Freedom

Freedom. It was hard to imagine that one day, he would actually use that word to describe a motorized tricycle. Yet aside from that, he couldn't think of another way to put it. The engineers scrambled to their bellies on the ground to get a look; those who couldn't squeeze down simply hoisted the trike into the air. They had been crafty old foxes in the trade for years, having seen every bizarre trick in the book, yet for a moment they were completely spellbound. Stripping away their preconceived biases, they could actually feel an inexplicable beauty of industrial design in this little tricycle... Simple. Sleek. Beneath the extreme stinginess and ruthless omissions, what followed was a terrifying degree of adaptability and compatibility. There was no need for drastic overhauls at all. A simple swap of the frame was enough to achieve flawless compatibility with nearly every type of heavy phlogiston engine. At the same time, the driveshaft, shock absorbers, and other components could be seamlessly swapped out for identical-spec parts from any manufacturer. Even parts of different specifications worked— Just look at the remaining empty space inside, wide enough to race horses! If you had time to kill, you could easily slap on two extra nitrous oxide injection kits! In a sense, with this frame in hand, you could cobble together virtually any function you ever dreamed of putting on a vehicle. Amidst gasps and exclamations, everyone could barely hold back their itching hands— They began talking over one another, vigorously debating assembly and modification plans, or guessing the design logic and intentions, tossing around quips like, "If I were Zhuge Liang, I would surely ambush a squad of troops right here." Only when Shang Tongwen's face turned so dark that it practically dripped water did they sheepishly fall silent. On the surface, they acted as if nothing had happened, but in their hearts, they were determined to get their hands on one later. The more professional you were, the deeper you fell; the better you knew the trade, the more you loved it. What technical guy could resist a blank slate of a baby that he could take home and tweak, modify, and build however he pleased? Even if it was just a little tricycle, it was still a precious darling! As for its ultimate functionality— The senior engineer leading the group scratched a key across the frame twice, then shook his head toward those behind him. Shaking his head didn't mean it wouldn't do; it meant there was no need to look any further. Just the feedback from those two light scratches had his heart pounding in terror. This frame and chassis, which appeared utterly devoid of any technical sophistication, was ridiculously, impossibly hard. The old man fished out his glasses and inspected it closely. Suppressing the urge to embezzle the company's air conditioning... The rated load capacity written on the cargo bed was three tons, which was already outrageous enough. But once people bought a tricycle and took it home, how could they not overload it? Besides, if you weren't going to overload it, why the hell would you equip it with a heavy phlogiston engine meant for a truck? Were you clowning around?! After a quick calculation of the horsepower, the old man shook his head. "Forget three tons—it could probably haul thirty tons, couldn't it?" "It might haul it, but can it carry it?" someone nearby asked skeptically. "Let's test it, then." Expressionless, the old man waved a hand. Given his standing among the technical staff, he didn't need to do it himself. An assistant beside him promptly relayed the order. Before long, a crane arm swung over, hauling two massive steel coils that were lowered straight onto the cargo bed with a heavy hum. Yet the terrifying weight of the two coils combined—over thirty tons—failed to crush this beat-up tricycle. In fact, after a brief screech of metal-on-metal friction, the tricycle remained standing firmly in place, not budging in the slightest. There wasn't even any deformation visible to the naked eye. "This is absurd..." While the other engineers were struck dumb, the two men at the very front crouched down, leaned in close to scrutinize the vehicle's material, and tapped on the metal paneling. "Alchemy?" one asked, unsure. "It really is alchemy," another craftsman sighed. "No spiritus circuits, just the purest material property reinforcement, applied in a single pass. But the reinforcement is too uniform, too natural—a cohesive, seamless whole, without a single trace of residual spiritus to be found." Such eerily solid fundamentals, squandered on an ordinary piece of steel just to build an excruciatingly crude tricycle— It possessed the sheer aesthetic of a peerless grandmaster guiding a child to knead mud with his own piss. Hadn't he gone a bit too unhinged? He truly was Ye Xian's student, the chief craftsman of this generation. That effortless touch of material property interference alone was something countless people could never master. The skill of carving intricate flowers onto silken tofu had been extravagantly deployed in mass production—hell, the processing fee for that technique alone was worth more than the tricycle's selling price! Moreover, according to the association's regulations, anything lacking basic spiritus circuit structures and consisting merely of material property reinforcement did not qualify as an alchemical work or market disruption. Even if someone wanted to intervene, they had no jurisdiction. Abandoning ongoing research and using mature technologies and craftsmanship had shortened turnaround time to the maximum, avoiding complications from long delays. By taking the form of a motorized tricycle, it sidestepped environmental protection acts; by targeting the wilderness, it bypassed channel suppression; and by using this method, it evaded the association's interference. A maneuver that appeared sweeping and brazen was, in reality, as meticulously crafted as embroidery. Every possible edge had been skirted, yet no one could pick out a single fault. It was truly breathtaking. Especially after the full battery of testing procedures was completed, everyone was rendered utterly speechless. In destructive load testing, they watched the tricycle maneuver effortlessly through mud, steep ascents, downhills, extreme heat, and severe cold while carrying over ten tons of cargo. It even rammed head-on into a family sedan at full speed and flipped it over; after rolling over several times itself, it was righted, and the frame showed no noticeable deformation. The build quality was ridiculously high, adaptability maxed out, and its performance in extreme heat or bitter cold was entirely without issue. Its structure was simple—so simple that even if it fell from the second floor, you could tighten a few bolts and keep right on driving. You could even hitch an extra trailer to the back. If you were crazy enough, you could add another engine set, upgrade the parts, and transform it into a Hundred-Ton King of the wilderness. And you were telling them this godlike combat machine was a fucking tricycle?! Where the hell did this come from? Cybertron?! This was nothing less than a youth-edition heavy truck wrapped in the skin of a tricycle! Even more ridiculous, right in the center of the original cargo bed, a mounting interface had been reserved, accompanied by a pillar-like attachment straight from the factory. According to the flimsy two-page user manual, this area was primarily intended for "cultivating one's personal tastes." It could allow birdwatching enthusiasts to mount a large telescope, or be used to prop up a fishing rod or similar gear. Users were kindly requested to comply with local rules and regulations during use. *Whatever you do, don't go welding heavy firepower like a machine gun onto this thing, got it? Homemade cannons and rocket launchers are off-limits too—that's illegal!* Such unscrupulous little attachments and features, paired with such insane payload capacity and build quality, and crowned by that daylight-robbery price— Its core functions and target demographics leaped out with glaring clarity. Hauling construction debris through the city, smuggling goods across the borders, engaging in turf wars and driving off bandits in the wilderness, passing judgment on the open road—in retreat, it was an overloaded transport; on the offensive, it was a gun carriage! Who said this Doujiao tricycle was trash? This tricycle was fucking glorious! It was practically the goddess of suburbanites, the beacon of light for small settlement dwellers, the childhood sweetheart beside every broke bastard, the dream girl falling out of the sky before every scavenger. This was damn well true love! Mom would never have to worry about us being unable to afford semi-trailers and armed off-roaders again! Offensive in attack, defensive in retreat, and if disaster struck, you could load up your entire worldly belongings and make a run for it. Best of all, the conscience-defying price was just a measly fifty-odd thousand! Was this Haian Auto Works? Bullshit! This was their beloved Father Haian, their Adoptive Father of Yacheng! The wilderness had no morals, and the wilderness had no law. The drifters and settlements scraping a living across these barren plains had never cared about fancy frills. Sturdy, rugged utility and a price as tender as a loving father's embrace were more than enough to make these impoverished brothers bend their precious knees and swear their lifelong allegiance before the Doujiao tricycle even finished rolling off the line. Good things were never in excess—especially cheap, good things. The more, the better. As long as they could buy one, they would pawn everything they owned to do so. And through circulation across the wilderness and transport between settlements, Haian Auto Works' products would bypass every major city, spreading across Haizhou—no, across the neighboring states as well—at visible speed. It was simply unstoppable! "No need to lecture on technical theory anymore." Shang Tongwen rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a silent sigh, his expression grim. "Can we counter it?" Silence fell over the room. No one answered. Only a uniform wave of heads shook from left to right. "It's hard. Very hard," the old man said. "Didn't you say there's hardly any technical sophistication?" "There isn't much technical sophistication, but the production cost cannot be brought down." Engineers skilled in calculation needed only a glance at the specs and a mental run-through of the process to arrive at the answer. "For Haian to sell the vehicle like this, they are definitely operating at a loss. Even with our equipment and technology, if we took a loss to compete, we still couldn't catch up to Haian." Besides, beating them was meaningless. You couldn't push them out, and instead, they would drag you down to their level. The market segment was simply too obscure and held too little value, like a chicken bone with no meat. For a long time, although the demand for small transport vehicles across settlements and rural towns was massive, very few automakers ever bothered with them. The reason was simple— Scavengers were too stingy, and too poor. There wasn't an ounce of grease to squeeze out of them. How much could you make off a tricycle priced at forty or fifty thousand? Even if you didn't lose money, so what? The profit Echo Tech-Industry made from selling a single combat vehicle suspension system exceeded that! Scavengers didn't care about brands, nor did they care about sentimentality. Even if you bought the drinks, they wouldn't want to hear your story. Just take a look at the chimera monstrosities cobbled together on a whim by local tinkerers—folks, the specifications were endless, and the designs were bizarre as hell. You couldn't find two identical vehicles in a single settlement. Yet what they had in common, without exception, was that everything from the radio to the tires, inside and out, was secondhand! Even when brand-new, it was clearance surplus or knockoffs. Facing a bunch of paupers like that, even if Echo Tech-Industry fired up all of its factories to run twenty-four hours a day at a loss, how much demand could they fulfill? Were they supposed to stop living? Besides, even if you managed to squeeze Haian out, what did you get after all that trouble? Becoming the King of Tricycles from this day forth? Don't make me laugh—industry rivals would die laughing! The moment he realized this, Shang Tongwen's face darkened further. "What if we choke off their supply? Strike at their parts suppliers." In the silence, no one spoke. The gazes directed at Shang Tongwen only grew more bewildered. *Do you hear what you're saying?* *Choke them off?* *They're building tricycles now—how do you choke them off? Besides, what suppliers do they need? For these crummy parts, you could carry a plastic bag through a hardware market and pick up everything you need!* As for the astonishingly durable frame and chassis, they resolved that internally through their own production. Were you going to ban people from selling them batteries? From raw materials to manufacturing to sales, the entire process might be bizarre and outlandish, but Haian had mastered every step on its own. You wanted to play cards with them, to crush them with capital, but they weren't even sitting at the same table as you. How were you supposed to play? In your dreams?! Furthermore, how much political capital had Echo expended just recently to push through the environmental protection act, alienating so many industry peers in the process? Could they turn around right now and push through a regulatory code specifically targeting tricycles? Even if such a regulation passed, just watch whether the scavengers would give a damn about that scrap of paper. Even if the Federal Legislative Yuan went out of its mind on narcotics, they would never pass it. A city could exist without anyone driving a Guangyu, but it could never exist without people driving tricycles! From the moment the Doujiao tricycle rolled out of the factory, Haian Auto Works' resumption of production had become unstoppable, breaking free from an ambush on all sides. Now, a brand-new landscape had unfolded. Amidst wild, untamed growth, life found a way. What Shang Tongwen ought to worry about wasn't how to counter the tricycle. He should worry about how much more it would cost him to maintain the original blockade, and how to convince the upstream and downstream supply chains and vendors to keep turning a blind eye to an auto factory whose demand was surging by the day! Amid the dead silence, he remained expressionless, his dark eyes sweeping across every face. Inside the factory workshop, a dropped pin could be heard. Yet right then, a roar erupted. A deafening crash. In the center of the workshop, the battered tricycle finally collapsed under the destructive load testing, twisting and breaking apart with an ear-piercing screech of metal. Sparks flew, phlogiston leaked, and acrid smoke billowed, triggering the fire safety system. Water poured from the sprinklers in an instant, soaking everyone present into drenched chickens. Utterly pathetic. "That will be all for today." Shang Tongwen's face twitched, no longer able to keep his composure. "Go back, summarize your findings, and submit a report." With that, he suppressed his rage, turned, and walked away. Yet behind him, the tricycle bathing in the downpour crackled with sparks. A dislodged speaker emitted a burst of harsh static, followed by cheerful music and a child's voice singing: *"You've got no mom, you've got no dad, not one of you has a home! With no friends or family to lend a hand, aren't you scared all alone? Ah-hehehehe, ah-hahahaha—"* Shang Tongwen's steps ground to a sudden halt, and he turned back slowly. A glint of crimson flared in his pupils. "Turn it off," he squeezed the words through his teeth. In an instant, everyone scrambled forward in a panic. Yet that crummy speaker's build quality was ridiculously high; no matter how hard they slammed it, it wouldn't stop. Not until the assistant beside Shang Tongwen flicked his fingers did an invisible gravitational force abruptly erupt, crushing the entire speaker into a wad of scrap, silencing it completely. Yet the echoes of that *hehehe hahaha* still seemed to reverberate like a hallucination. Lingering without end. *** Meanwhile, beneath the night sky of Yacheng, Ji Jue rested his chin on his hand, gazing at the sales figures before him. After a long while, his brow arched slightly. "Engineer Yan, you can go talk to the Labor Association about recruitment now. Mm, having tea with the suppliers wouldn't hurt either... I think they should have plenty to say to us by now." A cool night breeze drifted through the window, wonderfully crisp. Refreshing and clearing the mind. It soothed the rising body temperature Ji Jue had experienced over recent days. "The weather's turning chilly, isn't it?" Gnawing on the alchemical scrap in his hands, Ji Jue felt the slow rise of ember essence within his matrix, narrowing his eyes contentedly. "It's about time for the new model to hit the market."