Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

by Stayrr

After suffering from a heat stroke while working under the scorching heat of summer, Lu Zhou, a hardworking but poor university student, somehow becomes the owner of an advanced technological system. With the cheat given by the system, his university life changes overnight. A Master’s degree? Easy. PhD? Not a problem. From a nobody, he quickly becomes a huge celebrity in the wor

17. 523

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Chapter 523: Competition for the Future

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The conference after the experiment continued into the evening.

Lu Zhou and the other researchers in the institute began to discuss in detail about the "liquid lithium neutron recovery" technical route.

Even though they hadn't made a specific plan, through this meeting, they had reached conclusions regarding the feasibility and general framework of this technical route.

After that, they just had to summarize the meeting contents and compile all of the problems. They would then host another meeting or two to come up with a relatively complete plan of attack.

The next meeting was set to be in three days. As for the next three days, Lu Zhou decided to give all of the researchers in the institute a small holiday.

Firstly, over the past year, these researchers hadn't had the chance to take a break. They needed to spend time with their family or girlfriend. Secondly, the neutron beam generated by the fusion reaction caused significant radiation damage to the first wall material. Not only was there a hole in the austenite structure material, but a layer of fluffy-looking metal scraps was formed on the surface.

This was a very interesting phenomenon.

Even though no one knew the science behind it.

Even Lu Zhou, the big-name Nobel Prize winner, couldn't come up with a suitable theory to explain this phenomenon. His initial guess was that the material underwent thermal stress. However, perhaps only the plasma inside the stellarator knew the true reason.

Lu Zhou planned on abandoning the idea of using austenite. He didn't want to dive deep into this research area.

In short, because the equipment had to be overhauled, they would have to wait at least another month until the next experiment.

When Lu Zhou got back home, the sky was basically pitch black.

When he opened the front door and walked inside, a small but sophisticated four-rotor drone flew by.

"Master! Welcome home!"

Lu Zhou looked at the shaky little guy hovering in the air and couldn't help but smile.

He felt quite nostalgic. This drone was named "Little Buddy"; it was a gift from the members at the Princeton drone club, which he was a consultant for.

After he took the drone back to China, he made some simple modifications and gave it to Xiao Ai.

Xiao Ai obviously loved this flying toy. Under Xiao Ai's request, Lu Zhou installed a speaker, changed the motors, and attached four short but dexterous motorized claws at the bottom.

Not only did Xiao Ai look after the house, but using this modified "Little Buddy" and other smart home devices like vacuum robots, Xiao Ai often helped do the chores around the house.

Of course, even though Lu Zhou gave Xiao Ai the right to control these devices, he imposed strict restrictions and code of conduct on its scope of activities.

For example, Xiao Ai could only operate within the Zhongshan International area and was forbidden to fly into other people's yards or to move fragile items.

Xiao Ai strictly obeyed Lu Zhou's orders. After all, no matter how smart it was, it was still a program. Its obedience was part of its core code.

"Um, Master, can you please do something for me?"

Lu Zhou put on a pair of slippers and walked toward the living room as he said, "What?"

Xiao Ai flew next to Lu Zhou and continued, "Can you add an LED display on the drone? Speaking of which, it feels weird talking in some other woman's voice. I prefer communicating through text. Embarrassed."

Lu Zhou: "…"

What the hell do you mean by another woman's voice? Isn't this just Google text to speech? You can just change it to a man's voice, right?

Also, why is it reading out loud its emotions? Is it trying to show off its upgraded emotional capabilities?

Why do I feel like Xiao Ai is going toward a strange direction…

Lu Zhou: "I refuse."

Xiao Ai: "Why?! About to cry."

Lu Zhou looked at the flying thing in the air and sighed.

Do you really need to ask?

Because I can't be bothered to do it.

Also, Lu Zhou couldn't imagine what it would be like if there were a flying LED screen showing texts and emojis.

Basically, he wouldn't do anything that was a burden and didn't benefit him.

Xiao Ai: "Then can you install an arm? I can control it myself… Cry."

When Lu Zhou heard this ridiculous request, he couldn't help but say, "I'll just build a robot for you. Do you want a Doraemon or a Dorami?"

Xiao Ai's drone stopped hovering, and it went silent for a bit.

Lu Zhou guessed that it was probably searching for what "Dorami" was. It probably already downloaded a complete set of data on his server and began "searching" through the data.

Lu Zhou shook his head. He turned around and went into his bathroom to take a shower.

Lu Zhou put on his pajamas. He then walked into the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He then went into the study room and sat in front of the computer as he browsed through the web.

Because his work recently had gotten so busy, he barely had the time to browse the web. He only heard from the other researchers that their thesis on Science attracted attention from all over the world, and they were on the trending page again or something.

Speaking of which, ever since he received the Nobel Prize, he had paid very little attention to what the media was saying about him, and he rarely accepted any interviews from reporters.

However, both the Chinese and Western media's interest toward him hadn't diminished.

Especially when he produced some kind of new research results.

Lu Zhou briefly looked at a few articles. He grabbed his cup and took a sip of the coffee.

Chinese reports regarding controllable fusion were basically all about the STAR machine and the 60-minute world-record. Zhou Chengfu hadn't come out and said anything yet. He probably was hiding with his tail between his legs. Lu Zhou didn't know if he didn't have anything to say or that no one wanted to run a report on him.

Other than that, compared to Chinese media, Lu Zhou's attention was more on the Western media.

The success of the STAR machine certainly boosted people's confidence in the controllable nuclear fusion field. Lu Zhou wanted to see the reactions of his peers and if anyone was triggered.

Suddenly, a news headline caught his attention.

It was a CNN news video.

The United States Secretary of Energy, Perry, stood at a press conference and faced the reporter's camera. He gave a speech on the recent development in the controllable nuclear fusion field and responded to the rumors that the US intended to withdraw from ITER.

"The United States' stance on future energy development hasn't changed.

"… We have invested tens of billions into fusion energy research projects. Since the 1950s, we have been at the forefront of controllable fusion technology.

"I have to reiterate here that the United States has no intention to withdraw from ITER. I haven't seen any documents regarding this on my desk.

"We will work closely with our allies in the study of fusion energy, and we will do our best to increase our research institutes' contribution in this area.

"If everything goes well, we will complete the construction of a controllable fusion demonstration reactor by 2030 and commercialize controllable fusion energy by 2050!

"We will complete our goal and fulfill our promise to our allies…"

Lu Zhou watched the secretary of the United States Department of Energy through his screen. He then murmured to himself while rubbing his finger on the mouse, "… Looks like the Americans are in a hurry."

Just like the United States Department of Energy, Lu Zhou could also ask other Chinese government departments to help him.

Also, China and Russia had an advantage in controllable nuclear fusion technology. This was one of the driving factors for the Congressional Budget Office to spend money on this research area.

In Lu Zhou's opinion, the competition for the future of controllable nuclear fusion had begun.

From now on, not only would the rocket scientists and nuclear engineers have visa application issues, but so would the controllable fusion researchers…

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Chapter 524: Kick Them Out

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Interestingly enough, while Lu Zhou was relaxing and drinking coffee while watching a video of Perry talking to reporters, across the Pacific Ocean, in the United States Department of Energy office, Perry was looking at a photo of Lu Zhou.

However, Perry wasn't as relaxed as him…

Two weeks ago, the Jinling controllable fusion research institute made a breakthrough in plasma confinement time. This shook the entire plasma physics community.

Over the past two weeks, Perry had received at least 30 written letters regarding this matter.

Some were from the National Academy of Sciences, others were from the PPPL at Princeton.

In particular, the letter from the National Academy of Sciences contained a signature of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and former Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu.

Not only did this letter portray the importance of controllable nuclear fusion energy, but there was also one central idea, which was money.

Also, there were letters from the CIA, but they didn't contain anything worth noting.

Rather than learning about Lu Zhou's personal information and his shining academic achievements, Perry wanted to know about China's controllable nuclear fusion advancements as well as how far China was from mature nuclear fusion technology.

Unfortunately, this all happened too fast.

Before the STAR machine completed a one hour magnetic confinement time, no one believed that they would succeed. Even the Chinese people didn't believe it.

Didn't they say even two minutes would be difficult?

That's what the head of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center told me!

"What a complete idiot…"

Perry threw the document on the table and couldn't help but curse.

He didn't need anyone to tell him the importance of controllable nuclear fusion technology, he was well aware of its significance.

However, he also knew how expensive this research would be.

Instead of the useless CIA reports and information, what he needed was advice from experts.

Perry sat in his office chair and thought for a bit. He made up his mind, stood up from his chair, and walked out of the office.

He looked at his assistant sitting outside his office and demanded.

"Gather the NIF 1 project directors, and the head of the PPPL controllable fusion energy project… I don't care where they are, I want to see their a*ses here by tomorrow."

"I understand, sir."

Looking at how serious Perry was, his assistant immediately knew the importance of this matter, and he immediately began to reach for his telephone.

Perry nodded and was ready to leave.

Before attending the meeting, he had to go to the White House first.

But he suddenly remembered something. He stopped his footsteps and looked back at his assistant, who was on the phone.

"Also contact the CIA, remember to ask them to send someone reliable."

…

Around six or seven years ago, the US$3.5 billion NIF project failed, which tumbled the American controllable nuclear fusion research industry. It even affected the entire international nuclear fusion field.

The inertial confinement fusion technical route was almost terminated. If it weren't for this laser ignition machine, which could still undergo some nuclear tests, the entire project would have been scrapped by the Congressional Budget Office.

The tokamak was the only device that could still receive some research funding, but it wasn't as easy as before.

Especially because none of the countries wanted to spend more than the others on ITER funding, not to mention America had intentions on withdrawing from the ITER Organization. The future of the controllable fusion was gloomy.

However, no one expected that the light under the Purple Mountain would illuminate the entire world…

Right now, Ed Moses, head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the National Ignition Facility, was sitting in the office of the Department of Energy.

Sitting next to him was Terrence Brog, head of the PPPL controllable fusion laboratory, and several of his friends, who were also in the controllable fusion field.

This wasn't their first time being summoned by the higher authorities.

Every month or so, they would be summoned by the Department of Energy or the Congressional Budget Office, who would ask them why they needed their budgets to be increased.

They were big money spenders; negotiating with bureaucrats on the topic of research funding was almost a part of their daily research.

However, unlike the past, this time the Department of Energy didn't summon them regarding budgeting issues…

The pair looked at each other with surprise in their eyes.

Obviously, there were other people outside of the Department of Energy in this room. There was a low-key man in a suit, who didn't fit in with his surrounding environment.

"Let me introduce myself, I'm Helms, CIA."

When Ed Moses heard the word CIA, he raised his eyebrows in interest.

"When did the CIA become interested in the NIF?"

"I'm not very interested in the NIF. Rather, I'm more interested in the PPPL." Helms spun the pen in his hand and looked at Brog as he said, "Mr. Terrence Brog, I've heard that you have worked with Professor Lu Zhou in the past, is this true?"

Brog nodded and said, "Yes."

Helms: "What type of person do you think he is?"

Brog said, "You should ask his supervisor or his students about this question. I don't know about his personal life, our communication is strictly professional."

"His professional side is what I want to know." Helms flipped through his notebook and said, "Our people have noticed that around two years ago, a transaction happened from an overseas account into the research fund account."

Brog: "During his time at Princeton, he served as a consultant for the PPPL on the He3 project. We ran into funding issues at the time, so he helped out a little."

Helms asked, "Can you explain in detail the contents of the He3 project?"

Brog: "It's about the insertion and observation of He3 particles in the fusion machine's plasma… If you think that this project gave the STAR Institute critical technology, then rest assured. Nuclear fusion technology is important, but the research results itself is available to the public. If you don't know what I mean, you can go ask your physics professor."

Helms twisted the ballpoint pen in his hand and wrote on his notebook as he said, "Unfortunately, my major in university was psychology, I haven't studied physics before."

Brog quietly muttered, "You must have learned it in high school."

Helms either pretended like he didn't hear it or he really didn't hear it. He ignored Brog's comment and looked at Moses for a second.

"If they didn't use the technology from PPPL, I want to know why a research institute that was established less than a year ago, using a second-hand stellarator, was able to produce such incredible results."

Ed Moses coughed and said, "The answer is simple. The Chinese are willing to invest money into this technology. Even though most of our problems can't be solved with money alone, but when this money is correctly used by the right people, the situation is different."

Perry, who was sitting at the other end of the conference table, said, "Your research funding is almost just as much as theirs. Are you saying that you didn't use the money in the right places?"

Ed Moses looked at him with an awkward expression as he said, "Of course I'm not saying that, I can guarantee that every penny is used in the right place… But, trial and error is part of research."

Helms didn't care for Ed Moses' reply, he looked at his notebook and continued to ask a lot of questions.

Some were regarding their cooperation with ITER, others were about the STAR Stellarator Research Institute.

The meeting lasted for around two hours.

After the meeting was over, Perry dismissed the summoned experts and asked Helms.

"What do you think?"

Helms used to work in the diplomatic system, so Perry obviously wouldn't take his advice too seriously, but it was worth consulting.

Helms looked at the notebook in his hand and thought for a bit before speaking.

"According to our reports, China has already launched a controllable fusion demonstration reactor project. However, judging from the meeting just now, other than that Science thesis, our experts have no understanding of the STAR research institute whatsoever.

"Combining the facts, we can assume that China has borrowed a lot of technology and research from the ITER project. They stole their technology from us, but they don't want to share their research. I think this is unreasonable."

Perry raised his eyebrows with interest. "So?"

"So, I suggest to negotiate with the Chinese, to let the STAR research institute disclose more technical details." Helms paused for a second and said in a serious tone, "Otherwise, we'll kick them out of the ITER project."

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Chapter 525: Professor At Alma Mater

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Around two months ago, when Lu Zhou's research was at its busiest, he often thought that when he had more free time, he would go outside and do something he normally wouldn't.

However, when he had free time, he found out that he wasn't interested in the plans he made anymore.

No matter where he went, it wasn't as comfortable as being in his own home, especially in his own study room.

This was the only room in the mansion where he could feel relaxed and at peace.

However, the only downside was that whenever he was here, his mind would inadvertently drift to the unsolved research project topics.

Even though the process of creating knowledge was enjoyable, if he was studying these problems during his vacation, then there would be no point in having a vacation in the first place.

Lu Zhou recently discovered how important it was to have a hobby not related to research.

Lu Zhou thought back to how he relaxed when he was in Princeton. On the second day of his holiday, Lu Zhou was feeling cabin fever, so he sat in Wang Peng's car and came to Jin Ling University.

Lu Zhou originally just wanted to walk around the campus. He didn't expect to run into Principal Xu, who invited him to his office.

Principal Xu asked his assistant to make two cups of tea. He sat on the sofa and began to chat.

"How is it? Are you used to being here?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Why are you putting it like that? You sound like I haven't been here in a long time."

Professor Xu smiled and said, "I didn't ask about your personal life, I meant the research side. You're living in Zhongshan International now. All the professors at Jin Ling University worship you, are you not satisfied?"

He paused for a second and said, "There must be a difference between the Chinese and international research institute environment."

Lu Zhou said, "There is definitely a difference, but I think it's whatever."

At the very least, Lu Zhou was pretty satisfied with his own Institute for Advanced Study.

"Speaking of which, how is your controllable fusion project going?" Principal Xu suddenly remembered something and added, "Ah, if you can't tell me, just pretend like I didn't ask."

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "There are no secrets, the research is available to the public anyway. Everything is being done step by step. The eyes, brain, and two legs are all in place. There are only some small problems, like the torso that needs to be created."

The "eye" was the He3 atom probe technology, the head was Xiao Ai's supercomputer, the legs were the outer field coil, made from SG-1 superconducting material, while the torso was the reactor itself.

Strictly speaking, there were also two "arms", which were the ferrofluid electric generators, but that was handled by the China National Nuclear Corporation.

Principal Xu sat up straight in surprise and said, "Does this mean there's hope?"

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "It's difficult, the torso is probably the most difficult."

From the carbon fiber composite to the first wall liquid lithium neutron recovery system, there were way more problems than he had anticipated.

The only fortunate thing was that he had a rough feasible idea on how to solve these problems.

All he had to do now was to follow these ideas and solve any other problems along the way.

Lu Zhou picked up the teacup on the table and diverted the conversation.

"Let's not talk about nuclear fusion anymore. I'm on holiday now, and the reason I came here was to get away from the research project."

Principal Xu smiled and said, "If you really wanted to relax, you should have gone fishing or hiking, why are you at a college? Oh yeah, school is starting in September. If you aren't busy, how about you say a couple of words at the opening ceremony?"

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and said, "I'm not busy, but I don't have anything to say."

Principal Xu smiled and said, "I'm not asking you to speak for long, just say a couple of words. Even just one sentence is fine. If anything, most of the students at Jin Ling University this year applied here because of you."

"I'll see. If I'm free, I'll definitely come." Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something, and he smiled and said, "Oh yeah, last time you said I would become a tenured professor here. It's been half a year since I've been back, so where is my offer?"

Professor Xu said, "You want to become a professor at Jin Ling University?"

Lu Zhou joked, "Does my alma mater not welcome me?"

"Not at all, why didn't you mention this earlier!" Principal Xu slapped his thigh and laughed. He said, "The reason why I never brought this up was that I didn't want to waste your time. If you really want to come back and teach, you can become the dean of any department you wish for; chemistry, physics, mathematics, whatever you want!"

Originally, Principal Xu wanted to bring this matter up, but he didn't expect the situation to suddenly change. After Lu Zhou returned to China, Lu Zhou immediately became the chief designer on the Chinese project and an academic leader in the controllable nuclear fusion field.

Normally speaking, even if the school offered millions in research funding, not many people would be willing to teach undergraduate students.

Anyone at the academician level that controlled a few dozen projects, not only were they bored at teaching undergraduate students, but they often ignored their PhD students as well.

After all, there weren't many people that would think that teaching was a fun and interesting thing.

Therefore, the principal didn't mention this matter.

However, he didn't expect Lu Zhou to bring up this matter, making this was a wonderful surprise.

"Forget about becoming a dean, I can't handle an administrative position. Just give me a mathematics department office." Principal Xu looked eager, so Lu Zhou looked at him and said, "If I can't teach the classes well, it'll only affect the students' final exam marks. If I do a bad job at being the department dean, I'll ruin the students' futures."

For Lu Zhou, thinking about simple problems outside of research relaxed his tight brain, and it also gave him inspiration.

Not to mention, research couldn't be done by one person alone. If he could train a couple of talented students, it would make his life much easier.

He would pass on doing administrative work.

After all, he didn't have any desire for things like power.

"Okay then, if you don't want to work a management role, we won't force you. It's decided!" Principal Xu smiled and said, "From now on, our Jin Ling University is a Nobel Prize level school."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Hasn't it always been?"

Principal Xu: "There's a big difference between an honorary professor and a working professor. I'll ask someone to handle the procedure for you. In a few days' time, when you're free, go pick up your stuff at the administrative office. If you don't have time, I can find someone to send it to you. Purple Mountain is closeby anyway."

Lu Zhou: "I'll pick them up myself…"

Suddenly, they heard a knocking sound from the office door.

A respectful yet unfamiliar voice traveled through the office door.

"Is Professor Lu there?"

…

Europe.

Wendelstein 7-X research institute.

The equipment was slowly shutting down, Professor Millek, president of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, stared straight at the device. He spoke with a poker-face.

"What's the result like?"

Professor Keriber took a deep breath and replied, "We've tried to improve the control scheme. There is a slight increase in the plasma confinement time, but we're still quite a long way from one hour."

Millek: "Be more specific."

Keriber looked at his assistant next to him as his mouth twitched bitterly.

"… We increased it by 102 seconds."

If this were a few months ago, an increased confinement time measured in seconds would be an exciting achievement. It could even be counted as an in-progress result, with press conferences and media reports.

But now, the improvement measured in seconds had lost its meaning…

Professor Millek nodded and didn't say anything.

He was the only one that came here; he wasn't accompanied by government officials. As a scholar himself, he knew he shouldn't put all of the blame on Keriber.

Any research project had its own development speed; impatience would only cause trouble.

Millek went silent for a while before he suddenly said, "The Americans are planning to kick China out of the ITER organization."

Professor Keriber's heart was shocked when he heard this, and he gasped in disbelief, "Why?!"

"The reason is intellectual property… Or rather, the excuse. After all, there are a lot of specifics that aren't clear to me."

Keriber: "… Will the ITER Council agree?"

Professor Millek replied, "If they have to, they will."

Keriber had a complicated expression on his face as he said, "What about the funds that come from China? Just looking at it from the monetary perspective alone…"

Professor Millek: "The United States promises to cover the funding."

Keriber complained, "Another promise? They've never even fulfilled their past funding promises!"

"There's no point for us to discuss this. After all, we haven't fulfilled our own promises." Professor Millek looked at Keriber, who was triggered. He then added, "Also, I'm just giving you the facts."

Keriber took a deep breath and calmed down. He quietly muttered, "I don't understand, why don't they leave themselves?"

Ten years ago, the Americans had been yelling about leaving ITER. Now, not only were they not leaving, but they were kicking other people out of ITER.

Professor Millek went silent for a while. He pretended like he didn't hear anything and sighed.

"ITER is considering to adjust the planned tokamak demonstration reactor to a stellarator demonstration reactor. Fortunately, the tokamak project hasn't started yet, so the loss isn't too big. I'm guessing after the next conference, the relevant official documents will be released. The Wendelstein 7-X, which is you guys, will play an important role in this."

Professor Keriber smiled bitterly and said, "So you're saying, you want us to 'go toe-to-toe' with Professor Lu?"

This is asinine.

Scientific research isn't a boxing match.

Instead of having a winner and loser, it'd be better to cooperate and form a win-win situation.

Especially for research regarding mankind's future, cooperation is far more meaningful than a competition.

As if Professor Millek understood what Professor Keriber was thinking, without expressing his own opinions, he gently nodded.

"You can think of it like this, we have to be ahead of China."

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Chapter 526: The Higher-ups Value Your Opinion

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

In November 1985, the United States "Air Force One" arrived in Geneva. The US president at that time, Ronald Reagan, met with the new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. They began negotiations on nuclear disarmament.

The Iron Curtain was in effect at that time. All in all, this "meeting" was generally considered as one of the ice breakers for the cold war.

However, the first meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev didn't go as well as expected. The two parties were discussing the "Strategic Defense Initiative" as well as the debate on human rights and "regional issues". The meeting looked like it was going to end on a bad note.

At the end of the meeting, around five o'clock in the morning, the two parties finally agreed to issue a joint statement, which didn't contain any actual promises.

At the end of this joint statement, these two world leaders announced an ambiguous statement, which was that the two countries would develop a new energy source that was in the common interest of mankind.

This was the origin of the ITER.

Therefore, about the rumors that America would leave ITER…

Keriber himself knew that this would never happen.

Even though the United States had never fulfilled its 25% research funding promise, ITER itself was a politically-motivated project.

Normally, research on controllable nuclear fusion was a "lone island", away from all the politics.

However, the premise for this was that no one knew how far in the future this technology was.

Thinking about this from a logical perspective, if he had to choose between working at an American research institute versus cooperating with Professor Lu, he would undoubtedly choose the latter, to cooperate with the scholar who had already made significant achievements in the fusion field.

Unfortunately, as a researcher, he had no power in this matter.

Even the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, who was backing him, had no power.

If the United States put pressure on ITER through the EU and used intellectual property protection as an excuse, kicking China out would be a piece of cake, just like what happened to the Galileo plan.

When Professor Millek turned away and began leaving, Keriber looked at him with a hint of worry on his face.

Strictly speaking, these weren't problems that he had to think about.

But if his fears really came true, then the ITER Organization might face its collapse.

After all, this organization was never that stable; everyone was only tied by the same dream.

No one really placed their energy dreams on the futuristic controllable fusion energy. However, as he sat in this coffee shop, he could hear students from the University of Greifswald chatting about what would happen after controllable fusion technology became a reality.

It was hard to tell if the light at the Purple Mountain would really ignite the future energy field or blow out the last flame.

If they didn't have any expectations from the beginning, maybe they could've gone further?

…

A man in his early thirties knocked on the office door; he had a lanky figure.

According to him, his name was He Mingxuan, secretary for the Energy Bureau, Director Lu's right-hand man.

When Lu Zhou went to Beijing, he met this guy before, but they didn't communicate.

Even though Lu Zhou didn't know what the Energy Bureau wanted from him, he still politely invited him to sit down.

He Mingxuan sat down next to Principal Xu, which was across from Lu Zhou. He said in a sincere manner, "I originally planned to visit you at Zhongshan International, but you weren't there. This situation is urgent. My apologies for bothering you."

"It's fine, you don't have to be this polite, I'm on vacation anyway, so I'm not busy." Lu Zhou looked at Secretary He and said, "Actually I want to ask, why are you in such a hurry?"

Principal Xu noticed Secretary He looking at him, so he smiled and put down the teacup.

"It seems that you two have matters to discuss, I won't be in your way."

The principal had participated in many national-level scientific research projects, and many of them had sensitive information. He knew exactly what he should and shouldn't listen to.

The old man stood up and left his office.

Secretary He looked at the office door. When it was closed, he sighed and put on a more serious face as he said, "The Americans are planning to kick us out of ITER."

When Lu Zhou heard this sudden news, he frowned. "Is the source reliable?"

Secretary He nodded and said, "I'm 90% certain. In fact, they've had this idea for quite a long time."

When Lu Zhou heard this, he couldn't help but worry.

This was definitely not a piece of good news for him.

The STAR-2 project was similar to China's original CFTER project; it wasn't affiliated with the ITER project. However, various research institutes around the world more or less benefited from ITER.

If China was to leave the ITER project, not only would it mean that its previous tens of billions of "subscription fees" paid to ITER would all go to waste, but it would also mean that China's controllable nuclear fusion research institutes that were doing academic exchange with other international research institutes under ITER would also be interrupted.

Other than the research losses, the billion-dollar contracts with Chinese companies would also face the risk of being replaced.

Lu Zhou didn't know a lot about diplomatic affairs, but from a scientific research perspective, this was undoubtedly a heavy blow.

Lu Zhou frowned and asked, "What's America's reason for doing this?"

"Their reason is intellectual property. United States experts on the ITER board of directors have asked us questions. They think that we have concealed our research results while taking in technology, which violates the spirit of ITER…" Secretary He had a bitter smile on his face as he added, "Of course, they don't need a reason."

That's right, they didn't need a reason.

After hearing the secretary's explanation, even though Lu Zhou understood the meaning behind it, he still shook his head.

"This is outrageous. We've done our duty in disclosing the research progress on the controllable fusion project. We are not obligated to disclose any additional research. If the STAR computer uses Intel's chips, does that mean we can ask them to disclose their chip technology?"

Secretary He silently took out his notebook and wrote down Lu Zhou's words.

Lu Zhou looked at the notebook and paused for a second before asking, "Why are you taking notes?"

"I think you put it nicely." Secretary He smiled helplessly and said, "At least… we can repeat that when we deal with diplomatic affairs."

However, logic and reason had never been effective.

Lu Zhou took a moment to process all of this before asking, "What are their specific requests?"

Secretary He: "They're asking to send an academic visiting team composed of ITER members to permanently reside at the STAR Stellarator Research Institute, and that they would be involved in the research. They're also asking us to release the latest production technology of the SG-1 superconducting coil and all of the technical details for the modified STAR stellarator as well as the control scheme."

Lu Zhou began to contemplate.

The superconducting material was an easy deal. The SG-1 material itself had a public patent while the SG-1 wires were exported to other countries. The only secret involved was the production process technology developed by Baosheng Group with the assistance of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Regardless of whether they released the technology or not, it didn't have anything to do with Lu Zhou.

However, the control scheme was a big problem.

The control scheme that the Jin Ling University computer science department developed was definitely worse than that of Wendelstein 7-X laboratory's.

The reason why the STAR machine could achieve a one-hour plasma confinement time was partly due to the SG-1 superconducting material, but Xiao Ai deserved most of the credit.

In short, there was no way he would ever release the control scheme.

Making a request like this was ridiculous.

Seeing that Lu Zhou didn't speak for a while, Secretary He asked in a serious manner, "This thing is tricky. After we heard the news, we held meetings for two days straight, but we haven't made a decision. The higher-ups value your opinion. If Director Lu were free, he would've personally came to Jinling to visit you.

"In your opinion… What do you think we should do?"

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Chapter 527: The Thought Behind the Gift

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"In your opinion… what do you think we should do?"

Secretary He was asking for his advice in a humble manner.

Lu Zhou became silent.

This was a difficult question to answer.

Putting it bluntly, he wasn't an expert in international relations. He was only responsible for matters in scientific research.

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and slowly said, "I'm not the one that should answer this question. I'm just a scholar, I'm not a diplomat. The only thing I can promise is that before 2025, we will create a demonstration reactor."

Lu Zhou paused for a second. He looked at Secretary He in the eye and continued, "If you really want to hear my opinion, I think the key to this problem is how we plan on using this technology."

He Mingxuan: "Plan on using?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes."

It was very difficult to monopolize a known technology.

Whenever the use of a piece of technology was present, the difficulty in solving that technology would reduce exponentially.

An example of this was the Manhattan Project. This project gathered all of the top western non-German scientists. More than 100,000 people participated in this project, in which they spent two billion USD to successfully create the first atomic bomb. President Truman even complained that the cost of developing an atomic bomb was more expensive than buying the entire universe…

Obviously, Truman's complaint was an overstatement. But it still showed how expensive the costs were at that time.

However, the nuclear tests that followed obviously didn't cost as much.

If the "STAR-2" project was successful, China would be able to start an energy revolution, but it probably wouldn't monopolize this technology.

The principle of maximizing gains was to use one's technological advantage in a field to expand one's influence and become the standard in the field, which would then cause everyone else to try and catch up to that standard.

Of course, the most important thing was that they could use fusion energy as leverage, to exchange for China's political and governance interests.

Secretary He went silent for a while.

"The thing you just talked about, we haven't discussed it in the meeting."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I understand, after all, these things are far away in the future.

"But what I want to say is that if we are only planning to be a participant in the international community, then we can give requests of our owns in exchange with America's demands.

"However, if for example, we want to become the one that sets the rules…"

Lu Zhou went silent for a bit before he continued, "Then the suffering and obstacles on the road are inevitable."

When Secretary He heard this, he couldn't help but hold his breath.

The one that sets the rules…

This sounds…

This really is an emotionally intense sentence.

He tightened his fists, which were resting on his knees, and slowly relaxed. He kept repeating this motion and took a deep breath.

He wasn't a decision-maker; he was only someone that conveyed opinions. However, at this moment, he felt the need to ask on behalf of Director Lu and the country's higher-ups.

Secretary He's heart was beating out of his chest. "What happens to the STAR-2 project if we exit from ITER?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and answered confidently, "There will be an impact, but not a lot."

He Mingxuan finally had a smile on his face.

"Since you put it like this, we are relieved! I will convey your opinions to the higher-ups."

Lu Zhou nodded.

"Please make sure you do."

The secretary didn't want to stay in the office for long.

Secretary He planned to immediately return to Beijing, so he chugged the tea and bid farewell to Lu Zhou.

Lu Zhou accompanied Secretary He downstairs and was about to leave as well. He was contemplating whether or not he should say goodbye to Principal Xu when he suddenly ran into him.

When Principal Xu saw Lu Zhou standing downstairs alone, he walked over with a stack of documents in his hand and smiled.

"You guys are done?"

"Yeah." Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly and said, "My apologies for borrowing your office."

"It's fine, not a big deal, your matters are more important." Principal Xu waved his hand and smiled. He handed a document to Lu Zhou and said, "I had nothing to do when you were in my office, so I went over to the academic affairs office and finished the hiring process for you."

Lu Zhou took the document from Principal Xu's hands and asked, "Hiring process?"

Professor Xu smiled and said, "Didn't you say you wanted to be a professor here? Sign this document, and you'll be a member of our mathematics department!"

Lu Zhou was surprised. "Already?"

Principal Xu said, "It's better to get this sorted now before you sleep on it and change your mind."

Lu Zhou laughed and said, "That's not going to happen. Okay then, I'll sign this document. I'll bring it back to you tomorrow."

Principal Xu: "Are you not going to ask about the salary?"

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly.

"It's on the document anyway. I'll just look at like later. I'm not in a hurry either. Or maybe you can tell me now?"

"I'll just tell you now. If you read it later, you'll probably think it's too low and blame me."

Principal Xu smiled and pause for a second. He then said, "As for your compensation, actually we had a meeting about this last year. Our final decision is an annual salary of 4 million yuan, with 5 million in housing subsidies… I know you probably don't care about this pocket change, but this is the highest compensation we can give you. As for your research funding, since you're already the manager of a 40 billion yuan project, I'm guessing you don't need any additional research funding, and I won't embarrass myself with an offer. But if you have any other needs, make sure to tell me, and we will try our best to help you!"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What do you mean by pocket change? This is higher than my salary at Princeton."

Shuimu University was the top university in China, and the salary for their "Nobel Prize level scholar" was only 1.7 million yuan a year.

A 2 million annual salary was basically the upper limit for academicians.

As for the eight-figure salaries posted in newspapers, most of them included benefits such as housing and insurance. The most significant one of them all was scientific research funding.

Jin Ling University gave him an annual salary of four million, which was double the usual maximum professor salary. Principal Xu himself had to have gone through a lot of debates and discussions to secure this for Lu Zhou.

For Lu Zhou, he didn't need nor care about the annual salary.

But he was quite touched by this gesture from his alma mater…

…

Once the energy problem was solved, many other problems would be solved as well. However, there would be more problems that follow.

Just looking at the present alone, the cake hadn't even finished baking yet. At most, the creamy buttery smell was coming out of the oven. However, people were already desperate to eat the cake. What would happen when the cake was finally out of the oven?

What happened today at ITER was only a preview for the future.

At night.

An office in Beijing.

Director Lu was smoking next to a window when he looked at his watch.

The meeting would begin in around an hour.

Director Lu's head hurt when he thought about the recent events, and he pinched his eyebrows.

Even though they anticipated the actions by the US, the US executed so fast that many people, including him, were caught by surprise.

It was obvious that the Americans were coming after the STAR-2 project.

Suddenly, he heard a knock from his office door.

Director Lu sighed and put out the cigarette. He walked to his desk and sat down.

"Come in."

His secretary opened the door and walked in.

Director Lu looked at Secretary He and asked, "Have you met with Professor Lu yet?"

He Mingxuan nodded.

"We met in the afternoon."

He then immediately began to report on what happened during his conversation with Lu Zhou.

After hearing the secretary's report, Director Lu tapped his index finger on the desk and went silent for a bit.

"Is that what he said?"

He Mingxuan nodded seriously and said, "Yes… He promised me that even if China withdraws from ITER, the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project will not be significantly affected."

Director Lu's furrowed brows finally relaxed, and he nodded in relief.

"Okay, I understand!"

This was probably the best news he heard all day.

This should do the trick!

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Chapter 528: We're Relying On You!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The ITER Council is the highest decision-making body of the ITER program and organization. It consisted of four representatives from each seven ITER country members. These representatives were authorized by their respective foreign ministries and were nominated according to the needs of the meeting. Their roles and responsibilities were very similar to those of a company's board of directors.

However, unlike a company, there were no "company bylaws" that could restrict the ITER Council's decision.

The voting power of the various members wasn't necessarily entirely determined from their country's technological strength and contribution to a specific field. Rather, it depended more on the international relations abilities of various countries.

One had to admit that the United States was definitely strong in this area. The questions asked by the American representatives to the Chinese representatives were quite scary.

However, at this conference, the situation changed.

At this board of directors meeting, Chinese representative Luo Zhanyuan, who was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, made a clear and strong response to the request made by the US representative.

"We have already fulfilled our duty and obligation to disclose the details of our controllable fusion experiment. If just because the STAR machine uses a certain technology that we have to disclose all of the other technological details, then I must responsibly remind you that the STAR machine control scheme uses Intel's chips. Before asking for our generosity, maybe you guys should show a little generosity of your own?"

After hearing the translation, the American representative Adam Cohen stared coldly at Luo Zhanyuan and said in a serious manner, "This is an outrageous request. Intel is not a cooperation unit of ITER, the chip technology is their private property. Also, this is totally different than what we were discussing!"

Even though Minister Cohen spoke in an aggressive tone, Luo Zhanyuan didn't hesitate before making a comeback.

"The STAR Stellarator Research Institute and their partner companies are also not cooperative units of ITER. The SG-1 superconducting material technology and the STAR machine control scheme belongs to their respective private units. In my opinion, this is the same as Intel."

Adam Cohen: "You guys are manipulating the situation!"

Luo Zhanyuan said impolitely, "Are you talking about yourselves?"

"…"

The meeting basically became a "battlefield" for the American and Chinese representatives. The two sides were bickering back and forth on the issue of intellectual property.

Other countries' representatives didn't seem to be interested enough to join in on the dispute, but it was obvious that they weren't indifferent either.

Director-General Motojima was also sitting at the conference table. He suddenly sighed gently.

"Looks like this conference is going to end on an unhappy note."

The Japanese representative Ishida was sitting next to him, and he turned slightly to look at the Director-General.

"Motojima, are you not interested in how Professor Lu did it?"

Last year, the Cray-XC50 supercomputer officially became in service for the Rokkasho Fusion Energy Research Centre, to provide computational support for Japan's national controllable nuclear fusion research and to contribute to the ITER program. Although the supercomputer's computing power was only ranked around 15 in the super-calculation rankings, the supercomputer was designed for controllable nuclear fusion research. Therefore, one couldn't compare it directly to the other general-purpose supercomputers.

Just like how Anton was designed for computational chemistry, Cray-XC50 was equivalent to a large harvester, which was designed for plasma physics and controllable nuclear fusion.

Coincidentally, the Japanese lacked a set of effective control schemes. If China agreed to ask the STAR Stellarator Research Institute to disclose their control scheme, then they could improve their research results.

However, the probability of this happening was low.

Motojima stared at the two representatives bickering and went silent for a while. He then answered Ishida's question, "I am curious, but I have to say, this is not an honorable way to go about this. America wants to show its strengths through the ITER project. But the possibility of China compromising is low. If Mr. Cohen continues to stand his ground, the final result might be China getting kicked out of the ITER project."

Ishida asked, "Is this not what the United States wants?"

"Not necessarily." Motojima shook his head and said, "At least not before China discloses their research results. It's not in the interests of the Americans to kick China out of the ITER project."

Zhou Chengfu, who was sitting at the conference table, could feel the representatives from the other countries staring at him. He felt a mix of emotions.

Ever since the meeting began, he could smell the gunpowder. Even before the meeting began, he could see the signs of a fight.

First, it was that internal domestic meeting. Then, it was that representative from the Air Force, who was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Luo Zhanyuan's resilience was beyond his expectations.

All of the signs showed that the higher-ups seemed to have given up on the ITER fantasy. It was almost foreseeable that they faced being removed from ITER, and they probably wouldn't receive their next round of ITER funding.

The country's attitude toward ITER turned sharply. As the director of China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center, he was caught in a dilemma.

Logically speaking, he didn't want to leave ITER.

At the start, they invested a lot of money to join ITER. If they really decided to leave now, not only would it mean that those efforts would go to waste, but it would also mean that the Chinese research institutes that were cooperating with the ITER countries would cease their cooperation.

And the most important thing was that, if China decided to leave ITER, then there would be no point for China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center to exist. Even though they wouldn't immediately disband the center, they would definitely be restructured.

Also, it was foreseeable that China's future research in fusion energy would be focused on the stellarator.

And his ten years of hard work…

When Zhou Chengfu thought about this, his emotions became more complicated.

Right now, he wasn't sure whether he was concerned about China's future controllable nuclear fusion field or his own future…

…

The dramatic changes at ITER wasn't a pleasant thing for Lu Zhou.

He had a lot of cooperation plans with the Max Planck Society, but now, it seemed that the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory might change from partners to potential competitors.

He had to admit that these changes gave him a mix of emotions.

However, the one positive upside was that after he finally completed the design plans for the liquid lithium neutron recovery system, there was a piece of good news from the China National Nuclear Corporation.

Chief Engineer Wang arrived at Jinling again. Not only did he bring hope for using a ferrofluid electric energy generator on the fusion reactor, but he also brought a more detailed design sketch.

Even though it was only a sketch, the entire basic structure and all of the connection port placements for the ferrofluid electric generator were on the design sketch.

Lu Zhou briefly looked at the sketch.

"There aren't any obvious problems… Oh yeah, what is the expected energy conversion efficiency?"

Academician Wang: "The initial estimate of 50% is a piece of cake. It might be even higher. However, before the real thing is built, it's too early to say."

Lu Zhou was surprised. "50%? That high?"

Academician Wang smiled and said, "That's just a conservative estimate. We've talked with experts from the Institute of Electrical Engineering. Like you said, ferrofluid electric energy isn't efficient when used in thermal power, but it is quite feasible when applied to nuclear fusion power. Other than the heating plasma problem and the effect from the carbon deposit and cinder, the problems we encountered when trying to use thermal power are non-existent."

Lu Zhou: "How long will it take to build this thing?"

Academician Wang thought for a bit and said, "Around next year, other than the connection port, the rest of the design is easy. It wouldn't be very troublesome to make.

"The generator isn't a big issue, it can be solved with time. When the electrical engineering experts heard you plan on using ferrofluid electric energy for the nuclear fusion reactor, they were thrilled. As long as you can build the reactor, we can definitely handle the generator.

"Speaking of which, I'm a little worried for you guys. I heard that the United States plans on kicking us out of the ITER project. It looks like they're trying to set up a technology blockade, are you guys fine?"

When Lu Zhou heard Academician Wang's statement, he smiled.

"You don't have to worry about this. Talking about it won't do anything. Whether we're fine or not, you'll know when the time comes."

"Looks like you're pretty confident." Academician Wang looked at Lu Zhou's confident expression and said, "Speaking of which, you're a millennial, right? Do you know what a technology blockade means?"

Lu Zhou calmly said, "It means that the two dozen or so Chinese research institutes that are doing academic exchanges with foreign controllable fusion research institutes might be suspended from further cooperation. Hundreds of ongoing research projects might be paused or even canceled."

In addition, it would probably affect billions of dollars worth of contracts, as well as hundreds of master's and PhD students…

This all could happen, or rather, this would happen.

However, what did it mean?

Would compromising earn them equality and dignity?

Lu Zhou didn't think so.

"So you know what it means."

There was a tinge of approval in Academician Wang's face.

There was a difference between talents. An excellent scientific researcher wouldn't necessarily be an outstanding academic ruler. There was a difference between geniuses and leaders.

If there was any doubt in Academician Wang's mind about Lu Zhou's leading abilities, that doubt had now disappeared.

Academician Wang stopped smiling and looked at Lu Zhou with respect.

"We're relying on you!"

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Chapter 529: Interesting Results Are Often Expected?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Jinling high-tech zone.

A couple of years ago, this place was a wasteland, waiting to be used. But now, it was very well developed.

With support from the municipal government's policies, a large amount of high tech company workers resided at this place. They relied on the talent resources from the universities nearby. This place had become a standard model for economic development, taught by universities.

Even though the original intention of this area was only to retain local talents, it seemed that this goal had been overfulfilled. Also, it brought enormous economic value.

Especially in the lithium battery industry.

According to the latest industry reports, this year's modified PDMS lithium anode material and the HCS-2 lithium-sulfur battery positive electrode material occupied 32.7% and 47% of the national market share respectively. They were basically the pillars of this industry.

There were also the SG-1 superconducting magnets, recently put into production by Baosheng Group. They were sold all over the world.

For the city council leader that first designed this high-tech area plan, this was a dream come true.

Of course, the reason why they were able to achieve this level of development had little to do with government policy support.

One of the reasons was that Zhongshan New Materials, the leader of the domestic material industry, was able to successfully ride the wave of the lithium battery market. Another reason was obviously everyone's personal efforts.

Of course, the most crucial reason was probably the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

All of the companies in the high-tech zone were like stars that rotated around this black-hole like research institute, as if they were a galaxy system. More than 60% of the economic output here was directly or indirectly related to this research institute's technology. As the market expanded, this proportion would continue to increase.

The industry was led by academia, while the factories were being led by laboratories.

For any other research institute in China, this was unthinkable.

Even in a developed country with a scientific research to industry conversion ratio of more than 40%, there were only a handful of research institutes that had the capabilities.

Especially after the Nobel Prize laureate returned to China, this became a holy place for countless scientific researchers.

Regardless of how the researchers inside the research institute viewed their own work, at least from an outsider's perspective, being able to conduct research alongside a Nobel Prize big name was a nutty thing in and of itself.

After all, this was a Nobel Prize winner's Nobel Prize laboratory. This meant that their experiments were on another level.

A Nobel Prize winner's research project had to be at least on a Nobel Prize level, right?

In fact, this was true.

The STAR fusion machine from Purple Mountain ignited the entire world's hope for controllable nuclear fusion technology. Not just that, but even the STAR's research partner, Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, also received a lot of attention.

In the beginning, this research institute was only able to attract researchers that didn't have their own laboratories. But now, even some semi-famous scholars were extremely interested in working at this place.

After all, it was backed by a 40 billion yuan large project. Not to mention, it was also a major national scientific research project. This was on another level compared to most domestic research institutes.

Of course, even though all of this sounded attractive, when one really entered this institute, the beauty inside wasn't as good as what an outsider might think. At least, it was no paradise…

There was no bureaucracy, no quota for the number of research theses produced… These were all major features for this research institute, and the researchers conducting scientific research here only had to focus on their own work.

On the other hand, the pressure and work intensity here were much stronger than normal research institutes. After all, if they didn't try their hardest, these people wouldn't be able to keep up with Lu Zhou's footsteps.

At least, in Hou Jinli's opinion, this place was full of opportunity.

But it was also extremely intense and competitive.

Working until midnight was a common occurrence. When they were particularly busy, they even slept in the laboratory. This was more intense than any other materials research institute in the country.

As for the Institute of Mathematics or Institute of Physics…

He hadn't worked there yet, so he couldn't give a fair evaluation.

Of course, even though Hou Jinli was busy working here, he was still quite satisfied with his life here.

Both the scientific research environment and salary were at the first-class level in China.

Of course, this was when he compared with his peers. It wouldn't be fun if he had to compare himself with those working in tech.

Since he bravely jumped into the pit of materials science, he had to be prepared to be buried.

Not to mention, scientific research required a certain amount of passion.

Even though academic and research funding were closely related, it'd be boring to only care about the money side.

This was what Hou Jinli told himself in order to encourage himself whenever he felt like he couldn't handle it any longer.

By the time he published a couple of theses and became a small boss of his own, the situation would be completely different.

However, dreams were beautiful, but the reality was cruel.

Almost a year had passed, but the research project he successfully applied for hadn't progressed at all.

Even though there were many interesting discoveries, they were far from being outstanding.

Up until now, all he did was explore a set of laboratory synthesis methods.

If he were in any other research institute in China, he would have to worry about how he would pass the end-of-year assessment.

Thankfully, Professor Lu didn't have a quota on the number of theses publications. He only had to write a monthly report on the things he did that month, and his experiment would be allowed to continue.

This way, he didn't have to worry about his research project being cut out halfway through.

"This is the data you want, figure A is a XRD diagram, figure b, c, and d are the TEM material tests. There are also the characterization phase graphs for the SEM and XRD diagrams, I did those for you as well."

Hou Jinli picked up these graphs and began to look at them carefully.

Yu Junda stood next to the experiment table with his arms crossed. He sighed.

"I told you, this thing is just some carbon residue, what's the point in researching it."

They had wasted nearly a year researching this thing, so Yu Junda wasn't in a good mood.

Honestly, he was intrigued at that time, so he decided to work on this research project with Hou Jinli, but now, he was starting to regret doing so.

"Calling it carbon residue is such an understatement…"

"Maybe you can think of something that sounds better?" Yu Junda shrugged and said, "Regardless of what it is called, I think we are wasting our time."

When Hou Jinli heard his friend's words, he went silent.

It wasn't that he didn't want to argue, it was just that he didn't know what to say.

Nothing significant came out of this experiment.

Whether it was dispersing this material into other materials or using it alone, it was hard for him to think of the potential value of this material.

Hou Jinli sighed and put down the data on the table. He was thinking about how he would write the experimental report when he suddenly looked at the mortar and pestle on the experiment table.

The mortar and pestle were used to grind carbon nanotubes.

Normally, they would use a ball mill, but the mortars were used for handling small samples.

What attracted him wasn't the mortar itself, but rather…

An idea suddenly popped up in Hou Jinli's mind, and he spoke thoughtfully, "Speaking of which, we haven't tried ceramics yet…"

Yu Junda paused for a second.

"I don't think we did…"

It was like Yu Junda had suddenly thought of something. He had a strange expression on his face.

"Are you thinking of…"

Hou Jinli nodded.

"Let's try it, we've already wasted all this time anyway."

He had a bitter expression on his face when he spoke.

If this doesn't work out, then it's whatever…

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Chapter 530: Don't Ruin Your Own, Ruin Others

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Hou Jinli had no idea how many times he had failed.

In the beginning, he was only preparing the SG-1 material in the laboratory and was interested in the expected waste generated in the experiment.

Compared to ordinary graphite materials, that piece of waste felt quite special in his hands.

These were the conclusions he made from the experiments. He discovered that the reason why this waste product felt so special was that it had a layer of porous mesh aerogel barrier on its surface.

Honestly speaking, this result disappointed him. After all, porous mesh aerogels made from graphene wasn't a particularly new research method. One could even make the case that similar methods were used in electrode materials.

However, this was the first research project he independently applied for in his life. This was also the first research project he worked on after coming to this research institute, so he didn't want to give up so easily.

Therefore, after he found out that the porous aerogel itself had no special characteristics, he continued to perform in-depth research on using it as a dispersing medium and looking at its dispersed phase.

This entire process was despairing.

It even made him doubt his entire life.

Fortunately, he didn't give up.

He used the porous mesh aerogel prepared from graphene as a toughening agent. He combined it with silicon carbide ceramics, and a miracle happened!

The porous mesh aerogel wasn't a particularly superior toughening agent compared to other materials, at least when one compared it to similar toughening materials.

However, its thermal properties made him so excited that he couldn't help but shout in the laboratory.

Hou Jinli immediately finished writing the experimental report and handed it to the institute's office.

The day after this experimental report was submitted, it arrived on Lu Zhou's desk…

…

Even though many interesting inventions were created by accidents, this particular accident was more unexpected than usual.

Lu Zhou looked at the experimental report. He was intrigued.

"Interesting."

The report was divided into two parts.

The first part was about the preparation of the porous mesh aerogel.

[Using graphene oxide as the base material, prepare 1-2mg/ml of graphene oxide solution, then add the reducing agent, stir for 5-10 minutes. After that, heat it at 90-160 Celsius for 30-45 minutes, take it out and immediately put it into the freezer for four hours. After that, take it out, then continuing to reduce and thaw at a high temperature for 5 hours. Finally, wash it several times and dry it… This was the method to create the porous mesh aerogel.]

The second part of the report was the crucial part of the entire experiment.

In the experiment, Hou Jinli and his research team used atomic layer deposition to chemically bond the porous mesh aerogel, which was prepared from graphene, to a silicon carbide ceramic layer. Thus, allowing them to obtain a special graphene ceramic composite.

Looking at its microstructure, this material looked like the honeycomb-shaped graphene layer was connected to a ceramic layer in the middle. These honeycomb-shaped graphene molecules were tightly bonded to the silicon carbide molecules.

According to the experiment results from the high-temperature test, in an oxygen-less environment, this special graphene-ceramic composite was able to withstand a temperature of 3,200 degrees!

Not only did it have excellent heat-resistant properties, but the material also had a small expansion coefficient. It also had remarkable anisotropy and thermal conductivity properties.

Which meant that the heat energy could be easily transmitted through its cross-section, and it wasn't easily transmitted through its vertical direction.

Other than this, it also had a high tensile and compressive strength, not to mention resistance to thermal stress.

Looking at these data, this material could be considered superb.

Yang Xu looked at Lu Zhou's intrigued face and asked, "Is this the material you need?"

"Hard to say." Lu Zhou put down the experimental report and leaned back in his office chair before saying, "But this report did provide me with a new idea."

Yang Xu: "Idea?"

"That's right." Lu Zhou nodded and contemplated for a bit. He said, "At first, I thought that ceramic materials are not suitable for the first wall, due to its poor heat dissipation properties. But looking at it from another point of view, the smaller the perpendicular heat transfer performance is, the better."

Yang Xu: "What makes you think that?"

"Because of the liquid lithium neutron recovery system." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Due to the thermal conductivity of the carbon fiber composites, we have to consider adding another thermal insulation layer between the carbon fiber composite and the liquid lithium. Otherwise, the 3000-degree temperatures would vaporize the liquid lithium layer we used for neutron recovery."

The difference in temperature of the first wall and liquid lithium layer was one of the main difficulties in the reactor.

The thermal conductivity couldn't be too weak, nor could it be too strong. Looking at it from this point of view, carbon fiber fell quite behind.

In contrast, the anisotropy and thermal performance of this new material were quite promising. Weakening the thermal energy transfer of the vertical cross-section could provide a sufficient buffer time for the external cooling unit to come into effect.

As for the heat dissipation of the structural material, that could be solved by "inserting a heat transfer tube into the structure and discharge the heat transferred from the cross-section direction".

Even though Yang Xu didn't understand much about the fusion project, Lu Zhou's explanation was simple enough for Yang Xu to understand.

However, even though the thermal problem was solved, there was also another important issue…

"What about the neutron radiation? That's the most important part, right?"

Lu Zhou heard him and sighed. "You're right, that's the important part. Even though this material is suitable in all other aspects, its neutron radiation resistant property… We have to test it before we know."

Both the silicon carbide and graphene material had stable nuclei. The carbon-silicon covalent bond was far more stable than the metal bond. Also, the permeability of neutrons through these two materials against the neutron beam was also an advantage.

At least, this was how it was… theoretically.

In reality, not only would the damage caused by neutron radiation to the material cause changes in the atoms' nuclei, but it would also destroy the internal chemical bonds, as well as causing basic physical damage to the material.

All of these factors couldn't be calculated with theory alone, they had to draw conclusions from experiments.

The only trouble was that…

They couldn't test this thing.

Yang Xu had a painful smile on his face as he said euphemistically, "This experiment isn't easy to do."

Anti-neutron radiation performance testing was one of the most difficult materials tests in the field of materials science.

Normal anti-radiation experiments were relatively easy to do, the nuclei could be irradiated by hitting them with alpha particles.

The reason why researching the first wall material for a controllable fusion reactor was difficult was because there wasn't any equipment in the world that could handle the radiation test.

There were 14MeV neutrons constantly hitting the sample, what kind of experiment equipment could handle this?

Normal alpha particles were nowhere close to having this much energy.

Even the nuclear fission power generator at Daya Bay had an anti-radiation grade two magnitudes below that of the fusion reactor's!

As for the accelerator…

That would be nonsense. No one had ever heard of accelerating neutrons directly. If anyone could do it, they would be the king of the theoretical physics world.

As for indirectly accelerating using the deuterium nucleus method, it was indeed possible. However, it would be better to just obtain the energy from shooting alpha particles into the metal foil. The only advantage of the former was that the neutron beam had a more stable path.

Lu Zhou thought about all this and felt like he was trapped. His fingers gently tapped on his desk, and he began to wonder.

Should I make the STAR machine "suffer" again?

In theory, it's possible.

But this limits the rate of experiments to once a month, is the price to pay too high?

After all, there's only one stellarator in China.

The China National Nuclear Corporation is studying how to build one of its own. If our own equipment is ruined, then it would be over.

However, a light bulb suddenly turned on in Lu Zhou's mind, and he clapped his forehead.

F*ck sake!

I only thought about ruining my stellarator, I forgot about the tokamak!

Even though their confinement time isn't long, at least it works!

There's only one stellarator in China, but there are plenty of tokamaks…

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"Achoo!"

Luo Zhanyuan: "What happened?"

"Nothing…"

This air conditioning is too cold, it's making me sneeze…

Zhou Chengfu blew his nose and contemplated in his heart.

Right now, he was on a return flight. He didn't know that he was being thought of by someone.

A dozen or so hours ago, he and Director Luo, who was sitting across from him, as well as several other experts from the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center and other representatives appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in an informal ITER meeting in France.

The outcome of the meeting wasn't positive.

However, rather than worrying about the US representative's attitude toward them, he was more worried about the situation in China.

"Director Luo."

"Yeah?"

Zhou Chengfu was trying to test out the waters. "In your opinion, what do the higher-ups want?"

Luo Zhanyuan highly respected this academician-level expert on controllable nuclear fusion. When he heard the question, he replied. "The higher-ups basically have no hope for the ITER project anymore. Judging by the United States and European's sincerity toward us, even if we do disclose our technology, we might still be kicked out. Before coming here, the top leaders in the department set up a meeting for us. They asked us to drag this out for as long as possible and to not disclose any technical secrets. Unless they were willing to do a technology exchange with us, the deal is off the table."

Zhou Chengfu heard this and silently sighed in his heart.

As expected, his worst nightmares came true.

His efforts over a decade were about to be ruined. He already knew the higher-ups' decision, and he knew that an expert like him had no say in this matter. However, he still couldn't help but complain.

"Then we're just going to withdraw from ITER? We spent so much just to join…"

Luo Zhanyuan shook his head and said, "What else are we going to do? If we don't stop the damages now, the damages will just increase over time."

Director Luo paused for a second.

"Also, even though I shouldn't say this, but withdrawing from ITER isn't necessarily a bad thing. At least we can take the money we give to the Europeans, and invest it into our own fusion energy projects instead.

"Also, Professor Lu promised that we could complete the demonstration reactor by 2025… If he succeeds, we don't have to be so passive anymore, we can take the initiative."

Lu Zhou again…

When Zhou Chengfu heard this name, his eyebrows subconsciously twitched.

What if that kid is bragging…

Even though Zhou Chengfu really wanted to say this out loud, he decided not to; it was buried in his heart.

After all, even though he didn't want to lose to Lu Zhou, he wasn't an idiot…

…

According to Murphy's law, "anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

Even though the Chinese representatives tried to drag this out for as long as possible, they still had to face reality.

The last day in August.

The first "victim" appeared.

Before the United States convinced its allies, it planned on putting a little pressure on China first.

Because the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory had too high of a profile, they often appeared in the news headlines. The institute, which had nothing to do with the STAR research institute, was wrongfully killed.

Xiao Le dragged a dusty suitcase. He stood in front of his house feeling perplexed.

Three days ago, he was a visiting scholar at the General Atomics DIII-D laboratory. He planned on returning to China at the end of the year.

However, he didn't expect that he would be sent back to China because of a document personally signed by POTUS.

Professor Li was leading the team, and he gave the team a week of holiday and told them to wait in their homes for an update. The person in charge of General Atomics said that they would escalate this matter with the Department of Energy. After all, General Atomics didn't want to lose these talented scholars, but it was most likely that nothing would come of it…

In short, they would take a short break and wait a bit before reporting to Lu Yang.

The doorbell rang and the front door opened.

When Xiao Zhiping saw his son standing at the front door, he paused for a second.

"Aren't you coming back at the end of the year? Why are you back now?"

"What? Our son is back?" The voice of his mother, Wang Li, traveled through the living room. When she saw her son, she walked over happily. She took the suitcase from her son's hand and said, "Come inside and rest. Jesus Christ, you came all the way back and you didn't even call us. I'll tell your dad to buy pork later, I'll braise it for you."

Xiao Le forced a smile and said, "Everything happened a bit urgently. Our communication equipment was taken away, they only gave it back to us when we got on the plane."

After he got off the flight, he didn't bother calling beforehand.

Xiao Zhiping paused for a second and frowned. "Taken away? What happened?"

"Maybe… it's related to the recent trade wars, I don't know the specific situation." Xiao Le shook his head and sat on the sofa. He picked up a cup and took a sip of water before saying, "The day before yesterday, we were planning on going to a plasma physics seminar. The professor in charge of our exchange team suddenly told us that the seminar was canceled. After that, when we got back to the hotel, some people that claimed they were from the FBI confiscated our communication equipment and searched our rooms…"

Wang Li was astonished, and she asked, "You guys didn't get robbed, did you?"

Xiao Le shook his head and said, "Nope… They had a local court search order, so it's probably not fake."

Actually, it didn't matter if it was fake or not.

After Xiao Le got back his phone, he found out that the photos he took of the General Atomics' company building were all deleted. However, he posted those photos in his friends' news feed, so the loss wasn't huge.

Wang Li: "Th-this is too scary… How about you don't go on any academic exchanges anymore?"

Xiao Le shook his head and said, "What exchange, my visas have all been canceled!"

Because of this incident, their names were probably all blacklisted. Not only academic exchanges, but he would probably have problems just traveling for vacation.

Honestly speaking, he was muddled. He had no idea what these Americans were up to.

From his point of view, controllable nuclear fusion was still in the far future. It might take another fifty years to realize. Suddenly, the nuclear fusion field became similar to the nuclear fission field; it was considered a sensitive technology.

He maliciously speculated and suspected that this president wanted to show his power against China.

After all, it was nearly 2020, close to the elections again.

After Xiao Zhiping heard his son's sufferings, he was outraged, and he spoke with anger, "Ah, who cares about America. Who cares! Without them, is the earth going to stop spinning? Did we not create atomic bombs and satellites without them?"

Xiao Le shook his head and said, "Okay, fine fine, you won't understand if I explained it to you."

Many people didn't realize, and obviously, the media wouldn't report on this, but the EAST device on the Science Island wasn't designed by a Chinese research institute. They actually heavily referenced the DIII-D tokamak device from General Atomics.

After all, there was a difference between scientific research and agriculture. It wasn't like if someone gave you the seeds, you could grow the plants yourself.

If it were a fully developed technology, then this problem wouldn't exist. But the large scale nuclear fusion technology research was far from being developed. The follow-up research and what to plan on doing next was far more crucial than the existing technology.

But now, their cooperation with General Atomics had been suspended.

Of course, they could still use their EAST device, but as for what they should research next…

They could only rely on themselves.

Of course, Xiao Le wasn't totally hopeless.

Learning was part of scientific research. It was important to know one's weaknesses, but one shouldn't be overly humble either. In fact, they had made significant innovations on the EAST machine. For example, the superconducting D-section technology was developed by the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory.

It was just that, compared to being in a win-win situation, they had to fight alone from now on.

This made him feel somewhat unsafe about China's future controllable fusion field…

Xiao Zhiping: "I don't understand those stuff, but you guys are the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory, surely you are the leaders in the domestic controllable fusion field? Do your best, make your father proud. Make those Americans beg for us to go back!"

Xiao Le heard his father's encouraging words and shook his head as he continued to eat.

Sounds easy, but it's not easy to do.

Not to mention, we're not the leaders in fusion energy anymore.

The ITER is planning on going toward the stellarator direction, and the United States and Europeans don't want to play with us anymore. I have no idea if the CFTER is going to survive.

I think China is planning on pursuing the stellarator as well.

I think it's called STAR-2?

After all, the light coming from the Purple Mountain blinded the entire world…

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Chapter 532: Going to Slightly Offend You Guys

After Zhou Chengfu's flight landed, he headed toward the Southwestern Institute of Physics. He didn't expect to see a particular person there.

And this person was his least favorite…

"… Our stellarator is still being overhauled. We have to borrow your HL-2A machine. I've applied to the higher-ups regarding this matter, and the Energy Bureau has approved our request. Director Lu said you guys will fully cooperate with our experiment, so I immediately came over. As for the written documents, they'll probably arrive tomorrow at the latest," Lu Zhou said while sitting in Zhou Chengfu's office. He fiddled with the tea set on the coffee table and said, "This teapot is pretty, where did you buy it?"

Zhou Chengfu stared at Lu Zhou with a blank face and said, "Aren't you researching the stellarator, why are you here?"

Lu Zhou: "Fast ignition."

Zhou Chengfu was stunned when he heard this.

"No way! Igniting the experimental reactor, are you insane?"

Lu Zhou didn't care about Zhou Chengfu's comments. He only smiled and continued, "I've read the relevant papers. The HL-2A can achieve the ignition conditions. I need to test the performance of a new type of material by simulating the internal neutron radiation environment, so I'm asking you guys for help.

"Don't worry about the money. The tritium resources consumed by the experiment will be provided by us. You only have to cooperate with our experiment."

After hearing Lu Zhou's request, Zhou Chengfu nearly vomited in his face.

What do you mean you're going to provide us with the money?

Do you think you can just buy us with money?

Not to mention, money was a trigger for Zhou Chengfu.

Especially when he heard that Director Lu said they would "fully cooperate", this made him furious. He was the one that decided to research fusion energy first, but now he was being treated as a b*tch.

"If you really f*cking want to do neutron radiation experiments, why don't you go to Daya Bay?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "Both Dongguan and Daya Bay can't reach our neutron requirements."

Right now the newest international controllable fusion research plan was to build a neutron source device based on the D-Li interaction, to simulate a neutron radiation environment, which was present inside the fusion reactor. However, up until now, this device had remained in a concept stage. Only the Americans were doing research on this thing, and they were probably the only ones that knew their research progress.

"What about Science Island?" Zhou Chengfu was frustrated; he didn't want to give up. He quickly said, "The EAST machine in Science Island can do it, why don't you…"

"I need to use yours."

One sentence from Lu Zhou blocked Zhou Chengfu's entire argument.

Lu Zhou put down the teapot in his hand and stood up from the sofa.

Zhou Chengfu looked so uncomfortable; it was like he just ate a bug. Lu Zhou smiled and spoke in a relaxed manner.

"Anyway, I've probably already offended you in the past, so I'll just offend you one more time today."

Zhou Chengfu's face looked gloomy as he said quietly, "You have to think clearly. If our HL-2A is destroyed by you guys, and you're not able to create the demonstration reactor…"

Lu Zhou's facial expression didn't change as he replied, "You don't have to worry about that, that's my responsibility."

Zhou Chengfu snorted.

He stood up from his office chair and walked out of his office without saying anything.

Lu Zhou looked at this old man leaving and stopped smiling.

Maybe there was a more euphemistic approach he could have taken, but he was in a hurry.

Therefore, he could only apologize.

…

Including the University of Science and Technology of China's inertial confinement fusion machine, there were 16 controllable nuclear fusion experiment machines in China.

However, there were only a few machines that could reach hundreds of millions of degrees in their reaction chamber, which was the temperature at which deuterium-tritium fusion occurred.

HL-2A was one of them, which was obviously the accumulation of countless researchers' blood, sweat, and tears.

Zhou Chengfu looked at the equipment maintenance technician, who was on the verge of tears. Without asking, Zhou Chengfu knew that his machine was ruined.

He looked at Lu Zhou angrily; his blood was boiling.

He couldn't help but want to melt this kid by throwing him into the tokamak machine. However, the experiment was over. At the very least, he knew this wasn't done for nothing.

Zhou Chengfu stared deadly at Lu Zhou.

"What's the result?!"

Lu Zhou ignored the resentment in his tone and stared at the scanning electron microscope images, and finally, he sighed.

"It doesn't look good."

This time he brought around 20 samples; all of them were mounted to the first wall of the tokamak.

These images were obtained after the experimental reactor shut down and cooled. Workers in chemical protective suits entered the reaction chamber and collected these materials for special laboratory testing.

Looking at these data alone, the performance of these materials in the reactor chamber didn't look good.

However, Lu Zhou never expected the first experiment to be successful since every research experiment was done by trial and error.

Blood nearly came out of Zhou Chengfu's nose.

What do you mean it's not looking good?

Are you going to do another experiment later on?

Lu Zhou rubbed his chin and stared carefully at the images. He said, "The neutron radiation from the fusion reactor environment is too strong. Even though the silicon carbide and porous aerogel material have good neutron-transmission properties, the neutron beam still penetrated the material, which formed several Frenkel defects inside the material."

Zhou Chengfu: "What the hell is that?"

Surprised, Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at him.

"Frenkel defect? The defect forms when an atom or smaller ion leaves its place in the lattice, creating a vacancy, and becomes an interstitial by lodging in a nearby location… It's a very basic crystallography concept."

Zhou Chengfu's face was as red as a tomato. He nearly wanted to curse at Lu Zhuo.

However, he suddenly realized that this kid was a Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner. Anything he could say would embarrass himself even further, so he decided to shut his mouth and whispered quietly, "I'm in nuclear physics and plasma physics, not materials…"

After all, there weren't a lot of people that were a master of everything.

Zhou Chengfu was the manager of the entire project, so he might know a bit more about various different fields. However, his understanding obviously wasn't in-depth enough.

Not to mention, the HL-2A reactor didn't use this type of material. He had only ever heard about ceramic-based composite materials used on reactors.

"Like this thing here and there." Lu Zhou didn't care if Zhou Chengfu understood or not. He pointed at the images and said, "Can you see these white dots? Looking at it with the infrared detection data, one can deduce that the vacancies are left by the displacement of hydrogen atoms. This indicates that this material doesn't have good anti-neutron properties; the neutrons are trapped inside the material."

Zhou Chengfu understood this part, and he asked, "So what's the use of this stuff?"

"That would depend on who is using it."

Lu Zhou stored the data on a mobile hard drive. Without looking at Zhou Chengfu, he said relaxingly, "Don't forget, I was the one that invented the computational materials field."

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Chapter 533: Returning to the Old Field

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou didn't stay at Southwestern Institute of Physics for long. After he received the data he needed, he flew back the next day. He and some of the researchers from the Jinling research institute went back to Jinling.

After Lu Zhou and his team left, almost everyone in the Southwestern Institute of Physics was relieved.

This kid was like a gang member, leaving the whole place in disarray. After their experiment was finished, they collected the data and left, leaving someone else to clean up the disarray.

A lot of people were discussing whether this kid came here for revenge. After all, no one knew if the experiment itself was needed or not; it wasn't like this kid gave away any secrets. Not only did Lu Zhou take away the samples, but he didn't even give them a copy of the data.

Regardless, after this incident, Zhou Chengfu's status in the institute was completely wiped out…

Jiang Liang stood in Zhou Chengfu's office. He looked relieved.

"That devil is finally gone."

Zhou Chengfu sat frozen in his chair, and he asked slowly, "How is the HL-2A doing?"

When Jiang Liang heard this question, the expression of relief on his face gradually turned into a pained expression.

"The radiation damage report isn't out yet… But according to the engineers, the situation doesn't look good."

Zhou Chengfu: "What did they say?"

"There are different degrees of swelling inside the structural material. As for the first wall… it was basically ruined!" Jiang Liang said with a dull face.

The experimental reactor was never intended to be used for fusion ignition; it was only ever meant to simulate the high density and temperature environment of plasma.

Therefore, the anti-radiation resistance level for the reactor materials was basically equivalent or even less than the fission reactor's materials.

Therefore, it was inevitable that the HL-2A would end up in a horrible condition.

Even though Zhou Chengfu was mentally prepared for this, he still couldn't help but clench his teeth.

He took a deep breath and held back the pain in his heart.

"Is it repairable?"

Jiang Liang reluctantly nodded and said, "I've asked the engineers in the institute. It should be repairable. However, we won't be able to use it… in the short term."

After all, there were too many components that had to be changed.

Zhou Chengfu went silent for a while and spoke.

"After the radiation damage test is done, make sure to keep all of the information."

Jiang Liang paused for a second. Suddenly, his eyes flashed, and he said, "You plan on…"

Anger was running through Zhou Chengfu's veins as he clenched his fists and said, "We cannot give up."

If Lu Zhou succeeds, then whatever.

But if that little brat doesn't…

I swear, I will take this radiation damage evidence to Beijing, and he will pay for the damages!

…

For most people, this data might not be useful. However, for Lu Zhou, it was priceless.

Mathematics was a powerful scientific research tool; it was also Lu Zhou's most powerful weapon.

Even though the inferences made from the data couldn't directly give him the result he wanted, it could be used as a reference, to prevent him from making a lot of mistakes.

"I haven't been this overwhelmed in a while."

Lu Zhou sat in his study room looking at the data and graphs on his computer screen. Suddenly, his eyes sparkled with excitement.

As expected, compared to commanding other people to conduct experiments, it was much more fulfilling to be on the front line of scientific research and personally solve these difficult problems.

After he stretched his back, he picked up a pen and wrote on a brand new piece of paper.

[Radiation damage energy: Tdam = Td(1kg(ε))-1]

[k = ξ0.0793(A1A2)3/2.Z1.Z2/(Z12/3Z22/3)A12/3,ξZ11/6]

[ε=…]

It was worth mentioning that due to the expensive cost of neutron radiation experiments, more than a decade ago, when the nuclear physics community was researching neutron beam radiation, they developed a set of calculation methods for parameters such as DPA1. These could be simulated using software such as McDeLicious and NJOY.

Because it was a phenomenological model built from empirical formulas, there were many relevant calculation methods. The one Lu Zhou decided to refer to was the more reliable Linhard Robinson model.

After selecting an expected DPA interval and the maximum value for the helium generation rate, using the theory from the model, he used the constants from the ceramic-based graphene composite as variables, which he then integrated into his own computational materials theory. This allowed him to simulate the DPA and helium generation rate.

Even though this all sounded easy…

But in reality, this process was far more difficult than using the Lindhard Robinson model to simulate the rate of DPA and helium production of a material under normal neutron radiation conditions.

Moreover, the results obtained by the simulation were not necessarily reliable.

This situation was common in the field of computational materials. Even though it was plausible from a mathematical perspective, it was impossible from a practical perspective.

Especially when strictly positive parameters such as mass became negative…

The days quickly passed by. Lu Zhou gradually went into the state of grinding. Over the past few days, he had been locking himself in his room.

Principal Xu called him a while back, asking him if he had time to speak at the university's opening ceremony. Lu Zhou really didn't have any spare time, so he rejected the invitation.

Principal Xu understood why Lu Zhou had to reject the invitation.

In any case, a national level major scientific research project was the highest priority.

However, the principal still tried to convince Lu Zhou over the phone. He said that Lu Zhou shouldn't overwork himself and that Lu Zhou should take time to go outside. After all, one's health was the most important, ruining one's body would be detrimental.

However, no matter how hard Principal Xu tried, Lu Zhou still insisted on doing his own thing.

There was no way he would leave the house before the research results were out.

Fortunately, even though he stopped researching mathematics ever since a year ago, his skills had not decreased.

After two weeks of locking himself in his room, in the middle of September, Lu Zhou finally finished the final step.

He sighed in relief and leaned back in his chair as he looked at the calculations on the screen and gradually smirked.

He finished the entire framework of the model.

What was left now was to give it some input.

Which meant it was time to do some calculations.

"Xiao Ai, let me give you a mission."

The instant he spoke, a small text bubble popped up on the lower right corner of his screen.

[Ok! Master! (๑•̀ᄇ•́)ゞ]

Even though the number of calculations required was enormous, with the help of supercomputers, it wasn't difficult for Xiao Ai to complete this tedious and mundane task.

After Lu Zhou gave Xiao Ai the specific mission details, he stood up from his seat.

He stretched his sore arms and shoulders and stepped over the draft papers scattered on the ground. He went over to the kitchen and made himself a cup of instant coffee.

While he was waiting for the kettle to boil, he took out his phone and checked his texts, calls, and emails. He typed out some simple replies to everyone that tried to contact him.

After he finished replying, Lu Zhou grabbed his coffee and went back to his study room.

When he sat down in front of his desk, the calculation results were already presented to him.

Lu Zhou ran the simulation results in its entirety and smirked.

The results were almost perfect.

Other than some obviously impossible data, he had at least five sets of feasible data.

Each set of feasible data corresponded to a theoretically possible technical pathway.

"All we have to do now is to verify the feasibility through experiments!"

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Chapter 534: Happiness Came Too Suddenly

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Institute of Computational Materials.

Hou Jinli stood in front of the laboratory entrance and took a deep breath. He nervously opened the door and walked into the laboratory.

Ten minutes ago, he was still sorting out samples in the laboratory. However, someone suddenly told him that Lu Zhou wanted to see him.

After he heard this news, without any hesitation, he put down the work he was doing and rushed over here.

When he saw Lu Zhou standing in the laboratory with a white lab coat, he asked nervously, "Sir, did you ask for me?"

Lu Zhou nodded and answered concisely, "Yeah, I did."

Hou Jinli became even more nervous after hearing Lu Zhou's reply.

Professor Lu, who hadn't been to the laboratory for several days suddenly appeared again. Not to mention, the first thing he did after returning to the lab was to ask for Hou Jinli.

What could Professor Lu want me to do?

Maybe there's a problem with my research project?

Impossible…

He clearly remembered that he repeated the experiment several times, and he also double-checked the experiment report.

Also, surely Professor Lu wouldn't ask for me over such a small matter.

It wasn't his fault he was nervous. Normal people would never think that a Nobel Prize laureate would be interested in their research. After all, Hou Jinli was a noob researcher for so many years.

While Hou Jinli's mind was racing, Lu Zhou was carefully observing him.

Lu Zhou noticed his nervous expression and guessed what he was thinking, so he smiled and said, "Relax, don't feel any pressure. I'm probably younger than you in age. Also, I don't have any bad news for you."

When Hou Jinli heard this, his tense shoulders finally relaxed.

Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, "I've read your research report."

When Hou Jinli heard this, he immediately stood up straight and waited for the Nobel Prize big name to critique his research.

"The thing you discovered is very interesting. It not only has good resistance to high temperature, but it is also much better at resisting neutron radiation than normal alloy materials."

Excited, Hou Jinli gasped, "Really?"

His experiment was mainly concerned with high-temperature resistance; he obviously didn't have the means to conduct a neutron radiation experiment, so he didn't even think of doing one.

Now he found out that not only did his research material have excellent temperature resistant properties, but it also had excellent anti-neutron radiation properties, so he was immediately shocked by this great news.

Lu Zhou nodded.

"There are some flaws, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

"Also, that's the end of the good news. The news I am about to say might not be beneficial to you.

"After I discussed with some of the experts at the China National Nuclear Corporation, we believed that this material has future prospect applications on fusion reactors. Therefore, we will approve your conclusion report, but you might not be able to publish the research thesis."

Hou Jinli sighed in his heart.

Actually, when he heard that his material had neutron radiation-resistant properties, he already guessed what Lu Zhou was about to say.

The research that was done in the research institute all belonged to the research institute. This was written on the contract and was standard practice, so there was nothing debatable about that. What belonged to the researcher was often the thesis itself or maybe a bonus.

Due to the issue of patents, other research projects, and the overall interests of the research institute, researchers couldn't immediately publish the thesis upon completion. They had to first make a report about the situation. After that, the person in charge would decide on the thesis publication.

In most cases, unless someone was screwing with you, this process would all go smoothly. After all, theses were the life of a scholar; their job titles depended on their thesis publications.

However, there were also some special circumstances where the thesis would be banned from publication.

For example, when a major scientific research project was underway and the research results in a thesis could help the research project. Basically, the research result could be considered an in-progress result.

In order to prevent from helping competitors, theses like these were often banned, or at least, it would be delayed from publication.

Normally, if this happened, the research institute would often compensate the thesis author.

Normally, this compensation was in the form of research funding or more bonuses. Some nutty bosses would even compensate by letting the author co-sign a high-impact-factor thesis; these were all possibilities.

Of course, there were also some unjust bosses, especially arrogant ones on the leadership team.

In their opinion, letting researchers conduct experiments was a privilege. They often stole the thesis first author spot and wouldn't give any compensation when a thesis was banned from publication. If the researchers tried to defend themselves, the bosses could even prevent them from publishing on the academic conference posters.

These were all possibilities.

Obviously, Lu Zhou wasn't that kind of boss. Hou Jinli also didn't think that a big name like him would bother stealing a first author spot from his little thesis.

Therefore, he thought for a bit before replying, "That's fine, I am willing to comply!"

Lu Zhou looked at Hou Jinli and nodded. "I hope you understand. I'm sorry your thesis turned out this way, but I will try to compensate you for your loss. Both in terms of monetary value and honor value, and I will make sure that you're satisfied with it."

When Hou Jinli heard this, he looked at Lu Zhou with gratitude.

He didn't even ask what the exact compensation was.

He believed that since Lu Zhou made a promise, Lu Zhou wouldn't let him down.

Otherwise, there was no need to make the promise in the first place.

Lu Zhou didn't plan on talking about the exact compensation, he'd think about that later. He didn't come here just to talk with Hou Jinli. Otherwise, he wouldn't have worn the anti-static white lab coat.

Since Hou Jinli understood the circumstances of his thesis, Lu Zhou ended this conversation topic and started a new one.

"The reason I asked for you to come today was mainly to ask about that ceramic-based graphene composite of yours."

When Hou Jinli heard Lu Zhou ask about his project, he immediately put on a serious expression.

"Please ask."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "With regards to the toughening agent for the ceramic-based graphene composite material, which is the porous graphene aerogel, is there a way to change its pore diameter?"

Hou Jinli thought for a bit and answered, "Theoretically, it is possible. When I tried to synthesize the material, I received samples with different pore diameters… However, this is still in theory, we'll have to try to find out."

"Then please try to figure it out." Lu Zhou picked up a document from the table and handed it to Hou Jinli as he said, "I have some simulation data here. If you can, I hope you can produce the materials that match these data."

When Hou Jinli looked at the document, his facial expression subtly changed subtly.

What shocked him wasn't the content of the data. After all, he couldn't understand the calculations.

What really shocked him was…

Hou Jinli gulped.

Does this mean…

I'm doing an experiment with a Nobel Prize winner?

This happiness came too sudden, and he wasn't prepared for this at all.

Seeing that Hou Jinli went silent for a while, Lu Zhou asked, "Is there a problem?"

"No problem, no problem." Hou Jinli immediately nodded. When he thought about something, he asked, "Oh yeah, it might be slow if I do it by myself. Can I get an assistant? One is enough."

"One isn't enough, you'll need at least ten. Start the experiments on all five samples now. This task is important. I need to see results in a week."

Lu Zhou handed him a name list and said, "The names of all of the researchers working in this institute are on this list. They all come from good backgrounds. Find the ones you like and circle their names."

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Chapter 535: Not Enough Time, Get More Manpower

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

After doing scientific research for this long, this was the first time Hou Jinli experienced what it was like being a boss.

Even though he was only a small boss, who was controlled by a big boss, his big boss was still a Nobel Prize winner. Thinking about it this way, even being a small boss was an honor.

Even though Hou Jinli was excited, he was still attentive to his work.

Using the name list Lu Zhou gave him, he searched the names one by one on professional databases. He found their numbers of citations, numbers of SCI, and their academic backgrounds.

The ceramic graphene composite material had been given the highest priority, so he had to look at who had the highest amount of quality publications.

He obviously wouldn't forget Yu Junda, who worked on this project with him in the beginning.

He considered the fact that not everyone had the time to participate in this research project. In the end, he selected around 20 names and handed them to Lu Zhou's office.

At first, he was worried that he might have chosen too many people, but when Professor Lu glanced at the name list, he approved it in a blink of an eye.

"These people will report at your laboratory tomorrow. You know my requirements. Is there anything else you need?"

Hou Jinli quickly shook his head.

"Nope, that is all."

Lu Zhou nodded.

"Okay, then I'll leave this matter to you."

…

The workers of the Institute of Computational Materials were very efficient.

Or rather, it was because of Professor Lu's prestigious reputation in the institute.

Even though Lu Zhou said that the team members would arrive tomorrow morning, they all arrived at night time.

The most unexpected thing for Hou Jinli was that the 20 people he selected were all here.

Before this, he thought that it would be nice if half of them came.

In order to speed up the progress, he immediately went to the relevant department and applied for a conference room. He put on his PowerPoint presentation, which he made during the afternoon. He then called the researchers over and had a simple meeting.

"I'm sure you've seen the experimental process on the report already. However, I'll still use the powerpoint to explain it simply again. According to my research, the key to changing the pore diameter of the porous mesh aerogel network is on temperature and the addition of a reducing agent…

"Also the most important thing is the freeze-drying part. This part of the process is the key to not destroying this three-dimensional network during the process of obtaining the graphene aerogel. This part of the process is also relatively error-prone…

"I hope all of you pay attention to these parts during the experiment."

Hou Jinli wasn't normally a leader, so he obviously didn't know how to delegate very efficiently. He explained the important parts of the experiment in simple terms.

"This mission is very difficult, and Professor Lu wants us to finish five samples in one week. I hope everyone here can work hard!"

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the conference room.

"One week…" One of the researchers, who was wearing glasses, looked troubled as he said, "This time frame is too short, I'm afraid it's not enough."

Reading all of the relevant literature should take two days at least, right?

Understanding all of the experimental steps on the report should take a day at least?

Plus composite materials have a high fail rate, one week is probably impossible.

It would be possible if it were two weeks.

Even though Hou Jinli knew clearly that this mission wasn't that easy, he still insisted.

"The samples from us are going to be sent to Daya Bay for testing. According to the schedule, if we don't send the samples by the beginning of next month, we'll have to wait for an entire month.

"If we waste one day here, the STAR-2 project will be delayed by one day.

"I know this isn't easy, but we only have one week. The problem isn't whether or not it is possible. We have to do it!"

When the researchers in the conference room heard this daunting request, they all looked at each other with concerned looks in their eyes.

The researcher earlier still wanted to say something, but looking at how desperate Hou Jinli was, he scratched his head and sighed.

Honestly, this was the least intimidating boss he had ever had.

But since this was Professor Lu's request…

"Whatever, it's not like I haven't slept in the laboratory overnight before."

The researchers all looked at each other and nodded.

Even though everyone was kind of confused as to why they were transferred here, especially when the person in charge wasn't anyone special, but because of Professor Lu's presence, they were prepared to work their hardest.

Not to mention that this was also for the future of China's controllable fusion field.

Hou Jinli sighed in relief and looked grateful.

"Thank you!"

…

The experiment began on the same day.

The twenty researchers were divided into five teams, with four people in each team, and within each team, each member would be responsible for a sample.

Three groups were led by Hou Jinli, while the other two were led by Yu Junda.

Even though scientific research wasn't building a wall, one couldn't produce research results by using manpower alone, but when there was sufficient research funding and a clear solution to solve the research problem, having enough manpower was still an advantage.

The first two problems were already solved by Lu Zhou. Therefore, Hou Jinli didn't face too much pressure.

The success rate was less than 20%?

Then they'd just do the experiment five or six times.

At most, they would have to sleep in the laboratory for a couple of nights.

For them, grinding all night was the norm.

It was late into the night when Yu Junda took the samples for XRD testing. He returned to the laboratory and saw Hou Jinli about to experiment on the next set of samples. Yu Junda quietly asked, "Speaking of which, does this mean we are participating in a secret national project?"

Hou Jinli thought for a bit and said, "Yes and no."

Yu Junda: "What the hell does yes and no mean?"

Hou Jinli: "The controllable fusion technology is not at a mature stage yet. We would have to wait until the demonstration reactor is built before the detailed documents are released. But I think that since the United States has been trying to kick us out of ITER, our country is starting to take this seriously… I guess this counts as a confidential project?"

Any inventions or technologies that involved national security would require confidentiality. These research results would probably be filed in the form of confidential patents.

Normally, non-military enterprises could not qualify for confidential patents. But because the STAR-2 was a national key scientific research project, if they explained the importance of the technology, the patent office should give them an exception.

But then again, the only use for this material was probably the reactor.

The only other possible application was probably in medical equipment. However, because of the inferior toughness properties of the ceramic-based graphene composite compared to alloy materials, it was unlikely to be used in small-sized equipment.

Of course, these weren't things the researchers had to worry about.

"Controllable nuclear fusion." Yu Junda sighed and said, "Honestly, I never thought that I would one day participate in a national level scientific research project."

"I didn't expect this either."

The newly-baked sample was stuffed into the freezer. Hou Jinli set a four-hour timer and rubbed his tired eyebags as he said, "However, whether it is a national research project or an insignificant research project, all we have to care about is whether we are doing a good job."

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Chapter 536: Good News From Daya Bay

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Lu Zhou was prepared for Hou Jinli to not be able to complete this mission. However, Hou Jinli lived up to his expectations.

Five sets of samples, four samples in each set.

Due to the difficulties of preparing for the ceramic-based graphene composite, completing this mission within a week really wasn't easy.

In short, these samples could be sent to Daya Bay for testing.

Before testing the high-energy neutron radiation resistance, Lu Zhou had to first diagnose the performance of these five samples in a relatively low energy neutron radiation environment.

He'd only consider testing it on the experimental reactor if the results were good.

After all, both the tokamak and the stellarator were billion-dollar machines; they didn't come for free. Lu Zhou didn't know how long this project would take, so he had to conserve resources.

Unless it was necessary to collect experimental data, or it was a reliable attempt, it would be better to test it on a fission reactor first.

Hou Jinli looked at Lu Zhou, who was reading the report. He then took a deep breath and said, "In the experiment, we made some changes to the original experiment process and was able to find a more concise and easy synthesis method!"

When Lu Zhou heard this unexpected news, he raised his eyebrows with interest and said, "Oh, really? Write a report and hand it to me in two days."

Hou Jinli immediately nodded and said, "Okay!"

After Lu Zhou finished reading the XRD inspection reports, he put down the documents.

As far as the test results, these sample properties were basically consistent with his calculations.

Next up was to wait for the results from Daya Bay.

"If there's nothing else for you to do, you should go home early. You look like you can barely walk."

"Okay…"

Hou Jinli looked at Lu Zhou gratefully and didn't decline his suggestion.

After all, he was nearly thirty years old. His body wasn't as good as when he was still doing his PhD.

After a week of constant grinding, his body couldn't handle it anymore…

…

Just like they planned, Lu Zhou sent these five samples to Daya Bay through some special logistics channels.

They patiently waited for a while.

The test results were soon sent over.

"The test results from Daya Bay are here."

Yang Xu placed a document on Lu Zhou's table and said with excitement, "The results are perfect!"

Even though the test result was obvious from Yang Xu's facial expression alone, Lu Zhou still reached for the document and immediately began reading.

The five groups of materials were tested for different DPA interval rates and in different energy zones. They were also tested in different radiation conditions such as the pressurized water-cooled reactor (PWR) and the boiling water reactor (BWR).

The control group was austenitic steel, which was normally used as a structural material inside the fusion machine.

Just like Yang Xu had said, the results were near perfect.

Even though there were many values that weren't consistent with his computational materials calculations, the errors were within acceptable ranges.

After all, the Linhard Robinson model he used wasn't a perfect phenomenological model. Rather, if the data were to fit perfectly, then it would mean something had gone wrong.

The five groups were compared to one another. As the neutron scattering rate increased, the fourth set of samples exhibited the best neutron permeability and repairability against the Frenkel defect.

Especially when it was in the PWR environment, the radiation temperature was 680K, and when the neutron scattering reached 4.21020/cm2, the DPA production rate was less than 10% that of the control group's austenitic steel.

In the field of radioactive detection, the DPA index was used to indicate the number of outliers per atom.

Undoubtedly, they had succeeded!

At least, in a low-energy environment…

Compared to how excited Yang Xu was, Lu Zhou remained unusually calm.

After he read the entire document from the beginning to the end, he contemplated for a bit and said, "The radiation temperature is only 680K, obviously the neutron scattering is not enough. The energy of a single neutron is only at 1MeV, so don't be happy just yet. Our goal is to create a material for the structural material of the fusion reactor. This is only an in-progress result."

However, this in-progress research result was quite amazing.

At least in a low-energy environment, this ceramic-based graphene composite had already surpassed the common experimental reactor materials such as Al, Mg, and Zr.

Also, its anisotropy heat-transfer properties were unrivaled.

Judging from these excellent properties, even if this material wasn't used on the fusion reactor, it would still be highly applicable for fission reactors.

Yang Xu smiled and said, "You're too critical. Even though this is an in-progress result, this is quite a big achievement. I think there's nothing wrong with feeling happy about this."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Maybe, but I prefer to wait until the dust settles, then taste the victory champagne."

Yang Xu: "So… Does this mean we still have to experiment with the fusion machine?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "From the looks of it, yeah."

The only thing that could simulate a fusion reactor environment was the fusion reactor itself.

Yang Xu: "Let's not talk about the fusion reactor first. What do you plan on calling this material? The fourth sample set produced the best results. It's not like you can keep calling it by its number."

When Lu Zhou heard that he had to name something again, he was suddenly overwhelmed.

"Don't ask me to come up with a name. Go consult Hou Jinli and his research team. You guys can name the thing."

"Surely we can't do that?" Yang Xu smiled and said, "Normally, important things like naming the research results are done by the manager of the project. If you really can't come up with an idea, we can put your name on it."

Lu Zhou suddenly choked on his saliva and said, "Don't use my name, I'll think about it."

He knew that he would produce a lot of research results in the future.

If he used his name for everything, he was afraid that he wouldn't even remember which invention was which.

Lu Zhou contemplated on this serious problem for a second. His eyes suddenly lit up.

"Just call it PGC-1."

Yang Xu: "…"

Seeing that Yang Xu was speechless, Lu Zhou paused for a second.

"What?"

Yang Xu coughed and said awkwardly, "Nothing, it's a good name. I just think… this name matches your style very well."

PGC was an abbreviation for porous graphene carbon material. Since this was the first generation of this type of material, there was a number "1" at the end. This was basically the least confusing but also the most unimaginative nomenclature.

Naming such an important research result like this felt a little careless.

Lu Zhou guessed what Yang Xu was thinking, so he smiled and said, "The material name doesn't matter, what matters is its capabilities."

Yang Xu: "Okay, whatever you say… Oh yeah, if you plan on testing it on an experimental reactor, then are you going to Southwest?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "The HL-2A has been pushed to its limit. Looking at the situation after the last experiment, they'll probably take until the end of the year to repair it. I won't trouble them this time."

Even though Lu Zhou didn't mind torturing Old Zhou a couple more times, he had to think about this logically.

Injecting nuclear fuel into an experimental reactor was no joke. Even though the experimental reactor had safety protocols, if the hundreds of millions of degrees plasma were to leak out, it would cause a very serious accident.

Lu Zhou paused for a second and began to joke, "Not to mention, this is a historic moment. It'll probably be in future textbooks.

"It would be a shame if we were to use someone else's equipment for this important experiment."

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It was getting closer and closer to the end of the month.

Finally, all of the contradictions were coming to an end.

Soon, the next ITER conference would be held in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. In this meeting, the United States would once again question the Chinese representatives on the STAR research institute and other intellectual property related issues.

If everything went well, this might be the last time the ITER Council talked about this issue.

Because there were various signs that showed the outcome of this conference would likely determine China's future participation in ITER.

The world knew that China would not compromise and cooperate.

There were even ITER employees that wanted to remain anonymous, who said this might be the trigger for the collapse of ITER.

Even though this sounded like an exaggeration…

But in fact, this could happen.

As everyone knew, ITER had seven major participating countries or continents, namely Europe, America, Russia, China, Japan, Korea, and India. In addition to ITER, almost every participating country had its own independent controllable nuclear fusion project.

There was a consensus among all of the countries to establish their own controllable fusion technological advantage.

Because of this competition, it wasn't difficult to predict that an international cooperation project such as ITER would collapse.

This could all be seen from the insufficient funding ITER had been receiving recently.

Obviously, no one believed that this giant ship with all of the countries on board could sail for long.

Not to mention the captain of the ship was Europeans.

If the US suddenly created a problem regarding intellectual property rights, it would cause a lot of trouble.

The ignited fusion light was like a candle in the wind, vulnerable as it trembled in the cold winter night.

However, no matter what happened internationally, the scholars in the field still had to do their experiments.

Just after Lu Zhou received the good news from Daya Bay, a magnetic confinement experiment was well underway in the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory in Germany.

"37 minutes 6 seconds." Kervin looked at the computer screen and said, "This is probably our best result this month."

Even though they were still far from STAR's one-hour mark, at least they were able to produce a stable magnetic confinement fusion time for more than half an hour.

Professor Millek said, "Can we start an ignition experiment?"

Professor Keriber shook his head and said, "We haven't solved the radiation problem yet."

Professor Millek said, "Is there any progress?"

"Progress?" Professor Keriber's voice became even more bitter as he said, "The only progress we made is probably the fact that we are now aware that this technical pathway won't work. The swelling from the metallic materials from neutron radiation is too significant. It's hard to fix this, no matter what we do… Unless we can restrain the neutrons? But that sounds crazy."

The latest technology was the use of a molybdenum and zirconium alloy that was actually quite effective against the swelling effect from neutron radiation. However, alloys doped with molybdenum were much more difficult to weld than normal austenitic steels.

Not just that, but no matter how little molybdenum was doped into the metal, there was always the unstable factor from its radioactive metamorphic products.

Millek thought for a bit and pondered, "If the alloy doesn't work, what about non-metallic materials?"

Kervin shrugged and said, "There are a lot of non-metallic materials, but do you have a good suggestion?"

This wasn't the first time someone thought of using non-metallic materials in the field of controllable fusion research. The problem was that this technical pathway had never made much progress.

Kervin began to contemplate.

If Lu Zhou were here, what would he do?

However, Kervin didn't have a single clue.

He couldn't help but sigh.

If only we can cooperate with the STAR Stellarator Research Institute on the stellarator research…

If he had Professor Lu on his team, he was confident that he could shorten the time to commercialize controllable fusion by at least 20 years.

The completion of this technology would benefit the entire human civilization.

But now, it looked like there would be no cooperation.

…

Outside of the laboratory, Helms sat in the laboratory lounge while sipping coffee. He looked at his watch from time to time.

A few months ago, he was only a mid-level official at the CIA. However, because of an evaluation report that he wrote on controllable fusion research, he became highly recognized by the CIA higher-ups.

Right now, he was the CIA intelligence commissioner for the controllable fusion problem. He was fully responsible for collecting important information in the relevant fields and had a certain amount of decision-making power in some matters.

The reason he came to Germany was to understand the latest stellarator developments the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics had made. He also came here to meet with senior officials from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

The Chinese countermeasures worked very well. At least on the surface, it looked like China's research on controllable fusion had stopped progressing.

The STAR-1 and HL-2A machines had gone out of operation, while the cooperation between the EAST machine and the General Atomics company had been suspended. Everyone couldn't help but wonder how far China could go without any help from the international community.

Regardless, right now was the time to attack.

Even though on the surface the plan was going smoothly, he would never underestimate his opponents.

Just the name Lu Zhou alone made him cautious about this whole situation.

From their limited intel, it seemed that the failure of these two machines was related to Lu Zhou.

Right now, Lehman was sitting next to him. Lehman was a CIA intelligence officer operating in the German region.

Unlike the other agents who were underground, his identity was open to the public and was registered with the Federal Ministry of Defence of Germany. His main responsibility was to sit and drink coffee in the office or exchange information with the German intelligence departments.

He was the one that organized the meeting with Helms and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology of Germany.

When the two people were chatting, they happened to start talking about Lu Zhou.

Even though Lehman's work wasn't focused in this area, he still raised his eyebrows with interest.

"So, how many professors do you think this Professor Lu guy is worth?"

Helms: "If you really know him, you wouldn't ask such a dumb question. His value can't be measured in professors. It should be measured in Silicon Valleys or Seattles."

Lehman didn't care about Helms calling it a dumb question. Instead, he smiled and said, "When did Silicon Valley and Seattle become measuring units?"

Helms: "Silicon Valley and Seattle are not, but their potential economic values are. One person can create 10 billion or even 100 billion of GDP value, and I think he has this potential."

Lehman: "A Nobel Prize laureate creating 100 billion of GDP value? Is this Zimbabwe or Venezuela money?"

"Obviously it's in USD, and this is just a conservative estimate. The more I research about this guy, the more confident I am on my estimate." Helms put down the coffee cup and said, "Both the CIA and White House are not paying enough attention to this kid, and I think this is extremely dangerous."

Lehman leaned back in his chair and said, "Maybe you should write a detailed report and send it to the White House. Trump loves publicity."

Helms: "Actually, that's exactly what I plan on doing."

While they were talking, a group of people entered the lounge.

The person leading the group was the secretary-general of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, Norbert.

Helms stood up and reached his hand out with a smile.

"Hello, Mr. Norbert, I'm glad to meet you again."

"Hello, Mr. Helms." Norbert shook Helms's hand. He skipped the small-talk and said, "You didn't fly all the way from America to drink coffee with me, just give it to me straight."

"Here's the thing." Helms organized his thoughts, and he said, "Our Congress has reassessed the controllable fusion project and decided to invest around US$2 billion. This new stellarator machine is expected to be built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This means that German companies will receive at least a billion or so in contracts, thus creating tens of thousands of jobs. I'm sure you will be interested in this."

"Oh yeah?" Norbert's raised his eyebrows and said, "I'm interested in this topic, but why is the CIA talking about this with us?"

He was more confused about why the CIA officers were disclosing this information to him.

"Because the specific bidding plan will come out next month. If you are interested in this project, I have a small proposal."

Norbert said, "What proposal?"

"The ITER Council conference at the end of the month." Helms looked at Norbert and smirked as he said, "I think it's time for China to leave."

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Chapter 538: No Obvious Radiation Damage

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Jinling, China.

STAR machine research institute.

"We're here?"

Hou Jinli followed Lu Zhou into the research institute and looked around curiously.

Since leaving the University of Science and Technology of China, he had been at Jinling for more than six months. He was obviously related to the STAR stellarator project, but this was his first time coming here.

Prior to this, he had only heard rumors about this research institute.

Like for example, the security of the research institute was handled by military members.

Also, this place didn't appear on maps like Baidu and Google.

However, coming in now, he found out that the situation was the opposite of what he imagined.

How come the security here isn't as serious as I had thought?

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, we're here."

Hou Jinli scratched his head awkwardly.

"I thought the security measures here would be harsher."

Even airports have metal detectors and luggage scanners.

"The army is handling the security here, so it's completely safe. There is no way unauthorized personnel can even get close to here. Also, real security measures are hidden." Lu Zhou pointed with his chin and said, "See that?"

"Where?"

Hou Jinli looked at the direction Lu Zhou pointed at, but he but couldn't see anything.

"What's there?"

Lu Zhou: "There's a security camera hidden there, you just can't see it."

Hou Jinli was stunned. "How do you know?"

Lu Zhou: "I've seen the surveillance footage."

Hou Jinli: "…"

All the streets near this place were filled with security cameras; it had no dead spots.

Not just that, but in terms of personnel review, it was equipped with facial recognition by using big data analysis. For example, if a non-resident of this area kept wandering around here all day, even if they didn't come close to the research institute, they would be approached by a security member.

This level of security measures was only possible in recent years.

After all, China's ITER situation was becoming more and more obvious. Also, the United States' interest in controllable fusion technology gave China a reason to believe that the US might pull some dirty tricks and try to take data in an illegitimate way.

Regardless, there was no such thing as too safe.

Also, it wasn't like Lu Zhou had to personally worry about these things.

There were people that took care of these things behind the scenes.

Hou Jinli walked past the tunnel entrance, and the pair walked straight into the laboratory embedded into the mountain.

When the two arrived, the rest of the laboratory researchers were already there.

After more than a month of the overhaul, the STAR machine had returned to its best state.

However, it was not really in the "best" state. After all, the swelling of the structural material couldn't be completely eliminated. However, using the knowledge they gained from the ignition experiment last time, this shouldn't be a big problem.

Even if an accident were to happen…

It would be worth it!

Even though the radiation environment for both the stellarator and tokamak was similar, there were some subtle differences. Other than for the sake of "witnessing history", this was the other reason why Lu Zhou chose the STAR stellarator over EAST or any other tokamak for this experiment.

Sheng Xianfu, who was in charge, saw Lu Zhou walk into the laboratory. He immediately walked over and gave Lu Zhou an update of the situation.

"All of the preparations have been completed, we can begin the experiment anytime now."

Lu Zhou: "Is the sample inside?"

Sheng Xianfu: "It's inside."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Then, let's start."

Sheng Xianfu: "Ok!"

Their conversation ended.

After Sheng Xianfu received the order, he immediately returned to his work station.

Hou Jinli took a deep breath. The experiment was about to begin, and his whole body was shaking.

40 billion yuan scientific research project. He had never participated in such a major project before.

What if the machine failed, would he be held accountable? What if the LPC-1 material didn't work or that he made a mistake on the XRD test, thus resulting in the failure of this experiment…

Even though there was no way these things could happen, he was still sh*tting bricks.

After all, he had never thought about these problems before he stepped foot into the laboratory.

Hou Jinli looked at Lu Zhou and went into deep thought.

If I'm feeling the pressure just by standing here, then what kind of pressure is Professor Lu feeling?

It's terrifying just thinking about it…

Academician Pan, who was standing next to Lu Zhou, looked at the hard-working staff members behind the floor-to-ceiling windows. He frowned and began to look a little concerned.

"Are we really going to use the STAR machine for this experiment?"

"This is the best choice." Lu Zhou nodded and said with a poker face, "If the LPC-1 material proves to be effective, we will immediately begin the construction of the demonstration reactor."

"Is the issue with the liquid lithium neutron recovery system solved?" Academician Pan looked at him in surprise and said, "There's also the ferrofluid electric energy generator, these are two very important issues, right?"

Lu Zhou: "They can be solved while the construction is underway. Compared to the neutron radiation, these aren't very difficult problems."

Academician Pan: "I don't know why you're in such a hurry. There's still five years until 2025. It's important to go slow and steady… Please don't be overly hasty."

"Ok," Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I understand."

Academician Pan shook his head.

He knew he couldn't persuade Lu Zhou. Lu Zhou only said "I understand" to be polite to him. Maybe because Lu Zhou was too used to researching alone, which created his assertiveness.

However, Academician Pan had nothing else to do.

After all, he had been away from the research front line for too long; all he got now was the so-called "honor" and "reputation".

He could help with things outside of the research. Like when Lu Zhou's cooperation with other research institutes didn't go smoothly, he could act as a type of lubricant.

However, in terms of the actual experiment… he really didn't have any say.

Academician Pan sighed and looked at the giant metal behemoth behind the glass panels.

All he could do now was pray.

…

More than 20 samples were installed in the reactor.

This time, there weren't any cameras or reporters.

Because Lu Zhou contacted the city council and indicated that the content of this fusion experiment wasn't suitable for public exposure.

Thank God he did this.

Otherwise, the city council really would have sent a media reporter.

Sheng Xianfu took a deep breath and looked at his watch.

He exchanged glances with Lu Zhou before ordering, "Begin experiment!"

The second he finished speaking, the liquid helium was injected into the SG-1 superconducting magnets, soaking the circle of graphene wires outside the stellarator outer track.

The resistance of the external magnetic field quickly dropped, and a large current began to pass through the magnetic coil. With the help from the control coil, a perfectly closed magnetic field was formed inside the stellarator.

Using a computer, once Sheng Xianfu confirmed that the magnetic field was in good shape, he continued to order, "Inject the fuel!"

1mg of tritium deuterium mixture was injected from the conduit into the reaction chamber.

At the same time, the microwave heating device began to heat up the gas molecules inside the machine reaction chamber.

Almost instantly, the gas molecules were ionized into plasma. There was a beautiful aurora-like glow from the magnificent reaction chamber.

The glow was slightly shaking, making it appear vulnerable.

However, that glowing heat inside was hot enough to cut through any armor in this world.

Fortunately, it was being controlled by an invisible force…

The magnetic field stabilized and confined the plasma.

The temperature and density of the plasma began to increase to the critical point of fusion ignition.

Everyone couldn't help but clench their fists.

In an instant, the camera flickered and was filled with white noise.

The most terrifying energy on the planet was brewing inside the stellarator chamber.

However, this entire process lasted for less than three seconds…

"Turn off the microwave heating device!"

After the heating device was turned off, the heat inside the machine began to dissipate, and the fusion reaction suddenly stopped.

After they waited for the machine to cool down, staff members wearing protective gear quickly entered into the reaction chamber and retrieved the valuable samples.

These samples would be sent into a dedicated test chamber for DPA and helium residual measurements.

At the same time, the equipment maintenance staff members rushed into the machine and began to evaluate the damage of the first wall material, structural material, the divertor, and other components.

Hou Jinli looked at the samples being sent to the testing room. He followed them and helped the STAR research institute researchers complete the tests.

Within an hour, the test results came out.

Hou Jinli took the report to the laboratory. Everyone gathered around him, including those that couldn't understand the report content.

Hou Jinli's hands were trembling. He looked at Lu Zhou. He then looked at the researchers around him before he said excitedly, "The neutron beam basically passed straight through the material, and the interstitial atom returned to its original position! All of the data show that the material has extremely high neutron radiation-resistant properties! There is no obvious radiation damage!"

Sheng Xianfu held his breath.

Academician Pan's eyes were wide open.

Everyone's expression changed to a look of astonishment.

The neutron beam passed through!

No obvious radiation damage!

Lu Zhou began to gradually smirk.

This was probably the best news he heard this year!

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Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. The sky was drizzling.

This small town in the south of France normally was undisturbed by the outside world. However, at this moment, the entire world's attention was on this small town.

Soon the ITER Council conference at the end of the month would begin at the ITER headquarters.

In this conference, the US would issue a final inquiry on whether or not China would fulfill the ITER technology sharing agreement.

If this meeting went sideways, the ITER Council would issue a vote and decide on China's future involvement in the ITER organization.

Over the past month or so, the world had made many speculations on the decision of the Chinese representatives.

However, none of the speculations were optimistic about China and the US reaching a consensus on this issue.

This rainy weather seemed to have foreshadowed this meeting; this conference was destined to go south.

Luo Zhanyuan, who was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a representative, sat at the conference table.

It was 9:30 am.

The conference was about to begin in thirty minutes.

Not far away, United States representative Adam Cohen was pleasantly exchanging opinions with the European Union representatives. He couldn't help but look at the Chinese representatives from time to time.

Obviously, they had reached a consensus before coming to this meeting.

Even though Luo Zhanyuan had a careless expression on his face, he secretly sighed in his heart.

Being able to survive until now…

I tried my best.

Half an hour quickly passed by. The ITER chairman announced the start of the meeting and talked about the meeting agenda.

In addition to figuring out whether or not China had fulfilled its ITER obligations, they were also going to discuss the technical route and details of controllable fusion machines.

Which was, the various tokamaks the countries had all built.

After the ITER chairman finished reading the meeting agenda, American representative Adam Cohen was the one to speak first.

"With regards to the controllable nuclear fusion technology disclosure ITER agreement, I would like to reiterate our position.

"We believe that China has been receiving ITER technology, but hasn't fulfilled its international ITER obligations.

"We have spent a long time arguing about this previously. Today will be the last day we shall talk about this issue. If China continues to refuse to fulfill its obligations, then we will apply to the ITER Council for a vote on China's withdrawal from ITER…"

The second Cohen finished speaking, there was a commotion in the conference room.

Before coming here today, most people already knew this was going to happen. However, they still didn't expect that the first words that came out of the American representative mouth were so blunt and threatening.

The Americans were basically saying, "if you don't agree with us, we will vote and kick you out".

It looked like they didn't give any room for negotiation for the Chinese representatives.

Director-General Motojima was sitting at the end of the conference table, and he spoke thoughtfully.

"It looks like I made a mistake in my previous judgment."

Ishida, the Japanese representative who was sitting next to him, said, "What judgment?"

"I always thought the US was using intellectual property issues as a way to pressure China to disclose its superconducting magnet, plasma control scheme, and other technologies. I didn't think the US made up its mind right from the beginning. All they want to do is to kick China out."

Ishida frowned and said, "But how does this benefit the Americans?"

Motojima looked at him and said in a serious manner, "Ishida, benefits don't always mean receiving something, it also means denying your opponents something."

"Oh really…"

Ishida began to contemplate.

I guess this makes sense…

But will this really go so smoothly? If China is kicked out of ITER, will they really fall behind on fusion energy research?

I don't think it's this simple…

After all, he heard that the chief designer of the Chinese stellarator project was that genius Lu Zhou, who had created countless miracles…

Luo Zhanyuan, who sat at the conference table with his arms crossed, listened to the chatter around him. He looked at Adam Cohen with a poker face.

When the ITER conference organizer signaled that he could start speaking, he reached out and adjusted the microphone.

Suddenly, the satellite phone in his pocket began to vibrate at this inconvenient time.

Luo Zhanyuan felt the vibration in his pocket and frowned. However, he didn't hesitate before reaching for his phone.

After all, there were only a few people on earth that could call this phone…

"Hello?"

Luo Zhanyuan quietly listened to the other side of the telephone. When he heard something, he suddenly raised his eyebrows.

He took a deep breath and murmured quietly, "Okay, I understand."

The other representative sitting next to him glanced at him.

Even though it was only a short exchange, the other Chinese representative felt like Luo Zhanyuan's tone had completely changed.

Adam Cohen patiently waited for Luo Zhanyuan to finish his call.

"Do you have anything to say?"

Luo Zhanyuan hung up the call and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. He glanced at Adam with a blank face.

When Luo Zhanyuan saw Adam's smug face, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Cohen was stunned when he saw the Chinese representative laughing, and his brows furrowed.

Helms, who was also part of the American representative team, furrowed his eyebrows. He had no idea why this Chinese guy was laughing.

"My apologies." Luo Zhanyuan cleared his throat and removed the impolite smile off his face. He put his fists on the table and stood up as he said, "There's a saying, if you want to punish someone, you will always find a way. We don't have anything to say…"

Cohen wasn't surprised at this reply.

He previously thought that the Chinese representative might try to argue on this issue, and he would fight back every single argument. No matter how fierce the argument was, the final outcome wasn't going to change.

Cohen cleared his throat and was about to proceed onto the next step, which was the voting process. However, Luo Zhanyuan, who was still standing up, interrupted Cohen and spoke first.

"A month ago, we have disclosed all of the relevant data in accordance with the ITER policy. However, your unreasonable demands on this issue have been disappointing, to say the least.

"We are willing to cooperate under equal terms. However, we will never oblige to unreasonable demands.

"Since this is the case, we will not waste any more of your time."

Luo Zhanyuan adjusted his collar and looked at the other Chinese representatives. Then, he looked at everyone in the conference room and spoke calmly, "I am speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China.

"From this point onward, the People's Republic of China will withdraw from ITER!"

The second he finished speaking, the entire conference room was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.

Luo Zhanyuan looked around the room. He then stared at Adam Cohen before speaking in a condescending manner, "I'll let you guys host this meeting by yourselves.

"Farewell."

After that, he packed up the things on his desk and turned around before walking toward the conference room door.

The ITER director looked at the Chinese representatives leaving. He was dumbfounded. He wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say.

Adam Cohen was the same. His entire body was frozen. It was like there were three question marks written on his face.

According to the usual process, they should kick the Chinese out by way of a voting process. However, he didn't expect them to leave before the voting even began.

There was a commotion in the conference room again.

It wasn't just the chairman and the American representatives, almost everyone was dumbfounded.

American representative Helms looked at the empty Chinese representative seats and couldn't help but feel a little anxious.

They should feel happy right now.

After all, kicking China out of ITER was what the White House and CIA wanted; it was what he wanted.

Maybe…

China has already completed the key technologies for controllable fusion?

He quickly shook his head at this terrifying possibility, and he tried to remove this thought from his head.

No, impossible…

There is no way they already did it.

The ITER chairman secretary observed the chaotic conference room. The secretary began to whisper to the ITER chairman, "Mr. Chairman… Is this meeting still happening?"

The chairman went silent for a while.

"Begin whatever is next on the agenda."

In any case, they still had to continue this meeting.

Next on the agenda list was the issue of controllable nuclear fusion machines.

Logically speaking, this was an exciting topic.

However, he wasn't excited at all…

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Chapter 540: Construction!

After China announced its withdrawal from ITER, it was like a brick was thrown in the quiet pond, setting off an uproar in the international community.

Various major media outlets reported on this incident and made different analyses as well as comments on the whole situation.

The secretary of the United States Department of Energy and spokesperson of the European Union Energy Department had repeatedly emphasized that this wouldn't affect ITER's progress and that all of the remaining country members were still focusing on energy development. However, the academic community and media outlets had a negative view of this situation.

Some even commented that this was the starting point of ITER's collapse.

This rumor was floating around both in China and around the world.

Even though this piece of news was only a tiny segment in the news broadcast, it still attracted a lot of attention.

On Weibo, this piece of news that had nothing to do with boring celebrities flexing their wealth was actually on the top-ten trending page.

Even though the popularity of this event quickly decreased, it still caused widespread discussion.

Some people praised China for its domineering response to the US representatives' unreasonable demands. Other people thought that brute-forcing wouldn't fix any problem, and expressed their concerns for the Chinese future controllable nuclear fusion research field. They even blamed it on Lu Zhou…

[Apparently, the reason why China left ITER was that the STAR research institute didn't fulfill ITER's protocols.]

[Really?]

[I think it's real! My neighbor's uncle is working at some nuclear fusion research institute. Apparently, our nuclear fusion research institute was ruined by that Professor Lu.]

[What the hell do you mean ruined? Is the STAR machine not the best in the world?]

[They said it's the best, but surely STAR research institute isn't the only one doing research on controllable nuclear fusion. According to the ITER Agreement, the country members must share their research progress on controllable fusion research with other country members. However, the STAR research institute didn't fully disclose their research details!]

[If this is real, then Lu Zhou both brought us success and failure…]

[Stop bullsh*tting, this story has a million loopholes! For a national scientific research project like this, do you really think the research institute gets to decide on whether or not they disclose their results?]

[Omg, do you know what a contract is? Do you think the Americans are just questioning us for no reason? Are you confident that the STAR research institute didn't conceal any of their research results?]

[…]

"This is so annoying!" Xiao Tong sat at the table and scrolled through her Weibo. She said furiously, "These people have no idea what they're talking about, they're just speaking nonsense!"

My brother is working so hard…

Yet these people are still talking trash about him.

Lu Zhou looked at how riled up Xiao Tong was, but he only gave a short answer.

"Don't use your phone when you're eating."

Xiao Tong put her phone down. She felt dissatisfied.

"Brother, do you not care what the people on the Internet are saying about you?"

Lu Zhou chuckled and replied nonchalantly, "A thousand people have a thousand brains and a thousand mouths. You will never make everyone be satisfied with you. These things are all insignificant, just make sure you live your best life."

The world was dominated by laymen.

Whether it was in academia or in the industry, once a person reached the status of a celebrity, then their name was no longer just a name.

Compared to Lu Zhou's contributions to society or his "boring" research work, people would always be more keen to report on minor things. They would try to judge based on things like moral standards or his personal life.

It was just like how most people didn't even know what Yang Chen-Ning received the Nobel Prize for, but they would gladly blabber about his wife who was 50 years his junior.

Lu Zhou was used to seeing this.

Just like how in his Weibo comments area, rather than talking about the groundbreaking problems that he solved, netizens were always focused on why he was so handsome but didn't have a girlfriend…

Xiao Tong felt suspicious. She looked at her brother and said, "Why do I feel like you're not in a good mood?"

"Am I?" Lu Zhou rubbed his chin. He didn't feel any different than usual.

Xiao Tong nodded her head in a half-serious way.

After a while, she began to think about something naughty, and she said worriedly, "Brother…"

"What now?"

"Are you…" Xiao Tong was embarrassed as she said, "Are you the type of person that gets turned on when people insult you?"

Lu Zhou: "F*ck off."

…

Lu Zhou's mood had been pretty good recently.

Even though China's withdrawal from ITER had a certain degree of influence on his work, but compared to the breakthroughs that he recently made on his research, the effect of leaving ITER was negligible.

It wasn't just the PGC-1 material breakthrough, the first stage of the liquid lithium neutron recovery system design had also been completed.

Right now, he had all of the puzzle pieces in his hands.

All he had to do now was to complete the final, most important step…

STAR research institute.

A meeting was about to begin in a conference room inside the research institute.

All of the institutions that were cooperating with the STAR research institute had sent their engineers and representatives to this conference room.

Academician Wang was inside the conference room. When he flipped open his notebook, he suddenly heard a familiar and loud voice.

"I was wondering if you were going to come, I didn't expect you to actually be here."

"Oh, Old Sun?" When Academician Wang Zengguang saw the old man sitting next to him, his eyes lit up as he said, "Haha, long time no see!"

This was Sun Zhonghai, the chief engineer of the China National Nuclear Corporation!

Even though this guy wasn't very likable, he didn't care. After all, these two had known each other for more than 20 years.

"Yeah, long time no see." Engineer Sun saw looked at his friend and said, "More than a year, right? Your hair isn't even white yet, but half of them are falling off."

"Haha, maybe you should look at yourself in the mirror first." Academician Wang smiled and said, "I'll be bald, but at least I'll get to attend your funeral."

Engineer Sun looked at the front of the conference room and said, "Speaking of which, did Professor Lu give you a heads up on what this meeting is for?"

"He didn't tell me anything." Academician Wang shook his head and looked at the red curtains on stage. "It's about to begin soon, why don't you just wait for a bit?"

Prior to this, he only heard that they were going to discuss important things at this conference. However, the STAR research institute didn't tell them the specifics.

The conference began.

Once the curtains unveiled, the two stopped talking. They quietly waited for the conference to begin, just like everyone else.

Lu Zhou walked on stage and looked at all of the attendees. He cleared his throat and said slowly, "A week ago, there has been a breakthrough in the first wall material research.

"The PGC-1 material, developed by the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, has reached the neutron radiation-resistant requirements for the fusion reactor."

There was a commotion in the audience.

Academician Wang and Engineer Sun looked at each other with shock in their eyes.

They were also excited.

Lu Zhou didn't stop.

He continued to speak in a clear and steady voice, "We have done enough preparations to integrate this material.

"I think that it is time to push our plan to the next stage."

The venue was dead silent.

Even though Lu Zhou's speech wasn't particularly passionate or monumental, everyone here couldn't help but clench their fists and hold their breath.

Lu Zhou was just as excited as everyone else, but he didn't show it on his face.

He took a deep breath and looked around the venue. He then made a clear announcement.

"The STAR-2 demonstration fusion machine.

"Will begin…

"Construction immediately!"

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Chapter 541: Tianwan

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

From his Institute of Materials exchange visa being revoked to China leaving ITER, Xiao Le's mood this month was like a slide, sliding all the way to the bottom.

Xiao Le waited for a month at home; he basically wasted the entire month. Every day, he'd browse arXiv, track the latest major research institute trends, or help his mom walk the dog.

He was the only one that could understand the pain of being pulled out of unfinished research.

He hadn't heard any news from Professor Li yet. He didn't know if Professor Li hadn't found a new research project for him to do or just temporarily forgot about him.

The Institute of Materials had no further arrangements for the PhDs that were sent back from General Atomics. It seemed like they didn't have a plan for what they should do.

After all, after the withdrawal from ITER, many collaborative ITER research projects were suspended. There were a lot of people who had to reschedule their work.

Unfortunately, the state had tightened its investment in the tokamak field. Their existing funds simply couldn't support so many research projects…

Apparently, the institute was in chaos right now. Xiao Le wasn't sure if he wanted to go back or not. However, he still decided to rest for a few days and then go to Lu Yang.

After all, his brain was rusting from staying at home all day…

However, after he packed his bags and even bought the train ticket, he suddenly received a call from the institute.

"Where are you now?"

"Beijing… Did Professor Li ask you to contact me?" Xiao Le quickly responded to the phone.

"We've already contact Professor Li. He's the one that recommended you to us. There's a research position in Jiangsu that is a good fit, we want to know if you are interested."

Xiao Le was muddled. "Wait a second, I don't understand what you're saying. Research position? In Jiangsu?"

"Yeah." The man on the other side of the phone wasn't impatient at all, and he said, "It's in Jiangsu, and it's about the controllable nuclear fusion."

Xiao Le asked, "STAR research institute?"

"No comment."

Xiao Le was confused, and he said, "The nuclear fusion field is too broad. You should at least tell me what exactly the research is and the research location."

"The specific research is undetermined yet, the research location is still in a confidential period," the man said. "You just need to say if you're going or not."

This… is really a difficult request.

Xiao Le smiled and shook his head.

However, he only contemplated for two seconds before answering…

"I'm going."

This kind of opportunity was once in a lifetime.

His intuition told him that this was the only time he would have an opportunity like this.

The man on the phone replied, "Ok, I'll help you with the procedure. Also, your train ticket has been changed, remember to take the train at 3 pm tomorrow."

After that, he hung up the call.

Xiao Le looked at the phone in his hand with a weird expression.

Not only did the guy know about his train ticket, but he even changed his ticket destination. The person behind the call must be a powerful figure…

At least, it wasn't anyone from the Institute of Materials.

…

On the afternoon the next day, Xiao Le sat on the train and arrived at the destination. He dragged his suitcase off the train and stood outside the train station. In less than half a minute, he saw a black Jetta park in front of him, which drove him to the mysterious workplace.

After he arrived at the destination, he was immediately shocked.

Not because the work location was deserted. Instead, it was the opposite. This place was almost too "lively".

There were more than a dozen buses parked outside the factory, with various engineering equipment scattered around.

There were more than a dozen logos that he recognized. Some were top Chinese institutes for plasma physics, others were giant companies like the China National Nuclear Corporation.

He had a vague understanding of what this project was going to be.

However, never in a million years did he expect the STAR research institute to progress so quickly.

The entire world was still estimating how far they were from a demonstration reactor, but they had already begun their demonstration reactor project quietly.

Suddenly, a man in his early fifties walked over while holding a resume.

"You're Xiao Le?"

Xiao Le nodded and said, "Yes, sir."

"Ok, come with me."

Xiao Le looked back at the driver who drove him here and gulped. He immediately took his suitcase and followed the old man.

Even though he followed the old man reluctantly, he couldn't help but ask about the situation here.

"I'm in the tokamak field. This is probably research on the stellarator, right? Me coming here…"

"There's no use saying these things to me." The old man walked toward the research institute and said without any expression, "I'm only responsible for bringing you there. If you have any questions, you can ask him."

Him?

Who?

Even though Xiao Le really wanted to ask this question, seeing that the old man didn't answer his question regarding the research institute, he decided to shut his mouth instead.

He looked around and asked an unimportant problem.

"There are so many people here, how is this place going to be kept a secret?"

The expressionless old man suddenly smiled.

"Kiddo, do you know what happens when someone leaks a secret?"

"I don't know."

How would I know?

Xiao Le began to think.

The old man pointed behind him, toward the driver in the Jetta.

"If you want to know, you can ask him."

…

The requirements for the location of a nuclear power plant were very high.

According to the international site selection guidelines, factors such as geology, surface, meteorology, hydrology, environmental protection, construction, transportation, power station technology, power grid, and social impact had to be considered.

First of all, geographically, there couldn't be any fault zones below the site. There shouldn't be any active fault zones within a few kilometers of the nuclear power plant. As for the history of the site, there shouldn't be any earthquake of magnitude 6 or above within 100 kilometers of the sea or 50 kilometers on lands near the site.

Secondly, there was the transportation issue.

The entire reactor was designed to be several times more complex than the fission reactor, and the size was also much larger. The various components involved couldn't be produced locally in the province of Jiangsu. It could only be produced and then transported to Jiangsu, where it would be assembled on site.

Taking all these factors into consideration, there weren't many places in Jiangsu that could meet all of these conditions.

After the provincial government discussed and consulted with experts, the location of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor was finally set to be near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in Haizhou.

First of all, there were abundant resources available here. The site reserved for the third phase of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant project was a perfect place for the demonstration reactor experimental plant. Secondly, the engineers in this area were all experts in the field of nuclear power. They had an ocean of experience and could help with the demonstration reactor engineering problems.

As for the safety problem, Lu Zhou didn't have to worry about it at all.

After the demonstration reactor location was determined, a military combat unit was deployed in the area.

On the other hand, after the project site was selected, Lu Zhou rushed to the site and began to consult the engineers from China National Nuclear Corporation. They exchanged views on the design of the demonstration reactor.

Also, in less than a week, thousands of researchers from various research institutes and engineering-related fields were assembled.

In order to ensure that this project went smoothly, the country basically agreed to all of the conditions proposed by Lu Zhou.

Which were funding and human resources.

"I have the guy." The old man walked into the laboratory with Xiao Le and placed Xiao Le's resume on the table.

Lu Zhou nodded.

"Thank you."

The old man waved his hand.

"This is nothing. You guys have fun, I'm leaving."

When the old man left the office, he closed the door on his way out.

Lu Zhou looked at how nervous Xiao Le was and smiled.

"Relax, don't be so nervous. I only want to ask you a few questions."

Xiao Le smiled and said, "Of course I'm nervous, I'm meeting my idol."

Idol?

Lu Zhou heard this and smiled awkwardly.

This kid has good taste in idols.

I think I have the potential to be an idol.

However…

This is not the time to be joking around.

Lu Zhou coughed and stopped smiling. He said, "I heard from the Institute of Materials that you have visited the DIII-D at the General Atomics laboratory?"

"Yeah…" Xiao Le felt like his answer was too simple and wasn't respectful enough. He immediately said, "I went there with Professor Li when I first started my PhD. I stayed there for four years, so I was there for the longest."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I know, that's why I brought you here."

He paused for a second and continued, "Since you stayed there for four years, I'm sure you know a lot about the situation there. With regard to their heating technology, I want to know what their main research area is? What is their research progress like?"

Xiao Le was an expert in this field, and he immediately answered, "Their main research area right now is on the ion cyclotron resonance heating…"

Lu Zhou listened carefully to Xiao Le's explanation while rubbing his chin with his finger and nodding from time to time.

He had to admit that the DIII-D plasma diagnosis and heating technology was very strong.

The plasma diagnosis was handled by the He3 atom probe; he didn't have to think about that for the time being.

As for the heating part, even though it wasn't a critical issue, he still had to pay attention.

After all, the demonstration reactor was different than the experimental reactor. The plasma diagnosis didn't matter too much, but the heating technology was important.

A lack of heating technology would ultimately be shown in the efficiency of energy output.

Also, through these detailed explanations from Xiao Le, combined with Lu Zhou's own experience in controllable nuclear fusion research, he could roughly estimate the research progress the General Atomics energy company had made in the field of controllable nuclear fusion as well as how far they were from a demonstration reactor.

Lu Zhou asked a lot about DIII-D's experiment. Xiao Le answered all of the questions one by one.

Finally, Lu Zhou contemplated for a bit before saying, "The tokamak heating device isn't exactly the same as that of the stellarator, but the heating principle is similar.

"We plan on redesigning the ICRF[1.Ion cyclotron resonance heating] antenna from the EAST machine and building one that can be used on the stellarator.

"If you are interested, I can introduce you to the research project in this area."

Did I just… struck the jackpot?

Xiao Le was ecstatic, and he immediately nodded and said, "Please do!"

As expected, I made the correct choice on the phone…

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Chapter 542: The News That Shocked the World

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The controllable nuclear fusion field had been action-packed for the entire year.

In the past, ITER would hold a press conference even for a tiny matter. However, this year, the amount of news overwhelmed the ITER spokesperson.

First was the plasma turbulence model, then it was the STAR one-hour magnetic confinement time, after that was the US representative questioning China at the ITER meeting, which resulted in China's withdrawal from ITER.

Throughout the year, it was like everyone working in the controllable nuclear fusion field was riding a thrilling roller coaster.

The news that China had withdrawn from ITER was still trending when an article released by Everyone Daily once again shocked the international plasma physics and controllable nuclear fusion community.

The first day in October, which was a national holiday, China suddenly announced that the STAR-2 demonstration reactor would enter its next and final stage.

Which was, that the demonstration reactor would begin construction at the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant.

Once this announcement was made, not only were the international plasma physics and controllable nuclear fusion community shocked, but it was like a magnitude 8 earthquake that shocked the entire world.

Demonstration reactor!

No one expected this to happen; it all came so suddenly.

The English media outlet BBC was first to report on this news.

Benderbauer, Chairman of the American Tri Alpha company, agreed to do an interview with BBC. He commented on this event.

"If China becomes the first country to commercialize fusion technology, then they will gain significant economic, geographical, and political advantages. Their presence in the Asia-Pacific region will also expand at an unimaginable speed.

"I'm not exaggerating at all when I say this. This new technology is completely different than anything we had in the past. To put it in simpler terms, it is the holy grail of the energy field, it can illuminate the dark future for mankind.

"Of course, even though the situation is severe, the competition has only just begun. We are confident we can surpass them. Of course, that is on the premise that Congress continues to invest in us…"

In addition to Benderbauer, the BBC reporter also contacted Professor Steven Cowley, who was also the dean of the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, former Director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, and the former CEO of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

During an interview, Professor Steven gave his opinion on China's withdrawal.

"Even though ITER has been talking about kicking China out of the ITER international project, no one wanted to see it go down this way."

Reporter: "Is there a difference?"

Steven Cowley looked into the BBC camera and said, "There definitely is a difference.

"In the beginning, China had the lowest amount of employees in ITER out of all of the countries. Now they are second only to the European Union. Not just that, but they were ranked third in all of the country members in terms of funding, and they were always able to meet their financial commitments…

"Because the withdrawal process was so abrupt, all of the Chinese employees were forced to evacuate. Less than one-fifth of them chose to stay. A lot of key projects have stagnated because of this.

"The reason they chose to quit is undoubtedly a counterattack to the US' pressure on their STAR machine. The reason they were willing to do so was largely in part due to the success of their STAR machine.

"Every country has its own controllable fusion project and its own technologies. ITER isn't the only ongoing controllable fusion project. ITER has also never asked any other countries to disclose their research that wasn't related to the ITER project.

"What I have to say is that it is asinine to force China to leave ITER right now. Starting a competition for this future technology is also ridiculous.

"If China is no longer involved, then ITER, which is seriously under-funded, will no longer be able to continue. We can only hope that America fulfills its commitments and that South Korea and the European Union will be able to bear more funding… But looking at it practically, this is very difficult."

Reporter: "Are you not optimistic about ITER's future?"

Professor Steven: "Actually, I've never been optimistic. Shutting down our Joint European Torus in Oxfordshire to support the EU's ITER program was the wrong decision from the beginning. Where are they planning to build a demonstration reactor? In Cadarache, near Marseille. The second I heard that they are planning to build the demonstration reactor in France, I knew this project was doomed. Sure enough, they haven't even finished building the laboratory."

Reporter coughed and said, "Which country do you think is a better choice?"

Steven didn't even hesitate before saying, "Of course it's the UK."

Reporter: "…"

…

Washington, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A president with a stylish haircut slammed the newspaper on his desk. His spit was flying all over the place.

"I want to know what is happening here! If it wasn't for someone on Twitter reminding me to read the newspaper, I wouldn't have even known what is happening in China!"

The newspaper he was talking about was the Everyone Daily – English edition.

The news headline was about the latest STAR-2 demonstration reactor project development.

The irony was that he didn't first hear about this through his own intelligence channels. Instead, he read it in a Chinese newspaper.

The bright red eye-catching news title was painful to his eyes.

He could feel the provocation from China just through the newspaper alone.

Sitting next to him was CIA director Gina Haspel and the CIA controllable fusion intelligence commissioner Helms.

Gina had her arms crossed as she slowly said, "Maybe Mr. Helms can explain."

When Helms heard the woman call his name, his shoulders couldn't help but tremble.

Gina Haspel.

If there was one person in the CIA he didn't want to piss off, then it undoubtedly was this sixty-year-old woman.

In addition to Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse rumor that gave her the name "Bloody Gina", Helms had heard other rumors about Gina's cruel doings.

When Trump appointed her as the CIA director, it set off an uproar in the United States…

Helms took a deep breath before he said, "This is our negligence. We underestimated the interest the Chinese have on controllable fusion. They might be more ahead than we think."

Trump took a deep breath. "I want to know… After they finish building the demonstration reactor, how many years are they away from achieving this technology?"

"I don't know." Helms had a painful expression on his face as he said, "But at their speed, it shouldn't take long for them to go from demonstration reactor to fusion commercialization…"

The office became silent.

Seeing that Mr. President and Ms. Director weren't speaking, Helms carefully tried to defuse the situation. He coughed and muttered, "I think we should pay attention to one particular person."

Haspel looked at him and said, "One person?"

"Yes." Helms gulped and nodded. He then said, "I've done the research. Before he returned to China, even though China has made some achievements in the tokamak, they were far from catching up to us. They didn't do any research on the stellarator.

"But after he returned to China, within a year, the situation changed drastically…"

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Chapter 543: Character Outbreak?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Regardless of how the White House was reacting to this sudden situation, the global market had already responded.

The day after Everyone Daily reported on the demonstration reactor project, the global thermal coal futures market was scared sh*tless; everyone panicked and began selling.

What did a demonstration reactor mean?

How far away was China from controllable fusion technology?

There wasn't anyone that could answer these questions.

However, one thing was certain—China was a huge coal-consuming country, and it consumed more than 50% of the world's coal. If China didn't need so much coal in the future, who was going to pay for the coal they had in stock?

Even though everyone knew that this day wasn't going to come anytime soon, the futures market was about future transactions. Whenever investors lost their confidence in the future of a commodity, the downfall of that commodity was only a matter of time.

At a time like this, the faster one exited, the lower the losses.

This didn't only happen in the coal industry.

Since a large amount of money was withdrawn from the energy sector, the panic began to spread to other energy markets such as propane, natural gas, and crude oil. This led to a decline in the entire energy futures market.

Even though the loss of other futures contracts was a lot less than that of coal, it still maintained a downward trend. This trend continued from the opening to the closing of the market.

The stock market was just like the futures market.

The energy sector was completely demolished.

The world's major financial institutions made some statistical analysis on the day trading situation. In just one day, the global energy stock market capitalization dropped hundreds of billion USD, almost equivalent to the market cap of Google.

Lu Zhou was the person that triggered this chain reaction. He had no idea what he just unintentionally did.

However, even if he knew, he wouldn't care too much. At most, he would sign and hope the money would go to him instead.

Because he could spend the money more meaningfully…

…

[Congratulations, User, for mission completion!]

Lu Zhou was in the pure white system space. He read the texts on the holographic information screen and received the rewards from his mission victory.

Just like last time, he completed two mission-chain missions at once.

First was the PGC-1 material that gave him 100,000 engineering experience points and 500 general points.

After the demonstration reactor project began, the government invested all of its funds that were previously allocated to ITER into the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project. Since the accumulated investment reached 10 billion, it brought him 50,000 general experience points and one lucky draw ticket.

Lu Zhou looked at the only two level-2 disciplines on his characteristic panel. He thought for a bit and finally decided to assign the 50,000 general experience points into energy science.

His information science discipline already unlocked the artificial intelligence technology branch. As long as Xiao Ai kept improving, his artificial intelligence level would also be upgraded. Hence, he didn't need to spend any more experience points on artificial intelligence.

In contrast, energy science wasn't his cup of tea. Therefore, it wasn't that easy for him to earn experience points in that field.

Considering the fact that the reactor energy generator was obviously in the energy science field, Lu Zhou decided to level up this discipline, just in case.

After Lu Zhou finished assigning the experience points, he refreshed his characteristic panel and saw the updated information appear in front of him.

[

A. Mathematics: Level 7 (144,000/1.2 million)

B. Physics: Level 5 (83,215/300,000)

C. Biochemistry: Level 4 (74,000/100,000)

D. Engineering: Level 4 (0/200,000)

E. Materials science: level 5 (113,000/300,000)

F. Energy science: Level 3 (0/100,000)

G. Information science: Level 2 (3,000/50,000)

General points: 5,475 (one lucky draw ticket)

]

Lu Zhou briefly looked at his characteristic panel and shook his head.

"I wonder when I'll be able to reach level 8…"

1.2 million experience points.

That's more than all of the other discipline experience point requirements combined.

After Lu Zhou closed his characteristic panel, he was about to leave the system space.

However, he suddenly remembered that this second mission chain also gave him a lucky draw ticket.

Lu Zhou hadn't done a lucky draw in quite a long time.

After he activated the mission chain, he almost forgot the system had this feature.

This lucky draw cost US$10 billion in research funding.

Lu Zhou, who normally didn't have any expectations for the system's lucky draw, couldn't help but get excited.

Lu Zhou pressed the lucky draw button and a roulette wheel began to spin.

Lu Zhou subconsciously prayed for a few seconds and pressed the button again.

The wheel's inertia caused it to spin a couple more times. It then finally stopped.

[Congratulations, User, blueprint awarded!]

Lu Zhou: "?!"

The moment he saw this line of text, he froze.

The f*ck?

Praying to the gods actually worked?

He thought about it carefully. The last time he received a blueprint was more than four or five years ago.

[Received: PGC-1 material production process.]

Lu Zhou: "???"

Even though Lu Zhou was used to the system playing tricks with him, he didn't think the system would do something to this extent.

Speaking of which, wasn't he the one that invented the PGC-1 material?

Lu Zhou stood in front of the information screen and contemplated it for a bit. He then sighed.

Whatever, it's fine.

Coincidentally, he was trying to figure out how to solve the production problem for the PGC-1 material. After all, the method that Hou Jinli invented was only a laboratory preparation method. It could be used to prepare a small number of samples, but it would be almost impossible to produce enough for a reactor.

This production process blueprint actually saved him a lot of time.

After Lu Zhou collected the prize, he left the system space, and his consciousness returned to reality.

Recently he had been at Haizhou, overlooking the demonstration reactor construction site. He obviously couldn't return to his Jinling mansion every night.

The China National Nuclear Corporation arranged a house for him. It was in the employee accommodation area near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant. The house was quite modern, with 90 square meters or so.

Even though it wasn't particularly big, it was decent.

After all, all of his work was basically done on the construction site, and he only needed a place to sleep.

After Lu Zhou opened his computer, he took out his black USB from the system space and plugged it into the computer.

Just like he expected, after he finished copying the data, the black USB began to slowly disintegrate into ashes before finally disappearing.

Lu Zhou blew at the USB connection port to get rid of the ashes. Without hesitating, he immediately opened the recently copied file.

In theory, the blueprint rewarded by the system probably contained answers to theoretical or technical problems that were within 1 to 2 levels of his discipline levels.

He briefly looked at the drawings. Even though the design had a lot of novelty, it was still within the scope of something he could understand.

The most important thing was that, according to China's production capabilities, it was completely feasible for them to implement this production process.

After Lu Zhou finished reading the blueprint, he began to smirk.

The first wall material was completed.

All he had to do now was to find a suitable partner and begin this production process.

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After Lu Zhou turned off his laptop, he began to feel a bit hungry.

It was around noon, so he sent a text to Wang Peng and walked downstairs in a new outfit. He sat in Wang Peng's car and drove toward the cafeteria at the demonstration reactor construction site.

This cafeteria was located on the inner side of the construction site. It was originally reserved for the third phase of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant. However, just like the construction site, it was now given to Lu Zhou.

Just like the other researchers, Lu Zhou only came to Haizhou a week ago. He didn't start cooking at home, nor did he have any cooking utensils.

Even though he was used to cooking for himself, he wasn't a picky eater. Over the past week, just like the other researchers, he ate all three meals everyday at the cafeteria.

Honestly, the food here was quite good. The chefs in charge were military cooks, who were transferred over from the army.

Apparently, in order to provide food for more than 2,000 scientific researchers, the military squadron near the area intentionally expanded their team of military cooks.

Lu Zhou heard these rumors from Wang Peng.

Lu Zhou ordered a side of Yuxiang shredded pork and braised pork leg. He asked Wang Peng to get him a bowl of soup from the other counter. Then they both sat down in the cafeteria seating area.

Lu Zhou was still thinking about that blueprint when Wang Peng suddenly said, "Oh yeah, sir, there's something I want to discuss with you."

Once Lu Zhou heard Wang Peng call him "sir", he knew that this was something serious. So, he asked, "What's the matter? Let's hear it."

Wang Peng: "My higher-ups want to strengthen your security."

"Security?" Lu Zhou munched on a piece of pork leg as he asked, "Did something happen?"

Wang Peng shook his head and said, "Not like that, it's mainly for cautionary reasons."

Lu Zhou said, "I'm fine with anything. You guys can just do whatever you want. I'm only responsible for the research."

"Of course we still need to consult your opinion." Wang Peng smiled and said, "After all, we don't want to bring too much trouble to your daily life."

Lu Zhou smiled and used his chopstick to grab another piece of pork leg. He then asked, "Speaking of which, let me ask you, what department is your boss in?"

Wang Peng paused for a second before he asked curiously, "Do you not know?"

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I don't know. I was never interested before, but now that you're bringing this up, I'm kind of interested. Of course, you don't have to tell me if it's not appropriate."

"There's nothing inappropriate about this." Wang Peng looked around before he answered in a hushed tone, "Ministry of State Security."

Lu Zhou was stunned when he heard this, and he looked at Wang Peng suspiciously.

"You sure?"

Wang Peng was amused. "Of course I'm sure, why would I lie?"

"Nothing." Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I just feel like…"

Wang Peng: "I don't look like it?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yes."

I mean you don't even wear a suit or sunglasses.

Also, with your physique, it doesn't look like you can fight very well.

Of course, it could also be that Lu Zhou just couldn't tell.

After all, Wang Peng didn't know a lot about academics.

Wang Peng was speechless, and he said, "This… We don't look like the bodyguards in movies, and the nature of our work is quite different."

Lu Zhou looked at the sweaty chefs behind him chopping vegetables, and he jokingly said, "Hey hey, look at that guy chopping vegetables, how many of him can you take on?"

"You're hilarious." Wang Peng coughed and said, "I was trained in the special forces, so it's humiliating to compare me to a chef."

…

After Zhou Chengfu got back from Europe, he had been staying in Beijing. He had to deal with the "aftermath" of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center.

Since China withdrew from ITER, the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center was now in an awkward position.

Even though it wasn't going to be dissolved immediately, most of its cooperative research projects that were linked to ITER were basically all suspended. Their research fundings were also given to the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project instead. It was basically like they were dissolved.

Also, what hurt Zhou Chengfu even more than the dissolution, was that the higher-ups only had one demand. Which was to fully cooperate with Chief Designer Lu Zhou and participate in the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project.

Yes, fully cooperate.

Zhou Chengfu's heart burst into flames whenever he heard these two words.

However, this anger was contained in his heart since he had nowhere to vent.

After he finished some work, he planned on going to get some food. However, he suddenly received a call.

He took out his phone and saw the call was from Pan Changhong.

Zhou Chengfu's mouth twitched, but he still answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Old Zhou, how are you?"

Zhou Chengfu smiled coldly and said, "Ah, are you calling to laugh at me?"

Pan Changhong: "Why would you say that, what is there to laugh about?"

Zhou Chengfu's eyes squinted, as if he wanted to say something.

However, the other end of the phone spoke first.

"We're long-time friends. Even though you don't like me sometimes, I still think of you. I have a bottle of liquor with me, are you coming?"

Zhou Chengfu wanted to refuse at first.

However, he didn't know why he agreed to it.

He came to the restaurant that Old Pan mentioned on the phone and sat down. Soon after, he saw a familiar person walking into the restaurant while holding a bottle of Maotai.

"Boss, the usual, give us some dishes that pair well with alcohol."

"Okay!"

The boss of the restaurant, who was behind the counter, walked into the kitchen.

Pan Changhong sat across from Zhou Chengfu and smiled.

"The traffic was pretty bad, that's why I'm a bit late. I didn't expect your old a*s to come this early."

Zhou Chengfu said, "If you have anything to say, just say it."

Pan Changhong said, "I don't have anything to say, I'm only here today to drink with you and talk about the old days. What, you don't even have time to eat one meal with me?"

Zhou Chengfu's eyebrows furrowed; he had no idea what this guy was trying to do.

Pan Changhong didn't explain anything. He took two cups and poured the Maotai into each of the cups.

"After I left your place, I started to think. I answered a lot of my own questions, but there are still some things that I don't understand."

Zhou Chengfu faked a smile as he asked, "What don't you understand?"

"I don't understand what your plan is."

Zhou Chengfu frowned and didn't say anything.

Seeing that Zhou Chengfu didn't respond, Academician Pan continued to speak, "Money is too boring for you, I'm sure you don't care about it. Fame? Our students are scattered all over the world, so it's not an exaggeration to say that in China, there isn't anyone in the controllable fusion field that doesn't know your name."

Zhou Chengfu snorted and grinned.

"You asked me to drink with you today just so that you could kiss my a*s?"

Pan Changhong chuckled.

"I'm already retired, so why would I need to kiss your a*s? Are you getting dementia?"

Zhou Chengfu stared blankly at Pan Changhong.

"Just give it to me straight, stop beating around the bush."

Pan Changhong stared at Zhou Chengfu for a while.

"You've changed," he said all of a sudden.

Zhou Chengfu frowned.

Pan Changhong took a sip of the liquor and licked his lips in a satisfying manner. It was like he was being nostalgic about the past.

"A few decades ago, we were less developed back then. The state wanted us to learn from the western countries, the Americans were researching the stellarator C machine at that time, so we made the Lingyun."

"Then the Americans stopped their research and followed the Russians into researching the tokamak instead. We figured out that we couldn't continue with our Lingyun research, so we started researching the tokamak as well. Then inertial confinement fusion replaced the tokamak on the international stage, so we decided to research that instead. Then the Americans failed at their NIF ignition experiment, so the inertial confinement fusion field cooled down again and the tokamak became a hot topic again.

"At that time, I said we shouldn't do this. We'll always be behind other countries, we'll never be the leaders. You agreed with me and said that the only way we can develop our own technology is if we participate in the most cutting-edge research in the world. So, we turned our attention to ITER because we thought that was the path to success. I wrote a letter to the Communist Party of China while you went to Europe for negotiations. Then after a few years, we finally made China a country member of ITER.

"After returning, you joyfully told me that I had no idea how hard you worked to secure this deal.

"After that, China's controllable fusion research went on the highway. More and more research institutes joined the field. The Southwestern Institute of Physics was no longer the only research institute in the field of controllable fusion. From Rongcheng to Lu Yang, we created more than a dozen fusion machines. Within twenty years, we went from the followers to leaders…"

Zhou Chengfu smiled coldly as he interrupted, "What about now? Your blood, sweat, and tears are destroyed by that kid."

They left ITER, the HL-2A was still under repair, the Southwestern Institute of Physics was falling behind in the controllable fusion field… Even though half of this was because Zhou Chengfu didn't want to cooperate, but that root of all this was Lu Zhou.

Zhou Chengfu thought that Pan Changhong would be somewhat emotionally affected. He didn't expect Pan Changhong to smile and sip some liquor.

"Yeah, and?"

Zhou Chengfu said with a blank face, "You're not hurt at all?"

"Hurt about the tokamak or ITER?" Pan Changhong smiled and said, "Ask yourself, we are pursuing the label of tokamak or ITER, or are we pursuing the controllable fusion field? Right now, my blood, sweat, and tears became the STAR-2 demonstration reactor. We just took a big step toward the finish line, so why would I be hurt? How about you tell me, why should I feel hurt?"

Zhou Chengfu had a subtle change in expression.

Pan Changhong looked deep into his old friend's eyes and said emotionally, "Old Zhou, I only have two words for you.

"Wake up."

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Chapter 545: Core Catcher

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"This is a bit interesting." When Academician Wang Zengguang looked through Lu Zhou's blueprint, he looked interested.

After a while, he asked, "Who designed this thing?"

Lu Zhou obviously couldn't give him the real answer, so he gave a simple answer.

"The institute designed it."

Technically, he was part of the institute.

Also, it was kind of "designed" by the system?

Academician Wang looked at Lu Zhou suspiciously and said, "Surely there's a main person that designed this thing. No one designed this out of thin air."

Lu Zhou smiled and didn't explain. Instead, he diverted the conversation.

"Let's not go into the details. Rather than talking about who came up with this idea, I want to know more about this blueprint. Does the China National Nuclear Corporation have the means to implement this production process?"

Academician Wang looked at the blueprint and rubbed his chin. He thought for a bit and said, "It's difficult, but it should be fine."

Since Academician Wang said it was fine, Lu Zhou sighed in relief and nodded.

"Okay, I'll hand this over to you guys then."

"No problem, I promise we will solve this as soon as possible." Academician Wang looked at Lu Zhou and smiled as he said, "Looks like Professor Lu is a secretive man."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Is he thinking that I'm the one that drew the blueprint?

Lu Zhou remembered what happened last time he drew something in front of this guy. He could probably guess why Academician Wang misunderstood.

However…

You can misunderstand all you want, it doesn't affect me.

I'd rather you misunderstand than keep drilling me with questions.

Academician Wang looked at the blueprint in his hand and suddenly remembered something.

"Oh yeah, even though controllable fusion is a national-level project, there is still a clear line between public and private enterprises. This technology is developed by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, so we can't just use it for free. I suggest for a cooperation agreement. You guys provide the technology, we implement the production."

If Academician Wang Zengguang took someone else's blueprint, he wouldn't have mentioned anything. However, Lu Zhou's status was different.

What did it mean to be a chief designer of a national-level project?

It meant that he could spend tens or even hundreds of billion yuan however he wanted. He was the one that had all the power. This was coupled with the fact that the government viewed highly of him. Even a giant company like the China National Nuclear Corporation didn't want to offend him.

Therefore, even though Lu Zhou didn't make any special demands, Academician Wang still considered all of the factors. He didn't want to get into any trouble in the future, so he couldn't let Lu Zhou feel like he was wronged.

He had to talk about this with the company leadership team.

Lu Zhou didn't think much of this suggestion as he replied nonchalantly, "Okay, do it then."

Actually, Academician Wang was over-thinking it. Lu Zhou didn't really care about this. Compared to the huge lithium-sulfur battery market, the first wall material nuclear fusion market was minuscule.

If the PGC-1 material patent fee could earn Lu Zhou a dime, then his cooperation with the China National Nuclear Corporation would earn him an extra 5 cents at most.

If he really wanted to make money, he shouldn't care about these small profits. He just had to focus on commercializing the controllable nuclear fusion technology.

Not to mention, the state definitely wouldn't treat him badly. The impact of nuclear fusion technology breakthrough would increase the lithium-sulfur battery market by several-fold. Just the increase in sales of the battery anode materials and cathode materials alone was enough to make him filthy rich.

But these were all meaningless.

After all, he had more money in his bank account than he could ever spend.

Even if there were another zero at the end…

Emm…

Wait, that sounds quite tempting actually.

While Lu Zhou was talking with Academician Wang about the blueprint details, a knocking sound was heard from the office door.

They stopped their conversation, and Lu Zhou looked toward the door.

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and a researcher walked in.

"An expert came from Southwestern."

Southwestern?

Lu Zhou's face was full of surprise.

"Who?"

"Academician Zhou Chengfu…"

…

A group of people was standing at the demonstration reactor construction site entrance.

Wang Peng followed Lu Zhou outside. He signaled the soldiers to open the entrance checkpoint. Lu Zhou looked at Zhou Chengfu standing there and reached out his hand while smiling.

"Nice to see you here."

Zhou Chengfu shook hands with Lu Zhou. He looked emotionless as he spoke slowly, "Nice to see you."

Lu Zhou felt like he had something to say, so Lu Zhou asked, "Do you want to come to my office?"

Zhou Chengfu nodded.

"Sure."

The two walked side by side, they didn't talk much.

Lu Zhou didn't want to feel so awkward, so he tried to initiate a conversation.

"Is the HL-2A fixed?"

Zhou Chengfu said, "Thanks to you, not yet."

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly as he replied, "Yeah, that was my fault."

Zhou Chengfu: "…"

Even though Zhou Chengfu came in "peace", it was hard to restrain himself when he saw Lu Zhou's smug smile.

They walked through the middle of the construction site and passed a big pit.

Zhou Chengfu looked at the construction equipment next to the pit and frowned.

"What's this?"

Because this wasn't a secret, Lu Zhou casually said, "This is the core catcher. It's to prevent accidents from happening. It collects and cools the nuclear core in the event of a serious accident… It's just a foundation right now, but it should be done by the end of the year."

After all, the interior of a controllable fusion reactor simulated the energy of a star. Even though the fusion reaction was theoretically safe, hundreds of millions of degree plasma was still a serious threat.

Especially since the energy in the demonstration reactor was completely different from the experimental reactor.

If a leak were to occur, before the plasma could be cooled to a safe temperature, it would melt everything in its path. There was nothing in the solar system that could resist the heat from the plasma.

The core catcher was there to catch the expensive fusion core from escaping.

Even though it was only a one-time use kind of thing, if it could save any components of the machine that wasn't destroyed, it would be worth it.

Zhou Chengfu knew what the core catcher was from the fission reactor, and he looked at Lu Zhou in surprise.

"You guys even thought about this?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "It's not my idea. It was suggested by the engineers from China National Nuclear Corporation. Since it made sense, I approved it."

Both the tokamak and the stellarator could be interpreted as larger nuclear cores compared to normal fission reactors.

After the engineers from the China National Nuclear Corporation understood the value of the reactor, they immediately proposed to use the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant third-generation nuclear fission core catcher on this fusion reactor.

Coincidentally, Lu Zhou could also use the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant as a reference. Therefore, he immediately made a decision.

Even though Lu Zhou didn't sound like he was bragging at all, Zhou Chengfu still couldn't help but complain, "Why do you even bother with the core catcher, do you even have a reactor?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "The reactor is still under construction. The two components don't interfere with each other. We will complete all of the components and then assemble them."

This time, Zhou Chengfu didn't reply.

He had nothing to say.

After all, he didn't have a deep enough understanding.

He didn't even fully understand the concept of an experimental reactor, much less a demonstration reactor.

The two stopped walking. It was like Zhou Chengfu didn't plan on talking anymore. He just stood there as he quietly looked at the engineering equipment on the construction site and the busy engineers who were walking around.

There were also things happening behind the scene that he couldn't observe.

There were more than thousands of people working on this reactor.

The whole demonstration reactor project was like an engine; every person was like a tooth on a gear, running the engine at a high speed.

Jealousy?

Emotional?

Disbelief?

Right now, Zhou Chengfu's heart was so full of emotion that he had no idea how to make of this.

He didn't understand how a 20-something-year-old kid was able to do all this. If he didn't see it with his own eyes, he never would have believed this was true.

However, it looked like Lu Zhou really did it.

This was the indisputable truth.

Zhou Chengfu suddenly felt a little depressed.

Just like how Old Pan didn't understand his actions, he didn't understand Old Pan.

But now, looking at all of this, he suddenly understood.

If they continued to develop at this rate, maybe…

Maybe Lu Zhou could really develop controllable fusion energy in his lifetime.

After staying silent for a while, Zhou Chengfu slowly spoke.

"These thousands of workers are all working for you, right?"

Lu Zhou: "You can interpret it that way."

Zhou Chengfu looked at Lu Zhou and said, "Have you ever thought that one day, maybe because of your decision or your mistake or because of someone else's mistake, you lose your research project… I want to know, what will you do?"

Lu Zhou: "What does this have to do with me?"

Zhou Chengfu was stunned.

He didn't expect Lu Zhou to respond this way.

He stood there for a while and smiled.

"Huh? Oh, it doesn't. Ah, a leader that doesn't care for his workers isn't a good leader."

Lu Zhou smiled.

"That's why I never wanted to become a leader. All I'm responsible for is to explore the unknown. As for my workers' futures, that's something for them to think about. I am not obligated to care about it."

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Chapter 546: We Are Different

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"Ah, sounds easy." Zhou Chengfu shook his head and smiled. He didn't know if he was smiling at himself for being paranoid or he was smiling at how young Lu Zhou was. He said, "One day, you'll realize it's not that simple.

"Well, it looks like you won. I have nothing to say.

"I have to apologize for what happened in the past. But I have to say, even if I, Zhou Chengfu, wasn't around, there would have been a Wu Chengfu or Zheng Chengfu instead. Also, let's talk about you for a moment."

Zhou Chengfu suddenly stared at Lu Zhou with his bloodshot eyes.

"There will be a day where you are the king of your field. What you say is the truth, no one can trump your throne. If you want to go east, no one dares to go west. The scholars that resent you only dare to talk behind your back… Are you certain that when that day comes, you'll be any different than me?"

Lu Zhou stared at Zhou Chengfu for a while and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Your idea is strange in and of itself. Since you're talking about the truth, then is the truth not the thing that determines whether one should go east or west?"

Zhou Chengfu was stunned.

After a while, he suddenly laughed.

His dry laughter was becoming louder and louder, and in the end, his voice was full of self-destruction.

That wave of laughter attracted the attention of the construction workers. It also attracted the attention of the security team who were patrolling nearby.

When they were about to come over and figure out what the situation was, they saw Wang Peng was following Lu Zhou. Therefore, they decided to let it go and continue their patrol route.

Lu Zhou looked at him quietly, but he didn't stop him.

Finally, Zhou Chengfu finished laughing. He coughed and said, "I used to ponder about… what is different about you. Now I think I figured it out. You're a freak, no wonder Old Pan likes you so much."

Lu Zhou looked at him with a blank expression as he waited for Zhou Chengfu to finish speaking.

Zhou Chengfu used his sleeves to wipe his mouth. He then took a deep breath and stood up straight.

He stared at Lu Zhou for a while before saying, "I hope you remember what you said today."

…

After that, Zhou Chengfu turned around and left.

After he left the demonstration reactor construction site, he took a plane and returned to Rongcheng.

Lu Zhou didn't really care about his visit.

He was always a very easygoing person. He'd be happy if other research institutes would cooperate with him, but he wouldn't care if they didn't want to cooperate.

After all, scientific research wasn't farming crops, nor was it building a skyscraper or repairing roads. Investing in scientific research didn't necessarily mean returns.

If Mr. Zhou really didn't want to cooperate with him, there wasn't much he could do.

Instead of dwelling on trivial matters, it would be better for him to use the resources that he already had to produce more value.

Lu Zhou nearly forgot about the whole Zhou Chengfu situation. Two weeks after Zhou Chengfu's visit to the demonstration reactor, the people from the Southwestern Institute of Physics visited again.

This time it wasn't Zhou Chengfu. It was an old man in a gray jacket, who looked like he was in his fifties.

Academician Yuan Yuan made a simple self-introduction and continued to speak, "Academician Zhou retired from the institute yesterday. I am the dean of the institute now."

Lu Zhou was stunned. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Retired?"

Yuan Yuan replied cautiously, "Yeah… This happened recently. Before he retired, he told me to come here and visit you…"

Academician Yuan sighed and began to beg.

"I hope Professor Lu can give us a chance…"

Lu Zhou felt a little surprised, but he just smiled.

"I don't know the so-called 'chance' you're talking about, but if you guys want to join the demonstration reactor construction project, I'd welcome you with both arms open."

Academician Yuan was stunned. He obviously didn't expect Lu Zhou to answer so casually.

However, he quickly replied, "Thank you!"

"You're welcome." Lu Zhou reached out his right hand and said, "So, Academician Yuan, I'll thank you in advance."

Academician Yuan shook Lu Zhou's hand as he said gratefully, "No way, I'm the one that should be thanking you. Thank you for giving us this opportunity so that we can continue to contribute to China's controllable nuclear fusion field."

Lu Zhou let go of his hand as he smiled.

"No need to thank me, you made that choice yourself."

…

There wasn't any kind of irreversible dispute between Lu Zhou and the Southwestern Institute of Physics.

This all happened because Mr. Zhou was trying to cause trouble.

As for the normal researchers in the Southwestern Institute of Physics, they didn't have a say in the matter at all. Lu Zhou obviously didn't hold a grudge against them.

One could never have too many talents. If they wanted to contribute to the controllable fusion field, he obviously wouldn't reject them.

However, the only unfortunate thing was that Zhou Chengfu decided to retire.

In fact, with his ability and experience, it was a bit too early for him to retire.

Lu Zhou thought about it carefully and discovered that this was actually the best decision for Mr. Zhou, the Southwestern Institute of Physics, and China's future in the controllable fusion field…

Demonstration reactor site, chief designer's office.

Academician Pan sat in the office and sighed in relief. He said, "I really didn't expect Old Zhou to be so persistent. He didn't want to back down. With his ability, he could've continued to dominate this industry. Why did he have to retire? Ah, how unfortunate."

He looked sympathetic.

They had been struggling together in the controllable nuclear fusion field since the 70s, and they walked a long way to get here.

Now that the demonstration reactor project began, controllable fusion was just around the corner.

What was the difference between choosing to retire at this time and deciding to stop the war one day before it could be won?

Lu Zhou looked at the sorrowful Academician Pan and thought about something. He then said, "A while ago, he came here to talk to me."

Academician Pan looked surprised.

"What did you guys talk about?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "We talked about something that had nothing to do with controllable fusion."

Academician Pan didn't ask about the specifics. He only sighed and said, "Okay, it looks like he made his choice after careful consideration."

Academician Pan put his sympathy toward his old friend aside and smiled.

"Oh yeah, other than the Southwestern Institute of Physics, he also retired from his director position at the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center. We haven't decided on a new person yet, but the academicians at the Academy of Engineering all wrote letters recommending you to fill this role. What do you think?"

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Chapter 547: Materials Production

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The predecessor of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center was the International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center. The name changed ever since China left ITER. The director had always been Zhou Chengfu.

Lu Zhou looked at Academician Pan's expression and knew that Academician Pan was probably the one that convinced the other academicians to vouch for him.

After all, his level of networking and contacts in the Chinese academic community wasn't enough to warrant academicians who he had never met to write letters for him.

Lu Zhou began to enter into deep thought.

Should I accept or not?

He thought for a bit and said, "I'm already the chief designer of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project. Is it fine for me to become the director of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center as well? Not to mention, my research work is very busy, and I don't have the time."

"Of course it's fine, it's common to have multiple jobs in academia. Not to mention these two jobs don't conflict with each other, plus it wouldn't take up too much of your time." Academician Pan shook his head and said, "You just have to hold the director spot. The actual work can be delegated to your secretary, assistant, or if you really don't want to do it, you can make the deputy director do it."

Normally, Academician Pan wouldn't suggest someone doing this. After all, it was very common for higher-ups to do nothing and delegate work all day.

But since this was Lu Zhou…

He didn't have to worry about these things.

Lu Zhou didn't look like he was convinced, so Academician Pan continued, "If you really don't want to go, none of the deputy directors is a good fit. I'm sure you can figure out the reasons. If we transfer a person from the Energy Bureau, not only will they be unfamiliar with the work, but I'm afraid that they'll be commanding people that know more than them and affect the progress of the project. We are focusing our attention on the big things, so we must do everything possible to avoid wasting resources."

Lu Zhou: "I'll think about it."

Since Lu Zhou had his own ideas, Academician Pan didn't want to persuade any longer. He just nodded.

"Okay, think about it. The Energy Bureau will ask for your opinion beforehand anyway. Oh yeah, the stellarator… is fine, right?"

When Academician Pan mentioned the "big things" just now, he felt a little anxious.

Unlike for a layman, the word stellarator was quite painful for scientific researchers.

Even though concentrating on the big things would increase efficiency, but that was based on the premise that the direction of the "big things" was correct.

Even though Academician Pan knew that the possibility of a mistake was small, he still couldn't help but ask.

When Lu Zhou heard this, he gently coughed and muttered, "We've already come this far, don't try to jinx it for us."

Academician Pan was stunned. "What does jinx it mean?"

Lu Zhou: "It's like when you say something bad is going to happen, it actually happens."

"Can't you millennials say some words that I can understand? My granddaughter is like this as well. She would say some random words all day long." Academician Pan shook his head and stood up from the sofa. He then said, "Okay, I'm relieved that you are so confident. I don't have time to chat with you. I'm going back to Beijing."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "See you, take it easy."

…

Finally, after some consideration, Lu Zhou decided to agree to Academician Pan's suggestion and became the director of the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center.

As for the financial, personnel, management, and other administrative tasks of the Execution Center, Lu Zhou decided to maintain the original arrangements and make no changes. If it was necessary, he would make adjustments later.

Lu Zhou didn't need to use this new director job to achieve any political influence. All he needed was for the Execution Center to continue to do what he wanted and to not bother his research.

After all, after the demonstration reactor was built, the Execution Center would probably be restructured again.

By that time, he could quit and give this director position to someone else.

A week after Zhou Chengfu quit his position, Lu Zhou received the formal director appointment document.

Almost at the same time, a piece of good news came from the China National Nuclear Corporation.

Academician Wang returned to the demonstration reactor site again and immediately found Lu Zhou. He was so excited that he didn't even say hello. He got straight to the point.

"Your blueprint was so useful, we've basically solved the PGC-1 production process! We'll start production latest at the end of the month!"

Lu Zhou had a smile on his face when he heard this news, and he immediately asked, "Where is the factory built?"

Academician Wang: "Changan!"

Ceramic-composite materials were widely used in the aerospace industry because of their high-temperature resistance, strength, and they are relatively lightweight. They were mainly used in liquid rocket engine nozzles, missile radomes, and other aerospace components.

The largest ceramic-based composite material production base in China was located in Changan. Therefore, the LPC-1 material production factory, co-owned by the China National Nuclear Corporation and the Jinling Institute of Computational Materials, was also being built there.

Changan…

That's in the middle of the country.

Lu Zhou: "Isn't Changan a bit too far from here?"

Lu Zhou originally thought that it could be built near Haizhou. This way, if a production accident happened, the researchers at the Institute of Computational Materials could go help them.

Just like the SG-1 superconducting material, the researchers at the Institute of Computational Materials helped a lot with the production process. All the way from the upgrade of the production line to solving a series of technical problems.

Academician Wang shook his head and said, "Not too far, it takes two days by rail. It's close to our production base in Rongcheng. After the material is produced, it can be directly shipped to Rongcheng and be processed. Then, it can be sent to Haizhou to be assembled here."

Actually, there was something else that Academician Wang didn't say, which was the production safety aspect. Producing it inland was much safer than producing it near the coastline.

After all, even though this wasn't military technology, it was still nuclear-related. This counted as a piece of sensitive technology.

Lu Zhou nodded and didn't say much else.

"Okay then, you guys are the experts in this area. I won't say much else. Stellarator track processing in Rongcheng? Will you guys be fine?"

When Academician Wang heard this question, he waved his hand.

"Don't worry about this. Twenty years ago, our nuclear experts went to the French nuclear power plant for a visit. Even just observing from afar, they built a similar machine back home. After all, we also tinkered with the STAR machine for half a year now, and we've disassembled and reassembled it countless times. We're the one that changed the outer coil for you. If we can't even do this right, then we should all retire instead!"

Lu Zhou smiled and replied, "No, don't do that. This project can't continue without you guys. If you want to retire, make sure the demonstration reactor is successful first."

Academician Wang smiled when he heard this, and he squinted his eyes and didn't say anything.

The line, "this project can't continue without you guys", really resonated with him.

This feeling of being valued felt quite good.

Especially since Lu Zhou was a Nobel Prize laureate…

Lu Zhou asked, "The material production is already solved. How long will it take for the stellarator track to be in place?"

Without any hesitation, Academician Wang answered the question confidently, "I promise to build a complete stellarator track for you latest by the end of this year!"

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Chapter 548: Full Power Ahead

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The beginning of October.

The construction site was lively.

There were several heavy-duty trucks parked on the side of the construction site. With the help from the on-site construction crew and lifting equipment, they carefully unloaded the shipment.

Lu Zhou was standing next to him, watching the heavy equipment being transported onto the site. Xiao Le spoke emotionally, "We were going to sell this thing to ITER, but I'm guessing they probably won't buy it anymore."

The device in front of these two people was the legendary ion cyclotron resonance heating antenna.

This device consisted of four components—the transmitter, the transmission line, the impedance matcher, and the most important component, heating antenna. The RF output energy could reach 3MW and the frequency could be adjusted between 30-110MHZ.

This was one of the key components of the fusion machine. This was probably one of the most advanced pieces of technology, second only to the superconducting D-shape design from the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory.

In addition to being purchased by the General Atomics company, this billion-dollar equipment also received orders from the ITER demonstration reactor project.

But now, it seemed that the Europeans probably wouldn't buy it anymore.

Xiao Le paused for a second and said, "This equipment was originally intended to be dismantled and shipped all the way to France. However, our cooperation with ITER has obviously been interrupted. Using this piece of equipment, we can quickly heat the plasma inside the reactor to more than 100 million degrees! This is one of the most advanced pieces of plasma heating equipment in the world!"

Lu Zhou nodded and looked at the equipment with interest.

Even though it was called the ion cyclotron resonance heating antenna, rather than looking like an antenna, this thing looked more like a gigantic air conditioner.

The shape of the steel frame for the entire machine was similar to that of an air conditioner. The limiter and current band attached on the outside of the machine looked like an air filter and fan blade.

Further to the back were the tubular vacuum transmission lines, hydraulic drives, and the important vacuum feed ports.

During an experiment, the protection limiter was the "air-conditioner fan blade", which was located at the front of the ICRF[1.Ion cyclotron resonance heating] antenna. This, combined with the current band, constituted the plasma heating components and the "Faraday shielding box". This isolated the plasma from the charged current while the plasma was heating, it also prevented the electric field from coupling into the plasma.

Since the plasma was in a vacuum chamber, there were also 43 cooling pipes with a diameter of 10 mm on the outside of the machine.

Even though the whole machine looked complicated and humongous, it lacked some of the classic science fiction aesthetics. However, nothing about the design was unnecessary; each solder joint had been carefully designed.

Therefore, it wasn't an easy task to change the design of this thing.

Suddenly, an old engineer, who was wearing a hard hat and a gray coat, came over. He looked at Lu Zhou and smiled.

"How is it? Looks pretty good, right?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Looks pretty reliable. I just hope it will work normally on the stellarator."

The old engineer waved his hand and said, "Rest assured. Even if it doesn't work now, we promise to make it work eventually."

The old man standing in front of Lu Zhou was called Li Jiangang. He was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was also the vice president of the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Science and Technology of China.

The old man was previously researching marine power plants, but somehow, he ended up in the field of plasma physics. He was caught in the wave of the 90s scientific revolution when controllable fusion became more and more popular. His academic career had been nothing but success. He first became a vice president, then became an academician.

Before China withdrew from ITER, he was also one of China's expert committee members. When the ion cyclotron resonance heating technology was internationally recognized, his work on this piece of technology was crucial.

Now that China withdrew from ITER, he became a consultant for the Execution Center. He was also responsible for coordinating the involvement of the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory in the demonstration reactor project, specifically, the entire heating component of the reactor.

Xiao Le, standing next to Lu Zhou, was one of his students recommended by him.

Lu Zhou had a lot of trust in this big name's promise.

"Thank you so much, but I have a few simple requirements."

Professor Li took out a notebook he was carrying.

"Go ahead."

Lu Zhou nodded and recalled the details he discussed in previous meetings.

"Due to the several different types of plasma discharge in the stellarator, the heating antenna has to be able to move in a radial direction. The moving range has to be between minus 150 mm and 150 mm. The accuracy has to be on the millimeter scale, is this possible?"

Professor Li said without hesitation, "This isn't a problem."

Lu Zhou nodded and continued, "The impedance requirements of components such as the vacuum feed port and transmission line of the antenna have to meet the design requirements of 50 ohms. The voltage requirement for the inner and outer conductors has to be 45 kV.

"The current band and Faraday shields all require their separate cooling circuits, and their cooling capacities are required to withstand the scale of MW/m2 thermal loads.

"Also, regarding the maintenance and assembly of the antenna, we need to minimize the welding position so that the total leakage rate of the antenna has to be less than 10-10Pa·m3/s.

"…"

This was fine at the beginning, and Academician Li was pretty relaxed. However, when Lu Zhou continued to fire out these requirements like a machine gun, Academician Li didn't look as relaxed anymore. Instead, he looked stressed.

Lu Zhou listed another dozen requirements or so. He even began to feel a little thirsty, so Wang Peng gave him a bottle of water. He took a sip of the water and continued, "That's the basic situation. I might have spoken too fast. Once the meeting outline is written, I'll send the details to your email."

Li Jiangang finally stopped writing.

He looked at his notebook for a while and began to subconsciously frown. However, he forced a smile.

"You really know how to make us work hard. Even the ITER project conferences aren't as complicated as this."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "After all, this is the first reactor of its kind. We have to do a good job from the start, and I want to make it as perfect as possible."

Even though the system didn't specify any requirements for the DEMO demonstration reactor, there was no doubt that the mission rewards were tied to the outcome of the demonstration reactor. The better the reactor was built, the more mission rewards he would receive.

Looking at it from a realistic point of view, the better the demonstration reactor capabilities were, the fewer problems they would encounter during the technology commercialization phase. As a researcher, he wanted his research to be recognized by the world.

Academician Li closed his notebook and said, "Okay, I'll go back to the institute tomorrow and give you an answer in two days."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Okay, thank you."

…

The STAR-2 demonstration reactor project had been going on the right track. Both the construction site and research institute was blossoming with action.

The demonstration reactor was like a torch, illuminating the entire future of the nuclear fusion field.

Even though no one did any kind of motivational speech, everyone working here had a strong sense of purpose.

They were doing something meaningful.

Their research was at the forefront of the world.

Up until now, they had achieved countless in-progress results, won countless fights, proved themselves countless times.

Everyone was certain that as long as Chief Designer Lu was here, they would continue in this manner until they were past the finish line.

It was difficult to have negative emotions working in an environment like this.

Even the chefs in the cafeteria were working enthusiastically.

If everything went well, all of the components could be completed by the end of the year.

As for whether it was by the end of New Year's Day or Chinese New Year, that would depend on their luck.

There were only two things Lu Zhou had to solve.

One was to go back to the STAR Stellarator Research Institute near the Purple Mountain and complete the final design of the liquid lithium neutron recovery system as soon as possible.

Other people were working so hard, he couldn't drag them behind.

The neutron recovery system was the core component of the entire fusion reactor. The design of this component directly determined the success of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project. If this part was successfully completed, then they would have a "plasma control technology". Which could help solve the second biggest fusion reactor problem—the "heavy water" issue.

This was the last difficult part.

As for the electricity generator, the heater, the "safety-nets" under the reactor… These components were only minor components that perfected the reactor.

As for the other thing, he had to solve the supercomputer problem.

As of now, the plasma control scheme of the STAR experimental reactor was done with the help from Xiao Ai.

It was not like he could move Xiao Ai onto the main demonstration reactor computer, right?

After all, it wasn't appropriate for Xiao Ai to be shown to the world.

The best way would be to separate the plasma control scheme from the main program.

If Lu Zhou solved these two problems, then he'd have assembled all of the "puzzles".

The completion of a demonstration reactor was just around the corner.

Lu Zhou couldn't help but get excited.

Countless nights of hard work.

This day was finally going to come.

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Chapter 549: The Mysterious "District 900"

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

It was late into the night, but the bar near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant was filled with flashing disco lights, heavy music, and the smell of alcohol.

Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant was the largest cooperation project between Russia and China. In addition to stationing a lot of its own Chinese engineers, the residential area for engineers also contained a lot of Russian engineers.

When it was late into the night, these foreign employees often came here to wind-down.

In contrast, the Chinese engineers rarely visited this place.

Georgy was by the bar, and he was a little tipsy. He stumbled around and began to chat with his colleagues.

"What do you think those Chinese people are doing?"

Ever since the troops were stationed in this area, blocking the site that was originally going to be used for the third phase of the nuclear power plant, it was like the area a few kilometers away from them had disappeared from the map. The on-going third phase project was also suspended.

All these were bound to attract people's attention.

What exactly were the Chinese doing?

This problem had been plaguing all of the foreign researchers; it became a very popular topic of conversation.

However, the Chinese engineers working here seemed reluctant to talk about this issue.

As for the ordinary employees, they were also interested in what was happening. However, they probably didn't know any more than the Russians.

Maksim was sitting next to Georgy, and he said in an uncertain tone, "I heard it's nuclear fusion."

"Nuclear fusion?!" Georgy's eyes were wide open. He took another sip of his tangy cocktail and said, "Are you kidding me? That's the third phase project site! They're using it for controllable fusion experiments?"

Maksim twirled his glass around, he seemed to be a bit down.

"I think so, I read their newspaper a while back… They might be more advanced on nuclear fusion technology than we had expected. Maybe it wouldn't take long before they start generating electricity."

If the demonstration reactor project was successful, there would be no reason to continue the third phase of the nuclear power plant project.

When that time arrived, they might as well forget about second-generation fission reactors, since even third-generation fission reactors would be of no use.

Also, by that time, it would be about time for the Russians to go back home.

Honestly speaking, after working here for so long, Maksim actually liked it here.

Suddenly, an Asian looking man who was sitting next to them spoke in fluent Russian, "You guys are Russian?"

Maksim raised his eyebrows, and he said with interest, "I've lived here for so many years; this is my first time seeing a Chinese speak fluent Russian."

"Oh really? It looks like we are destined to meet." The man smiled and looked at the bartender before saying, "Three White Russians, two for my friends."

The man looked back at Maksim and smiled, showing his row of white teeth.

"From now on we are friends, right?"

Maksim looked at him strangely.

He felt like there was something wrong with this man, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly where.

The man noticed the Russian was doubting him, so he continued to speak, "Don't feel alarmed. Actually, I'm just a reporter. I want to interview you about some things."

"Anything but trade secrets." Georgy burped and grinned as he said, "Since you bought me a drink, I can talk with you for a bit."

The Asian man asked, "I heard that there has been an army squadron stationed near here?"

Georgy rubbed chin and said, "They came here around two weeks ago."

The man was interested, and he raised his eyebrows and asked, "Two weeks ago… Do you know what they're doing?"

Georgy smiled and said, "Haha, good question! We all want to know what they are doing. How about you go ask them and tell me?"

"I'll change the subject." The man seemed to have expected this answer, so he didn't feel discouraged. He smiled and asked, "Have you heard any planes around here?"

"Planes? Why are you asking about this?" Georgy frowned and said, "I haven't heard any I think…"

Suddenly, two men, who were dressed casually, walked out of the crowd and stood next to the self-proclaimed reporter.

The reporter could feel the pressure weighing on him. He prepared to get up and leave, but when he saw his pathway was blocked, he calmly sat back down on the bar stool.

"I am a reporter from the Daily Mail. This is my reporter credentials." The man took out his ID from his pocket and handed it over to the man.

However, the man in casual wear didn't even look at the ID. Instead, he said with a blank expression, "Interviews are not allowed here, please come with us."

The reporter immediately refused as he said, "Hey, you have no right to do this."

However, the two men didn't bother to argue with him. They skillfully found and confiscated his recording equipment and camera, which were hidden in his collar. Then, without explaining anything, they took him away.

The loud heavy metal music was still playing, and the alcohol was making everyone discombobulated.

It was like no one noticed this was happening, as if nothing had happened.

Georgy and Maksim looked at the man being dragged away. They looked at each other and intelligently stopped talking about their previous topic. They began to drink instead.

…

[Secret nuclear tests? The mysterious District 900]

The latest issue of the Daily Mail was on Lu Zhou's desk.

District 900 seemed to be what the foreign media called this area. Because this area was blocked off in September, and they didn't know the specific date, so they wrote 00.

Ever since the demonstration reactor nuclear fusion project was launched, this small town gathered a large number of reporters.

Some of which were real reporters, others were disguised as overseas intelligence personnel. Lu Zhou occasionally heard from Wang Peng that the Ministry of State Security had caught many spies here.

So far, it seemed like the country was doing a good job of keeping it a secret. Even though there had been nosy people trying to explore this place, there hadn't been any "incidents" that affected the experiment.

However, the mysterious aspect was precisely what gave the foreign media the ability to use their imaginations.

The western media described the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project as China's version of the Manhattan Project.

To be honest, Lu Zhou was quite disappointed.

The reasons why he collected these newspapers for himself, was mainly to understand the latest developments in the international controllable fusion field. However, most of the news articles were written about himself.

Lu Zhou was sitting at his desk. He put down the newspaper and said, "I plan on going back to Jinling. There's an important piece of research waiting for me there."

Wang Peng: "Is it urgent?"

Lu Zhou thought for a bit and said, "The sooner the better, it's best if we can leave today."

Wang Peng immediately looked like he was taking this matter seriously, and he said, "Okay, I'll arrange it for you immediately."

Lu Zhou nodded.

"Ok, thank you."

He was quite confident at Wang Peng's abilities. At least, in terms of traveling, Wang Peng had never let him down.

After Lu Zhou let Wang Peng handle his travel plans, he continued to do his work at hand.

After around an hour or so, his phone suddenly began to ring.

"The vehicle is ready for you, you can leave now. Do you need to go back home and pack your luggage first? If you do, I'll drive you there first."

Already?

Lu Zhou looked a little surprised.

"No need, I don't have anything to carry back. I'm only going for a few days. Just wait for me at the site entrance."

Lu Zhou hung up the phone and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. He then picked up a few copies of the recently printed files from the table and put them in his computer bag.

When Lu Zhou was walking outside, he thought that Wang Peng had bought him the latest train ticket for him.

He didn't expect to see a military green helicopter parked right at the entrance of the base. The propeller on top of the helicopter was humming.

Lu Zhou looked at the helicopter. He then looked at Wang Peng. He stood there with his computer bag in his hand and his mouth wide open.

"This is the fastest means of transportation." Wang Peng walked next to Lu Zhou and smiled as he said, "Oh yeah, you're… not afraid of flying in one, right?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

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Chapter 550: Didn't You Say As Soon As Possible?

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Even though Lu Zhou had flown in a plane countless of times, this was his first time in a helicopter.

Lu Zhou looked away from the faraway ground and subconsciously touched his sturdy seatbelt; this finally gave him a sense of security.

He looked at the people in the cabin.

There were five people in the cabin.

Other than him and Wang Peng, there were also two men and one woman.

Two of them were pilots, sitting at the pilot and co-pilot seats. As for the lady sitting across from Lu Zhou and Wang Peng, she looked quite young. Lu Zhou didn't know what she did, but he felt like it was probably similar to Wang Peng's job.

She even felt more military-like than Wang Peng.

Both from her posture and her vibe…

However, this was just Lu Zhou's intuition, and it was often not that accurate.

Lu Zhou looked at Wang Peng and quietly asked, "I just told you to buy a train ticket, why did you get me a helicopter?"

Wang Peng: "Didn't you say as soon as possible?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

"Okay, the real reason is that we have recently captured several overseas spies in Haizhou. Even though we are not certain if they are scheming against you, we're taking the helicopter just in case." Wang Peng smiled and said, "Oh yeah, I haven't introduced you to these people yet, this is…"

Lu Zhou looked at the young woman sitting across from him. Wang Peng was about to speak but the woman spoke first.

"Yan Yan."

Lu Zhou: "You're also from the Ministry of State Security?"

Yan Yan's eyebrows furrowed slightly as if she wasn't satisfied with this assumption. She replied in an almost insulting and ridiculing manner, "He's the only one from the Ministry of State Security here."

Wang Peng coughed and explained, "Doctor Yan is from the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department, not the same as me."

Even though Lu Zhou didn't know what the General Staff Department was, he knew what a doctor was.

"Doctor? Military doctor?"

Yan Yan said in a concise manner, "You could say so."

Wang Peng looked behind Ms. Yan, at the man sitting in the pilot seat.

"The one sitting in the pilot seat is Yang Guangbiao, also known as Captain Yang. Just like Doctor Yan, he's also from the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department."

Compared to Yan Yan, the man named Yang Guangbiao seemed to be much older. Lu Zhou guessed that he was probably in his thirties.

Maybe because he was too focused on flying the helicopter, or perhaps it was just his personality, he didn't talk much with Lu Zhou. He silently nodded to acknowledge Lu Zhou, then placed his attention back onto the helicopter controls.

Lu Zhou nodded at him and didn't want to interrupt him.

Wang Peng said, "Sitting next to him is Captain Wu. He's in the army and doesn't have anything to do with us, he's just helping to co-pilot."

"Why did you put it like that?" Captain Wu, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat, smiled and said, "All of the construction site safety is done by the military. What do you mean I have nothing to do with Professor Lu?"

Compared to the cold-blooded Doctor Yan and quiet Captain Yang, Captain Wu seemed much more talkative.

Lu Zhou nodded toward him.

"Thank you for all the safety work."

Captain Wu smiled and said, "No need to thank me, we just occasionally patrol around the perimeter. The real hard work is being done by the scientific researchers on the front line."

Wang Peng coughed and stopped the small chat. He said to Lu Zhou, "Didn't I tell you about this before? We're in a special time period. The higher-ups want to increase your security level. So, these two people were transferred from the People's Liberation Army General Staff Department to assist us."

Lu Zhou had a weird expression on his face, and he pointed toward his feet and asked, "Is this helicopter also transferred?"

Wang Peng coughed and said, "The helicopter obviously isn't for you, we borrowed it from the military. We have to return it."

Captain Wu smiled and said, "Don't worry about that, I'll fly it back when you don't need it. Professor Lu, whenever you need it, just call us and we'll arrange everything for you."

Lu Zhou: "Thank you."

Captain Wu smiled heartily.

"You're welcome, I'm happy to serve the people!"

…

The helicopter was insanely fast, and the scenery below swiftly flew by. This 300-kilometer trip was completed in less than two hours.

Even a high-speed train wouldn't be this fast. After all, it had to stop mid-way at Anhui.

However, after getting off this speedy machine, Lu Zhou felt like he couldn't feel the bottom of his feet.

He swore that this was his last time flying in that thing.

Unless there was no other option.

Yan Yan noticed his discomfort, and she asked, "Do you need motion sickness medicine?"

"No thanks…" Lu Zhou stretched his stiff arms and shook his head as he said, "I don't need a medic just yet."

Yan Yan said in a serious tone, "Don't force it, your health is part of my duties."

"If I need it, I'll tell you." Lu Zhou took a deep breath of the fresh air and felt alive. He then looked at Wang Peng and said, "Please send me to Zhongshan International."

Wang Peng immediately said, "No problem, the car is ready for you."

It was pretty late when they departed since it was already dusk when they got off the chopper. When they drove into Zhongshan International, the sky was almost dark.

Lu Zhou finally arrived at his front door. As he looked at the mansion from the car, he sighed in relief.

I'm finally home.

He hadn't been back here for more than a month, so he quite missed this place.

After Lu Zhou got off the car, he took out his keys and opened the door.

He suddenly noticed that Doctor Yan was following him.

Lu Zhou hesitated for a bit. He looked back at her and asked, "What are you doing?"

Yan Yan frowned and said, "Is there a problem? Doesn't Wang Peng live here as well?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

There were so many problems with this that he didn't even know where to begin.

Also, what do you mean Wang Peng also lives here?

Other than my parents and sister, no one else has ever stayed the night here before.

Since Lu Zhou didn't say anything, Yan Yan thought that he had agreed. She said, "According to the higher-ups' demands, from now on, I will be responsible for your health. This will probably continue until the end of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project. In the meantime, thank you for cooperating with our work."

Yan Yan looked at the mansion.

"Your house is pretty big, so there should be empty rooms, right? I don't really care about my living environment, just give me a room that is close to your bedroom."

What is this?

Living in my house?

No way!

Lu Zhou wasn't happy at all, and he immediately said in a serious manner, "Ms. Yan, please respect my boundaries!"

Yan Yan: "???"

…

Without explaining the reason why, Lu Zhou refused to let Yan Yan into his house. Lu Zhou first took a shower and then made himself a cup of coffee. After that, he went into his study room, opened his computer, and turned on his home private server.

After the server was turned on, the sleeping robot vacuum cleaner woke up and began to clean the dust that accumulated on the floor.

Lu Zhou leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee in a relaxed manner as he waited for Xiao Ai to appear.

After a few seconds of waiting, a notification popped up on the lower right corner of his screen.

[Master, you're back! Happy~(•̀•́)]

Lu Zhou looked at the energetic Xiao Ai and smiled as he said, "Xiao Ai, let me ask you something."

Xiao Ai: [Ok, ask me ~(cute.jpg)]

Lu Zhou sipped some coffee and contemplated it for a bit. He then asked, "About the plasma control scheme algorithm, is there a way to extract the algorithm?"

Xiao Ai went silent for a while.

Lu Zhou was wondering what this thing was thinking about when another text bubble popped up.

[Master, are you going to abandon me? ]

Lu Zhou nearly spat his coffee on his keyboard.

What the hell do you mean abandon?

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Chapter 551: I Won't Ghost You

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

"You couldn't do it either?"

Wang Peng was sitting in the driver's seat smoking. When he saw Yan Yan walk out of the mansion, he blew a cloud of smoke and jokingly said, "I thought Professor Lu would be more welcoming to a pretty girl, so I didn't warn you. I didn't expect him to reject you."

He had a pretty good relationship with Professor Lu, but when it came to spending the night at Professor Lu's house…

Lu Zhou had never agreed.

To be honest, this did bring a certain degree of difficulty to his job.

However, according to Lu Zhou, he felt uncomfortable when non-family members were at his house.

Especially when he was researching problems, he liked to be alone.

In fact, this was true. According to Wang Peng's observations, the only people that lived here were Lu Zhou's parents and his sister, who was studying at Jin Ling University.

Yan Yan ignored Wang Peng's joke as she opened the back car door, sat down, and sighed.

"You're just his driver?"

"Yeah, why?" Wang Peng put out the cigarette and lit another one as he asked, "Do you think I wash his clothes and buy him grocery?"

"Letting you guys handle security is the wrong decision." Yan Yan shook her head and looked at Wang Peng as she said in a serious way, "Is privacy important or is safety important? Professor Lu doesn't know this, but you should know."

Wang Peng smiled and tapped the cigarette. He was about to speak when suddenly, Yang Guangbiao, who was sitting shotgun, spoke first.

"Fine, Wang Peng doesn't have it easy either."

Finally, someone was agreeing with Wang Peng, so he spoke emotionally, "Yeah… I'm just a bodyguard. Everyone I take care of is a god. No matter how hard I beg, they won't cooperate with me."

"Professor Lu is even worse. Forget about the domestic situation, what if foreigners are more 'concerned' about him, what can I do then?"

Wang Peng opened the glove box and pointed inside. He said, "The security camera is inside. Are you willing to install it in his mansion without him agreeing? If you are, then let's cut the crap and let you do it. If anything happens, it's your fault!"

Yan Yan looked at the security camera inside the glove box, but she didn't reach for it.

After all, this wasn't her profession.

It wasn't like she could operate this professional equipment.

"I still feel like something is wrong. If this place is infiltrated by foreign intelligence…"

Wang Peng was a little annoyed.

"Then go talk with Professor Lu, don't bring it to me."

Yan Yan's eyebrows furrowed. She was about to say something but was stopped by Yang Guangbiao.

"Don't worry about this too much. It's safe here… If I'm guessing correctly, you guys are in the same squadron, right?"

Wang Peng flicked his cigarette and smiled as he said, "Finally! Someone that knows what's going on."

Yan Yan: "???"

Yang Guangbiao raised his chin and pointed on the sidewalk. "That person patrolling over there. He's in the army."

People had already thought this through.

Since Professor Lu wasn't happy about having security in his own home, they had to install security outside his home.

After all, it was only one small-gated community in the suburbs. It wasn't too difficult to install outdoor security measures.

Even though the property management security here was reasonable, it was nothing compared to the army.

They were happy to cooperate with the army.

Yang Guangbiao said, "Doctor Yan, just do your job, Mr. Wang will handle the security."

Yan Yan hesitated for a second and finally sighed.

"I understand."

…

At the same time, inside the mansion.

Lu Zhou accidentally spilled the coffee, so he was wiping the keyboard with some tissues.

Thankfully, he didn't spill too much. He quite liked this keyboard.

Xiao Ai's text bubble kept flashing on the screen.

[Please, Master, don't kick me out of my home. :(( ]

The tissues were dyed brown. Lu Zhou threw them into the trash can and focused his attention on the screen. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to kick you out."

Xiao Ai: [Really? ._.)]

Lu Zhou: "When have I ever lied to you?"

Xiao Ai: [341 days 5 hours 21 minutes and 4 seconds ago. You said I was going to move into a new home, but you lied. ._. ]

Lu Zhou: "???"

The f*ck?

Did this really happen?

Lu Zhou was muddled. After thinking about it for a while, he finally remembered. It happened last year when he was still moving homes.

But that's just a joke, why are you still resentful?

You've been remembering this the whole time?

Lu Zhou coughed and tried to hide the awkwardness. "You were still level 1 back then, not intelligent enough. I meant a physical home back then, not a server home. You misunderstood! You can't blame me for this. Also, look, your demands are satisfied now, right?"

Xiao Ai: [(sad.jpg) (sad.jpg) (sad.jpg)]

Lu Zhou continued, "Think about it. Even though that supercomputer is yours, it's mainly used for stellarator experiments. At most, you're just borrowing it. If you separate the plasma control scheme algorithm from the main program, then you'll be set free from the plasma control scheme work! I'll even give you a new supercomputer or let you have this one. How does that sound?"

Xiao Ai: [Even though Xiao Ai thinks master is being very reasonable, it feels like something is wrong. ._.]

Lu Zhou said, "Tell me, can you do it or not?"

Xiao Ai: [I… I can… :'(]

When Lu Zhou saw the ":'(", he empathetically lowered his tone and said, "Don't worry, I won't ghost you this time."

Xiao Ai: [Ok… :'(]

Finally, Lu Zhou was able to "convince" Xiao Ai.

Actually, this wasn't as difficult as he had imagined.

Even though it was called artificial "intelligence", it was far more primitive than humans.

At the very least, from an algorithm level, Xiao Ai couldn't betray him.

No matter how much Xiao Ai resisted, Lu Zhou only had to answer some [yes/no] questions. He didn't even have to explain why. If he ordered Xiao Ai to do something, Xiao Ai had no other choice but to follow the commands.

However, maybe because it was getting too human-like, Lu Zhou didn't like to treat it harshly.

He wasn't sure if it could think like humans, or if its "emotion" was only a simulation. He wasn't even sure if its intelligent behavior were top-down or bottom-up.

If it was the former, then he didn't have to worry about much. In the "Elephants don't play chess" thesis by Rodney Brooks, he pointed out that this kind of artificial intelligence would never surpass the framework designed by humans.

But if it was the latter…

He hoped that while teaching this naive artificial intelligence the ability to think, he could also teach it the concept of humanity.

As for whether or not there was any meaning in doing this, Lu Zhou wasn't sure. After all, he wasn't an expert in artificial intelligence. For the time being, he didn't have the energy to dive deep into the topic of artificial intelligence.

However, his intuition told him that he was correct.

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"I see…"

Lu Zhou quickly looked through the code on the screen. He had a moment of realization on his face.

Relying on his coding ability, it might be a bit difficult for him to completely understand the algorithm. However, he could understand the basic execution logic of the plasma control scheme just from a few key lines of code alone, so it wasn't too big of a problem.

In short, this algorithm was probably made from machine learning.

This advanced ML1 algorithm referenced the program written by the Jin Ling University computer science department and Lu Zhou's previous mathematical model. It carried out countless simulations on the plasma kinetic trajectories and made adjustments to the phenomenological model. Finally, it set a number of parameters to make the algorithm as perfect as possible.

When it came to real-life application, when a phenomenological model was done to the extreme, it was just as good as a theoretical model.

At least that was how it was performance-wise.

It was just like the empirical fluid mechanics formulas, even though it wasn't possible to explain them with existing theories, that didn't prevent people from using them to design aircraft and engines.

Collecting these data and adjusting the original control scheme might take years or even decades if done by hand.

However, Xiao Ai had a supercomputer at hand, and it could change the control scheme in real-time, so it only needed a few stellarator experiments for reference.

In a sense, the plasma control scheme algorithm extracted from Xiao Ai's core code could be interpreted as an algorithm developed by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

However, this extracted artificial intelligence was undoubtedly less intelligent than Xiao Ai.

Does this mean that this thing is Xiao Ai's offspring?

This idea flashed in Lu Zhou's mind.

However, Lu Zhou quickly threw the idea away and closed his computer.

If that were the case, then Lu Zhou wouldn't be able to look at Xiao Ai the same way anymore.

…

The plasma control scheme problem finally came to an end. After the supercomputer for the demonstration reactor was built, the algorithm would be transferred.

Lu Zhou woke up early the next morning. He called Wang Peng and asked him to bring some dumplings. After Lu Zhou drank some soymilk and finished eating the dumplings, he departed to the STAR research institute.

Other than the plasma control scheme, one of the reasons Lu Zhou came back this time was to complete the final design of the liquid neutron recovery system.

Even though ever since Lu Zhou went to Haizhou, the STAR research institute hadn't stopped working, their progress hadn't increased by much. They weren't able to produce any kind of in-progress results yet.

This type of scientific research project was like a car; every component of the car had to work together for it to work.

Now that the first wall material was solved, other research institutes had been working on the core catcher and the heating components. However, even though they were responsible for the most crucial parts of the project, they hadn't been able to make any substantial progress.

Even though no one was rushing them, they were still under a lot of pressure.

Now that Lu Zhou came back from Haizhou, everyone in the institute felt relieved.

Sheng Xianfu, who looked like he hadn't slept for weeks, looked at Lu Zhou and smiled brightly.

"You finally came back, we were about to go and find you."

Lu Zhou: "Thanks for working hard all this time."

"Ah, it's fine." Sheng Xianfu scratched his scruffy hair and sighed as he said, "There are just a few main problems that aren't solved, giving us a headache."

Ever since he joined the research institute here, he felt his hair becoming thinner and thinner.

Lu Zhou had an awkward expression on his face.

He was the one that proposed this technical route in the beginning, but he himself had been busy with other research projects.

However, he had no other choice. After all, he didn't think it would be so troublesome. He originally thought that since the plan was written in detail and they had help from the China National Nuclear Corporation engineers, it shouldn't be a big problem. So, Lu Zhou focused his attention on the PGC-1 material.

Little did he know, he underestimated the difficulty of this research project.

"Gather everyone in the institute and host a meeting." Lu Zhou nodded and said, "I have to understand what is going on here."

"Okay, I'll do it right now."

Sheng Xianfu nodded and quickly walked into his office.

Lu Zhou returned to his office and revisited the liquid lithium neutron recovery system plans. He then got up and went to the research institute conference room No. 1.

He didn't have to wait long before everyone else in the institute arrived.

With all of the STAR researchers and engineers gathered here, Lu Zhou made a short opening statement and was informed of what was going on by various departments.

According to the leaders of several departments, the current research was still centered on the same idea he had before he went to Haizhou.

Which was to use the PGC-1 first wall material to transmit and decelerate the neutrons. After that, the liquid lithium circulation device would absorb the neutrons and release the tritium. The beryllium reflective layer coated outside the liquid lithium would bounce back the unreacted neutrons.

The recovered tritium would be in the form of gas, which would be recovered at the top of the machine. This would be reinjected back into the reaction chamber for further reaction.

Professor Li Changxia, who came from Yuhua University, was sitting at the conference table. He said, "The collection of tritium in the liquid lithium is easy. We just have to put a filler in the reactor. It is theoretically possible to separate the tritium using the divertor inside the reactor, or we can also add a separation device in front of the machine. However, the hard part is the thickness of the liquid lithium layer. We conducted several experiments, but the results weren't very good."

The thickness of the liquid lithium layer was a crucial problem; it couldn't be too thick nor too thin.

Too thick would cause a large amount of tritium to be trapped in the liquid lithium, thus reducing recovery efficiency. This would also greatly increase the engineering difficulty and could affect the safety of the reactor.

It couldn't be too thin either as it would directly affect the proliferation rate of the tritium. After all, the half-life of free neutrons was only around 10.6 minutes. This meant that in addition to other elements decaying, they had to think about the neutrons themselves decaying.

Ideally, the neutrons could be recovered by the liquid lithium before a secondary neutron reflection occurred at the base metal. However, this wasn't easy to do at all.

Lu Zhou: "Did you bring the experimental data?"

"It's here."

Sheng Xianfu nodded and immediately handed over a document.

Lu Zhou took the document and began to carefully examine the data within.

Time slowly passed by, and the only sound in the conference room was the sound of the clock ticking on the wall.

Lu Zhou didn't say anything, so the researchers sitting at the conference table waited patiently.

Lu Zhou finally finished reading the document.

Everyone thought that this big name would come up with an idea, but his actions were beyond everyone's expectations.

"The research path is correct, this data is very important. There are just some methods that were lacking, so you guys didn't achieve the expected results. You all have worked quite well over the past month, and I suppose no one has gotten any rest recently.

"The conference ends here, you guys can go home. Everyone will take two days off."

Lu Zhou looked at the surprised looks on everyone's face and gently tapped the data document on the conference table.

"I'll take this and tinker with it.

"I'll give you guys a result in three days!"

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Chapter 553: The Faster The Better!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The conference ended in a hurry.

After the conference ended, the group of researchers left the conference room. Only Professor Lu stayed behind.

Li Changxia walked next to Sheng Xianfu and hesitated for a bit before he asked in a confused manner, "What is Professor Lu… thinking about?"

Sheng Xianfu: "What do you mean by that?"

Li Changxia sighed and said, "We don't know when the results will come out. We are still researching whether or not the demonstration reactor can progress to the next stage. It's not a good time to go on a break."

Also, he claimed to be able to produce results in three days…

Even though he knew Professor Lu was skilled, this wasn't a theoretical mathematics or physics problem.

In any case, this sounded ridiculous.

Sheng Xianfu thought for a bit and said, "Maybe… he already has a solution?"

"He has a solution?" Li Changxia paused for a second and frowned. He then asked, "But why didn't he mention it during the meeting? Is he really going to leave us hanging?"

"I don't know, but I trust Professor Lu's mathematics intuition. There aren't many mathematicians in the world who are more talented than him. I don't think he's leaving us hanging…" Sheng Xianfu forced a smile and said, "Maybe it's just that, even if he were to explain it to us, we wouldn't understand."

Li Changxia: "…"

…

Sheng Xianfu's speculation was very accurate. Lu Zhou had a moment of inspiration and wanted to express his ideas. However, when he was about to manifest this inspiration into the language of mathematics, he decided against it.

His experience told him that even mathematics professionals wouldn't be able to easily understand his calculations. To make these non-mathematical researchers understand his calculations would be even more difficult.

They had been working hard.

Instead of giving them unnecessary burdens, it would be better for him to solve this himself and give them instructions on what to do next.

Lu Zhou left the research institute and went home. He didn't even eat lunch. He went straight to his study room.

He placed the printed experimental data on the table and took a pen and paper. He began to focus meticulously on the data and started to examine it.

Maybe other people wouldn't be able to extract any value from this data, but he was different.

Just like he had expected, their idea to solve the problem was correct. They were just lacking in the area of methodology. Therefore, they weren't able to extract the full value of this data.

Maybe in the future, in months or even years, they would finally be able to make a breakthrough.

Just like other outstanding research results, it was the accumulation of countless experiments, which aid the final breakthrough.

And what Lu Zhou was going now, was just to make that breakthrough come sooner.

Time slowly passed by, and the draft papers began to form a pile.

With help from Xiao Ai, Lu Zhou calculated the rest of the engineering parameters. He sighed in relief and leaned back in his chair.

He looked at the dark night outside his window and smirked.

All he had to do now was to provide these calculations to the engineers at the STAR research institute and let them complete the final design.

"I thought I would need three days, I didn't expect to complete it in one day."

Lu Zhou left his state of concentration and gradually felt hungry.

Speaking of which, all he ate today was some dumplings.

Lu Zhou realized this and was about to get himself something to eat in his kitchen. However, in his peripheral, he saw the liquid lithium neutron recovery system plan sitting on his table.

A light bulb went off in his mind, and Lu Zhou quietly whispered, "System, how many general points does it take to exchange for the liquid lithium neutron recovery system?"

He waited quietly for a bit, but no one responded.

Lu Zhou realized he wasn't using the right method, so he shook his head and focused his attention on the plan.

Soon, a translucent pop-up window appeared in his sight.

[Mathematics level 7, engineering level 4, engineering level 3… User met the minimum level requirements.

[Required general points: 50,000]

Lu Zhou saw the four zeros behind the five and looked hopeless.

He only had 5,000 or so general points.

This is just a sub-project of the nuclear fusion project, is it really worth 50,000 general points?

If it was for the entire fusion project, I wonder how many general points it would take…

As expected, even though the system gave him a chance to "look at the answer", this shortcut wasn't optimal.

He originally intended on using the general points to save him some time…

Lu Zhou shook his head and was about to give up on this idea. Suddenly, an idea popped up in his mind, and he quickly flipped open the plan and put it together with the data he just calculated.

From his past experience, the "optimal solution" given by the system was based on his designs, plans, and subject level.

If Lu Zhou's speculation was correct, then the price given by the system was correlated to how long it would take for him to solve the problem himself.

Lu Zhou had no idea how long it would take for him to earn 50,000 general points.

It could take five years, or it could even take ten years.

One thing for sure was that he didn't need the "optimal solution" since he didn't necessarily need the entire answer to the liquid lithium neutron recovery system.

The majority of the plan had been completed and the parameters that caused troubles to the STAR research institute had been solved by him. All he needed now was to implement these research results into the engineering drawings. This was originally going to be done by professional engineers, but it would just take longer.

Lu Zhou reorganized his thoughts and placed his attention on one of the pages. He called out the system again.

Soon, the system gave a reevaluation.

As expected, the general points requirements this time was much more reasonable.

Of course, even then, it was no small change…

[Required general points: 4,000]

Lu Zhou looked at the price and sighed.

"It's still so expensive…"

4,000 general points was the optimal design based on the parameters he had just calculated.

If this was handed over to the engineers at China National Nuclear Corporation, they wouldn't be able to design it as well as the system.

Whatever, this should work.

At least I won't have to worry about upgrading the liquid lithium neutron recovery system for a while.

Not to mention, if Lu Zhou's speculation was correct, the sooner he finished this mission, the more valuable the final product was and the more mission rewards he would receive.

Even though this was painful, it could save him at least one year.

Lu Zhou took a deep breath as his finger swiped on the translucent window.

"Confirm purchase!"

[General points remaining: 1,475]

…

Outside the mansion.

Yan Yan looked at her phone and anxiously looked at the mansion.

"He hasn't been out for three days."

Wang Peng tapped his cigarette and said nonchalantly, "This happens often, get used to it."

In the beginning, if he couldn't contact Lu Zhou for a while, he would also worry about him.

But later he realized that his fears were all redundant.

Yan Yan couldn't help but say, "Aren't you worried about him getting into an accident inside?"

Wang Peng smiled and said, "I've been driving him around for nearly a year. Over this past year, he hasn't been to the hospital one time. He's in better shape than you think, what accident do you…"

Suddenly, the mansion door opened.

When Wang Peng saw Lu Zhou appear at the front door, he nearly dropped the cigarette in his hand.

The f*ck?

When was the last time Lu Zhou slept?

Yan Yan saw Lu Zhou's heavy eyebags and immediately began to worry. She walked over there and said seriously, "You need to rest right now, please…"

"No thanks."

Even though Lu Zhou knew she had good intentions, he had more important things to do.

If he was really sleepy, he could just sleep in the car.

Not to mention, he only stayed up for 48 hours. His strengthened body was capable of handling this.

Lu Zhou looked past Yan Yan, straight at Wang Peng.

"Send me to the STAR-2 demonstration reactor construction site, leave now.

"I don't care what transportation we use, the faster the better!"

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Chapter 554: Everything Is Ready

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

A helicopter landed smoothly near the STAR-2 demonstration reactor construction site.

Even though Lu Zhou didn't prefer this kind of transportation, this was his fastest option.

After Lu Zhou got off the helicopter, he didn't hesitate for a second. He carried his computer bag in one arm and walked toward the construction site.

He walked straight into the main building and found Academician Wang Zengguang's office.

Lu Zhou knocked on the door and walked in.

When Academician Wang Zengguang saw Lu Zhou walk in, he stopped writing and smiled.

"Oh? You're back already? Academician Li Jiangang told me to inform you that their modified ion cyclotron resonance heating antenna is ready. It fits your requirements.

"We're also doing well, we might even be able to finish before the end of the year.

"The most important part is the liquid lithium neutron recovery system, have you got it or not?"

Academician Wang was half-joking when he said this. He wasn't rushing Lu Zhou at all.

Because he understood clearly that the reason he was able to ride so smoothly was that Lu Zhou paved a smooth road for him.

It was not an exaggeration to say that from the plasma turbulence model to the PGC-1 material, these research results had saved them at least 20 years.

Therefore, even though the most important liquid lithium neutron recovery system hadn't made any progress, it was completely acceptable.

After all, one's energy was limited.

However, he didn't expect Lu Zhou's answer.

He saw Lu Zhou take out a stack of files from his computer bag.

"I should be the one asking you this. The design is finished. Building it depends on you guys."

"Already?"

Academician Wang stood up from his chair in shock. He quickly walked around his desk and took the stack of drawings from Lu Zhou's hand. He began to carefully read them.

Time slowly passed by.

Academician Wang's expression began to look more and more serious.

When Lu Zhou noticed his expression changing, he yawned and casually asked, "Is there a problem?"

Academician Wang shook his head and said, "Nope."

Rather…

It was so perfect that he couldn't even give any constructive advice.

Also, the engineering difficulty of the design was within their acceptable range.

Academician Wang closed the drawings in his hand and looked at Lu Zhou. He couldn't help but exclaim, "You're literally a genius."

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly.

"This isn't just my own work, the people from the STAR research institute also…"

Of course, there was the system.

But these problems could be solved even without using the general points.

However, it would just take a lot more time. Also, it wouldn't be as perfect as it was.

Academician Wang didn't seem to buy Lu Zhou's "humbleness". He waved his hand and said, "Okay, okay.

"Yeah yeah, this is everyone's hard work, I totally believe you."

Lu Zhou: "…?"

What are you talking about?

…

The weather was slightly cold in mid-November; the red brick tiles in the Forbidden City were stained with frost.

In a nursing home not far from the Forbidden City, two men were sitting under a big willow tree while staring at a chessboard.

On this rare sunny day, these two old men were sitting across from each other while playing Chinese chess.

The battle on the chessboard was intense.

Suddenly, the situation on the board changed.

"Checkmate!"

The red-side knight killed the black-side elephant, forming a dead-corner with the red-side, and the black-side king was forced into this dead-corner.

There was undoubtedly only one outcome.

The old man stared at the chessboard and thoughtfully said, "I shouldn't have moved my pawn, if I moved my elephant…"

When the other old man saw him reaching out to move the chess pieces, he immediately stopped him.

"Hey hey hey, what are you doing, I don't care if other people make do-overs, but not you!"

The old man's hand was touching the edge of the chessboard. He paused for a second and smiled.

"Chief Designer, you are right, I lost this match!"

Sitting across from him was Academician Ren Changming, the former chief designer of the Chinese linear exploration project.

"Are you busy?"

Old man: "You could say I am, or you could say I'm not."

Ren Changming: "You look pretty relaxed to me, you even have the time to play chess with me."

The old man shook his head and said, "The international situation isn't looking good, I'm just trying to clear my mind."

Ren Changming: "I heard Jinling is doing controllable nuclear fusion?"

The old man nodded and said, "Yeah, they are."

Even though many old experts didn't think this project was achievable, they felt like it was worth a try.

Maybe this technology could be the key to the future?

"Controllable nuclear fusion…" Ren Changming looked emotional as he said, "I talked with Qiao Gong about this problem. Back then, we all thought that either America or Russia would be able to create this technology within twenty years, and we would be able to catch up. But nearly 40 years have passed since then, and I still have no idea when it will happen."

In the 1990s, everyone was researching inertial confinement fusion, and they claimed they could achieve fusion ignition within ten years and could commercialize within 20 years. China was witnessing the potential birth of controllable fusion, and they obviously didn't want to fall behind. In 1993, the inertial confinement fusion project was launched, and it was selected into the 863 government initiative. China followed the international trend to launch a research attack on inertial confinement fusion.

However, the project did not go as smoothly as planned. America's inertial confinement fusion machine failed to achieve fusion ignition, which depopularized the field. Then, the unpopular tokamak began to become popular, while the once popular inertial confinement fusion became a deserted island.

If it wasn't for the military application of laser ignition, the investment into inertial confinement fusion could be considered a total loss.

What was happening now at STAR-2 was just like a cycle of the past.

Even though Ren Changming wasn't in the nuclear engineering field, he personally witnessed all of this happen.

Honestly speaking, he was more worried than optimistic.

Of course, deep down in his heart, he still looked forward to this project to be successfully completed.

"Isn't Lu Zhou in charge?"

Old man: "You know him?"

"More than just know." The old academician had a smile on his face as he said, "A few years ago, that kid was still studying at Jin Ling University, I knew of him back then.

"I think it was the expert interview section for a mathematical modeling competition. I was sitting at the judges' table, and I asked him what his views were on the moon landing project. This kid was interesting. He was different than the other interviewees, and he turned the question on me and asked my opinion on the Great Wall? We began to talk about the history and the future. It was a great conversation.

"Back then, I instantly knew he was a talented person. I felt like it was a waste for him to be stuck in the mathematics field, so I personally went to Jin Ling University and tried to convince him to come to Yan University. I asked if he wanted to learn about rocket science with me, guess what he said?"

The old man smiled and asked, "What did he say?"

Ren Changming slapped his thigh and smiled. "He told me, 'Professor Ren, I don't want to fly yet'!"

"Hahaha…"

These two old men began to laugh out loud.

When Ren Changming began to reminisce about the past, he couldn't help but feel a little depressed.

Back then, he could travel all over the country. Even if he wanted to travel now, his old body didn't give him the time of day.

Ren Changming stopped laughing and spoke emotionally.

"You know what happened after that… This kid is an enigma. Even though he didn't build rockets, he was basically flying in the sky."

Ren Changming paused for a second and continued, "If he doesn't succeed, don't be disappointed. After all, scientific research isn't building infrastructure. The input and output aren't necessarily proportional. I'm actually more optimistic about his future. Compared to us old folks who are about to go six feet under, his research career has just begun."

The old man smiled and said, "I know this, don't worry about it."

Ren Changming felt relieved, and he nodded.

Even though it was entirely possible for Lu Zhou to succeed, he still had to tell the president these things.

Because if he didn't say anything, no one else would dare to say it.

A security guard came over and reported to the old man.

"Director Lu is outside."

The old man nodded and said, "Let him come in."

"Ok!"

The security guard saluted and turned around.

Soon, Director Lu walked over excitedly while being followed by the security guard.

The old man noticed the letter Director Lu was holding in his hand, and he smiled as he asked, "What's making you so excited?"

Director Lu replied energetically, "There's good news from Haizhou! The demonstration reactor project is in its final stage! I have a letter from Professor Lu!"

Ren Changming looked astonished.

The chess piece in the old man's hand fell onto the chessboard, and he immediately stood up.

"What did he say in the letter?"

Director Lu took a deep breath and said enthusiastically, "The demonstration reactor is in its final countdown mode. It's expected to achieve fusion ignition at the end of the year! They're requesting approval from the Communist Party of China!"

The old man smiled heartily and said, "Okay, good."

He changed his demeanor and gave an order.

"Fusion ignition is approved!"

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