All the most dangerous, exhausting, and labor-heavy work fell to Jing Shu's team. She and Zhen Nantian might've looked relaxed these past few days, but that was only on the surface. Zhen Nantian had been "challenging his limits" every day by basking under the Luminite. Even now, when they were about to leave the fortress, he'd gone to Dr. B and shamelessly asked for several dozen kilograms of Luminite to strap on his back so he could sleep next to it every night.
Because of that, Jing Shu and the others had been keeping their distance from the captain of the Imperial Capital team.
Ahem. Although Dr. B refused to reveal the formula behind the Luminite, Jing Shu had secretly asked for some herself. According to him, Luminite would become one of humanity's greatest inventions. It was still a prototype, but it had already solved the problem of natural light. Sure, it had flaws, yet if they could remove the radiation that was harmful to the human body, its value would be immeasurable.
Not all radiation was bad, after all. Sunlight itself was a product of nuclear fusion, constantly emitting radiation. Humans had lived under it every single day before the apocalypse.
So Luminite still had plenty of research potential. Jing Shu even stuffed a good amount of it into her Cube Space, figuring it might be useful later. Fortunately, the Cube Space was an isolated dimension; otherwise, she'd never have dared to keep it there.
Anyway, while Jing Shu and Zhen Nantian handled things on the surface, the Imperial Capital team was responsible for digging the tunnels and installing the conveyor belts unloaded from the cargo ships.
The plan was basically a modern version of "shedding the cicada's shell." It wasn't enough to steal the goods; they also had to get away alive. Austin's military force was no joke. They had planes, tanks, even missiles. If they just ran for it openly, they'd be blown to pieces before they got far.
What no one expected was that if they kept digging eastward for about two kilometers along the slope, they'd reach the Austin Grand Canal. That was precisely why Dr. B had chosen this spot in the first place. Back then, it had only been a narrow passage where goods had to be carried by hand.
Now, thanks to the ingenuity and tireless work of the Chinese team, it had become a full cargo transport tunnel. They'd even come up with the idea of installing conveyor belts, which increased Dr. B's original plan from moving three million pounds (1,360,000 kg) of goods to eight million pounds (3,630,000 kg).
To picture it simply: if the tunnel they dug was the hypotenuse of a right triangle at two kilometers long, how far was the straight line from the entrance to the canal?
While the Imperial Capital team was digging and laying conveyors, Yang Yang's group handled communications with China to arrange cargo ships. Since Austin's planes patrolled daily, the main cargo ship couldn't get too close. They had to rely on smaller transport boats to quietly ferry goods back and forth without attracting attention.
Dr. B obviously didn't trust Jing Shu's team completely, so he'd arranged his own people at the dock to "receive" part of the goods as well.
But even after they managed to move everything, they still needed time—and a way—to escape alive. That final phase was Jing Shu and Zhen Nantian's job. The goal was simple: when the other side finally realized something was wrong and came to check, every last crate of supplies would've vanished, and not a single person could be found. That would be the perfect ending.
Basically, Dr. B and his people didn't have to lift a finger. They could just sit back and count their money, while Jing Shu's team handled all the risk. Since they were the ones doing the dirty work, it was only fair they got a cut of the minerals as compensation. Conveniently, Dr. B wasn't that interested in them anyway.
Both sides got what they wanted.
Now came the truly dangerous part.
The generator rumbled inside the fissure, filling it with a deep mechanical hum. Experimental devices began buzzing one after another. At first, the guards kept glancing down into the darkness, but they were too far away to see anything clearly. They could only make out faint silhouettes moving at the bottom and hear the steady whir of machines.
As long as those sounds continued, it meant everything was fine. Even from that distance, the faint white of Dr. B's lab coat was visible, which was enough to reassure them.
From the exit above, only a sliver of the underground area was visible. That was part of Dr. B's psychological trick—to make it seem like everything down below was running smoothly so no one would bother to go down.
In reality, Dr. B and Jing Shu's team had already started unloading the crates, stripping off the packaging, and placing all the actual goods onto the conveyor belts.
The belts weren't very long. They'd been cobbled together from several disassembled cargo ships, powered by heavy-duty generators. Fortunately, since the tunnel sloped downward, the belts didn't have to bear too much pressure. The speed was a bit slow, but it was steady, carrying one box after another toward the canal.
No one above could've imagined that when the engines started roaring and burning fuel, they weren't producing "Water of Life" at all. They were activating the transport belts that would quietly send all the goods and food out from underground. Every single belt had been obtained through Yang Yang's connections, which was why taking a share of the minerals as payment made perfect sense.
It was a massive, time-consuming operation. Once each crate was emptied, they placed it carefully back where it had been, creating the illusion that nothing had been moved.
Meanwhile, Jing Shu and her crew were too busy transporting goods to rest.
A flawless plan like this required thousands of tiny details.
The whole thing had been running smoothly for over ten days now, thanks to everyone's precise coordination.
Now it was time for the final phase of the operation.
Zhen Nantian played his part perfectly. He began scattering the strange creatures that the snake spirits had captured outside and injected them with stimulants to drive them into a frenzy.
They couldn't afford to relax now. He needed to keep the guards above busy, or boredom would drive them to start poking around. If they got curious and came down to "check things out," the whole plan would collapse.
In the next few days, those guards wouldn't have a moment of peace.
Of course, the chaos had to be carefully controlled—enough to keep them occupied, but not enough to make them call for backup.
Zhen Nantian clenched his fist. "I'll make sure those two A-rank mercenaries get special attention."
At least he finally had something useful to do.
And Jing Shu?
She let out a long sigh. Given her strength, she'd been assigned to the hardest job—digging through rock and planting explosives.