OBS Chapter 342 Baizhi Heavy Industry
Chapter 342 Baizhi Heavy Industry
"So, brother, do we really need to help?"
On Six Points Street, Ling walked along carrying a box of videotapes, asking questions as she went, while Zhe followed beside her carrying another box of videotapes.
Just yesterday, Kiana and the others had arranged to meet at their video store after lunch. Considering that there was still time and the videotapes in the store needed to be updated, Zhe and the others decided to go and buy some stock first.
The two were on their way back to the video store when Zhe noticed a man in a white robe with a thug-like appearance looking suspiciously ahead.
The man kept glancing at the video store's sign as if he were confirming something. He looked anxious, stomped his right foot repeatedly, and kept looking at the watch on his left wrist while the pile driver on his right hand made a rumbling noise.
In short, seeing the suspicious man, Zheling and his sister quickly hid in a ramen shop next door to observe the man at their shop's entrance. The ramen shop owner, Master Qiaopu, saw the siblings hiding in his shop and went over to inquire about the situation.
After learning that the brother and sister didn't know the man either, they suggested that they call the police, since the man had been there since early morning.
Finally, Zhe shook his head and rejected Master Jop's suggestion, because he remembered who was standing there.
Anton, that's the name of the man standing in their video store.
Zhe got to know him because he represented Baizhi Heavy Industry in one of the variety shows last night.
There, Anton, or rather, the heavy industry behind Anton, faced criticism. However, unlike his usual bad temper, Anton was initially angry but quickly recovered and refuted the negative comments one by one.
Having learned the identities of the other party, Zhe quickly called Ling over and came to Anton's side. Upon seeing the brother and sister, Anton's expression first showed surprise, and then he became excited.
It was obvious that the other party already knew the siblings' identities on the rope net, but Anton didn't call out their names since they were on the street.
After being invited into the store by Zhe, Anton could no longer contain his excitement. He grabbed Zhe's hand and began to shake it up and down with such force that he almost lifted Zhe into the air and swung him around.
"Sorry, sorry, I was a little excited to actually meet the legendary Phaethra at the same time." Anton laughed, scratching the back of his head.
"Haha." Zhe, rubbing his arm which was throbbing from being shaken, put away the business card Anton handed him and asked with a twitching smile, "So how did this Mr. Anton know who we are?"
"This one……"
"Of course, I told them that."
Kiana's voice came from the doorway.
"Yes, yes, it was Ms. Kiana who told our president. She said that due to some unforeseen circumstances, we couldn't use the official radish this time. Originally, our president was considering whether to go against the grain and find a rope craftsman, but unexpectedly, Ms. Kiana told our president on the spot that she had already invited the legendary rope craftsman Phaethon to help, and asked us to meet her here today."
It's truly unexpected that the legendary rope maker Phaethon is actually an official. Come to think of it, hasn't the government always opposed the existence of rope nets?
"This……"
Tetsuya and Rin were momentarily at a loss for words, and Kiana ultimately came to their rescue.
"They can only be considered semi-official. It's just that I happened to discover their identities when they were doing a commission, so now they're forced to assist me. After all, if I wanted them to, they would have been in there long ago."
"Wait! Kiana!" Rin said impatiently, "You promised not to tell anyone about this!"
"Huh? Did I promise you that?"
"Well!!!"
Rin puffed up her cheeks and glared angrily at Kiana, but she couldn't muster any resistance to Kiana. In the end, it was Zhe who stepped in and brought the increasingly tangent topic back on track.
"Alright, let's get down to business first. Mr. Anton, could you tell us the gist of what happened?"
"I can't explain this properly in a short time. Why don't we move to the construction site? Our mechanic will explain the details to you. After all, she knows those kids better than anyone else, and it'll also be a good opportunity for you to meet our president formally."
Led by Anton, the three drove to a place called the former site of the Black Goose construction site, the location of an abandoned project. The reason Bai Zhizhong's guild chose to set up camp here was because it was closest to the void, making it convenient for them to enter and exit. As for why it was abandoned, it was due to the void's disaster; being so close to the void, no one knew when it would suddenly expand and completely engulf the area, thus leading to its abandonment.
Along the way, Anton introduced the advantages of Shirai Heavy Industries to the three of them, and also mentioned that his boss, the president of Shirai Heavy Industries, was a very authoritative person.
Upon hearing this, the image of a strong woman instantly flashed into the minds of the three of them. Just then, a fierce-looking man named Xiong Xiren suddenly appeared in front of them. His fierce appearance made Ling forget that the president of Bai Zhi Heavy Industry was the daughter of the former president. At the same time, she mistook the Xiong Xiren in front of her for the dignified president that Anton had mentioned.
But the next second, the filter was shattered by the other party's actions. The Xiong Xiren smiled and shook Kiana's hand, saying thank you. Finally, another voice came from behind him, ending the Xiong Xiren's words.
He turned around to reveal his back, which had been hidden by his large frame, and saw a woman with black hair and red eyes lifting a red-haired girl up.
From the red-haired girl's struggling movements and words, it's not hard to deduce that she is the president of Shiroi Heavy Industries. But doesn't Shiroi Heavy Industries know that employing child labor is illegal? And it's such an important position as president. Is it really okay to hand it over to a child?
As if hearing Ling's thoughts, the girl on the other side immediately retorted that she was already an adult and introduced herself to Kiana and the others.
"I am the president of Shiroi Heavy Industries. Nice to meet you. Also, I am not a child. I am an adult!"
Kreta then explained the details to the three of them, and with Grace, a mechanic, adding her own explanations, the three of them understood the general situation.
In short, the three construction machines equipped with Baizhi Heavy Industry's patented technology ignored instructions and went deep into the cavity while working inside the cavity a few days ago after their logic cores were updated, and they haven't returned yet.
Although we did consider whether there was a core malfunction, after all, chip failure and ether erosion are very common problems when working in a void for a long time, the fact that this happened to Baizhi Heavy Industry would definitely give us a reason to criticize them.
After all, Baizhi Heavy Industry's core competitiveness lies in these engineering machines that can effectively resist etheric erosion and have a high degree of intelligence. It is precisely because of this that Baizhi Heavy Industry was able to stand out and win the bid to obtain the construction rights for the subway renovation project previously held by Yuanjing Industry.
However, this also offended a group of established companies, making them thorns in their side. Those companies were hoping that Baizhi Heavy Industry and Yuanjing Industry would cause trouble, so that they could snatch the projects.
So those companies secretly did a lot of obstruction, including the slander on TV programs, which were also their doing. However, there was no substantial evidence for any of this, and Baizhi Heavy Industry couldn't do anything about it.
But at this moment, such an accident occurred at the construction site. However, the good news is that the application for support from the Sixth Anti-Air Section, which had been blocked by those companies, was finally approved. This relieved their urgent need. Otherwise, Kreta would have really had to ask someone to find a rope maker to help.
"Wait a minute? You mean you actually applied for support from the Anti-Air Section 6 from the very beginning?" Kiana asked.
“That’s right! We applied for support from the very beginning, but they kept using underhanded tactics to prevent it from being approved,” Kreta said irritably.
"After all... we are a relatively new mechanical manufacturing and construction company. After securing this important project, we naturally want to do our best to prevent others from taking advantage of us," Ben added. "We applied for construction and fire permits, as well as support from the Sixth Air Defense Division, but we encountered varying degrees of obstruction. As a result, we can only clear the perimeter now. Without the support of the Sixth Air Defense Division, it is difficult to go deeper into the cavity to carry out the project."
"We only received and approved your application from the Sixth Anti-Air Division yesterday," Kiana sighed. "It seems these people are getting more and more arrogant. They're actually going to team up with those companies to suppress the Sixth Anti-Air Division. Tsk!"
The employees of Baizhi Heavy Industry exchanged glances but remained silent, knowing that it was best not to meddle in certain matters.
"In short, the most urgent task is to find those three lost machines. Miss Kiana and the Phaethons, could you please lead us into the Void to search for those three machines?"
“Sure, but wouldn’t it be inappropriate to let you all go into the cave together?” Kiana asked.
"It's alright. Most of us have good etheric adaptability, so accompanying you into the void will definitely not be a problem. Besides, having us around will make it easier to handle any situations that may arise along the way, right?"
"Wait! What do you mean by that, Kreta?" Grace asked anxiously.
"Of course, if anything unexpected happens, our people can assess the damage on the spot," Kreta said, blowing on her bangs with annoyance. "Although the production cost of intelligent machines is not low, we still have to make choices when necessary. Besides, would this situation have occurred if you hadn't downloaded the code that guy left behind into the core? The previous performance was already very good; there was absolutely no need for this unnecessary update."
"I...I understand what you mean, but Miss Kiana, please be lenient! Those children are good kids at heart; they'll behave if you talk to them properly!"
Kiana pushed Grace off her and reluctantly agreed to her request.
"Thank you," Corida said. "We have already located the positions of one or two machines. Please ask Anton and Grace for more details, Miss Kiana."
Kiana then found Anton, who was standing nearby, while Tetsuya and Rin left Ies at the construction site and drove home to start H.D.D.
"Miss Kiana, Rope Maker, we're looking for the grabber now. Judging from the signal, it should be in this cave. Since this isn't a designated construction site, and we don't have any carrots on hand, we'll leave the rest to you."
As he spoke, Anton pointed to the empty entrance behind him.
"Zhe, I'm begging you."
Kiana gently placed Ies on the ground. Ies turned around and looked around. When she found that Grace hadn't followed, she breathed a sigh of relief and then called for the two of them to follow.
The main reason was that Grace had shown extraordinary enthusiasm for Ies earlier, and her fanaticism was so intense that she almost wanted to take Ies away and grope her. In the end, she was stopped by Corida, and Ies took the opportunity to jump into Kiana's arms.
After entering the cave, Anton began to explain the details of the object-grabbing machine to Kiana and Tetsuya. Perhaps because of the two points and one line mentioned by Anton, Ben thought of some bad things, and his mood visibly worsened.
Under Anton's persistent questioning, Ben explained that he had simply remembered a story, and that the protagonist of that story also pushed a boulder along the same monotonous path every day. He speculated that the grabber might have run away because it was tired of this tedious life.
However, Anton had a different view. He believed that such a life was not boring at all, but rather a great time to build muscle... As Anton explained his manly words, the atmosphere around them became more relaxed, and even Tetsuya couldn't help but admire Anton's optimism.
Kreta, who was standing nearby, agreed with Zhe's statement. As for why Grace wasn't in the group, it was because she needed to calm down in case she went crazy again when it was her turn to find the tunneling machine. Secondly, other machinery on the construction site needed her to inspect, which was why they didn't take Grace to find another tunneling machine first.
Finally, the group found the target grabber in an abandoned construction site. However, upon seeing them, the grabber made a startling statement, mistaking them for pursuers.
Anton also noted that the gripper's tone was different from before. Kreta stepped forward and said that the gripper's core chip might be damaged and that it needed to go back with them for repairs.
But upon hearing this, the grabber reacted instantly, grabbing a rock and shouting something about being a real man as it launched a sneak attack on Koleda.
Unfortunately, Anton caught and smashed the stone thrown by the grabber, and immediately said that as a man, how could he use such a despicable means as a sneak attack?
"Oh? Then let's have a fair and square duel between men!"
As the grabber began to rub its hands together, ready for battle at any moment, Anton smirked and immediately told the others not to make a move.
And so began a thrilling battle between humans and construction machinery.