Chapter 1: Reborn among Ruins, the Mirror Awakens

Lu Chen's gaze locked onto the blueprint in the final second. The sharp, pounding pain in his chest faded along with his consciousness, replaced by a tearing wave of dizziness and ringing in his ears. He jerked his eyes open. Instead of the familiar late-night office, an overhead fluorescent tube flashed with a blinding white light.

Fragments of memory surged into his mind like a rising tide: a down-and-out urban planner who shared his exact name, and a mountainous railway project on the verge of being scrapped. Just as he tried to sit up, a translucent blue data screen popped open out of nowhere, and a cold, mechanical voice echoed inside his skull: "Global Infrastructure Deduction Mirror activated. Parsing current geographic coordinates."

His field of vision instantly splintered into complex data streams. The drab outlines of the conference room were overlaid with countless glowing 3D lines that snaked toward the window, precisely mapping out a traffic volume prediction model for the next fifty years.

What made his pupils shrink even more was the metallic sheen faintly visible beneath the terrain model—an unexplored, concentrated vein of gold ore, quietly lurking deep within the barren rock strata.

Lu Chen forced down the surge of emotion, quickly regulated his breathing, and looked around to fake the appearance of someone just waking up. The air pressure in the conference room was suffocatingly low. Sitting across the long table was a woman in a tailored grey suit with her collar buttoned all the way up, radiating an icy, unapproachable aura. That was Shen Wanqiu, a genius professor from the top architectural academy, staring at him as if he were a scammer.

Huddled on the flank was a greasy, round-bellied middle-aged man who kept rubbing his hands together with a shifty, nervous expression—none other than his childhood buddy, Fatty Zhao. Beyond them sat a few contemptuous colleagues. One of them had one leg crossed over the other, resting a foot on the chair rung, making zero effort to hide his mockery of Lu Chen waking up.

The silence in the room was palpable. Everyone was waiting for the guy about to be kicked to the curb to make his final move, but Lu Chen just quietly watched the floating data model above his head, his fingertips tapping rhythmically against his knee as he logged every single coordinate point.

Shen Wanqiu broke the dead silence first. She stood up, her high heels clicking sharply against the tile floor, and walked right up to Lu Chen to look down at him. Lu Chen raised his head, meeting her gaze with a calm stare, refusing to back down under her oppressive presence.

Shen Wanqiu spoke in a freezing tone: "Lu Chen, the ground-bearing capacity data you assumed in your proposal is way off. An error of this scale is enough to turn this entire railway into a botched, abandoned project."

Her voice lacked a single trace of warmth, dissecting the flaws with the precision of a surgical scalpel. Seeing this, Fatty Zhao inched closer, lowering his voice to mutter, "Ah-Chen, take it from me, this game is lost—don't push your luck. Just admit the mistake and hand over the project. Keeping your professional license is what really matters."

His tone was slick and pragmatic, yet tinged with genuine worry.

Lu Chen ignored the persuasion, turning his head slightly to gaze at the silent mountain outside the window. In his field of vision, that mountain was undergoing violent deformation, with red stress-anomaly zones pulsing through the rock body like blood vessels.

He spoke slowly, his voice hoarse yet remarkably steady: "Professor Shen, the data discrepancy you mentioned is only because you're looking at the surface geological report while completely ignoring the risk of deep underground karst collapses."

As soon as those words left his mouth, a few sneers echoed through the conference room. The colleague who had been propping his foot up abruptly stood up, chiming in with sarcastic bite, "Big Planner Lu, you can't even draw a proper diagram, and you're talking about deep-layer risks? What a pipe dream. Go take a piss and look at what a pathetic state you're in."

Lu Chen remained silent, watching the mocking face with total inner calm. He knew very well that in this strange world, only the data model in his hands could prove his worth, while the people in front of him were still judging the future with old-world logic.

Shen Wanqiu frowned, displeased by Lu Chen's sudden burst of confidence, but far more concerned about his karst collapse hypothesis. She walked over to the whiteboard, circled the key nodes of the proposal with a marker, and demanded, "How do you prove there's a karst collapse here? Give me specific parametric evidence."

Lu Chen stood up in a smooth, unhurried motion, walked over to the sand table model, and lightly tapped his finger on one of the depressions. Upon contact, the deduction mirror in his vision automatically projected a semi-transparent geological perspective. Though invisible to anyone else, the numbers he reeled off were terrifyingly precise: "Thirty meters beneath this spot lies an irregular fracture zone five meters wide, with an extremely high moisture content.

If we drive piles according to the original plan, the rainy season will trigger localized settlement exceeding fifteen centimeters." His tone was flat, as if stating an established fact.

Shen Wanqiu's marker hung frozen in mid-air, a crack forming in her previously contemptuous expression. She rapidly flipped through her files, trying to find any record of the fracture zone Lu Chen had mentioned, but came up completely empty. After a brief silence, she asked coldly, "Where is this data from?"

Without answering, Lu Chen continued, "Furthermore, the stress distribution on the eastern side of the mountain is uneven, posing a hidden fracture hazard. I suggest shifting the Tunnel Number Two portal eighty meters outward."

As he spoke, he rapidly jotted down the optimal coordinates provided by the deduction mirror into his notebook. Fatty Zhao listened in a daze from the side, whispering an explanation to Shen Wanqiu, "Sister Qiu, Ah-Chen used to be a backbone of the bureau. He's just too stubborn, which is why he offended the higher-ups and ended up in this state. But his sensitivity to data is genuinely top-tier."

Shen Wanqiu didn't reply, simply staring at the notes in Lu Chen's hand as the icy chill in her eyes gradually shifted into a complex, probing scrutiny.

Just as the atmosphere in the room began to thaw, the conference room door was kicked wide open. A middle-income man in an impeccably tailored suit and slicked-back hair strode in, clutching a folder with a fake, professional smile plastered across his face. It was Lin Zhenguo, director of the Provincial Infrastructure Bureau, and currently Lu Chen’s biggest stumbling block.

He swept his gaze across the room, finally locking onto Lu Chen with undisguised contempt. Slamming the folder down onto the table, Lin Zhenguo barked, "Lu Chen, are you trying to disrupt the order of this meeting? The bureau has already decided to pull the plug on the project. What right do you still have to stand here and spout your high-and-mighty opinions?"

His voice reverberated through the conference room, heavy with unquestionable bureaucratic pressure. A few colleagues in the corner who had previously looked down on Lu Chen quickly lowered their heads, not daring to meet Lin Zhenguo’s eyes.

Lu Chen remained seated, neither standing up nor offering a defense. Within his field of vision, Lin Zhenguo’s body was wreathed in a layer of turbid gray mist—the tangible manifestation of tangled interests and political scheming. A barely perceptible, cold smirk touched the corner of Lu Chen's mouth as he tapped his finger lightly in mid-air.

The deduction mirror flashed with a faint glow, compressing the original gold vein model and transforming it into several high-precision patent blueprint drafts. At the same time, a string of numbers popped up in his account: Infrastructure Coins plus five. This was merely the basic yield, yet it was more than enough to unlock a higher-precision geological perspective function. He swiftly simulated the resource reallocation process, and once he confirmed the cash flow direction, his eyes regained their crystal-clear, razor-sharp calm.

He didn’t need to win Lin Zhenguo’s approval. All he needed was time—and a chance for a physical, on-site survey.

Sensing which way the wind was blowing and seizing the moment while Lin Zhenguo was distracted, Fatty Zhao stealthily shuffled over to Lu Chen’s side, pulled a wad of crumpled cash and a bank card from his jacket, and slipped them covertly into Lu Chen’s palm.

He leaned in close to Lu Chen's ear, whispering urgently in a voice meant for only the two of them to hear, "This is the material payment I owed you from before. There’s three hundred thousand on the card, shady funds I scraped together from those half-completed construction sites. It’s clean, ready to withdraw whenever. I’ve already squared things away with all the foremen on-site. The moment you need them, we can break ground."

Lu Chen gripped the bank card tightly, feeling the rough texture along its edges. He knew that this slick, profit-driven childhood friend of his had just become his most reliable, underworld-adjacent ally in this harsh world.

Stashing the card inside his jacket, Lu Chen lifted his head. His gaze swept past Lin Zhenguo’s shoulder, out the window toward that patch of red stress zone pulsing relentlessly beneath his deduction mirror. He spoke up. His voice wasn’t loud, yet it carried clearly through the entire conference room: "Director Lin, pulling the plug on the project is easy, but who's going to shoulder the astronomical compensation and public relations fallout that follows?"

He paused, scanning everyone present—including the colleagues who had been mocking him just moments ago. "I only need one weekend to drill into the east slope. If the data matches what I’ve provided, keep my proposal on the table. If it doesn't, I'll step down of my own accord and take full responsibility for everything."

This proposal struck straight at the vital spot, dragging Lin Zhenguo’s attempt at shifting the blame out into the open. Lin Zhenguo’s face instantly darkened, his previous smile freezing solid. Gritting his teeth, he threatened, "Fine. Young man, you've got guts. But if you start spouting nonsense again and interfering with decision-making, I'll have your professional license revoked on the spot and make you vanish from this industry for good."

Shen Wanqiu stepped forward, placing herself between Lin Zhenguo and Lu Chen. Though her expression remained haughty, her tone lacked the icy skepticism she’d shown earlier. Looking straight at Lin Zhenguo, she stated solemnly, "Director Lin, given that the data model Lu Chen provided is logically self-consistent, I suggest we follow his proposal and carry out a limited on-site survey."

"This isn't just about taking responsibility for the project; it’s also a standard, risk-mitigation protocol. If the survey results don't match, Lu Chen bears all the personal liability. If they do match, we'll need to re-evaluate the project initiation."

Her intervention made it difficult for Lin Zhenguo to issue a blunt refusal. After all, standing before academic authority, raw administrative power looked rather thin. Lu Chen quietly watched the scene unfold, knowing full well that Shen Wanqiu’s move stemmed partly from respect for the truth and partly from her arrogant nature—she refused to accept an unverified, half-baked conclusion.

The meeting sputtered to a bitter end amid the stalemate. Scowling fiercely, Lin Zhenguo stormed out first, and the other colleagues trickled away, leaving behind an awkward, heavy silence. Fatty Zhao trailed right behind Lu Chen, dusting off his clothes and grumbling, "Aiyah, holy crap! In this day and age, knowing the right people beats knowing the right logic every time."

"Still, brother, you really went and set a fire right under the big bosses' noses this time. You better watch your back—Lin Zhenguo’s bound to trip you up behind the scenes." Lu Chen nodded as he stepped out of the building. The air outside was crisp and chilly, the sunlight blinding, and the bustling traffic on the street stood in sharp contrast to the suffocating oppression of the conference room.

He took a deep breath. The Infrastructure Coin count inside his body twitched slightly once more, signaling that new simulation permissions had been unlocked. Standing by the roadside, his gaze pierced through the noisy crowd, locking onto the distant mountain that flashed with a dangerous red glow in his deduction mirror.

The light of the deduction mirror abruptly flared brighter. The previously smooth data stream violently convulsed, and a bright red warning line cut across his field of vision, locking onto the distant mountain range above.

The cold, mechanical voice rang out a second time. This time, it lacked its previous unhurried composure, dripping instead with an urgent, warning edge: "Abnormal stress concentration detected in the ahead mountain region. Fault displacement exceeds critical threshold. Emergency evacuation advised."

Lu Chen snapped his head up, his pupils reflecting the seemingly peaceful green mountain ahead. To his eyes, it looked like a balloon on the verge of bursting, ready to trigger a catastrophic collapse at any second. He gripped the bank card in his hand, picked up his pace, and bolted toward Fatty Zhao’s car parked by the roadside. The hustle and bustle of the city behind him faded instantly, leaving behind only the sound of his heart hammering like a drum.