<h4>Chapter 1648: The Dawn Of a New Era</h4>


    The bankruptcy of the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation hade to an end for the time being. Although the 10 billion credit points that had been spent couldn’t be recovered, in the end, the result was fairly satisfactory to all parties.


    After the order in Tiangong City was restored, the trial of war crimes was officially started after the Qinling escorted the prisoners to the Earth-Moon system.


    ording to the decision of the supreme court of the Pan-Asian Cooperation, the masterminds of the Tiangong City rebellion, Xiao Hong, Gao Ruiming, and others were sentenced to life imprisonment and ced in the worst Pan-Asian prison, where they would spend the second half of their lives.


    The prison was a military base for the Pan-Asian Cooperation in the asteroid belt. Apart from thergest supeputing center in the entire sr system, there were only researchers and soldiers stationed there.


    On the other hand, after nearly two weeks, the Huashan and Taishan aircraft battle groups finally arrived in orbit around Mars.


    With the cooperation of the Third Orbital Airborne Brigade, the joint military exercises proceeded as scheduled, showing off their muscles to the rest of the world, especially the Martian separatists.


    After the military exercise, the aircraft battle group did not return to the Lagrange point base. Instead, they went directly to the vicinity of the asteroid belt. Using the confessions provided by the masterminds of the rebels, such as Xiao Hong, the elite military divisions found the rebel strongholds hidden in the asteroid belt without any effort and swept them all out cleanly.


    The power umted over the past few decades was destroyed. After the Pan-Asian Cooperation made the news public, the separatists in Tiangong City suddenly felt powerless.


    Even though they were unwilling to ept this reality, they had to admit that they had lost all of their bargaining chips, and the Pan-Asian Cooperation would never give them a second chance.


    On the third day after the rebel clean-up mission code-named “Broken Sword”, the Pan-Asian Cooperation announced a n to revoke the autonomy of Tiangong City and put the town hall under the jurisdiction of Beijing. Beijing would directly appoint a mayor instead of a local election.


    Regardless of whether the Martians could ept such a result, facing the starships hanging in the sky, they had no choice even if they were reluctant.


    The town halls of New Virginia and New London also expressed dissatisfaction with this, perhaps out of fear. They thought that this was a slippery road. But there were only a few colonial cities that belonged to other regional alliances. Neither Li Guangya nor Wu Shuhua cared about their opinions at all.


    Their overlord states were the ones that should care about their opinions.


    Not Pan-Asian Cooperation...


    “I am probably the most tired chairman ever.”


    Li Guangya’s index finger swiped across the holographic screen. He closed the report, leaned back on the office chair, and pinched his be. With a headache, he said, “First, it was flight N-177, and then, it was the rebellion of the robots... Jesus, now even those Martians dare to sh*t on ourwn.”


    “But it’s a blessing in disguise, isn’t it?” Secretary Wei, who was standing at the desk, smiled and continued, “If they hadn’t provoked this war on their own initiative, it would be very costly to regain autonomy from them.”


    “That’s right.” Li Guangya shook his head and said, “But the troublespletely disrupted my n.”


    All of these troubles seemed to have only started after that person returned from Mars.


    Whether it was The Spirit of The Universe Foundation or the guy named Lawrence, none of this was relevant before Lu Zhou came back. He wondered why the second Lu Zhou stepped foot on Pan-Asian Cooperation soil, his nightmares began.


    <i>Why is this happening...?</i>


    <i>Is he cursed?!</i>


    Li Guangya couldn’t help but show a strange expression on his face.


    <i>Could this guy be the master behind all of these troubles?</i>


    Of course, this was just a hypothesis.


    After all, reality was not a Hollywood script. Although sometimes it could be more dramatic than movies, this possibility was still slim.


    “In any case, the result is good.” Secretary Wei looked at the exhausted chairman and said, “I have another good news here. It is from East Asia Heavy Industries. Are you interested in listening?”


    Li Guangya’s face immediately showed an expression of interest.


    “Don’t leave me hanging, hurry up and tell me.”


    Wei Song continued, “ording to the design n provided by Academician Lu, construction of the 1.0 version of the warp drive engine has begun. Using the data provided by Academician Lu himself, after the new warp drive engine is installed, the Qinling cruising speed in the hyperspace channel can reach as high as 1AU/s.”


    After hearing this news, Li Guangya finally had a smile on his face.


    Although Lu Zhou always made him worry, he never let him down in terms of scientific research.


    <i>One astronomical unit per second...</i>


    At this speed, it would take less than three seconds to reach Mars’ synchronous orbit from the Earth-Moon system, even at Mars’ furthest position. Forget about the asteroid belt, it would be no problem to send the starship to the Kuiper belt or to more distant worlds!


    Li Guangya: “Good job. I have to thank him for this matter. When will he return to Earth? I will visit him personally.”


    “He may not be back here in the short term. Some technical problems with the warp drive engine need to be solved by him himself.” Having said that, Wei Song coughed lightly and continued, “So this was the good news... I have some other not-so-good news, would you like to hear it?”


    “You can just say bad news.” Li Guangya said with a sigh, “Go ahead, I’ll listen.”


    Wei Song: “ording to news from the AIIB, Academician Lu acquired the bankrupt Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation through the establishment of a shellpany...”


    After hearing the news, Li Guangya was silent for a while before he spoke.


    “The goal is Tau Ceti?”


    Wei Song said silently, “He didn’t say... but probably.”


    “This is indeed bad news, both for our alliance and our civilization.”


    Staring at his desk and looking at the holographic projection floating on it, Li Guangya was silent for a long time. He finally sighed slightly and waved his hand tiredly.


    “Forget it, it’s up to him.”


    Wei Song was stunned slightly. He said eagerly, “But...”


    “There are no buts. If he wants to leave, even if we force him to stay, it may not bring good results. I don’t want to be an enemy of his.”


    Seeing that Wei Song still had something to say, Li Guangya interrupted him, “And that’s that.”