Chapter 4 Repeated Verification
It was already ten o'clock in the evening when he left Wang Zhenguo's home.
Lin Mo walked on the path back to the dormitory, his mentor's words still echoing in his mind. "Your state hasn't been quite right lately," Wang Zhenguo had said, holding a teacup and looking at him through his reading glasses. "Are you encountering some difficulties? If you have any ideas regarding scientific research, tell me anytime."
He said he didn't, just that he was a bit tired lately.
Wang Zhenguo nodded and didn't press further, turning instead to chat about the research project. But Lin Mo could feel that his mentor had sensed something. Those eyes, which had weathered forty years in academia, were far too good at catching subtle abnormalities.
Back at the dormitory, Lin Mo lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
That blue thing was still in the laboratory safe. He had thought about it the whole way back and decided to do the experiment one more time. Once might be a coincidence, twice might be luck, but three or four times—if they all succeeded, then it would be the real deal.
The next day was Sunday. Lin Mo got up early and headed straight for the laboratory.
He reconfigured the raw materials, re-weighed them, and reset the high-temperature furnace's program. This time, he was even more meticulous, following the blueprints strictly at every step, recording every parameter and every detail.
Twenty-four hours later, the second piece of blue material was born.
Test result: at -20°C, resistance dropped to zero.
Exactly the same as the first time.
Holding that piece of material, an indescribable feeling welled up in Lin Mo's heart. He remembered the boundless shock the first time he saw the ocean as a child; he remembered the pride in his parents' eyes the day he was admitted to Huaqing University. But the feeling at this moment was more complex than all of those.
On the third day, he changed to different batches of raw materials, used different reaction vessels, and even deliberately allowed a slight deviation in the temperature control of a certain step—he wanted to know how much fault tolerance this process had.
The result was that as long as the key parameters remained within the range specified by the blueprints, the material could be successfully produced. Those deviations would only affect the purity of the material, but the superconducting properties always remained.
On the fourth day, he tried different testing methods. In addition to the Four-Probe Method, he also used Magnetic Susceptibility Measurement—another characteristic of superconductors is the Meissner Effect, which is Perfect Diamagnetism.
The moment the sample levitated in liquid nitrogen, Lin Mo was finally certain.
This wasn't a coincidence. This wasn't luck. He had truly created a Room-Temperature Superconductivity material.
Lin Mo put down the tweezers in his hand, took two steps back, and slumped into a chair. He stared at that blue flake levitating in liquid nitrogen, watching it wobble slightly due to Perfect Diamagnetism, looking like some kind of living creature.
For the following week, Lin Mo locked himself in the laboratory.
During the day, he worked on his own project as normal, occasionally discussing progress with Wang Zhenguo and eating with classmates. At night, after everyone had left, he would begin "his own experiment." Each time synthesizing a batch of new material, each time testing, each time recording.
He conducted eleven experiments and succeeded ten times. The only failure was because the high-temperature furnace suddenly malfunctioned and the temperature went out of control. He fixed the furnace, redid it, and succeeded.
Those blue flakes piled up more and more in the safe. Lin Mo numbered them and recorded the detailed parameters for each batch. Sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, he couldn't help but go to the laboratory, open the safe, and confirm they were still there. Like a miser counting gold coins, he counted them over and over again.
On the seventh night, Lin Mo finished the final test and organized all the data into a document. Sitting before the computer, looking at the dense numbers and charts on the screen, he suddenly realized a problem:
How should the source of this data be explained?
A paper needs to account for the logic behind the experimental design. If he wrote "I had a sudden whim one night and changed the formula," or "I had a dream where someone told me to do this," who would believe him? Peer reviewers would throw his submission straight into the trash.
If he said it was an accidental discovery—in the history of science, there indeed have been some major discoveries that were accidental. Like X-rays, like penicillin. But those accidents were all unexpected breakthroughs based on existing research. Whereas his completely jumped out of the existing theoretical framework.
Lin Mo opened the literature database and searched for superconductivity material research from the past five years. He tried to find a connection between his material and known research, even just a little bit. But there was none. Those molecular formulas and preparation processes did not overlap with any published papers. It was as if—this knowledge came from another world.
The System.
That silver spiral icon sat quietly in the upper right corner of his vision, like a silent eye. During this week, Lin Mo had wanted to communicate with it countless times, to ask what it actually was and why it chose him. But it never responded, just existing quietly.
Lin Mo closed his eyes and called out in his heart: Who are you?
No answer.
Where do you come from?
Silence.
What exactly do you want?
Still silence.
Lin Mo opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He suddenly thought of a question: If this system was real, would there be any hidden dangers with the knowledge it gave? Would it suddenly be taken back one day? Or, would there be some kind of price that he just didn't know about yet?
He thought of plots in science fiction movies—the protagonist gains some superpower and pays a heavy price in the end. But those were just movies; this was reality. In reality, he was just an ordinary Ph.D. Student with an ordinary family background, ordinary talent, and an ordinary future. What did he have that was worth being "chosen"?
Lin Mo couldn't come up with an answer.
The sky outside began to turn pale. A new week was about to begin. During this week, he had barely slept properly; the dark circles under his eyes were as dark as a panda's, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight. But he didn't feel tired; that sense of excitement had been sustaining him.
Lin Mo stood up and walked to the window. In the distance, the campus in the morning light was quiet and beautiful. He began to think about a more realistic question: What should he do next?
He could continue to keep this secret, synthesizing materials and researching them alone in secret. But in that case, what use would these materials be? They would just be blue flakes lying in a safe, unable to change anything.
He could tell Wang Zhenguo. Would his teacher believe him? Perhaps. But his teacher would definitely press for the source—how should he explain it? Say a mysterious system gave it to him? Wang Zhenguo would probably think he'd gone mad and send him to the psychiatry department.
He could organize it into a paper for publication. But in that case, the whole world would know. Reporters, scientists, and even intelligence personnel from various countries would swarm in like a tide. Could he handle that? Could this tiny laboratory withstand such an impact?
More importantly, if this technology fell into the wrong hands, what consequences would it bring?
Lin Mo thought of George. Why was that visiting scholar, who was a bit overly enthusiastic, so interested in him? Was it real academic exchange, or...
He didn't dare to think further.
The sun rose. Golden sunlight shone through the window, illuminating the entire laboratory. Lin Mo stood there, looking at the illuminated instruments, reagents, desks, and that safe hiding the blue flakes. He suddenly realized that he was already standing at a crossroads.
No matter which path he chose, once the first step was taken, there would be no turning back.
The phone rang. It was a call from Wang Zhenguo.
“Xiao Lin, do you have time today? Come to my office; there's a project I want you to participate in.”
Lin Mo was silent for two seconds.
“Okay, Teacher. I'll head over in a bit.”
He hung up the phone and took one last look at that safe. Then he turned and walked out of the laboratory.