Chapter 23: Did You Pay to Win With This Thing?

"Instructions?"

Huang Han stared, his eyes wide. Does this guy have any sense of the situation? An F-35 is lying in pieces right in front of me, and you're asking me how to handle two lowly soldiers?

"Shoot them on the spot."

The officer was stunned, his body trembling slightly. "Chief of Staff, that might not be appropriate..."

"If you know it's not appropriate, why haven't you brought them over yet?"

"Yes, sir!"

Huang Han felt like he was losing his mind. Good things never happen to him, but whenever there's a mess, it comes in heaps. Forget it. The F-35 had been shot down, at least; the subsequent investigation would take a while. Let's see what's going on with these soldiers who defied orders on the battlefield.

A moment later, Wei Xiu and Yang Wu were escorted before him. Both were wearing a pair of "rose-gold handcuffs."

"Yang Wu?" Huang Han recognized his own soldier instantly. His tone immediately grew sharper. "How many years have you been in the service? Don't you know the regulations?"

Faced with the Chief of Staff's interrogation, Yang Wu was blank. Who am I? Where am I? Why?

"Commander, what do you mean?"

Huang Han cursed outright. "Don't play dumb with me, you bastard. You know what you did!"

"What did I do?"

"Sir! I'll confess!" Seeing Yang Wu looking like a wooden stake, Wei Xiu stepped in to take the lead. To be fair, they were already wearing the rose-gold bracelets. He knew the drill: leniency for those who confess, severity for those who resist.

"What are you going to confess?" Huang Han felt the man before him was a total stranger.

"Captain Yang and I were conducting equipment tests. Unfortunately, we had a car accident due to a momentary lapse in attention! While we bear some responsibility, I don't see the need to handcuff us."

Huang Han: "Hold on a second. Testing what kind of vehicle?"

"A HQ-9!"

"You crashed my HQ-9 too?!" Huang Han's voice rose an octave. Every single day! There’s always some new "surprise"! The theater command didn't have many HQ-9s to begin with, and they had to crash one! Are you trying to kick the lame leg of a cripple to death?

Looking at Wei Xiu, who wore no uniform and lacked any military bearing, he completely lost his cool. "Who the hell are you? Who gave you permission to go near the HQ-9?"

"Reporting, I was invited by Minister Zhang to fix the vehicle."

Zhang Mingrui, who had been squatting by the F-35 wreckage studying it, heard his name called and turned around naturally. "???"

The next second, he jumped up from the ground.

"Wei Xiu!? Why are you here?"

"You two know each other?" Huang Han crossed his arms, eyeing them both.

"Yes, he's the expert I invited to fix the HQ-9..." Zhang Mingrui noticed the look on the Chief's face and his voice trailed off.

"Does he look like an expert to you?" Huang Han's gaze was sharp as a blade. Good grief. This guy looks about the same age as my grandson. He's supposed to be an expert?

There are times when a person is so speechless they can only be silent. Good grief. All these headaches had piled up at once. A subordinate secretly allowing a civilian to repair military equipment. And of all things, an enemy plane intrudes, requiring the vehicle. And the vehicle gets crashed. It was only by sheer luck that the F-35 was shot down. If anything had gone wrong today, a thousand deaths wouldn't be enough for Zhang Mingrui and these two idiots.

Huang Han swallowed his anger, taking countless deep breaths to force his tone back to a calm level. "Young man, dismantling military equipment without authorization, causing major losses—do you realize what kind of behavior this is?"

Wei Xiu rubbed his temples and thought for a moment. "The kind of behavior that gets your name removed from the family register?"

Huang Han blinked. "What kind of brain circuit do you have?"

"I was thinking that since we shot down an F-35, we should at least get a second-class merit, right?"

True, there was a traffic accident. But that wasn't our fault. Besides, the traffic police had already ruled that the other party was fully responsible. The damage to the vehicle wasn't even that bad. And we shot down an F-35; that should compensate for a lot, right?

But looking at the Chief now, his face was ghastly, shifting from black to red, his blood pressure clearly unstable.

"What did you just say?"

"I said! We! Shot! Down! An! F-35!"

!!! ??? !!!

As Wei Xiu shouted, a ten-meter radius went completely silent. They had heard every word clearly, but when put together, they couldn't comprehend it.

"What F-35?"

Wei Xiu was exasperated. How could such a high-ranking officer not know what an F-35 was? "The Eagle's fighter jet! You didn't even know there was an enemy intrusion?"

That one sentence left Huang Han stumped again.

"I know! But how on earth did you shoot it down?" You've got to be kidding me! A fifth-generation stealth fighter. The theater command had been tracking it for half a day, struggling to even get a glimpse. And you shot it down? "What did you use to shoot it down? Your mouth?"

Wei Xiu pointed to the HQ-9 in the distance. "With that."

"Are you taking me for a fool?" Huang Han was speechless.

I know what an HQ-9 is. The problem is, I have so many of them, and they're essentially decorative. What, did you "pay to win" with this particular HQ-9?

"Young man, the HQ-9 cannot detect an F-35. Even if it could, its range is far from meeting the requirements. I don't have time to mess around with you..."

Before he could finish, Yang Hu immediately interjected: "Chief of Staff, he's telling the truth!"

Others might not know, but Yang Hu had been with Wei Xiu day and night for several days and had witnessed everything. He had the right to speak.

"It happened like this. Minister Zhang asked me to assist Brother Wei in fixing the truck. We had just finished the repairs and took it out for a test. Although we had an accident, the damage was minor. Coincidentally, the radar spotted an unidentified flying object. We analyzed the signal spectrum, confirmed it was an F-35, and took the initiative to fire. The entire maintenance platoon can testify to this."

?!?

Huang Han's brain felt like it was going to explode. No, it wasn't that. This kid spouting nonsense was one thing—he didn't know him, after all. But he knew Yang Hu. This soldier was honest, spoke little, and was a man of his word. He wouldn't lie.

"But how did the HQ-9 lock onto an F-35 without external support?" Huang Han asked a soul-searching question.

"I made a few minor adjustments." Wei Xiu patted his chest, looking modest about his hidden achievements. "The original vehicle had an H-200 passive phased array radar. It's adequate, but not top-tier. I upgraded the original radar to a quantum radar. I improved the minimum radar cross-section to 0.001. It was just enough to see the F-35."

After Wei Xiu finished, Huang Han didn't retort. There was no reason to. Old, painful memories began to assault him. He remembered a meeting with experts from the Second Aerospace Institute, where Chief Engineer Zhao mentioned they were researching quantum radar. This thing could perfectly target stealth fighters.

Wait, that can't be right! The experts at the Second Aerospace Institute were still struggling to make a breakthrough, so how did you get ahead of them?

"Young man, what was your job before this?"

Wei Xiu answered righteously: "A mechanic. Your Minister Zhang knows."

Huang Han looked at Zhang Mingrui. At this moment, the Minister's head was nodding so violently it looked like it was powered by a motor.

"Commander, I told you, he's a true genius, a real expert!"

Huang Han felt numb. An F-35 wreck lay on the ground. Two of his most trusted subordinates were vouching for him. All evidence and facts pointed to the most impossible conclusion—Wei Xiu had actually mastered quantum radar!?