931: Chapter 926 Recognizing the Goods!

Old Xie's fingers trembled as he traced every line on the screen.

Two streams of hot tears flowed down his deeply wrinkled old face without warning.

He didn't cry out loud.

He just bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood.

To drink ice water for ten years cannot cool a passionate heart.

He knew that Xie Wenyuan, the man who once stood atop the pinnacle of physics and laughed wildly, was alive again.

...

By the time he returned to Jinghai, it was already deep into the night.

In the laboratory on the top floor of the Shenyan Building, the lights were blazing.

Wu Ya, the person in charge of the 'Kintsugi' laboratory, was standing at the doorway holding a stack of documents. When she saw Shen Yan walk in, leading an old man wearing a ragged undershirt and flip-flops, she froze completely.

"Brother Yan... who is this?"

Although Wu Ya knew Shen Yan did things unconventionally, this style was too...

Too postmodern.

Especially the stale, sour smell emanating from the old man, which was more pungent than a biochemical weapon.

"The quantum scientist here from now on."

Shen Yan pointed to Old Xie.

"Get him a separate shower room and find him a set of clean clothes."

"Also, move that unopened electron microscope over to him."

Wu Ya swallowed hard, and professional etiquette forced a slight smile onto her face.

"Yes, President Yan."

"That... what should I call the old gentleman?"

Old Xie had already completely entered his element.

He didn't even glance at Wu Ya; his eyes swept over the equipment in the lab like radar.

"Good stuff... all good stuff..."

"This spectrum analyzer is Agilent's flagship model from last year? I've only seen it in magazines..."

"Is that... a liquid helium cooling tank?"

Old Xie, like a child who had stumbled into a candy store, rushed to a metal tank and rubbed his face against it repeatedly.

Chen Guangke watched from the side, covering his face.

"How embarrassing..."

"Brother Yan, is this old man really reliable? He doesn't look like a scientist; he looks like a pervert who collects junk."

Shen Yan ignored Chen Guangke's complaints.

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the bustling Jinghai below.

The neon lights flickered in the darkness, resembling flowing rivers of gold.

But in Shen Yan's eyes, these were all relics of an old era.

With quantum entanglement communication, the existing internet, optical fibers, and base stations would all become scrap metal.

A new era was about to be born in his hands.

"System."

Shen Yan called up the interface in his mind.

{"Host, what are your orders?"}

"Issue a bounty mission."

"I want to acquire palladium, rhodium, and... all inventoried vacuum tubes globally."

Since he had the brain, the next step was to forge the indestructible skeleton.

{"Received. Generating market operation plan."}

From the laboratory behind him, Old Xie suddenly let out a strange cry.

"Who drew these blueprints? A genius! Absolutely a damn genius!"

"Using phase-locked circuits here to solve decoherence... How did I never think of that!"

"Quick! Bring me paper and pen! I need to calculate the curvature of this topological structure!"

The night of Jinghai seemed like an inky mass that couldn't be dissolved, but the lights on the top floor of the Shenyan Building burned a hole through that ink.

Shen Yan stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, a finger pinching the [Global Rare Material Distribution Map] just generated by the system.

The system interface in his mind was flashing a red countdown timer.

{"Mission: Quantum Skeleton Construction"}

{"Phase One Goal: Monopolize existing domestic electron tube inventory, control 8% of circulating palladium and rhodium. "}

{"Time Remaining: 72 Hours."}

{"Today's Intel Refreshed: In the western suburbs of Jinghai, Feng Dehai, the 'King of Scrap Metal,' has 300,000 Soviet-made 6N1 electron tubes stockpiled in his warehouse. Because he cannot liquidate them, they will be sold to a scrap recycling station for crushing and smelting at two yuan per jin before midnight tonight; Ma Xiong, the mining tycoon in the Southwest, is currently worrying about his capital chain at the 'Heaven on Earth' club. His African mining area will experience a coup in three hours and be nationalized."}

Shen Yan extinguished the cigarette in his hand.

Sometimes, the difference between making money and picking up money is simply knowing what will happen tomorrow while others do not.

"Guang Ke, prepare the car."

Shen Yan turned around, not even glancing at the stack of priceless supercomputer reports on the table.

Chen Guangke, who was slumped on the sofa applying a band-aid to the sole of his foot, nearly rolled off when he heard this.

"Brother, dear brother, we just got back from Shenzhen. Our butts haven't even cooled down yet."

"Where to?"

"The western suburbs, the scrap recycling station."

Chen Guangke's vision went black.

Earlier, they picked up a madman in Huaqiangbei, and now they were going to a recycling station to pick up trash.

His boss was leading the Shenyan Group down the path of collecting junk.

...

Western Suburbs, Feng Ji Material Recycling Warehouse.

The biting cold wind whipped up dust, slapping against the rusty iron gate, making a grating, teeth-aching sound.

Several fully loaded large trucks were parked in the yard, their engines roaring.

Several shirtless workers were about to toss crates stamped with Russian text into the shredder.

An old man with graying hair, wearing a military greatcoat, squatted by the door, clutching a wine bottle, his eyes red-rimmed.

He was Feng Dehai.

He had guarded these electron tubes for twenty years, as if guarding fallen comrades, and today, he could guard them no longer.

The Bank's demand notices were pasted right on his forehead; if he didn't sell them as scrap, he'd be in jail tomorrow.

"Old Feng, stop looking. It just makes you sad."

The scrap yard boss was a short, stout man, counting banknotes with an impatient expression.

"Hurry up and load them. This pile of junk glass tubes is taking up space. The sooner they're smashed, the cleaner it is."

Feng Dehai tilted his head back and gulped down a mouthful of strong liquor. Old, turbid tears streamed down the corners of his eyes.

"These are all good things... military quality from back then, capable of resisting nuclear pulses..."

"Cut it out. Who uses this stuff now? Phone chips are already in the nanometer range. This thing wastes more power than a lightbulb."

The Fat Boss threw a stack of crumpled bills in front of Feng Dehai.

"Thirty thousand yuan. Not a penny less. Take the money and pay off your debts."

Thirty thousand.

Three hundred thousand stored tubes, guarded for twenty years, were only worth thirty thousand.

Feng Dehai reached out unsteadily to take the stack of money, his hand shaking as if he had Parkinson's.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the banknotes, a long, clean hand pressed down on the stack first.

"Hold on."

The cold, clear voice sounded extraordinarily abrupt amidst the noisy roar.

The Fat Boss frowned, looked up, and saw a young man wearing a black overcoat, followed by a man in a suit who looked like a bodyguard.

"Who are you, little punk? Don't delay the boss's work."

Shen Yan ignored the Fat Boss, instead bending down, extracting one bill from the stack, and rubbing it between two fingers.

It crumbled.

Red paper scraps scattered in the wind.

The entire scene fell silent.

Chen Guangke, standing behind, was stunned. Brother Yan's level of showing off was getting higher and higher.

Shen Yan looked at the bewildered Feng Dehai and casually kicked open the lid of a wooden crate near his feet.

Inside, rows of crystal-clear vacuum tubes were neatly stacked, their tungsten filaments emitting a cold metallic sheen under the moonlight.

"6N1 dual triode, high transconductance, low noise, resistant to strong electromagnetic interference."

Shen Yan picked up one tube and looked at it against the moonlight.

"Tubes of this batch, even current manufacturing processes can't replicate them anymore."

Feng Dehai suddenly looked up, like a drowning man grasping a straw.

"You know quality! You know good stuff!"