Chapter 8: Sorry, I Can Make It, but I Can't Dismantle It

A few minutes later, the armored vehicle stopped outside the police cordon. Two officers escorted Jiang Chen out and removed the silver handcuffs from his wrists. He shook out his hands and strode toward the courtyard.

A distant telephoto lens carried the scene clearly to the livestream, setting off another explosion of comments.

【Holy shit! The man himself is here!】

【Everyone rise! Welcome Jiangzhou’s most dangerous outlaw!】

【What an entrance: a SWAT escort and bomb-disposal experts lined up to greet him.】

【New viewers, don’t ask. This stream is a documentary about high-IQ crime.】

【What a deal! A counterterrorism blockbuster for free. I should buy the show a VIP subscription.】

【Jiang Chen’s either going to prison to sew uniforms or to a military institute to live like a king.】

The scene was crowded. Alongside the officers and production staff, reporters drawn by the news had set up their cameras.

Professor Li hurried over when he saw Jiang Chen. He looked the young man in the floral shirt and beach shorts up and down, unable to believe his eyes.

“Young man, did you really make that thing on the table all by yourself?”

Jiang Chen scratched his head. He couldn’t very well reveal the system, so he played along. “Yeah, I made it. I like tinkering with chemistry and physics. Today I wanted to entertain the livestream, so I grabbed some fertilizer and messed around. I didn’t expect to end up with a finished product.”

Professor Li slapped his thigh. “Messed around? Grabbed some fertilizer? You call that messing around? Do you know how ingenious your triggering circuit is? You’re a genius!”

The squad captain couldn’t listen any longer. He pulled the professor aside, frantic. “Professor Li, have you lost your mind? Is this the time for an academic discussion? The countdown hasn’t stopped!”

Professor Li came to his senses and caught Jiang Chen by the arm. “Right, right. Young man, your anti-tampering device is too complex. I don’t dare cut anything at random. Come take a look. How do we dismantle it?”

Every eye turned to Jiang Chen. People slowed their breathing.

He walked to the table, looked down at the thick plastic pipe, then at the complicated red and blue wires beside it. He rubbed his hands, looked up, and gave them a sincere smile.

“Sorry, everyone. I only know how to assemble it. I don’t know how to take it apart.”

Dead silence. They could hear the wind rustling through the leaves.

The captain’s eyes widened and his fists cracked. He wanted nothing more than to punch Jiang Chen’s innocent-looking face. “You don’t know how to dismantle it? Then why the hell did you make it?!”

Wang Zhen, who had followed behind without daring to speak, approached with a miserable expression and timidly raised a hand. “Um, Officer… if it can’t be dismantled, why don’t we just detonate it here? We can’t move it anyway.”

The captain whirled on him. “Detonate it here? You think it’s a firecracker? There are homes and buildings all around! Who pays if they’re damaged? You?”

He turned to Professor Li. “If it really explodes, how powerful will it be?”

The professor adjusted his glasses, his expression grave. “Based on the component analysis, the pipe contains a high-purity mixed nitro explosive and a large number of steel-ball fragments. If detonated, the blast wave could flatten the entire courtyard. Fragments would be lethal over at least fifty meters. Without protection, there would certainly be severe casualties within a hundred meters.”

His words struck everyone like a hammer. Cold sweat broke out across the scene. Hearing them from a distance, the director’s legs buckled, his vision went black, and he fainted. The assistant director pressed his philtrum and shouted for an ambulance.

“We’re finished! The show is finished! Jiang Chen, you’ve really gone viral, and I’m going to my grave!”

Jiang Chen scratched his head awkwardly and scanned the transparent panel. Unfortunately, apart from the formula, it contained no bomb-disposal guide. The system was perfectly happy to get him killed and leave someone else to bury him.

As the scene dissolved into chaos, the municipal police leadership’s final order came over the radio: since the device could neither be dismantled nor moved, destroy it on site immediately.

However angry the captain was, he had to carry out the order. “All units! Expand the evacuation area! Bring in heavy machinery and sand and soil! Prepare to build a blast barrier!”

Officers sprang into action again. Several heavy trucks loaded with sand and soil rumbled into the outer perimeter. Production staff were temporarily drafted to carry sandbags, and the television station urgently dispatched loaders and cranes. Three thick protective berms quickly rose around the battered table.

Jiang Chen was taken to a safe observation area several hundred meters away. Looking at the tall rows of sandbags, he felt a shock of his own. Being the Idea Guy had nearly cost him his life.

Contestants from several other teams gathered around him. The chubby breakfast chef silently gave him a thumbs-up. “Man, you guys are something else. We’re livestreaming ourselves threading skewers, and you’re livestreaming yourselves making a bomb. With traffic like that, if you last to the end and win the five million, I won’t envy you one bit.”

The rideshare driver nodded repeatedly. “Exactly.”

Ahead, preparations for the controlled blast were complete. The captain gripped the remote detonator, sweat covering his forehead. He raised his radio, and his voice echoed across the area.

“Attention, all units! Detonation is imminent!”