Chapter 165 Late Night

Twelve days until the ignition countdown.

At three in the morning, the night wind of the Gobi Desert whistled past, swirling fine sand that tapped against the windows. Lin Mo had been lying down for less than two hours when he was startled awake by a rapid pounding on his door.

He rolled out of bed, pulled open the door, and saw Chen Xueming standing outside.

With just one look, Lin Mo's heart sank.

Chen Xueming's eyes were bloodshot, his undereye bags were dark, and his entire being resembled withered wood drained of all moisture. His lips were trembling, his fingers were shaking, and his work clothes were stained with engine oil and sweat. His collar was crooked, making him look nothing like the usually meticulous Chen Xueming.

"Old Lin," his voice was so raspy it was almost unintelligible, "I might have messed up."

Lin Mo grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him into the room, and pressed him down into a chair.

"Sit down first, and tell me slowly."

Chen Xueming sat there with his hands propped on his knees and his head bowed, his shoulders trembling slightly. It took a long time before he looked up at Lin Mo, his eyes frighteningly red.

"That new board... after replacing it, all the tests passed. I thought it was fine."

Lin Mo didn't speak, listening quietly.

"Tonight, I couldn't sleep, so I ran a full system simulation again," Chen Xueming's voice shook more and more. "The result showed that—for the Plasma position control, although the delay is gone, a new type of oscillation appears during the high-power phase. The amplitude isn't large, but the frequency is very high."

He gestured with his hands:

"That kind of oscillation will cause particles at the edge of the Plasma to bombard the First Wall, causing localized overheating. Once or twice is fine, but if it lasts for a few minutes, the First Wall will..."

He couldn't go on.

Lin Mo finished for him: "...will be damaged."

Chen Xueming nodded, his body slumping against the back of the chair as if his bones had been removed.

"Chief Lin, I messed up. When I replaced that board, I should have realized—after the delay chip was removed, the response characteristics of the entire system changed. I recalibrated the algorithm, but I didn't account for the coupling effect during the high-power phase."

He closed his eyes, his voice low as if squeezed from his chest:

"There are only ten days left until ignition. Discovering the problem now, I... I don't know if there's still time."

Lin Mo was silent for a few seconds.

Then he stood up, walked over to Chen Xueming, crouched down, and looked into his eyes.

"Teacher Chen, look at me."

Chen Xueming opened his eyes and looked at him.

Lin Mo said, "Do you remember those two months with the Divertor? You lost a whole circle of weight, and when you came back, you told me, 'I'm tough as nails'?"

Chen Xueming was stunned for a moment.

"Do you remember the night of the cooling crisis? You led the team to pry open Line 2, hands covered in blood, and told me, 'Just get it done'?"

Chen Xueming's eyes grew even redder.

Lin Mo's voice was soft, but every word was like a nail being driven into his heart:

"You are the most capable engineer I have ever met. Tritium Extraction at 99.3%, zero error on the Divertor, and you can recite every single parameter of the Plasma Control System from memory. A problem has arisen now not because you aren't good enough, but because this device is just that difficult."

He stood up and held out his hand.

"Get up, let's find a way together. Two people are always better than one."

Chen Xueming stared at that hand for a long time.

Then he reached out and gripped it.

Lin Mo pulled him up and patted his shoulder.

"Come on, let's go to the control room."

At 3:20 AM, the lights in the control room flickered back on.

Li Xiao had also been called in. She walked in rubbing her eyes and was startled by Chen Xueming's appearance, but she asked nothing, simply sitting down silently at her computer.

Chen Xueming pulled up the set of data that had caused his breakdown and pointed to the oscillation curve on the screen.

"Look, it's right here. After the power rises to 80%, this oscillation begins to appear. Frequency of 100 Hertz, amplitude of 0.5 millimeters. If it lasts for three minutes, the local temperature of the First Wall will rise by 200 degrees."

Lin Mo stared at the curve, his brow furrowed.

"Can it be suppressed?"

Chen Xueming shook his head. "Traditional methods won't work. The root of the oscillation is the non-linear response of the magnetic field; the control algorithm needs to be redesigned. But a redesign... would take at least a month."

Li Xiao suddenly spoke up, "Teacher Chen, what if we use machine learning?"

Chen Xueming was taken aback. "What?"

Li Xiao pointed at the screen. "Look, although this oscillation is complex, it follows a pattern. If we use the Digital Twin System to run a hundred thousand sets of data and train a neural network to predict the oscillation in real-time, then we can apply reverse suppression..."

Chen Xueming's eyes lit up. "You mean, using AI for online compensation?"

Li Xiao nodded. "Exactly. There's no need to redesign the algorithm; we just need to add a compensation module to the existing system. That module can learn and adjust in real-time."

Chen Xueming fell silent.

He was rapidly calculating in his head.

A hundred thousand sets of data, at the speed of the Digital Twin System, would take... twenty hours.

Training the neural network would take... ten hours.

Deployment and testing would take... ten hours.

Added up, forty hours.

Less than two days.

He abruptly turned to Li Xiao. "Can you do it?"

Li Xiao was startled by his intensity, then she nodded vigorously.

"I can. But I need you to help me define the input parameters, and I need Chief Lin to authorize me to use all available computing power."

Chen Xueming looked at Lin Mo again.

Lin Mo did not hesitate.

"Authorization granted. From now on, you can use the entire base's computing power as you wish."

At four in the morning, in Li Xiao's server room, three servers began to operate simultaneously.

On the screens, the data stream poured down like a waterfall. For each of the hundred thousand sets of simulated data, the Plasma state, magnetic field response, and oscillation characteristics had to be recorded. This data would become the foundation for training the neural network.

Chen Xueming sat beside her, staring at the screen without moving.

Lin Mo brought over two cups of coffee and placed them by their hands.

"Keep an eye on it, but don't work yourselves to death."

Chen Xueming shook his head. "I won't. Even if you let me sleep now, I wouldn't be able to."

Lin Mo sat down beside him, and the two of them stared at the screen together.

After a long time, Chen Xueming suddenly spoke.

"Chief Lin, just now... thank you."

Lin Mo turned to look at him. "Thank me for what?"

Chen Xueming gave a bitter smile. "Thank you for not giving up on me."

Lin Mo was silent for a few seconds, then said:

"Teacher Chen, do you know what makes me proudest about this project?"

Chen Xueming shook his head.

Lin Mo pointed at the scrolling data on the screen.

"It's not this device, it's not those parameters; it's this team. You, Li Xiao, Zhao Gang, Fang Lin, and all those whose names I can't even call out. You are all willing to follow me and put your lives on the line for this."

He looked at Chen Xueming.

"So, you will never be given up on. Because without you, this can't be done."

Chen Xueming stared at him for a long time.

Then he lowered his head and wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand.

When he looked up again, his eyes were still red, but there was a light in them.

"Alright. Then let's get it done."

Outside the window, the horizon began to turn white.

A new day was about to begin.

And they were still fighting.