What was General Huo’s personal relation to her?
As soon as Gu Nianzhi heard this, a million thoughts raced through her mind in an instant. She opened her mouth and blurted out, “He’s my hero!” Huo Shaoheng was indeed a hero in her mind. He had been in the past, was in the present, and forever would be.
The colonel was unconvinced. He pursed his lips and shook his head with a derisive smile and said, “Little girl, do you think you’re in a Hollywood movie or something? Don’t mess around and go do what you’re supposed to do, which is be Director Song’s assistant. We are the ones responsible for saving people. Why would we use a little girl like you!? Our soldiers are highly trained and highly competent, and we also have our own frogman army!” After he finished, he went out to discuss countermeasures with several other naval officers.
Gu Nianzhi stared at his back from a distance feeling annoyed and belittled. She was on the verge of saying that she was Huo Shaoheng’s wife, yet the instant she opened her mouth, she found herself unable to bring herself to say so. Well, then… Gu Nianzhi shrugged. Although deep down she already knew that the other party was unlikely to agree to her wild request, she didn’t see any harm in trying. At least now she knew for sure. There was always value in trying. What if he had agreed?
She returned to where Song Jinning was still busy debugging the instrument and told her what the colonel had just said. At the end, she concluded with regret, “…but I really wanted to try it myself. That place is exactly where Huo Shao was first besieged.”
Song Jinning paused for a moment. “Shaoheng and the others are besieged there? That’s horrible. In that case, clearing the source will be very tricky and dangerous.”
“It’s very dangerous indeed, so the colonel said that he would send someone, and that we also have our very own frogman unit.” Gu Nianzhi leaned back on the couch in the room, looked up at the ceiling of the cabin, and mumbled, “But I really wanted to go myself…”
After hearing that they also had their very own frogman unit as well, and they would be sent in for the rescue mission, Song Jinning was relieved and said, “Okay, let’s deploy our anti-electromagnetic interference as well, so they won’t get lost again.”
Their last rescue attempt had been a total failure due to the strong electromagnetic interference from the other party, and the ships and frogmen who were sent on the rescue mission had gotten lost in the sea.
Gu Nianzhi cheered up. “Okay. What can I do for Ms. Song?”
“You can help me operate this instrument.” Song Jinning demonstrated its usage to her. “I will operate that one. To be entirely honest, one would suffice, but this time I wanted to try running two at the same time—one for imposing anti-interference on the enemy’s electromagnetic frequency and one for emitting our own strong electromagnetic interference.
“Remember, we should be twice as strong as them, and we can cover a much larger area. If it succeeds, and if it gradually expands, then I want to experiment and see what the maximum reach of this instrument is.”
Gu Nianzhi nodded. “I got it. So when will we start?”
Song Jinning looked at her watch and said, “In five minutes. According to the test results I received just now, the strong electromagnetic interference from the other party is converted every five minutes. This is also the time when it’s the most vulnerable. This will be the prime moment to conduct our anti-interference.”
Gu Nianzhi was fully convinced by Song Jinning’s reasoning. Twenty-five minutes later, the Navy’s frogman trio quietly submerged into the water. At the same time, Song Jinning started deploying their own strong electromagnetic interference while Gu Nianzhi started deploying anti-electromagnetic interference on the enemy’s electromagnetic interference.
In the air, invisible electromagnetic waves converged, collided, constantly offset each other, and continued to regenerate over and over again. This sort of warfare on a battlefield invisible to the naked eye made it difficult to separate the victories and defeats in an instant.
Even so, Song Jinning and Gu Nianzhi fought side by side. The opponent’s strong electromagnetic interference resisted their countermeasures for a time, but after a while their resistance finally began to weaken.
Their frogmen soldiers in the sea discovered that their locators were ready for use again, and they were instantly encouraged. They quickly swam in the direction of the location where Huo Shaoheng was last heard from and also where the other party had installed their strong electromagnetic interference source.
Their three-man team scuba dived quickly for half an hour and soon approached the coordinates Song Jinning had provided them with. It was quiet there, with exotic-looking rocks and a plethora of vibrantly-hued coral reefs. The colorful marine fish swam between the coral reefs, and the sight of the rainbow-like fish swimming among the kaleidoscopic reefs was so breathtaking that they felt like they were in an aquarium.
However, the three frogmen were not in the mood to admire the beautiful scenery before them. Instead, they were busy using their detectors to find the source of the strong electromagnetic interference emission. The three of them wandered on the seafloor for half an hour before pinpointing the location of the strong electromagnetic interference source. They were particularly excited and immediately sent a message to the scientific research boat.
“The source has been located! Clear it now!”
“The source has been located! Clear it now!”
The three frogmen happily swam towards the source of strong electromagnetic interference. It was a small, black, cube-shaped box. They couldn’t discern the material, but it felt sturdy and heavy.
“The strong electromagnetic interference is being emitted by this thing. You really can’t tell.” The three frogman soldiers swam around the box for a while and discovered that it was firmly stuck to the reef and could not be pried off.
“I’ll deal with it. We should just blow up the entire thing.” A frogman soldier pulled out his underwater assault rifle. “Move to the side. I’ll shoot.” As soon as he raised his gun to aim at the box, a thin iron rope with a knife tied to it suddenly swept up silently from behind.
The three frogmen felt the turbulence of the water and instantly knew something was up. They quickly swerved to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack of the thin iron rope with a knife attached to it!
The three of them broke into a cold sweat at the attempt on their lives and quickly swam away. When they attempted to swim over again, the Japanese frogmen had already discovered them, and more than a dozen of them lunged towards them.
The Huaxia Empire’s side only had three frogmen warriors, and they suddenly found themselves outnumbered by enemies. However, they were not intimidated, and picking up their latest QBS06 underwater assault rifles developed by the Huaxia Empire, they aimed at the Japanese frogmen.
Compared to the Russian-made APS underwater assault rifle used by the Japanese frogmen, the Huaxia Empire’s newly developed QBS06 underwater rifle was faster, more accurate, and much more lethal. The lethality of its special bullet far outstripped that of the APS underwater assault rifle.
Although there were only three of them, even dozens of enemies were no match against them while they were carrying their QBS06 underwater rifles. Before their enemies even had a chance to open fire, their bullets had already penetrated the enemies’ diving suits and masks. A dozen or so Japanese frogmen thus met their demise at the hands of the frogmen soldiers from the Huaxia Empire.
After the three of them eliminated the Japanese frogmen, they made victory signs to each other and went on to inspect the source of the potent electromagnetic interference. Likewise, the interference source was still unable to be cleared, and more aggressive Japanese frogmen pounced on them again. This time there were more than 30 of them, which was twice as many as there had been in the previous attack.
“Let’s scatter.” The three frogmen communicated with each other through the walkie talkies in their masks. “Scattering in three directions can disperse the enemy’s pursuit.” They could no longer stay together in one place, lest they be caught alive by the enemy.
The three of them had made up their minds, when one of them suddenly turned around and shot at the strong electromagnetic interference source! The other two seized the chance to swim out like arrows in opposite directions at the same time!
The Japanese frogmen surrounding them were completely taken by surprise and were about to chase after them when suddenly they heard a loud noise coming from above their heads!
When they looked up, they saw more and more Japanese ships appearing on the surface! At the same time, a thin, iron, tube-like buoy was dropped from the boat, encircling Huo Shaoheng and his people!
This kind of circular electromagnetic interference greatly amplified the magnitude of the interference source! After the buoy with strong electromagnetic interference was thrown down, the three frogmen escaped, although one of them was injured.
An hour later, they finally returned to the scientific research boat. They were all exhausted and said to Song Jinning, who had been anxiously awaiting their return, “Director Song, the other party had a big boat come over, and they threw a lot of buoys at us. Our navigation system failed, so we had to swim back by ourselves.”
They swam for an hour covering a distance that should have taken only half an hour while they were chased by Japanese frogmen and fired upon countless times. Unfortunately, one of the frogmen soldiers was shot and had been taken back to shore by speedboat for surgery.
…
The coral reefs stood just below the coordinate position Song Jinning had calculated. Huo Shaoheng and the others had been hiding in a cave next to the coral reefs for eight hours straight. Their communication line had recovered for a while, and Huo Shaoheng immediately seized the chance to contact the station, and then they were transferred to the scientific research vessel.
After finding out that Song Jinning and Gu Nianzhi were there, his heart felt strangely stirred. Although he had always been calm, when he spoke to them this time, his low, magnetic voice trembled slightly.
They didn’t get to say much before their communication was interrupted again, and there wasn’t even time to acknowledge the three frogmen soldiers who destroyed the strong electromagnetic interference source.
Song Jinning’s plan was to destroy the strong electromagnetic interference source first, then deal with the Japanese frogmen soldiers who besieged Huo Shaoheng afterwards, because only then could they get them out. Unfortunately, because of the sudden arrival of Japanese warships, this plan completely failed.
Looking at the huge shadow that suddenly appeared on the surface above and watching the thin, intricate iron ropes hanging from the sea buoy, Huo Shaoheng clenched the gun in his hand. The oxygen in their scuba tanks could last them up to three more hours. If they could not be rescued within three hours, then they had no choice but to fight the Japanese!
…
Gu Nianzhi felt agitated after listening to the three frogmen on the scientific boat, especially when she heard that the Japanese warships had dropped several buoys that floated around the sea like huge mosquito coils. She felt even more alarmed to hear that there were many long strings under the buoys, all the way down to the bottom of the sea. They were all high-quality iron, just like electromagnetic amplifiers. Did Song Jinning have the expertise to cope with electromagnetic interference of this intensity?
Gu Nianzhi stood on the bow of the boat with her arms crossed and looked in Huo Shaoheng’s direction. Over the boundless sea, the clouds and water appeared vast and expansive, and she could even spot the Japanese warships. But so what if she saw them? She was only on a scientific research ship, not a mighty warship.
Gu Nianzhi groaned inwardly and complained to herself secretly to relieve her anxiety. What could she do to help Huo Shaoheng? She picked up the binoculars and spotted a string of fine iron buoys dropped from the Japanese warships, and she was suddenly overcome by a sense of déjà vu.
Slowly, a name sprang to mind—the blue hole waters!
Didn’t this scene seem eerily similar to the blue hole waters she had once experienced?!
…
