Ten o'clock in the morning.
The sunlight above the stone forest was exceptionally bright.
On Qin Muyan's livestream feed.
Meng Hao's face appeared right on time.
"Yo."
"Brother Hao has appeared."
"Truly, he's emerged after a thousand calls!"
"Let's see what surprises you've brought!"
"..."
In the Mech Ji livestream, which had over a million viewers.
As Meng Hao appeared.
The bullet comments instantly flooded the screen.
Meng Hao was dressed very smartly today.
A black sharkskin jacket perfectly outlined his physique.
The portable mobile camera clipped to his baseball cap was particularly eye-catching.
"It seems my charm is immense!"
"You all must miss me dearly!"
"No hurry, the main course is coming right up!"
Meng Hao greeted the livestream audience with a chuckle.
His nonchalant words.
To the die-hard fans who supported him and the curious onlookers drawn by the news, it was just a casual greeting.
However, to the haters and keyboard warriors, it was a blatant mockery.
Meng Hao tapped the portable camera on his forehead.
The view switched to Meng Hao's first-person perspective.
What appeared before everyone's eyes was a giant, matte-colored mech.
Unlike the videos from the Bear Country.
This mech appeared exceptionally clear in the camera lens on Meng Hao's cap.
Pressure.
Technological sense.
The aesthetic beauty of mechanical violence.
It all rushed towards them.
"This is the first time piloting a mech in a multi-terrain environment!"
"It requires more care than controlling a mech in the desert!"
"If it bumps into buildings or civilian cars, that wouldn't be good!"
Meng Hao muttered to himself as he strode with agile steps towards the mech's torso, which was half-crouched with its hands on the ground.
"Cockpit, activate!"
As Meng Hao called out.
The yellow indicator lights in the mech's eye sockets, which were in standby mode, instantly turned to grass green.
A gentle mechanical voice, transmitted through radio waves, reached the ears of every viewer.
[Voiceprint verification… Highest authority holder, Meng Hao… Huarong Mech Level Two authorization, manual control mode initiated… Welcome, pilot!]
Buzz!
As a puff of white smoke billowed out.
The cockpit door in the mech's torso opened to both sides.
Instantly.
The livestream erupted with sounds of shock.
"Holy crap, that's amazing."
"This so-called toy mech can actually be manually controlled!" m..oΓg
"Damn, Brother Hao is badass!"
"Brother Hao is badass? How do you know?"
"Damn it, it's just an adjective!"
"..."
Amidst the exclamations.
Meng Hao grabbed the extending metal handle inside the cockpit and leaped in.
Inside the mech's torso cockpit.
A faint azure blue permeated.
The ergonomic chair, perfectly fitting the spine, was extremely comfortable.
As the metal handle retracted into the chassis and the cockpit door closed, Meng Hao turned his head, allowing the interior of the mech's cockpit to be fully displayed to the audience.
It was an extremely minimalist and radiant interior space.
Resembling a space sleeping pod, the mech's cockpit exuded a soft, sky-blue glow, akin to the color of seawater mixed with sunlight seen by divers on the ocean's surface.
"There are no buttons in this cockpit!"
"There are no foot pedals either."
"How is this controlled?"
"Could it be voice control?"
"..."
Just as the livestream was buzzing with discussion.
An extremely clear humming sound came from within the mech's control cabin.
"Mech external view screen activated…"
As a gentle electronic voice sounded.
The mech's control cabin instantly lit up.
The scenes transmitted from the external cameras deployed around the mech were instantly displayed within the control cabin in a 360-degree, no-dead-angle manner.
This level of clarity.
It didn't feel like being in a mech cockpit tens of meters high, but rather like controlling an anti-gravity device, suspended in mid-air.
Before anyone could recover from their shock.
The gentle internal electronic voice of the mech sounded again.
[Neural link activated… Synchronizing… 21%… 38%… 76%… 100%…]
As the neural link fully synchronized.
Dozens of cable-like lines, as thick as a little finger, attached themselves to Meng Hao's head, neck, limbs, joints, and other parts!
[System self-check… Completed!]
[Energy load self-check… Completed!]
[Drive system self-check… Completed!]
[Propulsion system…]
[Gyroscope…]
[Hydraulic actuators…]
[…Completed!]
As dozens of system self-check procedures were completed.
The mech's internal prompt tone gave a positive affirmation.
[All self-checks complete, mech is on standby, ready for activation!]
"Mech Ji, I've transferred the switching authority for all cameras along the test route to you!"
"I'll be responsible for piloting and testing the mech, and you can handle the livestream's hosting and control."
As Meng Hao's words fell.
Hundreds of image frames marked with serial numbers appeared on Qin Muyan's computer desktop.
She tried clicking on the first one.
Instantly.
The livestream's view changed.
The camera from Meng Hao's perspective shrunk and was fixed in the upper right corner of the overall view, occupying about 1/20th of the entire screen.
The main screen now showed the mech that Meng Hao was piloting.
From the visual perspective.
The mech, which had been half-crouched, was now in an upright position.
The mech's eye indicator lights, having activated Level Two authorization, had changed from bright yellow to smoky purple.
The mech, filled with霸气, futuristic technology, and the aesthetic beauty of mechanical violence, stood on the square in front of the Huarong Industrial factory, exuding an overwhelming sense of pressure.
In comparison, the mech images from films like Transformers and Pacific Rim were mere amateurs in front of Meng Hao's Huarong mech!
However, this was also normal.
No matter how realistic the mechs in films appeared, they were computer-rendered. While the mech Meng Hao was piloting was the real deal!
Fakes were fakes.
No matter how realistic, they couldn't compare to the real thing.
This was why discerning film directors, when filming grand scenes, would never opt for computer CG rendering if they could use live-action shooting.
Gazing at the incomparably shocking giant mech on the screen.
God knows how many male viewers involuntarily swallowed.
Men.
Who didn't love these tech-filled, metal-clad behemoths representing the ultimate aesthetic of violence.
Their adrenaline was already starting to surge.
"My God, I just remembered, Brother Hao claimed that the Huarong Industrial mech being tested today was their large-scale collectible toy?"
Finally.
In the face of such visually stunning imagery.
Those viewers who had been swayed by the haters and keyboard warriors finally remembered.
Meng Hao had always claimed that the mechs produced by his company were toys, large-scale collectibles.
Not what those malicious self-media claimed, that they were trying to piggyback on the popularity of combat mechs and military robots from the Bear Country.
From beginning to end, Brother Hao had emphasized that Huarong Industrial produced large-scale collectibles, toy mechs, not military products!