in the city."
Fan Hong nodded and quickly turned around.
Shen Heng turned to look at the professionals. Just as he was about to speak, a figure suddenly jumped up from outside the building.
She didn't come up the stairs; she just suddenly jumped up from the edge of the rooftop wall.
For a moment, everyone stared in astonishment at the short-haired figure who was breathing heavily.
Shen Heng glanced at Le Gu Nan, who had jumped up, then turned his gaze to the others and gave a brief introduction:
"She's my colleague; she might be able to help with the follow-up discussion, so I called her over!"
The crowd looked at the equally young figure with some hesitation, then nodded after a moment's pause.
However, he began to increasingly doubt whether the other party could truly bear the responsibility of choosing a city route.
Shen Heng nodded slightly to Le Gu Nan, then turned his gaze back to Nie Xingping.
"Is it possible to delay the explosion, even just by ten minutes or half an hour?"
"Impossible." Nie Xingping turned his attention back and answered without the slightest hesitation.
"It's like a snowball rolling down a mountain; once it starts rolling, all that's left is time and the slope."
"External forces... at least the external forces we can exert now, cannot stop it, and may even become the final push that causes it to collapse."
Shen Heng remained silent for a moment, as if accepting this final verdict.
Then he asked the fourth and final question.
"Since the explosion could neither be prevented nor delayed..."
"Then, can we... determine the main direction in which the cryogenic cloud spreads when it explodes?"
"..."
A strange silence suddenly fell over the rooftop.
Those experts who had just been secretly thinking that this young person in charge was incompetent suddenly looked up, their disdain vanishing instantly, replaced by astonishment and realization!
The way they looked at Shen Heng completely changed.
This young manager, with just three questions, dispelled the fog of technical details and went straight to the core of the matter:
When saving everyone becomes a pipe dream, the commander's responsibility is to calmly choose the path that minimizes sacrifice and maximizes survival.
They suddenly understood.
This young manager doesn't need to understand those complex chemical principles and pipeline structures at all.
His role wasn't to be an engineer, but a decision-maker.
His previous questions were not born of ignorance, but rather a way of directly verifying all possibilities and eliminating all unrealistic options one by one.
Now, the question he asked was the most crucial and fatal one, truly within his responsibilities!
In the face of unavoidable disaster, how do we make the optimal, albeit potentially cruel, choice?
only...
Nie Xingping lowered his cloudy eyes slightly, a hint of heaviness flashing in them.
"I thought about this when I came up here."
"While theoretically feasible, it faces two unavoidable problems..."