Chapter 174 Sleepless Night

At 4:20 AM, Lin Mo returned to his dormitory.

He pushed the door open gently. Without turning on the lights, he felt his way to the bed in the dark and lay down. The bedboard was hard; the dormitories at the Gobi Desert base all had these simple wooden beds. After three years of sleeping on them, he had long since grown accustomed to it.

But today, no matter how he tried, he couldn't fall asleep.

The ceiling was grayish-white, with a few faint, thin cracks visible. Light from outside filtered in, casting mottled shadows on the ceiling that shifted with the occasional passing silhouette.

Lin Mo stared at those shadows as countless scenes flashed through his mind like a movie.

That late night seven years ago.

Back then, he was still a Ph.D. Student, huddled in his school dormitory, staring blankly at his computer. He couldn't write his thesis, his experiments were going nowhere, and his future was a blur of uncertainty. At 3:00 AM, he stared at a system interface that had suddenly popped up on his screen, thinking his computer had caught a virus.

“civilization climber system activated.”

He had been stunned for a long time before clicking the icon as if possessed. There was only one line of text on the interface:

“Please select your first technology: Room-Temperature Superconductivity Blueprints (Free)”

He had chosen it.

Everything that followed felt like a dream.

The day he successfully synthesized superconducting materials for the first time.

He was alone in the laboratory, staring at that small sample, unable to believe his eyes. He measured it three times, and each time showed the same result—zero resistance. He picked up the phone to call his mentor, but his fingers were shaking so much it took three tries just to dial the number correctly.

When Wang Zhenguo picked up, his voice was still thick with sleep. After listening to the report, he was silent for three seconds before saying a single sentence:

“Xiao Lin, wait for me. I’m coming right now.”

In the early hours of that morning, the sixty-three-year-old Wang Zhenguo rode his bicycle through the biting wind to reach the laboratory. After checking the data and the sample, he suddenly hugged Lin Mo.

“We did it. We really did it.”

That was the first time Lin Mo had seen his teacher cry.

The day Chen Xueming first arrived at the base.

He was wearing a suit and tie, looking like he looked down on everyone. He walked into the laboratory, scanned the equipment, and gave a cold laugh. “Just this? What can you even do with this?”

Lin Mo didn't say anything at the time; he simply handed him a data report.

Chen Xueming read it for ten minutes. His expression shifted from arrogance to gravity, and then from gravity to disbelief.

“Is this real?”

“It's real.”

He looked up, staring at Lin Mo for a long time, before saying:

“I'll stay and see just how much ability you people actually have.”

Back then, Lin Mo didn't know that after those words, they would walk such a long path together.

The night George tried to turn Zhang Jianguo.

When the alarm went off, Lin Mo was in the laboratory. Zhao Gang rushed in, his face ashen. “Someone's stealing data! We caught them!”

He only found out later that the maintenance worker who had been turned almost transmitted the core data for Room-Temperature Superconductivity. Zhao Gang had led his men on a three-kilometer chase across the Gobi Desert to pin the man down.

That night, Zhao Gang stood before him, covered in sand with a bloody gash on his face, but his eyes were incredibly bright:

“Director Lin, we caught him. No data was lost.”

Lin Mo looked at him, suddenly at a loss for words.

Zhao Gang grinned. “It's fine. I'm tough.”

The two months of processing the Divertor.

When Chen Xueming went to be stationed at the factory, Lin Mo walked him to the door. Looking at Chen Xueming's old suitcase, he suddenly said, “Teacher Chen, take care.”

Chen Xueming turned back and smiled. “Don't worry, I'm plenty tough.”

When he returned two months later, he was so thin he looked like a different person, but his eyes were incredibly bright. He pulled Lin Mo to see the Divertor, talking the whole way in a raspy voice but at a rapid pace. As Lin Mo listened, his eyes grew warm.

That night, Chen Xueming fell asleep slumped over his desk, and Lin Mo draped a coat over him.

The late night of the cooling crisis.

When the alarm blared, Lin Mo was in the control room. He watched the numbers jumping wildly on the screen, his heart nearly stopping. The backup pump wouldn't start, the manual valve was jammed, and the temperature was skyrocketing.

Chen Xueming roared from the equipment room, “Director Lin! Line Two!”

Zhao Gang rushed in with soldiers to help, while Li Xiao was crying in the control room even as her fingers flew across the keyboard.

That night was the longest night of his life.

After the crisis was averted, Chen Xueming emerged from the equipment room drenched in sweat, his hands covered in blood. He walked up to Lin Mo and suddenly gave a small smile:

“Old Lin, we survived again.”

The early morning when Chen Xueming broke down.

He knocked on Lin Mo's door, his eyes bloodshot, looking like a piece of withered wood drained of all moisture. He said, “I might have messed up,” his voice trembling.

That was the first time Lin Mo had seen him so vulnerable.

Later, they found the problem and solved it together. That afternoon, Chen Xueming sent a message:

“Thank you. I owe you my life.”

Lin Mo replied with five words:

“Between us, don't say that.”

Scene after scene flashed by.

Room-Temperature Superconductivity, Lithium-Sulfur Battery, Lithium Extraction from Seawater, Tritium Extraction, Nuclear Fusion.

George, Black Sparrow, Smith, the Observation Group.

Wang Zhenguo, Chen Xueming, Li Xiao, Zhao Gang, Fang Lin.

Every step had been like dancing on the edge of a blade; every time, they had nearly fallen, but every time, they had stood back up.

Lin Mo turned over, watching the sky outside gradually turn pale.

He remembered his teacher's words:

“Tomorrow, the whole world will see.”

Yes.

The whole world would see.

They would see the path these people had walked over the last seven years, the nights they had endured, and every drop of sweat they had shed.

They would see that massive device light up in the Gobi Desert.

Lin Mo closed his eyes.

This time, he didn't think about those scenes from the past anymore.

He was thinking about tomorrow.

Thinking about the moment of ignition—what would happen when that button was pressed.

He didn't know.

But he knew that no matter what happened, he was ready.

Outside the window, the day finally dawned.

Lin Mo opened his eyes and sat up.

A new day had begun.