Chapter 10: Internal Struggle and External Chaos
As the "Heavenly Gate" and "Morning Star" projects progressed at full speed, the core members of China's highest leadership bore an unimaginable psychological burden.
They were the only group in the world who knew the "ultimate truth." This secret, like an invisible shackle, strangled their throats, forcing them to remain calm in public while privately enduring sleepless nights.
In General Li Mingguo's office, every ticking second on the countdown clock was like a knife piercing his heart.
Every day, he received data reports from the lunar base and various secret R&D centers: the escalating energy fluctuations of the divine race, mech testing failures, bottlenecks in chip yield rates, and the endless silence of interstellar signals.
On countless nights, he had to privately digest the despair represented by these cold numbers. His hair visibly turned gray, and his eye bags deepened, but he refused to collapse, knowing that behind him rested the weight of an entire civilization.
"General, Chief Engineer Wang… he fainted again," a secretary reported softly, her voice filled with worry.
Chief Engineer Wang, the veteran scientist who had repeatedly made breakthroughs in nuclear fusion and new materials, had not slept for 72 consecutive hours.
His body was long exhausted, but his spirit remained fervent, for he knew that every extra minute could win humanity a glimmer of hope. Countless scientists and engineers like him were overworking themselves to exhaustion.
Many of them didn't even know they were participating in an ultimate war between "mortals and gods," only that the nation needed them, needed them to create miracles.
This secret not only crushed their bodies but also corroded their spirits.
Occasionally, some of those in the know would fall into deep self-doubt: were their actions truly correct? Was it too arrogant to tie the fate of the entire world to one nation's secret preparations? But when they thought of the unutterable horror of "Primal Chaos," and the global panic and internal strife that might erupt if the truth were revealed, they had no choice but to reaffirm their belief: this was humanity's only option.
Meanwhile, most of the Earth remained steeped in a "false peace."
On the stage of international politics, leaders of various countries continued to quarrel over trade barriers, geopolitical conflicts, and resource allocation.
The Western world still viewed China's rapid rise in aerospace and technology as "competition" or even a "threat." They sensationalized the "China threat theory" in the media, continuously applying political pressure in an attempt to curb China's technological development.
They issued sanction lists and restricted high-tech exports, completely unaware that what they were restricting was the very "lifeline" on which human civilization depended.
In some regions, local wars and armed conflicts still erupted, with people killing each other for faith, for oil, for territory.
Cannon fire raged, lives were ruined, and countless lives perished in meaningless internal strife. These tragic scenes, transmitted through news channels to the eyes of General Li Mingguo and others, only filled them with profound sorrow and irony.
Humanity, still fighting each other for "individual" interests, was utterly oblivious that a "greater" devastating crisis was quietly approaching from the depths of the moon overhead.
The lives of ordinary people were even more undisturbed.
They were engrossed in online social media, entertainment consumption, and aspirations for future technological development. They discussed newly released phones, looked forward to their next holiday, and cheered for the outcome of football matches.
They saw occasional reports of the "Heavenly Gate Project" in the media, simply taking it as the nation demonstrating its "great power," completely unaware that behind the dazzling technology lay mortals' desperate resistance against the gods, against destiny.
This stark contrast between "internal heaviness and external chaos" amplified the sense of solitude among those in the know. They were night watchmen in the dark, watching the world revel in ignorance, yet unable to utter any warning.
They couldn't even confide a single word to their own families, forced to bury all fear and pressure deep within their hearts.
However, it was precisely in this extreme suppression and loneliness that a deeper resolve took root within them.
They knew that if humanity could truly survive the judgment of 2045, it would not only be the victory of one nation but the rebirth of human civilization. And the weight of this secret would become their eternal medal.
They were the martyrs of mortal civilization, using their silence and sacrifice to secure a future where all humankind could continue to exist.