Volume 1: The Dragon in the Abyss
Chapter 1: Waltz in the Clouds
I. The Stage of Heaven and Earth
[Part 1: Macro Environment Establishment - Shen Congwen's Natural Spirituality]
Wind speed: twenty meters per second. Altitude: 4,300 meters.
The folds of the Hengduan Mountains resembled the spine of an ancient dragon, undulating endlessly beneath his feet. This was Earth's last wilderness—scars left by tectonic collisions, sculpted over eons into the most magnificent wrinkles. The clouds weren't overhead but wrapped around his waist like gossamer veils, simultaneously gentle and imprisoning, severing him from the mortal world.
This was a forbidden zone for life.
The air was so thin it felt diluted, every breath requiring the body's full strength. Birds avoided it, vegetation retreated, leaving only the wind—that eternal, frenzied wind carrying the chill of millennia from glaciers, roaring day and night. It sounded like the howls of prehistoric beasts, determined to shred any creature daring to trespass into this domain.
Yet this place was also Chen Yang's stage.
He stood on a silver conductor wire barely three centimeters in diameter, a dizzying abyss of ten thousand feet below. The Nujiang Gorge gleamed with a bronze metallic luster in the morning light, the river's roar echoing faintly like murmurs from the depths of hell. That river had cleaved two mountains apart, as well as the boundary between civilization and wilderness. And he, Chen Yang, stood at the highest point of that boundary.
He didn't tremble in the slightest.
Instead, he inhaled deeply of the thin, frigid air. It carried the scent of snow-capped peaks—piercing, pure, with a painful clarity. His lungs burned faintly in the oxygen-deprived atmosphere, but this pain only sharpened his consciousness. He closed his eyes, a subtle smile curving his lips.
This sensation—he hadn't experienced it in five years.
[Part 2: Microscopic Detail Layering - Acheng's Craft Focus]
"Chen Yang! Wind warning! Tower #37, gusts reaching Force 8. This section is 'Devil's Gauntlet'—retreat immediately!" Squad Leader Lao Zhang's anxious voice crackled through his earpiece, punctuated by static and the wind's fury.
"Copy that, Squad Leader. Don't worry, the view's perfect."
Chen Yang's voice remained as calm as if he were strolling in his backyard. He gently adjusted his helmet-mounted comm unit to ensure the gale wouldn't dislodge it. His orange high-altitude work suit flapped wildly in the wind like a solitary flag. Sunlight pierced through gaps in the storm clouds like golden spotlights, casting his shadow among the mist and clouds.
He wasn't working.
He was keeping an appointment with heaven and earth—one five years overdue.
Chen Yang looked down at the conductor beneath his feet. This wasn't just a wire. This was an eight-bundle ultra-high voltage conductor—eight parallel steel-core aluminum strands, each 3.5 centimeters in diameter, capable of carrying tens of thousands of volts. They vibrated faintly in the wind, emitting a low "hum"—the sound of electricity stampeding through metal, like the heartbeat of some ancient colossus.
±800 kilovolts.
This number meant that if he violated the safety distance now, even by bringing a fingertip within 30 centimeters, the air would ionize and form an arc. That energy could vaporize him instantly.
But Chen Yang felt no fear.
Quite the contrary—a strange tranquility welled up within him. This serenity stemmed from absolute mastery of the physical laws and supreme confidence in his own skills. He unhooked one of his dual safety carabiners—maintaining maximum flexibility during movement. Standard operating procedures mandated both hooks engaged simultaneously, but at this wind speed, dual-hook resistance would slow his movements. And slowness, here, was the true killer.
His fingers deftly accessed the tool pouch at his waist, locating his custom insulated wrench. His gloves were specially made from anti-slip carbon fiber with embedded pressure sensors that provided haptic feedback when gripping, preventing drops due to numbness. This was the latest "Generation 3 Smart Gloves" developed by Lin Xiao's team. He was the first field tester.
But at this moment, all that high-tech gear was superfluous.
He relied on his body's memory.
[Part 3: Action Sequence - Extreme Sensory Description]
The anemometer reading jumped to 23 meters per second.
This exceeded the safety threshold for operations. In the ground monitoring center, red warning lights must be flashing frantically. But Chen Yang knew he still had approximately four minutes—before the next, stronger valley wind arrived.
He closed his eyes, feeling the gale tearing at his windbreaker.
Wind wasn't chaos.
To outsiders, this howling tempest was a deadly, unpredictable killer. But to Chen Yang, every air current had its own rhythm and direction. This was his "wind sense"—a nearly mystical ability honed during his extreme sports career, allowing him to predict airflow changes.
At this moment, he "saw":
On the left, above the Nujiang River, a rising thermal current was forming. It would arrive here in three seconds, lifting the conductor from below and reducing its oscillation amplitude. That would be the optimal moment to move.
The countdown began in his mind:
Three—
He regulated his breathing using the "Turtle Breath Method." In high-altitude, oxygen-starved environments, every breath was a lavish expenditure of physical resources. His heart rate dropped from 110 to 85 beats per minute, muscles shifting from tension to coiled readiness.
Two—
His toes curled slightly inside his climbing boots, gripping the rubber tread pattern. Muscle memory from rock climbing. His center of gravity lowered, knees flexing slightly, his entire body becoming like a leopard ready to pounce.
One—
Chen Yang's eyes snapped open.
He moved.
Not walking, not crawling, but running.
He bounded along that wildly swaying high-voltage line like an agile ape! Each footfall was precise as playing piano keys—the front of his sole landing dead-center on the conductor, the back half suspended, using momentum and balance to maintain speed. This wasn't maintenance work. This was parkour in the clouds!
Wind shrieked in his ears.
Gravity roared through his body.
Death danced beneath his feet.
But Chen Yang only focused on counting steps: five meters, ten meters, fifteen meters—the distance to the fault point. His gaze locked onto the slightly misaligned damper ahead. It was a hammer-shaped device, 20 centimeters in diameter and weighing about 15 kilograms, designed to suppress micro-vibrations in the conductor. But now, its suspension angle deviated approximately 7 degrees from standard position.
Seven degrees.
To ordinary people, this number meant nothing. But to Chen Yang, it was a danger signal. It indicated possible bolt loosening, which under sustained vibration would completely fail within three to five days. A falling damper would pierce the insulator string below, causing a short circuit, tripping the entire line, and affecting power supply to three downstream counties.
He couldn't let that happen.
[Part 4: Technical Climax - Liu Cixin's Scale Combined with Detail]
Twenty meters.
Chen Yang stood directly above the damper on the conductor. He inhaled deeply, slowly kneeling on one knee. This motion was trivial on the ground, but here—at 20 m/s wind speed, 4,300 meters elevation, above a ten-thousand-foot abyss on a wire—every muscle contraction had to be precise to the millimeter.
His left hand secured the safety line at his waist, his right hand extracting the insulated wrench from his tool pouch. Lao Zhang had given him this wrench before retiring. The handle had been worn smooth through years of use, but every calibration mark remained crisp. Gazing at those marks, Chen Yang seemed to see Lao Zhang's younger self.
"Electrical work doesn't need brute force—it needs finesse. The torque must be just right: not too tight, not too loose." Lao Zhang's voice seemed to echo in his ears.
Chen Yang fitted the wrench onto the bolt, gently testing the rotation. The feel of metal on metal transmitted through his gloves—it was loose. He estimated about a quarter-turn of slack.
The wind intensified.
The conductor began oscillating violently, amplitude increasing from ±5 centimeters to ±15 centimeters. Chen Yang's body swayed with the wire like a pendulum, tracing arcs through empty space. In the monitoring center, technicians must have covered their eyes.
But Chen Yang's right hand remained rock-steady.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the wind's interval.
Even raging gales grew tired, just as waves had troughs. He "listened" to the wind's rhythm, felt the conductor's vibration frequency, calculating mentally: high-frequency oscillation, 0.8-second period, damping ratio approximately 0.03. After two more peaks, there would be a brief calm lasting about 1.2 seconds.
That would be enough.
When the conductor's swing returned from its leftward maximum to centerline, Chen Yang applied force suddenly!
"Click—"
The bolt tightened a quarter-turn.
But it wasn't enough. The standard torque specification was 120 newton-meters. He'd only reached 80. One more time.
A second gust arrived, fiercer still.
The conductor thrashed like a maddened python, Chen Yang's body nearly horizontal as it was flung outward, anchored only by his left hand's safety line and his feet's balance. His abdominal and lower back muscles engaged simultaneously, executing a gymnast's "L-hold" in mid-air, forcibly pulling his body back above the wire.
Sweat rolled down his forehead but froze into tiny ice crystals upon contact with the air.
Chen Yang didn't wipe it away. His eyes held only that bolt.
Another trough.
"Click—"
120 newton-meters. Perfect.
The moment he released the wrench, the damper's suspension angle returned to the standard vertical position. That 7-degree deviation vanished as if it had never existed. But Chen Yang knew: without this repair, in three days, darkness would reign here.
[Part 5: Denouement and Sublimation - Character Introspection Echoing Grand Environment]
"Chen Yang! Chen Yang! Status report!" Lao Zhang's voice now carried a hint of tears.
"Task complete. Tower #37 damper secured," Chen Yang replied calmly, as if reporting what he'd had for breakfast.
"You little punk! Pull a stunt like that again and I'll break your legs!" Lao Zhang's roar made the earpiece buzz.
Chen Yang smiled. He understood—this was the old master's way of showing care.
He stood, taking one last look at the conductor beneath his feet. This silver dragon was carrying millions of kilowatts across mountains toward distant cities. It would illuminate hospital operating lights, allowing lives to continue; light up school classrooms, enabling knowledge to spread; brighten countless living rooms, making reunions possible.
And he, Chen Yang, was merely this dragon's guardian.
He turned, walking along the conductor toward the tower body. His gait remained steady, as if strolling down a tree-lined path. In the distance, a golden eagle dove through cloud layers, releasing a clear cry. These were the mountains' original inhabitants—they too were skywalkers.
Chen Yang waved at it, like greeting an old friend.
Sunlight pierced the clouds, gilding the entire gorge. In this golden radiance, that orange figure appeared so small, yet so brilliant. He wasn't a hero. He was just an ordinary electrical worker. But it was countless people like him, with flesh and blood, who built bridges of light between heaven and earth.
The distant snow-capped peaks watched silently as this tiny orange ant completed a breathtaking waltz on the silver web woven by human industrial civilization.
Clouds gathered and dispersed.
Wind rose and fell.
And Chen Yang had safely returned to the tower platform, beginning inspection of the next operation point.
For him, this was just another ordinary workday.
But for this world, light had never been more certain.
Next Chapter Preview:
Chapter 2: "The New Visitor in the Mountains" - Lin Xiao arrives with her drone squadron. The first direct confrontation between two technical approaches. Chen Yang will discover that technology and tradition aren't inherently incompatible—they merely require finding a delicate balance...