3: He has incredible technology, but only fifty yuan in his pocket!

Lu Chen felt a warmth in his heart as he looked at the “generous” message Wang Peng sent on his phone, which was immediately replaced by a feeling of being both amused and exasperated.

Steal his dad's private stash?

This brother is reliable. If there's trouble, he really dares to step up.

Lu Chen smiled, put his phone back in his pocket, and didn't reply.

How should he reply?

Tell him that, let alone his dad's private money, even selling his dad's company would probably only be a drop in the bucket?

Forget it, he wouldn't understand.

When a person's understanding surpasses the entire world, the inevitable result is a solitude that no one can comprehend.

"Grrr—"

Just then, an untimely, loud protest came from his stomach.

This sound was like the sharpest knife, instantly puncturing all grand fantasies about “changing the world” and “leading the era,” harshly pulling Lu Chen from the clouds back to solid ground.

He looked down at his stomach, then glanced at the braised beef noodles on the table, which had long gone cold and whose noodles were swollen and pale.

A few shriveled dehydrated vegetables floated on the greasy red soup, emanating a cheap and desolate aura.

Hungry!

A most primitive, purest physiological need assaulted his brain.

Having just experienced an epic brain expansion, the energy consumed was enormous. At this moment, he felt like he could devour a whole cow.

Lu Chen took a deep breath, walked to the bed, and carefully pulled out all his worldly possessions from under his pillow.

A crumpled fifty-yuan banknote.

He spread the banknote on the table, meticulously smoothing out the creases with his fingers, as if performing a sacred ritual.

The smile on the great man's portrait seemed to carry a hint of… sympathy.

This was his entire budget for the next week.

Before today, he managed to live on scholarships and money earned from moving bricks at construction sites on weekends. But now… Lu Chen's gaze swept over the formulas on the scratch paper that would drive any physicist mad, then looked at the flimsy banknote in front of him, and an extremely absurd feeling arose.

He held the key that could leverage trillions, even hundreds of trillions, in capital.

Any single technology in his mind could make a nation rise instantly, making a consortium as rich as a country.

Yet, he now had to painstakingly decide whether to eat two steamed buns or one steamed bun for breakfast tomorrow.

This was the biggest joke of the year!

"Calm down. You have to eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time."

Lu Chen closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down.

The most important thing now was to wait.

Although the “bait” he cast was astonishing enough, it would still take some time to truly reach the target person.

He quickly ran through a mental simulation.

The public mailbox of the Physics Research Institute receives at least eight thousand, if not ten thousand, emails every day. Ninety-nine percent of them are spam, “great discoveries” from amateur scientists, and various boring harassment letters.

His anonymous email would most likely be seen by an intern or a junior researcher.

Their first reaction would probably be, “Another lunatic trying to overturn relativity,” and then they would casually prepare to delete it.

But if they had even a little professional knowledge and looked closer, they would discover the paper's uniqueness.

Then, they would report it to their mentor, or a higher-level director.

Upon seeing it, the director would be shocked, suspicious, and would convene their team of experts for urgent calculations and discussions.

This process would take at least one day, or two to three days at most.

So, what he needed to do now was to lurk patiently like the most seasoned hunter, and at the same time… fill his stomach.

The next day, Tuesday.

Lu Chen went to school as usual, carrying his backpack.

In the classroom of Jinghai City No. 17 Middle School, the math teacher was lecturing excitedly about a complex function problem, while the students below were drowsy.

Wang Peng was particularly heavy, his head bobbing like a pecking chicken, drool almost reaching the table.

Lu Chen, however, wasn't listening at all.

Those problems that seemed like hieroglyphs to others were as simple as one plus one equals two in his system-enhanced brain. He only needed to glance at them to instantly get the answer, and could even provide more than three different solutions.

He just sat quietly, his mind furiously simulating the various chain reactions that the paper might cause.

The entire day passed peacefully.

Aside from buying two meat buns and a bottle of mineral water with his precious fifty yuan at noon, nothing happened.

Third day, Wednesday.

Lu Chen began to feel a slight anxiety.

During lunch break, he secretly went to the illicit internet cafe behind the school, spent five yuan to open a computer, and logged into that foreign anonymous email.

The inbox was empty.

"Could it be... deleted as spam directly?"

A bad thought flashed through his mind, but he immediately dismissed it.

Impossible!

He had absolute confidence in his “bait”! The value of that paper was like a diamond in the dark; no discerning person could possibly miss it!

Perhaps, the process was just a bit slow.

He spent another three yuan, bought a bowl of instant noodles, and wolfed it down.

When he walked out of the internet cafe, he only had about forty yuan left in his pocket.

If he was frugal, it could last another three days.

Fourth day, Thursday.

Still no news.

Lu Chen's heart truly began to grow anxious.

The system refreshes new technology at midnight next Monday. If he couldn't connect with the country and secure startup funds before then, everything would fall into a vicious cycle.

The “bombs” in his mind would accumulate, yet he wouldn't even be able to afford the matches to light the fuse!

What was worse, his stomach was getting hungrier and hungrier.

His daily food allowance had already downgraded from two steamed buns to one.

Returning to his rented room at night, he lay on the bed, clearly hearing his stomach grumbling, feeling dizzy from hunger.

He took out the fifty-yuan banknote, which had now become three ten-yuan notes and a pile of coins.

Possessing heaven-defying technology, yet starving to death.

If this got out, it would probably become an eternal bizarre tale in the system world.

"No, I can't just sit here and wait any longer!"

Lu Chen suddenly sat up, a determined glint in his eyes.

If the fish don't bite, then he could only find a way to cast some more fragrant bait!

He was about to open his computer again when his phone suddenly vibrated twice.

It was Wang Peng again.

Lu Chen frowned, somewhat impatiently picked it up, thinking it was another call to play games.

But when he saw the message on the screen, he instantly froze.

The message was simple, just a screenshot and a question mark.

The screenshot was of the headline on the homepage of “Xia Nation Science Net,” the most authoritative scientific research news website in the country, with the title marked in bold red font, appearing shocking—

[Physics World Trembles! A Mysterious Email May Usher Humanity Into a New Era!]

Below the screenshot was the message from Wang Peng.

"Chen Zi, what it says here... it sounds a bit like the boasts you made that day?"