Li Wei stood over the schematic of ForgeGrid v1, a hand-drawn plan laid out on a large drafting table in the middle of ForgeLab Two. Power was now a bottleneck — a serious one.
The prototype Antlia boards were operational, but their efficiency was still tethered to the limited energy output of the solar rigs they'd improvised. Batteries scavenged from scooters and wall fans were unreliable. Without stable, scalable power, they'd never move beyond testing.
"We can't go nuclear," Lan Jie said flatly, handing over the voltage graphs. "Not here. Not without raising flags."
"Then we scale solar," Li Wei replied. "Modular panels, layered cells, thermal backups. We harvest everything."
He had already drafted a plan for a hybrid solar-thermoelectric microgrid, using scrap metal, painted heat sinks, and blackened ceramic for passive infrared absorption. It wouldn't run a data center—but it could power a neighborhood lab.
Infrastructure Begins
With the help of a few skilled welders from town, they built a series of triangular supports using scrap rebar and carbon steel, optimized for maximum solar angle year-round. Lan Jie and Yanyue calculated panel arrangements to maximize charging even during overcast conditions.
In the evenings, they installed buried wiring insulated in rubber tubing hand-pulled from truck tire interiors. Lan Jie engineered a control board to manage load balancing across nodes. Lanyun integrated real-time feedback into ForgeOS.
"ForgeGrid online," she declared on the third night. "Three stations. Twelve devices. Peak output: 870 watts."
It wasn't much—but it was theirs.
Visitors and Trouble
The next morning, a black sedan arrived outside their compound. The vehicle was too new, too clean to belong in rural Xin'an.
Out stepped a sharp-eyed woman in a slate-gray blouse, flanked by two men in plain clothes.
"Miss Xu Qinghua," she introduced herself with a crisp smile. "Regional Compliance and Communications Authority. I'd like to speak with whoever's in charge."
Li Wei wiped his hands on a rag and stepped forward.
"That's me."
She didn't hide her surprise. "You're... sixteen?"
"Only on paper."
They entered the lab. Qinghua's gaze swept across the room—Antlia boards lined up in crates, wires snaking across tables, and three solar management consoles blinking quietly.
"You're producing electronics?" she asked.
"We're prototyping for educational purposes," Yanyue answered smoothly.
Qinghua raised an eyebrow. "And distributing them?"
"Open-source designs only," Lanyun added.
Qinghua nodded. "We've received reports from state distributors that your designs are undermining formal hardware sales."
Li Wei crossed his arms.
"We're not stealing. We're replacing what's broken."
A Fork in the Road
Qinghua leaned in, voice soft.
"You're talented. Your work is... impressive. But if you continue without clearance or partnerships, you'll be isolated. Blacklisted. Perhaps worse."
Li Wei didn't flinch.
"We've survived on nothing. We'll survive without permission."
Qinghua sighed. "Then we'll be watching. Don't let your innovation become a liability to the nation."
With that, she turned and left, the sedan vanishing into the dusty road.
Aftermath
Lan Jie shut the gate behind them. "That's not just a warning," she said. "They're scouting us."
"I know," Li Wei replied. "They'll send someone else next. Someone softer... or someone stronger."
Yanyue looked up from her notes. "What do we do?"
"We don't slow down. We go underground."
That night, they redrew plans. ForgeGrid would expand into hidden conduits. Communication lines would be rerouted through private relays. And ForgeOS? It would soon have its first encryption core.
ForgeOS Core Encryptor
Antlia v0.2 came with a custom-built encryption module—ForgeLock, designed by Lanyun and Li Wei together. It used a novel time-based key sequencing mechanism tied to CPU timing irregularities, impossible to predict without physical access.
"They won't break it unless they physically dismantle the chip," Lanyun said proudly.
"And even then," Li Wei added, "the key erases if tampered."
They uploaded ForgeLock's code publicly the next day.
That move ignited a firestorm in tech circles.
Hackers hailed it as a breakthrough in civilian cryptography. Academics criticized it for being "too aggressive." Government agencies silently downloaded it—testing it, dissecting it.
ForgeOS was no longer a toy. It was a threat.
Nights Without Silence
Li Wei stayed up longer each night, often staring at the map of the valley drawn on his wall. Dots marked new sites—power relay nodes, cache points, quiet farms willing to shelter servers for barter.
He wasn't building just a lab anymore.
He was building infrastructure for a sovereign network.
A city that didn't exist yet. A state with no name.
But every line of code and every copper wire was a brick in its foundation.
"One day," he whispered to himself, "this place won't just run on our grid. It'll run on our rules."