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Chapter 344: Long Han Hydroelectric Power Station
🕑 Added 2023-07-17 04:42:30 +0000 UTCTransformers Begin : Table of Content/Chapter List
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In Tianwo County, Guizhou Province in southern China, as night fell, the soldiers of the armed police stationed around a huge construction site upstream of the Hong River began their usual routine of patrolling and guarding along the familiar mountain road in formation.
"Squad leader, why did they bring us here to station for so long? What's going on?" asked soldier Xiao Wang, a lively young man born in Anhui province who realized during his high school years that he was not cut out for academics. His lively personality had also caused his family to worry that he might fall in with bad company, so they had enlisted him in the military last year with his consent.
Being in the military was actually quite an experience.
Although soldiers like him who had been in training for less than a year were rarely assigned to missions, the provincial armed police headquarters received an emergency order last month and dispatched Xiao Wang's unit to station in the Long Han hydroelectric power station in Tianwo County.
Xiao Wang's squad leader, surnamed Chen from Jiangxi province, was a seemingly serious but actually very talkative person who was annoyed by Xiao Wang's question and gave him a stern look. After the team had descended the hill and arrived at the planned resting place, he finally spoke up in a low voice, "Have you forgotten the discipline of the army? Don't ask what you shouldn't ask!"
"What's so confidential about this place? It's just a dam under construction..." Xiao Wang sat cross-legged on the ground, muttering as he took off his cap and fanned himself with it.
Squad Leader Chen thought for a moment and realized that there didn't seem to be any mention of confidentiality from above.
He looked up and saw the young soldiers around him staring at him curiously. They had been stationed here for over a month, and everyone was probably full of curiosity by now.
After hesitating for a moment, he lowered his voice and said, "Actually, I don't know either, but the instructor mentioned that there might be some problems with the hydroelectric power station and it's being suspended. You should have noticed that most of the workers have left recently."
Indeed!
Long Han hydroelectric power station was not well-known in China, not even close to the Three Gorges Dam, and its publicity was much lower than that of other completed hydroelectric power stations.
However, its relatively low popularity did not mean that its investment scale was small.
On the contrary, it was considered a key project for the "Western Development" and "West-East Power Transmission" strategies of China's decision-making body. Since the planning stage, the Long Han hydroelectric power station had been built to a standard that was no less than that of the Three Gorges Dam.
Moreover, construction had started in 2001 and had been ongoing for eight years. In June of last year, the first unit of the Long Han hydroelectric power station had begun generating electricity and undergoing testing. With only about a year left, this second-largest hydroelectric hub after the Three Gorges was expected to be fully completed and put into operation. Suddenly, the construction was stopped, and a large number of workers and equipment were even withdrawn.
It can be said that not only were the responsible personnel of the project unaware of the situation, but even the armed police soldiers who were temporarily dispatched to guard the site were also worried and had various wild thoughts. For example, many soldiers like Xiao Wang suspected in secret whether there was a major design flaw in the hydroelectric power station, or whether something incredible had been dug up during the excavation of the mountain.
The latter theory, in particular, was very popular among the armed police soldiers stationed there.
It's not surprising that Xiao Wang and his team are making wild guesses, because although the country suddenly withdrew the workers who were originally building a hydroelectric power station, they didn't actually send them elsewhere. Instead, they were sent to several resettlement points located a few dozen kilometers away from the power station to build several military facilities in conjunction with the continuously arriving engineering soldiers, which looked like they were meant to be used permanently.
During a brief rest period, a group of patrolling armed police soldiers were chatting.
Suddenly, a dull thud of a heavy object falling from the sky came from not far away, and it appeared particularly conspicuous in the dark night.
"Something's up..."
Squad Leader Chen, who had been a veteran for several years, was the first to react and growled lowly, "Assemble, be alert!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he picked up the rifle he had just slung on his back, and rushed over to a nearby big tree, cautiously sticking his head out to look over there.
The sound of footsteps rushed over, and Xiao Wang and the other little soldiers who had received several months of military training hurriedly gathered together, using nearby trees as cover to hide themselves.
"It seems like something fell from the sky..." said a soldier from Pengcheng next to Xiao Wang in a low voice.
As soon as he finished speaking, they heard a crisp sound like branches of trees being forcefully broken, coming from the other side of the hill about twenty to thirty meters away.
Accompanied by that sound, there were also bursts of heavy footsteps, as if a giant was lurking in the mountains and forests in the dark night, making Squad Leader Chen and the others who were already tense all over feel their nerves tighten.
Soon after, accompanied by two bright blue light balls that looked like lanterns and were particularly dazzling in the dark night under the hazy moonlight shining down from the sky, Squad Leader Chen, Xiao Wang, and the others finally saw clearly what was getting closer and closer.
It was a giant, a towering metal giant that looked like it had to be six or seven meters high, emitting a chilling light in the hazy moonlight.
"What the hell is this thing!"
Squad Leader Chen couldn't help but curse, his fingers tightly gripping the gun handle and turning white, but not as clearly as his face which was now even paler.
"This... this is... a mechanical warrior..." even the soldier Xiao Wang was more scared than him, experiencing this kind of strangeness for the first time, and his voice was trembling.
The movement seemed to have immediately attracted the attention of the mechanical giant, who was sweeping away a branch blocking its path. It immediately lowered its head and looked towards Squad Leader Chen and his team, who were hiding behind a tree a few meters away.
It seemed that two invisible beams of light scanned the soldiers, making their bodies stiff and unable to move for a moment.
But the next moment, a cold mechanical voice immediately rang out, "You guys should be soldiers from China, right? I am Frenzy, and I have a cooperative relationship with your country. Luckily, I don't have to continue searching now. Take me to the nearby military base."
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Next Chapter >>Chapter 345: Reunion
