76: Chapter 76 Jiang Chen: Oh, we're using photonic chips now, so we don't need electricity.

The official livestream of Chenxing Technology was once again overwhelmed.

This time, there was no cheeky smiling like when selling raincoats, nor the heart-pounding thrill of fishing for an aircraft carrier. The hundreds of millions of viewers in front of their screens, whether they were netizens from the Dragon Kingdom or Western observers who had scaled the firewall, felt a weight in their hearts as heavy as lead.

Because just half an hour ago, the "Iron Curtain" sanctions order from the Eagle had officially taken effect.

All major electronics manufacturers in the Dragon Kingdom saw their stock prices hit the limit down.

Just as silence fell across the board, the livestream screen lit up.

The background was still that familiar, slightly cluttered villa living room. Jiang Chen sat on the sofa, twirling that crystal-clear "broken glass" in his hand, facing the camera with that careless smile that made people grit their teeth in frustration.

"Everyone here?"

Jiang Chen blew the dust off the "glass," his tone as casual as if he were chatting about daily life. "I see the comments section is spamming 'Dragon Kingdom technology is dead' and 'Back to the Stone Age.' Why, do you all have so little confidence in me?"

The comments section was filled with wails.

[God Jiang, this time is different! This is a blockade at the root! Without chips, we can't even build ventilators!]

[Give up, God Jiang. Our foundation is weak; we can't fight against the Eagle's century of accumulation.]

"Foundation is weak?"

Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Academician Chen Shuyin beside him.

This female academician had specially changed into a serious black suit today, holding a strange device the size of a palm that was completely transparent. The device had no fans, no cooling vents, and not even a power cord, yet it hovered in mid-air, emitting a soft blue light.

"Chief Engineer Chen, give them a science lesson."

Jiang Chen pointed at the device. "Tell them what this thing in our hands actually is."

Academician Chen Shuyin adjusted her glasses, facing the camera. In those cold, clear eyes flickered a kind of near-fanatical pride. She didn't waste words, directly pressing a button on the device.

"Hum—"

A holographic projection instantly expanded in the center of the living room.

It was a complex network interwoven with countless light paths, as beautiful as a galaxy cascading down.

"Everyone, as you can see."

Academician Chen Shuyin's voice was clear and powerful. "This is the latest research and development from Chenxing Technology—the [Photonic Crystal Computing Core], codenamed 'Zhu Ri'."

"It is not a traditional silicon-based chip."

"It does not transmit electrons; it transmits—photons."

The entire room fell into dead silence.

Immediately following, Academician Chen Shuyin threw out a set of data that caused the global semiconductor industry to suffer a heart attack:

"Single-core computing speed is 1,000 times that of the current top-tier silicon-based chips."

"Power consumption is only one-thousandth."

"Most importantly..."

She picked up the transparent chip, rubbed it against her cheek, her eyes full of disdain:

"It has no resistance and generates no heat. In other words, in the future, your mobile phones and computers will no longer need cooling fans. Even if they run at full capacity for a hundred years, they will remain ice-cold."

In the livestream, question marks flooded the screen like an avalanche.

[Photonic Chip?! Isn't this stuff from science fiction?]

[No heat? A thousand times the computing power? Is it real? I don't believe it!]

[The Eagle is still playing with nanometers, and God Jiang is directly playing with light?]

Facing the skepticism, Jiang Chen took over.

He shook the chip in front of the camera, and through the crystal, one could see his eyes full of mockery.

"I know what you are thinking."

Jiang Chen said slowly, "You must be thinking, even if we designed it, we don't have a Lithography Machine, right? Didn't the Eagle ban EUV?"

Speaking of this, he suddenly laughed out loud, laughing until he doubled over, as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world.

"Lithography Machine?"

"Why would we use that kind of backward, bulky industrial trash that still needs ultraviolet light to carve flowers bit by bit?"

Jiang Chen stood up abruptly, threw the chip in his hand high into the air, and caught it steadily:

"This thing is 'grown'."

"Using special crystal growth technology, the light paths are allowed to form automatically at the molecular level through self-assembly. No etching, no exposure, and no need to look at anyone's face!"

"As long as we have the raw materials, we can build as many as we want, as fast as we want!"

Boom—!

This sentence completely ignited the world.

If the previous performance data was just shocking, then this "no need for a Lithography Machine" was directly flipping the Eagle's table and smashing the pot while they were at it.

This was a dimensionality reduction strike!

You blocked my road? It doesn't matter, I can fly!

"So..."

Jiang Chen sat back on the sofa, facing the camera, facing the Eagle officials on the other side of the ocean who were watching the livestream, revealing a look of extremely sincere gratitude, something known as "humble-bragging":

"Here, I want to especially thank the Eagle Department of Commerce."

"Really, from the bottom of my heart."

He clutched his chest, looking moved:

"If it weren't for your strict sanctions, if it weren't for you blocking the road, we might still be slowly crawling on that backward silicon-based track."

"It was your pressure that forced us to give up our illusions, skip that low-level electronic era, and step directly into the Photonic era."

"This is all your fault!"

Jiang Chen sighed, with an expression of "I'm also very helpless":

"Forcing us to progress, forcing us to leave you behind to eat our dust."

"How are we supposed to play happily with you in the future? After all..."

He picked up the Photonic Chip and made a "goodbye" gesture to the camera:

"After all, those who play with sand and those who play with light are no longer species of the same dimension."

As the voice fell, the livestream signal was cut off.

Left for the world was only a suffocating black screen, and that mocking smile that would go down in history.

The next second.

The global capital market went crazy.

Wall Street, NASDAQ.

The semiconductor sector, which had been celebrating because of the sanctions order, instantly suffered an epic avalanche. Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm... those once arrogant tech giants saw their stock prices drop like kites with cut strings, plunging straight down.

Traders in the exchange were screaming and crying, looking at the shocking plummet on the screen, feeling like the sky was falling.

And in the Dragon Kingdom's A-shares in the East.

Although it was already market-closed time, all investors were hanging orders like crazy. As long as a concept stock had even a single word related to "Photonic" or "Chenxing", it was already locked at the daily limit before the market even opened.

A technological feast belonging to the Dragon Kingdom began to revel on the corpse of the Eagle.