113: A pre-departure "hand-made" feast and an unexpected discovery

As the site selection for "Homeland" was finalized and the preliminary exploration and design work progressed steadily, the countdown to leaving the deep underground "Zhulong Base" and moving to the new home in the southwestern mountains officially began. The base was filled with an unprecedented atmosphere—a complex mix of busyness, parting sorrow, and longing. While completing their daily tasks, the staff began methodically organizing data and packing equipment in preparation for the upcoming great migration. Labeled boxes were frequently seen in the corridors, and the faint scent of cardboard and anti-shock foam drifted through the air.

Infected by this atmosphere, Excellence also seemed to keenly perceive the major changes about to occur in his life. He became exceptionally excited, like a little bird about to be released from its cage, filled with infinite curiosity and imagination regarding the future "Homeland." A more significant change was that his already vigorous creative desire for "hand-crafted" items surged to an unprecedented high at this moment, as if a catalyst had been added.

One day during breakfast, he suddenly put down his spoon, his eyes shining as he announced a major decision to Su Mu and Evelyn: "Class Monitor! Sister Evelyn! Before we leave this place, I'm going to hold a grand... um... 'hand-crafted Works Farewell Exhibition'!" He waved his arms, trying to make his words sound more imposing. "I want to display all... all the 'masterpieces' I've made here! To commemorate our days in this place!"

After hearing this, Su Mu and Evelyn were first stunned, then looked at each other and smiled, a feeling that was both amusing and incredibly heartwarming welling up in their hearts. What was amusing was that Excellence's so-called "masterpieces" were mostly eccentric devices that were wildly imaginative, riddled with glitches, and looked like they had been cobbled together from a scrap yard. What was heartwarming was that this seemingly childish proposal revealed his simple sense of cherishing and a need for a farewell ritual for the years spent in the base, full of challenges and recovery. He was using the method he was most familiar with and loved most to put a period on this special period of time.

"Great idea!" Su Mu smiled and stroked his head. "We'll help you set it up!"

"This is a very meaningful idea," Evelyn also nodded in support, a soft light in her eyes. "It's a good way to organize your creative journey."

No sooner said than done. Thus, in Excellence's recovery room—which was already piled high with various parts, tools, semi-finished products, and "failures," making it comparable to a high-end scrap yard—the work for an exhibition destined to have a "unique style" began in full swing.

Su Mu and Evelyn rolled up their sleeves, transforming into curatorial assistants and porters, helping Excellence dig out his precious "works" from every corner. Every item found evoked a memory, some funny, some thrilling. Dust danced in the sunlight, and the air was filled with the special scent of solder, old circuit boards, and a bit of machine oil.

After a period of difficult searching and organizing, a unique "Excellence hand-crafted Works Retrospective" finally took shape. The exhibits were a dazzling array, covering various stages of his "heart's blood" during his recovery at the base, which could be called a "history of technological (?) evolution" written with scrap metal and full of whimsical ideas. These mainly included:

Emotion-Visualization Device series (versions 1.0 to 3.5): This group of devices clearly demonstrated his attempts to transform abstract emotions into visible signals. Version 1.0 was pitifully crude, with only a few LED lights of different colors that roughly reflected emotional fluctuations through changes in brightness. Version 2.0 added a buzzer, attempting to coordinate with sound. By version 3.5, it had been upgraded to use a small projector, capable of projecting his brainwaves (through an extremely simplified interpretation) in real-time as halo patterns of constantly changing shapes and colors. Although still abstract, it already had quite a visual impact.

Brainwave Imager 1.0 (Punk Disaster Edition): This "artifact" was placed in a prominent but safe location (with a small fire extinguisher next to it). The helmet cobbled together from cardboard, tape, and discarded VR glass parts, along with the old monitor that almost caused a fire, silently spoke of an ambitious but disastrously failed attempt, also reminding everyone that Excellence's "hand-crafted" activities were always accompanied by a certain amount of risk.

The happy-catcher (Intermittent Heart-Warming Robot): This device, composed of a mechanical arm, a camera, and heart-shaped lights, was one of his recent "successful" works. Although its recognition rate was touching (it often misidentified yawning or frowning as a smile) and its candy-delivery motion was clumsy and slow (the candy would occasionally fall on the floor), every time it functioned successfully, its clumsy sincerity always managed to amuse everyone.

Plant Quantum Entanglement Communicator (Prototype, or "Pothos' Telephone Line Nightmare"): This work fully embodied the leap-frog nature of Excellence's thinking. Two pots of Pothos were entangled and connected by countless thin wires, with a black box full of chips and components in the middle, allegedly aimed at verifying whether "quantum consciousness communication" existed between plants. The result was, of course, a complete failure. The wires were tangled like a ball of yarn played with by a cat, and it was useless except for adding a burden to the plants, but the uniqueness of the concept was breathtaking.

Environmental Energy Field Detector (Self-proclaimed, actual effect comparable to a compass): A few magnets of different shapes, several coils wound with copper wire, plus a meter head removed from an old radio, made up this device claimed to be able to detect "Feng Shui energy fields" and "Ley line energy." Its readings were basically random, and its only stable function was as a compass because of those magnets... Other curiosities: There were also various circuit board assemblages whose purposes couldn't be discerned at a glance (resembling some kind of abstract metal sculptures), a "future city model" combined from discarded sensors and Lego bricks, and even the remains of "bio-batteries" that attempted to generate electricity using cafeteria potatoes and lemons... Each piece condensed Excellence's "ingenuity" and infinite imagination.

Excellence enthusiastically wrote "instruction manuals" by hand for every exhibit. These descriptions were a perfect (?) combination of science and fantasy, filled with jaw-dropping terminology and logical leaps:

For the Emotion-Visualization Device, he wrote: "This device captures subconscious bioelectric fluctuations through an asymmetric resonance circuit and maps them as vector changes in a multi-dimensional chromatic space, intuitively presenting the topological manifold of conscious activity..."

For the plant communicator, the description was: "This prototype aims to verify the potential application of macroscopic quantum entanglement effects in the consciousness synchronization of multicellular biological clusters, exploring the possibility of non-classical information channels in the plant kingdom..."

Even for that compass-like energy detector, he could interpret it as: "This instrument is based on the principle of interaction between classical electromagnetic fields and hypothesized topological field theory, attempting to measure the influence of local spacetime curvature perturbations on the spin alignment of elementary particles, thereby assessing environmental habitability..."

Su Mu and Evelyn listened to Excellence's solemn explanations while looking at these descriptions that read like heavenly scripts. They couldn't help but want to laugh, yet they had to pretend to be serious, nodding in praise: "Hmm, this theory is very... very cutting-edge!" "The idea is truly unique, breaking through conventional thinking!" They tried their best to maintain their professional demeanor as curators, but the smiles they couldn't suppress at the corners of their mouths betrayed their true feelings. The recovery room was filled with a happy atmosphere.

The climax of the exhibition was Excellence's final demonstration of his latest, yet-to-be-perfected "Cross-Medium Information Transmitter (Prototype)." According to his description, the inspiration for this device came from the underwater sonar communication of dolphins and whales, attempting to use sound waves of specific frequencies and light waves modulated synchronously with them to achieve "lossless" encoding, transmission, and decoding of information between air and water (which he called "two media of different densities").

The device looked more complex than any previous work—several speakers of different sizes (removed from computer speakers), a set of high-speed flashing LED beads, a small transparent aquarium filled with water, a buzzing vibrator placed in the water (apparently used to create ripples), and a pile of microphones and receiving circuits that looked like they were taken from walkie-talkies.

Excellence took a deep breath, like a master about to conduct a symphony, and solemnly pressed the power switch.

The moment the demonstration began, the recovery room turned into a disaster scene:

Auditory Disaster: What the speakers emitted was not the intended orderly sound waves at all, but an extremely piercing, fluctuating, terrifying noise that sounded like a rusty chainsaw cutting metal mixed with the sound of nails scratching a blackboard. It instantly filled the entire room, making Su Mu and Evelyn unable to resist covering their ears.

Visual Pollution: The LED beads flashed wildly in completely unpredictable frequencies and patterns. The light was blinding, and the colors were in total Chaos, looking exactly like an out-of-control cheap disco ball, making everyone dizzy.

Water Splashing Everywhere: The vibrator in the aquarium was clearly overpowered and out of control. Not only did it fail to produce clear ripple encoding, but it instead churned the water violently. Water splashed everywhere like a fountain, soaking Excellence's clothes and drenching Su Mu and Evelyn, who couldn't dodge in time.

Information Destruction: The information Excellence tried to transmit—a piece of paper on which he had carefully drawn a smiley face—was fixed on a small floating boat and placed in the water. As a result of the violent vibration and water impact, the boat capsized instantly, and the paper was quickly soaked and shredded, eventually turning into a floating mass of pulp. The information transmission was a total failure.

The entire demonstration was a chaotic mess. Excellence himself was flustered by the noise and flashes, and his attempts to adjust the parameters only made things worse. Finally, under Su Mu and Evelyn's "pleading" ("Excellence! Turn it off! I'm going deaf!"), he awkwardly cut the power.

The room fell silent instantly, leaving only the sound of dripping water and the three of them looking quite disheveled. After staring at each other for a few seconds, someone laughed first, and then all three of them couldn't help but burst into a fit of laughter. This disastrous demonstration, amidst the laughter, became the most memorable "successful" interlude of the exhibition.

After the demonstration ended, the three of them began to clean up the mess together. Su Mu was busy wiping the water stains on the floor, Excellence was organizing the scattered tools, and Evelyn was helping to put back the exhibits that had been displaced by the vibrations.

Just as Evelyn tried to straighten the structurally fragile "Plant Quantum Entanglement Communicator" prototype, her finger accidentally touched a wire that was already loose. With a soft "clatter," the device, which barely maintained its shape, fell apart instantly. The parts and the circuit board—carrying the main circuit and covered in solder joints that looked like craters—fell onto the workbench.

Evelyn sighed helplessly, preparing to pack it up as scrap. However, as her gaze swept over the exposed circuit board, her professional habit made her subconsciously take a few more looks at the chaotic wiring and component arrangement. At first, she just felt that this wiring, which had no standards to speak of, reflected Excellence's typical "unorthodox" style. But suddenly, her gaze was caught by a resonance circuit in a corner of the board, formed by several miniature resistors, capacitors, and an extremely tiny inductor coil—an accidental formation that was not Excellence's design intent (since he didn't understand standardized layouts at all)!

The physical topological structure of this circuit... was exceptionally concise and symmetrical, revealing an indescribable mathematical beauty. Evelyn's pupils suddenly contracted, and her heart skipped a beat! This unconsciously formed circuit structure bore a startling, unbelievable resemblance to the core theoretical model of a highly classified internal project of the "Prophet Foundation," code-named "Persephone's Tear," which concerned "bio-field energy collection and resonance amplification"!

That project was led by a genius but paranoid scientist within The Foundation, who attempted to theoretically prove that an extremely weak energy field, similar to quantum vacuum fluctuations, existed around specific organisms (especially plants), and designed a resonator to collect and amplify this energy. The project was eventually shelved indefinitely by The Foundation's high-level management because it couldn't be stably repeated in experiments, and the theory was too advanced to be verified. Its related data and models were sealed. Evelyn had only come across fragmented information about this project by a very rare chance.

And now, in this failed work of Excellence's, which was cobbled together haphazardly and aimed at letting Pothos "make phone calls," this completely unconscious physical structure, accidentally generated from the Chaos of wiring, actually coincided with a key oscillator design for "optimal energy coupling" in that failed theoretical model!

Was it an extreme coincidence? Or... was it Excellence's elusive intuition or subconscious, which seemed to point directly to the essence of a problem, once again unintentionally touching upon a deep, perhaps even not yet fully recognized by mainstream science, key technological point during his seemingly aimless "tinkering"?

Evelyn's heart was shaken as if a thunderclap had exploded! She suppressed the turmoil in her heart and, without showing any emotion, quickly used the miniature camera on her wrist device to take clear photos of this circuit structure from multiple angles. She decided that she must immediately and privately conduct the strictest, secret verification of this discovery. If this wasn't a coincidence, if this accidentally formed circuit really contained some principle beyond current Perception, then its potential value... might be far beyond imagination! It might bring a breakthrough to that stalled project or even open up a completely new research direction.

This seemingly nonsensical farewell feast of "hand-crafted" items, full of childish fun and laughter, had actually, in its finale and amidst the mess and Chaos, planted a tiny and precious seed that might trigger a future technological earthquake. Excellence's unrestrained, seemingly absurd creativity had once again demonstrated its unfathomable potential in a way no one could have predicted.

After the exhibition and the unexpected little interlude, the recovery room was finally tidied up. Those "hand-crafted" works, carrying memories and whimsical ideas, were carefully packed, ready to be transported together to the new "Homeland."

On the night before departure, Excellence stood in the room that had become much emptier, looking at the packed boxes. A hint of reluctance to leave the familiar environment showed in his eyes, but more than that was a bright longing for the unknown future.

"In the new home... will there be a bigger, brighter studio? Can I 'hand-craft' things however I want without worrying about damaging the floor?" He looked up and asked Su Mu with great expectation.

Su Mu looked at his sparkling eyes and nodded with a certain smile: "Of course there is! We've prepared a huge, specially lit private lab for you! It's several times larger than this place! You can mess around however you like, as long as you pay attention to safety."

Excellence's eyes instantly ignited like stars, bursting with excited light: "That's great! Fantastic! I'm going to make a... a super big antenna! One that can receive signals from very, very far-off stars. Maybe I can even say hello to aliens!"

Evelyn, listening to this childish yet infinite-possibility-filled dream, exchanged a look with Su Mu. Both of their faces showed helpless yet expectant smiles. Helpless because they could foresee that life in "Homeland" would surely be a "chaotic mess" because of Excellence's whimsical ideas; expectant because, in a broader and freer space, they wondered what kind of incredible flower this unique seed would eventually bloom into.

A new chapter was about to begin in the deep mountains of the southwest. And Excellence's path of creation would also enter a brand-new stage.