138: The provocation of "Echo" and the intuition of "Genuine"

During this relatively peaceful period, while Excellence was immersed in exploring his inner world through 'Resonance Mapping' and integrating this novel method into his daily life, the red light of the Homeland's external information monitoring network flickered frequently due to the renewed activity of 'echo'. This time, the shadow hidden behind the data fog was no longer satisfied with throwing out eye-catching fragmented viewpoints on niche encrypted forums. Its actions became more systematic, bold, and clearly targeted.

Several draft papers, published either under a name or anonymously, appeared almost simultaneously on several internationally renowned academic websites that use an open preprint model. These sites attract a large number of scholars in cutting-edge fields due to their rapid dissemination and the ability to share research results publicly without peer review. The titles of these papers seemed rigorous and profound, such as 'A New Paradigm for High-Dimensional Quantum Entanglement Coding Based on Maximizing Non-locality' and 'Robust Quantum Information Storage in Decoherence Environments: A Topologically Protected Path'. Their themes precisely targeted a highly confidential cutting-edge research project within Homeland codenamed 'Quantum Beacon'. This project aimed to explore the use of specific types of complex quantum entangled states to achieve information encoding and transmission possibilities far beyond current technological limits, falling within the scope of top national secrets.

However, the eerie thing about these papers was that they were not simple repetitions or plagiarism of known theories. They demonstrated a profound understanding of fundamental physics, with seemingly rigorous mathematical derivations and complete logical chains, even proposing some seemingly novel concepts and models. Yet, their core conclusions and final recommended technical paths were subtly guided by an invisible hand, faintly pointing toward a direction full of unknown risks that the core Homeland team had already argued possessed fundamental theoretical flaws. This direction was exactly what the radical faction represented by Morpheus Li had once strongly advocated, but which Evelyn and others had judged as a 'theoretical castle in the air' because its control over Decoherence effects was too idealized and ignored certain key non-linear interactions, potentially containing traps that could lead to system collapse.

This was no longer the imitation and probing of the early stages; it was more like a blatant misdirection and a precise cognitive domain attack. Its purpose was obvious: to use the rapid dissemination and academic influence of preprint platforms to subtly lead the research power, funding, and attention of the outside world—including the international academic community and some high-tech enterprises—toward a 'wrong path' that The Foundation wished to see, one that might contain technical dead ends or be exploitable in the future. If successful, it could not only waste massive scientific research resources but also expose fatal weaknesses in technical systems relying on that path at a critical moment in the future.

The atmosphere in the Homeland Cybersecurity Center instantly tensed up. Technical experts used every means possible to try and track the original IP addresses of the paper uploads, analyze digital fingerprints of the writing styles, and dig for any clues that might expose the true identity of 'echo'. However, the anti-tracking capabilities of 'echo' were top-tier; its network activity was like a digital ghost, with IP addresses jumping wildly between proxy servers all over the world. Data packets were layered with encryption and disguise, leaving minimal traces, and every attempt at tracking felt like trying to catch a wisp of smoke. The opponent's cunning and technical strength placed unprecedented pressure on the security team.

Evelyn carefully studied these papers, and the deeper her analysis went, the colder she felt. The 'academic shells' of the papers were extremely well-crafted, enough to deceive most experts in the field, but the fragility of their core could only be keenly perceived by top scientists like her, who knew the inside story and had a deep understanding of the theoretical foundations. It felt like seeing a perfectly replicated forgery—almost indistinguishable from the real thing, but exposing its essential hollowness in the core 'spirit' and certain subtle 'brushstrokes'. She realized she had to quickly confirm whether this 'sense of discord' was universal and whether Excellence's unique intuition could penetrate this carefully designed disguise.

She designed an extremely cautious test plan. One afternoon, as sunlight filtered through the glass roof of the Greenhouse, casting mottled shadows, Su Mu joined the tea break with freshly baked cookies, creating a relaxed and cozy atmosphere. Excellence was sitting cross-legged on the rug, his Resonance Mapping notebook spread out before him, as he tried to draw an 'energy flow map' for a strange piece of blue ore.

Evelyn picked up her teacup seemingly at random and spoke in a conversational tone, as if sharing an interesting academic conjecture: "Excellence, I've been thinking about a somewhat interesting theoretical problem lately, and I wanted to hear your 'feeling' on it."

Excellence didn't even look up, just giving a hum of acknowledgment as his fingers continued to smudge blue shadows onto the notebook.

Evelyn continued in a steady tone, deliberately omitting all background information about the papers' sources, authors, and the Homeland project. She only extracted the core conceptual framework from the key paper regarding the use of 'Non-locality' in entangled states for long-distance information encoding, packaging it as a purely hypothetical theoretical model. Her description was as objective as possible, even carrying a hint of appreciation, as if introducing a rather creative idea.

Initially, Excellence just listened absentmindedly, his pencil sliding across the paper without any particular reaction. However, when Evelyn mentioned the key—and in her view, most problematic—assumption of the paper: that under certain special conditions, the 'Non-locality' of Quantum Entanglement could almost perfectly overcome environmental Decoherence effects to achieve stable long-range transmission of information, Excellence's movements abruptly stopped.

The pencil in his hand hung in mid-air, his brow furrowed deeply, and his face took on an extremely uncomfortable expression—a mix of confusion, unease, and strong doubt. His small face almost scrunched into a ball. This reaction was much stronger than his usual response to subtle anomalies.

"It's wrong..." he muttered to himself, his voice very soft yet carrying an unquestionable certainty. His fingers unconsciously drew circles on the smooth surface of the wooden coffee table, as if simulating some kind of slippery, ungraspable feeling. "This idea... feels... very 'slippery'..." He struggled to find the words, trying to concretize that abstract intuition. "Very slippery... like... like stepping on glass covered in oil... you can't stand steady... if you walk forward, you'll definitely fall!"

Su Mu's attention was drawn by his sudden strong reaction; she put down her cookie and looked at him with concern.

Excellence became more agitated as he spoke, trying to express himself more clearly: "It... it seems to... deliberately bypass a very important thing... a... 'fulcrum'! Yes! A fulcrum!" His eyes lit up, excited to have found a suitable metaphor. "It's like building a house; it wants to build the walls very high and beautiful, but... but it deliberately didn't lay a foundation, or The Foundation is soft! Without that fulcrum, no matter how beautiful the house is, as soon as the wind blows... it will definitely collapse!"

Evelyn's heart jolted! Excellence's seemingly childish metaphor was like a sharp scalpel, precisely dissecting the fatal weakness beneath the ornate exterior of that paper! The 'fulcrum' he intuitively pointed out as being 'deliberately bypassed' was exactly the key issue that Evelyn and the 'Quantum Beacon' team had confirmed through rigorous derivation and countless simulations—the non-linear amplification effect of Decoherence in complex entangled systems!

The paper's model too ideally assumed that Decoherence could be linearly suppressed, completely ignoring that in the extreme entanglement state it proposed, tiny environmental disturbances could produce exponentially amplified chain reactions through the entanglement network, causing the encoded information to collapse rapidly. This was the core reason Evelyn considered the theory a 'castle in the air'—it lacked the physical foundation (the 'fulcrum' Excellence mentioned) to deal with this inherent instability!

Without any complex mathematical derivation or logical argument, Excellence's intuition had directly penetrated layers of disguise, striking the most vulnerable 'Achilles' heel' of the theoretical model. The seemingly flawless theoretical cloak carefully woven by 'echo' was like meeting a demon-revealing mirror in the face of Excellence's pure intuition, which stemmed from his true self and faintly resonated with deep physical laws; its hollow foundation and inherent fatal flaws were instantly exposed.

Evelyn's heart was in turmoil. On one hand, she was incredibly amazed and relieved by Excellence's astounding intuitive ability to see through appearances and reach the essence. This once again proved Excellence's unique value, which no artificial intelligence simulation could ever replace. On the other hand, she felt strong anger at the sinister intentions of the force behind 'echo' (most likely Morpheus Li). The opponent was not only trying to steal or imitate Excellence's thinking patterns but was even attempting to use such imitations to spread toxic theories and misdirect research directions—an act that could be called 'poisoning' in the academic field.

Evelyn did not show too much emotion; she gently affirmed Excellence's 'feeling', praising his metaphor as very vivid, and then naturally changed the subject to avoid causing him suspicion. After the tea break, she immediately returned to her office and compiled the detailed process of this test, Excellence's verbatim reactions (especially the metaphors of 'oiled glass' and 'missing fulcrum'), and her own professional analysis into an emergency intelligence report, which she submitted directly to Wang Jianguo and the Star Gazing Platform evaluation group.

This report received high priority from the Homeland leadership. The atmosphere in the meeting room was somber. Excellence's feedback, from an unexpected angle, powerfully corroborated the negative judgment of the security and theoretical teams regarding the 'echo' papers, and elevated the level of the threat. This was no longer a simple case of intellectual imitation or academic dispute, but a clear, malicious act of cognitive interference and strategic misdirection.

After hearing reports from all parties, Wang Jianguo made several key decisions:

Strengthen external monitoring and countermeasures: Immediately raise the monitoring level for 'echo' and its related activities. Establish a specialized task force to study how to academically expose and counter this misleading information without exposing themselves—for example, through anonymous expert commentary and the publication of more persuasive theoretical analyses—to guide the academic community to recognize the risks.

Adjustment of internal research paradigms: Formally issue internal guidelines requiring that in the demonstration and review of cutting-edge projects like 'Quantum Beacon', more importance be placed on establishing a mechanism to incorporate non-traditional 'intuitive feedback' from Excellence. This feedback will be regarded as an important, complementary reference dimension, to be cross-referenced with traditional theoretical derivations and experimental data, especially when facing major directional choices or encountering difficult-to-explain anomalies.

Strengthen protection for Excellence: Further tighten confidentiality measures regarding Excellence's daily activities, sparks of thought, and details of his 'hand-crafted' projects to minimize 'source material' that could be imitated or analyzed by the outside world.

The Unwitting Contributor and Real Growth

Meanwhile, the other protagonist of the event, Excellence, was completely unaware that he had unintentionally completed a crucial piece of 'academic fraud-busting' and influenced high-level decisions. After the tea break, he was still struggling with how to use his pencil to express that 'slippery' and 'unsteady' feeling. He lay prone over his drawing notebook, trying various combinations, and finally completed an abstract drawing that he found quite satisfying: on the page was a tower whose outlined lines looked grand and towering, quite imposing, but its base foundation was replaced by a large puddle of distorted, strangely reflective oil slicks. The body of the tower tilted slightly, giving a strong, unsettling sense that it was on the verge of collapse.

When Su Mu came over to see him, he proudly displayed the drawing. Su Mu tilted her head and looked at it for a long while before bursting into laughter and patting his head. "Hmm, not a bad drawing! Although I can't tell what it is, just one look at this foundation makes me feel like this building is definitely unreliable and will collapse sooner or later! You've captured the feeling quite accurately!"

Excellence chuckled, very much enjoying the class monitor's straightforward praise.

This first indirect clash between the true and false geniuses ended silently. The 'Original', Excellence, with his innate spiritual intuition faintly connected to the deep laws of the universe, had easily seen through the carefully designed theoretical trap of the 'forgery', echo, without even trying. This confrontation not only allowed Homeland to better recognize the opponent's threat and Excellence's unique value but also quietly pushed the internal research culture toward a more open and diverse direction. As for Excellence, through these instances of unconscious contribution, he continued his seemingly ordinary yet potential-filled growth.