Chapter 126 Lin Mo's Statement

On the morning of the second day after the investigation team withdrew, Lin Mo received a call from Deputy Director Liu.

"Little Lin, I'd like to trouble you with something." Deputy Director Liu's tone was very polite. "I discussed it with the Academician, and we feel that some of the leaders might not have fully understood the technical issues you discussed at the meeting yesterday. We would like to invite you to give a dedicated technical presentation to explain the principles of Nuclear Fusion, the risks, and why simulation verification is mandatory, from beginning to end. It doesn't need to be too profound, but it needs to be clear enough for people to understand."

Lin Mo paused for a moment: "For whom?"

"Several leaders from the ministry, as well as relevant comrades from the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense." Deputy Director Liu paused. "Although Director Zhang's report was rejected, the impact remains. Some leaders are harboring doubts about the 'delayed progress.' You need to convince them with facts."

Lin Mo was silent for a few seconds: "When?"

"Three days from now, in the capital. Prepare yourself and bring all the data."

Hanging up the phone, Lin Mo stood at the door of the Prefabricated Building, looking at the Nuclear Fusion base under construction in the distance. Tower cranes stood like a forest, workers shuttled back and forth, and the steel structure of the First Wall Material laboratory had already been topped off. This desolate Gobi Desert was slowly turning into what was on the blueprints.

"Going to the capital again?" Chen Xueming walked over holding a cup of soy milk. "What, the investigation team still hasn't given up?"

"It's not the investigation team." Lin Mo repeated the contents of the call.

After listening, Chen Xueming sneered: "It's that Director Zhang business again. Since his accusations were rejected, he's spreading rumors behind our backs, saying things like 'Lin Mo doesn't understand administration and only looks at technology' or 'the project progress is indeed worrying'—my ears are about to develop calluses from hearing it."

Lin Mo smiled bitterly: "That's why I have to go and explain it clearly."

"Can you explain it clearly?" Chen Xueming looked at him. "Those data of yours, tens of thousands of simulations, the fatigue curves of the First Wall Material, the decay cycle of the tritium cycle—can ordinary people understand that?"

"Even if they don't understand, I have to explain it." Lin Mo took a deep breath. "I'll explain it in a way they can understand."

Three days later, in the capital.

In a meeting room of a certain ministry, it was full of people. On one side of the long table sat Deputy Director Liu, the Academician, and several middle-aged men in plain clothes; the other side was empty, left for Lin Mo. Several young people sat in the back row with notebooks in their hands, likely secretaries or recorders.

Lin Mo stood in front of the podium with a projection screen behind him. He was wearing his usual gray jacket, without a tie, and his hair was slightly messy from the wind and sand of the Gobi Desert, but his eyes were bright.

Deputy Director Liu gave a brief introduction and then looked at Lin Mo: "Little Lin, let's begin."

Lin Mo nodded and pressed the remote control.

A picture appeared on the screen—a ring-shaped device with "tokamak-3" labeled in the middle.

"Leaders, what I am going to talk about today is not technical details, but three questions." Lin Mo's voice was steady and powerful. "First, what is Nuclear Fusion? Second, why do we need such a long time? Third, what exactly is simulation verification verifying?"

He paused and scanned the people present: "Once these three questions are clear, you will understand why I refused Director Zhang's request."

A leader wearing glasses sitting in the middle nodded: "Go ahead, we are listening."

Lin Mo pressed the remote control, and the image switched to a comparison of two suns.

"Nuclear Fusion, simply put, is imitating the principle of the sun emitting light and heat." He pointed to the sun on the left. "Inside the sun, a reaction of hydrogen fusing into helium is happening every moment, releasing enormous energy. The energy generated by one kilogram of Nuclear Fusion fuel is equivalent to ten thousand tons of coal."

Some people nodded slightly.

"But achieving Nuclear Fusion on Earth is much harder than on the sun." Lin Mo switched to the next picture, a plasma wrapped in a magnetic field. "The sun has enormous gravitational pressure and can maintain a fusion reaction at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. Earth doesn't have such conditions, so we can only use a magnetic field to 'suspend' the fuel and heat it to hundreds of millions of degrees—ten times hotter than the center of the sun."

"Hundreds of millions of degrees?" A young man in the back row couldn't help but gasp softly.

"Yes, hundreds of millions of degrees." Lin Mo nodded. "At this temperature, any solid material will instantly vaporize. Therefore, the fuel cannot touch the container wall and must be confined in a vacuum by a magnetic field, suspended as it burns."

He pointed to the toroidal magnetic field in the picture: "This is the principle of the tokamak—using a magnetic field to weave an invisible 'cage' to trap the fireball that is hundreds of millions of degrees hot inside."

The meeting room went quiet, and everyone was listening carefully.

Lin Mo pressed the remote control, and the screen switched to a timeline.

"This is the schedule for tokamak-3. From project initiation to first ignition, we planned for ten months. Some people think it's too slow, but I want to explain what we are doing during these ten months."

He used a laser pointer to point to the nodes on the timeline.

"The first month: complete the overall design and determine the technical route. This is building the framework, just like drawing blueprints before building a house."

"The second to fourth months: overcome the technical difficulties of core components. The First Wall Material, the Magnet System, the tritium cycle—each is a world-class challenge. Our current progress is that the fatigue problem of the First Wall Material has found a solution and is undergoing the final round of simulation verification; the tritium cycle efficiency is 99.3%, and the recovery process is being optimized."

"The fifth to seventh months: equipment manufacturing and installation. Some components need to be customized, some need to be imported, and some we need to build ourselves. This time cannot be saved, no matter how much you urge."

"The eighth to ninth months: full system commissioning and cold testing. After all equipment is installed, it must be repeatedly tested to ensure that every link is normal. Just like a plane, once built, it must undergo ground taxiing tests; it cannot take off directly."

"The tenth month: first ignition."

Lin Mo put down the laser pointer and looked at the leaders present: "This is what needs to be done in ten months. Each item takes time, and each item cannot be skipped."

The leader in the middle nodded: "It sounds like it really takes that long. But Director Zhang said that you have been doing 'simulation verification' all along without actual progress. What exactly is this simulation verification?"

Lin Mo was prepared and pressed the remote control.

The screen showed dense curves and numbers—tens of thousands of data points stacked together, like an ocean of data.

"This is simulation verification." He pointed to the curves. "When tokamak-3 is running, the interior is plasma at hundreds of millions of degrees, and the scale of every physical process is at the millisecond level. We cannot rely on 'trial and error' to explore—if we try once, we might destroy the entire device."

He zoomed in on one set of curves.

"This is the heat load simulation of the First Wall Material. We set up one hundred thousand different operating conditions and let the computer run them one by one. The results showed that after 2,000 hours of continuous operation, the fatigue life of traditional materials was 12% lower than expected. If this problem is not solved, the First Wall Material could crack after ignition, and the entire experiment would fall short."

Someone gasped.

"So we spent two weeks re-screening materials, adjusting the sintering process, and using computer simulations to run two hundred thousand sets of parameters, finally finding the optimal solution." Lin Mo switched to the next picture, a significantly flatter fatigue curve. "This is the simulation result of the new plan; the fatigue life has increased by 28%, meeting the design requirements."

He looked at the people present: "Can these two weeks be saved? If we followed Director Zhang's request and skipped verification to ignite directly, and the First Wall Material cracked, the loss would not just be equipment worth hundreds of millions, but the progress of the entire project—repairs would take at least a year."

The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.

The Academician spoke up, his voice not loud, but every word clear: "I'll add a sentence. The 'eastern star' from fifteen years ago failed precisely because the leaders at the time urged progress, and they proceeded despite some tests not being finished. As a result, there was a problem with the First Wall Material, the project was stopped for two years, and it eventually fizzled out. We should not forget this lesson."

The leader in the middle nodded and looked at Lin Mo: "You just said you simulated tens of thousands of sets of data?"

"Yes." Lin Mo pressed the remote control, and a long list of data scrolled on the screen. "This is the simulation record for the last month. Two hundred thousand sets for the First Wall Material, one hundred and fifty thousand sets for the tritium cycle, eighty thousand sets for the Magnet System, and the digital twin system ran three hundred thousand sets of operating condition verifications. Added together, that is over seven hundred thousand sets."

He looked at those people: "Every set of data is an 'if.' If this happens, what will happen? If that happens, what will happen? We verify all these 'ifs' to ensure that at the moment of ignition, there won't be any unexpected 'ifs.'"

Deputy Director Liu suddenly asked: "How accurate is this simulation?"

"Compared to real experiments, the error is within 3%." Lin Mo replied. "We have previously verified this simulation system with Room-Temperature Superconductivity and Lithium Extraction from Seawater, and the results matched reality perfectly."

The Academician added: "I have looked at their simulation data and experimental records, and the error is indeed controlled very well. The reliability of this system is at a leading international level."

The leader in the middle leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long time.

"Little Lin," he began, "I'll ask you an honest question. If we followed Director Zhang's request and skipped some verification steps, could the time be compressed to six months?"

Lin Mo was also silent.

He knew this question was critical. The leader was not asking "can you" but "if it were mandatory," how he would answer.

Everyone in the meeting room had their eyes on him.

Lin Mo took a deep breath and looked up: "Leader, I can compress it to six months."

Someone nodded slightly.

"But the cost is that the probability of ignition failure rises from 1% to 15%." Lin Mo continued, "A 15% probability means that for every seven ignition attempts, one might fail. And for every failure, repairs take at least half a year, so the total time would actually be longer."

He looked at the leader: "I'm not afraid of taking responsibility; I'm afraid of failing this project. The country has invested so many resources and placed such a heavy burden on us, not to 'rush time' and take a gamble, but to 'succeed in one go.'"

"Succeed in one go." The leader repeated these four words.

"Yes." Lin Mo nodded. "Nuclear Fusion is the ultimate dream of human energy. We have reached this step, and we are only a few hundred meters away from ignition. At this moment, what we fear most is not slowness, but haste. Once we rush, problems can arise; once problems arise, all previous efforts are wasted."

He paused, his voice lowered: "Director Zhang said I don't understand administration and only know technology. But I think the greatest responsibility to the project is to speak according to scientific laws. Where we should be fast, we will never delay; where we should be slow, we must never take risks just to save time."

The meeting room was quiet for a long time.

The Academician was the first to applaud.

Then came Deputy Director Liu, then the young people in the back row, and finally the leader in the middle.

"Little Lin, well said." The leader stood up, walked to Lin Mo, and extended his hand. "You made me truly understand why we need to wait and why we cannot rush. Go back and tell the team to work with peace of mind; the ministry supports you."

Lin Mo shook his hand and nodded firmly.

Walking out of the meeting room, it was already evening.

Deputy Director Liu accompanied him downstairs, saying as they walked: "The person just now is the Vice Minister in charge of science and technology. The fact that he came to listen in person shows that the ministry attaches great importance to this project."

Lin Mo nodded without speaking.

"Your presentation today was very effective." Deputy Director Liu patted him on the shoulder. "Those data and those metaphors made everyone understand. If anyone questions the progress in the future, you can use today's presentation as a shield—the leaders have nodded, so who else can say anything?"

Lin Mo smiled bitterly: "I would rather not use this shield."

"What do you mean?"

"I would rather save the time and go back to work." Lin Mo looked at the sunset in the distance. "At the base, the optimization plan for the First Wall Material is waiting to be verified, the tritium cycle recovery process is waiting to be debugged, and the digital twin system has hundreds of thousands of operating conditions to run. Every minute, someone is waiting for me."

Deputy Director Liu was stunned for a moment, then laughed: "Go ahead. The car is waiting outside. Are you rushing back overnight?"

"Yes, overnight."

Deputy Director Liu saw him to the door and suddenly remembered something: "By the way, Director Zhang has been transferred."

Lin Mo paused: "Transferred?"

"Transferred to another project to be a consultant, a promotion in name but a demotion in reality." Deputy Director Liu's tone was flat. "His report, although rejected, indeed had a bad influence. The ministry felt that he was not very suitable to stay on this project."

Lin Mo was silent for a few seconds, nodded, and said nothing.

Before getting into the car, he looked back at the building. Lights were on in the windows; some people were working overtime, some were in meetings, and some were rushing around for various projects.

He suddenly remembered the Academician's words: "Some hurdles, if you can't get over them, you can't get over them; it's not something that can be solved just by someone pounding their chest."

Scientific laws are like this, and so is personnel management.

The off-road vehicle drove into the night, heading toward the Gobi Desert.

Lin Mo leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. The roar of the engine was in his ears, but the lights of the base appeared before his eyes—on that desolate Gobi Desert, someone was waiting for him to return.