153: External ripples and the choice of the "observatory"

While Zhuoyue was still immersed in the initial joy of exploring his new abilities, enthusiastically tinkering with his LCL culture dishes and photoelectric devices in the lab, a new storm was quietly approaching “Homeland” in an unexpected way. This time, it wasn't a direct energy attack like the “Abyssal Resonance,” but a more covert and complex challenge launched in the realm of thought, disguised as academia.

The matter began with an inconspicuous routine workflow in “Homeland’s” external academic exchange department. A clerk responsible for screening information, while processing a batch of routine peer review invitations forwarded from the international top academic journal *Nature Physics*, noticed a rather peculiar letter. This email had undergone multiple encrypted forwards and identity disguises, making its ultimate source vague, but its authenticity was confirmed through an internal verification channel. The email contained an anonymous peer review invitation for a submitted paper. Such invitations are usually distributed to relevant experts in the field, and “Homeland’s” displayed research interests had led to it being selected by the algorithm.

What alerted the clerk was the paper’s title and abstract. The title was extremely bold and eye-catching: *On the Spacetime Structure Stability Conjecture Based on Quantum Decoherence Threshold Optimization*. This title alone exuded a radical air, challenging existing theoretical frameworks. More unsettling was that the core idea outlined in its abstract bore an unsettling, directional similarity to a highly confidential, exploratory research direction within “Homeland”—how to utilize a potential understanding of “constant ripples” to stabilize extreme spacetime structures in high-energy physics experiments. However, this paper’s argumentation path was even more radical, daring, and arguably dangerous. It proposed an “optimization” scheme that bypassed multiple safety restrictions. To experts like Evelyn, this scheme was akin to dancing on the edge of a cliff, ignoring several critical nonlinear instability risks.

And when the clerk’s gaze swept to the author’s byline, her breath almost hitched. There, strikingly written, was a codename that sent shivers down her spine—Echo.

“Echo” had reappeared! And this time, it was no longer content with spreading its views in small circles on encrypted forums or preprint websites; it was actually attempting to push this risky theory onto the core stage of mainstream academia! If this paper were to be accepted and published through what appeared to be a legitimate peer review process (which might include reviewers influenced or planted by it), its impactful title and subversive content would undoubtedly attract widespread attention from researchers in related fields globally. The technical risks deliberately downplayed or misrepresented in the paper could mislead a large number of researchers, leading them to invest valuable scientific resources into dead ends, or even worse, it could be exploited by certain radical organizations or state actors lacking ethical constraints, attempting to construct unstable high-energy systems, thereby triggering unpredictable catastrophic consequences.

This review invitation, along with the paper’s abstract, was immediately marked “Urgent” and reported via encrypted channels to Wang Jianguo. Within ten minutes, the core members of the “Stargazing Platform” evaluation team—Wang Jianguo, Evelyn, the Head of Security, and two other senior theoretical physicists and strategic analysis experts—were convened in the familiar, soundproof emergency meeting room. Outside, the night was deep, but inside the meeting room, the atmosphere was as heavy as congealed asphalt.

The projection screen displayed the paper’s abstract and some key charts. Evelyn first provided a brief technical interpretation, incisively pointing out the cleverly disguised core flaws in the paper and the potential risks within its theory that could lead to system collapse.

“The situation is tricky,” the Head of Security said with a grim expression. “‘Echo’ has chosen a very clever platform this time. A public academic journal, with procedural justice. If we intervene directly, it’s easy to expose our excessive interest in this field, and it might even trigger an investigation into Echo’s true background. This is like poking a hornet’s nest, which could ultimately draw fire to us and implicate Zhuoyue.”

“But the consequences of letting it go unchecked could be even more severe,” a theoretical physicist countered. “Once this dangerous theory spreads under the legitimate guise of ‘peer-reviewed,’ its credibility and misleading nature will increase exponentially. We might be burying a giant bomb that could detonate in the future, just to avoid an immediate, smaller risk.”

The meeting devolved into a heated debate. Some suggested using covert means to directly pressure the journal’s editorial board to retract the paper for vague reasons like “national security,” but this was rejected due to high risk and the potential for leaving traces. Others suggested anonymously leaking the technical flaws in the paper, but how to ensure the information effectively reached and was trusted by the editorial board and other experts was a challenge.

After nearly two hours of intense discussion and risk assessment, the group finally reached an extremely cautious and highly strategic resolution:

Do not directly oppose or expose Echo. Avoid direct confrontation to prevent drawing fire.

Adopt a precise counterattack of “academia against academia.” An anonymous expert under the control of “Homeland,” whose identity was heavily disguised and strictly isolated (academic background, publication record, and IP address meticulously fabricated, untraceable to “Homeland”), would submit a detailed “Comment” to the journal, in the form of pure academic discussion, targeting the paper’s core flaws and technical risks. This comment would be strictly academic, objectively and rigorously worded, but it must incisively point out the critical physical limitations ignored in its theoretical model (such as nonlinear effects at specific energy scales, vacuum instability), the speculative assumptions in its mathematical derivations, and the potential ethical and safety issues if its scheme were implemented (such as the risk of localized spacetime structure losing control). The goal is to guide editors and reviewers to focus on its fatal flaws, leading to its rejection or a demand for almost impossible major revisions during the normal academic review process, thereby nipping it in the bud.

Covert Probing: Passive Data Collection for the “Bridge” Project

Just as the strategic direction was set, Evelyn put forward an additional proposal that once again quieted the meeting room. She pointed out that this was an extremely rare and potentially highly valuable opportunity: Echo’s paper was essentially a theoretical model constructed based on complex algorithmic simulations and potential data theft; it did not stem from a true understanding or intuition of “constant ripples.” Could this opportunity be used for a very small-scale, highly controlled, and completely passive data collection to verify whether Zhuoyue’s intuition could instinctively distinguish this “artificial, flawed theoretical structure” from real, authentic “constant ripple” information?

“You mean, give Zhuoyue the paper’s core model as a ‘test question’?” The Head of Security frowned, his voice full of doubt.

“No, absolutely not a direct test question!” Evelyn immediately clarified, her tone exceptionally serious. “We will never let him know of Echo or the paper’s existence. My idea is that during his next routine ‘resonance mapping’ training related to complex system dynamics, we will take the paper’s mathematical core model—of course, highly abstracted and symbolized, stripped of all specific physical context, retaining only its logical structure, key parameter relationships, and potential singularity features—and mix it as an additional set of unguided and unexplained ‘background parameters’ with several other similar, harmless complex system data sets. We will only observe, in his completely unconscious state, whether he produces specific physiological or expressive reactions to this particular set of parameters, distinct from other parameter sets. For example, will there be subtle repulsive reactions similar to those when facing ‘inconsistent,’ ‘false,’ or ‘dangerous’ patterns?”

She emphasized that this must follow the strictest principles: completely passive recording, zero guidance, zero expectation, and absolute anonymization. Zhuoyue’s consciousness would merely be used as a sensitive detection instrument; he himself would be completely unaware, and the process would not cause him any perceptible burden or risk. This aimed to verify a core hypothesis of the “Bridge” project: whether Zhuoyue’s intuition could act as a “demon-revealing mirror,” identifying those seemingly exquisite but fundamentally flawed theoretical constructs.

This proposal was fraught with ethical sensitivities and operational risks. It walked a fine line between utilization and protection. After another tense debate and rigorous ethical review, Wang Jianguo finally made the decision, approving this single, exploratory passive data collection with extreme caution, but attaching multiple stringent restrictions: the data collection process required multiple monitoring, immediate termination if Zhuoyue showed any signs of discomfort, all data encrypted and stored, analysis results used only for the highest level strategic evaluation, and absolutely not as the sole basis for any decision.

The meeting’s decisions transformed into silent actions. Externally, the heavily disguised “anonymous expert” began meticulously drafting that crucial “Comment,” every word repeatedly scrutinized, striving for academic impeccability while precisely hitting the paper’s “fatal flaws.”

Internally, Evelyn, with extremely complex feelings, took on the task of designing this special training. She felt the burden on her shoulders heavier than ever before. She had to meticulously design a set of seemingly ordinary complex system parameters, cleverly diluting and disguising the “toxin” of the Echo paper within them, ensuring that its key features could be captured by Zhuoyue’s potential abilities, while also ensuring it would not have any perceptible impact on him. This required extremely high skill and a profound understanding of Zhuoyue’s cognitive patterns. She stayed in the lab late into the night, working on mathematical formulas and parameter sets on the screen, repeatedly calculating and adjusting, as if concocting a potent invisible poison, yet without letting it harm the taste-tester in the slightest. This was an operation walking an ethical tightrope, filling her with guilt, but for long-term safety and to verify that crucial possibility, she had to execute it calmly.

An Innocent World and Undercurrents of Turmoil

Meanwhile, beyond all these intensive deployments, Zhuoyue, the protagonist in the eye of the storm, remained completely unaware of this hidden battle in the distant academic world, which had originated because of him. He was still immersed in the joy of having initially mastered the ability of “active intervention.” After training, he was excitedly gesturing to Su Mu about his new idea: “Squad Leader, I want to make a ‘smart fountain’! One that sprays water patterns according to my mood! High water jets when I’m happy, and like a gently flowing stream when I’m quiet! I want to try it with my newly learned ‘mind control’!”

Su Mu looked at his shining eyes and vibrant demeanor, smiling as she patted his head: “That’s a good idea! But you have to draw up the design first, calculate the water flow and circuits, don’t mess up the lab again!” Her tone was light, but a barely perceptible shadow crossed her heart, knowing part of the situation. She could only try her best to maintain this pure, creative sky for his growth.

The threads of fate, in knowing and not knowing, between pure exploration and complex strategy, quietly intertwined once again. Zhuoyue was conceiving his smart fountain in the bright, warm laboratory, while Evelyn faced cold screens and complex data in her office late at night, and Wang Jianguo monitored the progress of various lines in the command center. A “covert war,” conducted under the guise of academia, concerning future knowledge discourse and security patterns, had quietly begun. And Zhuoyue’s unique ability, perhaps unknowingly, would become a crucial but faint light to illuminate the fog and discern truth from falsehood.