17: Facts speak louder than words; the ice queen blushed.

Facing Long Weiguo's earth-shattering, almost dreamlike question, Lu Chen simply smiled.

He didn't answer.

Because some questions are always more powerful than the answers.

He couldn't possibly say, "I'm actually a 'Transmigrator,' but I didn't cross time or space; I crossed... the dimension of knowledge, right?"

...On the other side.

In a bright lounge, the atmosphere was so oppressive it felt like water could drip from it.

Su Qingying sat quietly on the sofa alone.

Her eyes, once cold and sharp, were now filled with confusion and... self-doubt.

She lowered her head and looked at her fair, slender hands, once hailed as "born for physics," feeling her own... ignorance for the first time.

Non-Fermi Liquid?

Planck Dissipation?

Yang-Mills Theory?

These terms, like relentless ghosts, circled and lingered in her mind, mocking her so-called "genius" again and again.

Her proud knowledge system seemed like a joke in front of that young man.

A colossal joke.

"Qingying..."

Beside her, Academician Zhang Jingtong looked at his most cherished disciple, seeing her so disheartened, and felt heartache, yet didn't know how to comfort her.

What could he say?

Say that Lu Chen was spouting nonsense?

No, he didn't dare.

Because the intuition that had been steeped in physics for a lifetime was frantically telling him—

Every single word Lu Chen said was true!

It was a higher-dimensional... truth that surpassed the cognitive limits of their era!

"Grandpa Zhang..."

Su Qingying finally raised her head slowly, her voice carrying an almost imperceptible tremor.

"Am I... really... terrible?"

This was the first time in eighteen years she had doubted herself.

Zhang Jingtong's heart felt like it had been pricked by a needle.

He knew his granddaughter too well.

Since childhood, she had been synonymous with "genius."

She skipped grades, crushed all her peers, and reached the pinnacle of Xia Country's physics community at the youngest age.

Pride had long been etched into her bones.

But today, Lu Chen used the most brutal and unreasonable method to shatter all her pride!

This kind of blow was fatal for a proud and ambitious genius!

"No, Qingying, you are not terrible."

Zhang Jingtong took a deep breath, sat beside her, and said in an unprecedentedly solemn tone:

"You simply... encountered a... monster that doesn't belong to our era."

"All of us, in front of him, are just... infants learning to walk."

Just then, the lounge door was gently pushed open.

Lu Chen walked in, holding a steaming cup of coffee.

He glanced at the Iceberg Goddess, who was still in a state of "self-isolation" on the sofa, and then looked at the worried Zhang Jingtong and Li Zhenbang next to her.

"Having a chat?"

Acting as if nothing had happened, he handed the coffee to Su Qingying.

"Here. You look pale. Drink something hot to warm up."

Su Qingying's body stiffened slightly.

She looked up at the handsome face before her, which held a faint, almost imperceptible smile, and bit down hard on her lower lip.

She didn't take the coffee.

She just stared intently at Lu Chen, and a flicker of... defiant flame reignited in her cold eyes!

"I still don't believe it!"

Her voice was still cool, but it carried a hint of stubbornness!

"Unless..."

"Unless you can prove you are right with an experiment!"

"Unless you can personally turn those 'theories' I've never heard of into 'facts' that I can see and touch!"

She thought this request would put Lu Chen in a difficult position.

After all, the more profound the theory, the greater the difficulty of experimental verification!

However, Lu Chen's reaction disappointed her once more.

Lu Chen, as if he had anticipated her words, calmly placed the coffee on the coffee table in front of her.

Then, he straightened up and called toward the doorway.

"Director Long, you can have someone wheel the item in now."

As soon as he finished speaking.

Two Dragon Shield Bureau staff members slowly wheeled a silver-white, sci-fi-looking precision instrument into the lounge.

Su Qingying and all the Academicians present were stunned.

What... is this thing?

"This is..."

Lu Chen patted the instrument's casing, as if introducing his new toy.

"I used the existing parts in your lab and spent an hour casually assembling this... little contraption."

"I call it..."

"The 'Quantum Tunneling Effect' Observer."

Boom!

The moment this term was uttered, all the physicists present sprang up from the sofa like cats whose tails had been stepped on!

"What?! A 'Quantum Tunneling Effect' Observer?!" Academician Zhang Jingtong's voice trembled. "H-how is this possible?! The Quantum Tunneling Effect is a purely microscopic probabilistic phenomenon! It can only be derived through mathematical models and fundamentally cannot be observed directly! This is the consensus of the physics community!"

"Consensus?"

Lu Chen smiled.

"For me, consensus is meant to be broken."

He stopped explaining, walked directly to the instrument, and skillfully began operating it.

He placed the Graphene Battery sample he had fabricated yesterday into the instrument's testing slot.

Then, he pressed the start button.

"Buzz—"

The instrument emitted a faint humming sound.

A high-precision display screen directly in front instantly lit up!

On the screen appeared a vast, microscopic universe... composed of countless light spots!

And right in the center of this "universe," in front of a seemingly impregnable "energy barrier," a light spot representing a "Lithium Ion" was constantly... flickering!

"Do you see it?"

Lu Chen pointed at the light spot, his tone calm, yet seemingly carrying a god-like magic.

"According to your 'common sense,' its energy is simply insufficient to pass through this barrier."

"But..."

As soon as his voice fell!

On the screen, that flickering light spot actually... actually vanished into thin air on this side of the barrier without any warning!

Then, zero point zero zero one second later, it reappeared out of nowhere... on the other side of the barrier!

It didn't "break through" the barrier!

It "passed" right through, like a ghost!

The entire process was bizarre!

Miraculous!

And yet... it perfectly matched all the theoretical descriptions of the Quantum Tunneling Effect!

"Th-th-this..."

Academician Zhang Jingtong pointed at the screen, his lips trembling, too excited to utter a complete sentence!

What did he see?

He had witnessed with his own eyes... the process of God Throwing Dice!

As for Su Qingying, she was completely frozen.

On her snow-like beautiful face, all her pride, stubbornness, and defiance utterly collapsed before this undeniable "fact"!

In their place was a wave of... scorching heat!

She felt her face burning intensely.

It was the searing... embarrassment of being slapped hard by the facts.

She finally understood.

Just how ridiculously wrong she had been.

How much she had been... a frog in a well.

Just as she wished she could crawl into a crack in the ground, the young man's voice, carrying a hint of a smile, reached her ears.

"How about it, Student Su?"

"Now, this result..."

"Are you satisfied?"