14: Chapter 14: The Ignition of Public Opinion!

The first bundle of dry wood was soon precisely tossed into the furnace.

Not long after Lin Yuan's onboarding procedures were finalized, a piece of information was quietly updated on the official website of the Xia Academy of Sciences.

To ordinary people, this was just a meaningless byte jumping in the vast ocean of the internet.

But for those with a keen sense of smell—mainstream media, online onlookers, and even overseas intelligence agencies lurking in the shadows who kept a close eye on every rustle of the wind—this was no different from a depth charge.

Ever since that report from the Xia Country Daily had burst onto the scene, the real-time traffic to the Xia Academy of Sciences' official website had been at a historical peak.

Therefore, the moment this update occurred, it was captured by countless pairs of eyes simultaneously.

The name at the very center of the storm appeared.

Lin Yuan!

Among the dense list of branch introductions for the Xia Academy of Sciences, his name was listed under a specific department.

—The Third Microelectronics Equipment Research Institute!

With this, the internet completely exploded.

“Breaking! Lin Yuan's Destination Finalized, Parachuted into the Third Research Institute!”

“Deep Reveal! What Exactly is the Xia Academy of Sciences' Third Research Institute?”

“Genius or Publicity Stunt? Lin Yuan's Next Step Points Directly at the Xia Country's Greatest Technological Pain Point!”

...

Countless news flashes and press releases spread frantically at a near-viral speed, occupying the trending lists of major social platforms in the most blunt manner.

The popularity of the name "Lin Yuan" reached an unprecedented peak.

If the previous exceptional promotion had merely made people feel it was absurd and incomprehensible...

Then now, when his name was bundled with the term "Third Microelectronics Equipment Research Institute," the nature of the entire public discourse completely changed.

Countless white-collar workers slacking off in their offices, college students lying on their dorm beds, and even some researchers on the front lines of scientific research all saw these reports at the same time.

In an instant, the comment sections of major forums and social media platforms completely boiled over.

“Holy crap! Am I seeing things? The Third Microelectronics Equipment Research Institute? Isn't that the department specializing in Photolithography Machines?”

“To the person above, you didn't see it wrong. I just went to check specifically—it's that place! They are the ones responsible for the 'heart bypass surgery' of the Xia Country's chip industry!”

“Hiss... this is so much information, my brain can't even process it. One moment he gets an exceptional promotion, and the next he's directly in the most core and vital Photolithography Machine project team? This...”

“This what? Do you even need to think about it?! I have an extremely bold guess. Do you think... is it possible that he was promoted exceptionally because he made some incredible breakthrough in Photolithography Machines?!”

As soon as this comment came out, it was like pouring a ladle of cold water into boiling oil.

The atmosphere of the entire comment section froze for a moment.

Then, it erupted completely with ten times the intensity!

“Impossible! Absolutely impossible!”

“He's a student who hasn't even graduated with an undergraduate degree. Does he even know what a Photolithography Machine is?!”

“Exactly! He's probably read too many web novels, right? Things like that don't happen in reality! A postdoc in our lab spent five years and hasn't even mastered one subsystem of a Photolithography Machine. What right does he have?”

“This is a public insult to the hundreds of thousands of researchers in our Xia Country! I resolutely do not believe it!”

However, while the waves of doubt were high, another voice also began to stubbornly emerge.

“But... how do you explain his exceptional promotion, and how do you explain him going straight to the Photolithography Machine project team as soon as he joined? It's not logical!”

“Indeed, if it were just to pad his resume, he could have gone to any relaxed department and published two papers a year. Wouldn't that be ten thousand times more comfortable than going to that hellhole?”

“Yes, that's the strangest part! If he really were a hack, the higher-ups wouldn't have arranged it this way. Would someone with connections voluntarily jump into a fire pit? Are they insane?”

On the internet, the two sides clashed fiercely, arguing incessantly.

One side insisted this was a fantasy, a disgrace to the academic world, and that there must be an unknown deal behind it.

The other side, from various irrational arrangements, pieced together a conclusion that made even them feel terrified, yet was logically self-consistent—

This Lin Yuan might really be... a monster capable of changing the rules!

Suspicion, speculation, defense, angry rebukes...

Countless opinions intertwined and collided online, pushing the name Lin Yuan to the very center of the storm.

No one could give a definitive answer.

There wasn't even a single piece of hearsay from inside.

But precisely because of this, people's imaginations were able to break free from the constraints of reality and begin to run wild.

Rationally, the vast majority of people still refused to believe it.

But within the Xia Country's massive population base, even if only one in ten thousand, or even one in a hundred thousand people felt a moment of doubt deep in their hearts after seeing those irrational arrangements and were willing to believe in this miracle...

The gathered strength would be enough to shake reality.

At this moment, in a residence with a high level of security personally arranged by Elder Long.

Lin Yuan calmly looked at the fiercely arguing comments on his phone screen, his face showing no emotion.

All of this was within his expectations.

What he wanted was this massive controversy sweeping across the entire nation.

[Current Total Confidence Level: 13.5%... 13.6%... 13.7%...]

On the pale blue light screen, the progress bar representing the confidence level was growing slowly, yet it moved forward frame by frame.

Lin Yuan smiled.

This precisely proved how correct he was to choose the Photolithography Machine as the object of his first lie.

Just a connection in identity alone could leverage such a massive amount of confidence without any substantive evidence.

In this, there was certainly his carefully designed logical closed loop, where he moved step by step.

But more importantly, it was the colossus known as the "State" standing behind him.

Every one of its irrational actions served as the most authoritative and unquestionable endorsement for Lin Yuan's lie.

Looking at the slowly growing numbers, Lin Yuan knew very well that the heat was still a bit lacking.

The current growth was, after all, built on the foundation of "speculation."

To make the progress bar truly soar, he still needed a fire.

A sky-covering fire enough to burn away everyone's rationality and make "speculation" infinitely approach "fact"!

And this fire, he had already prepared in advance.

Just then, his phone buzzed.

A brand new push notification took over the entire screen.

The publisher was the most authoritative official media platform in the Xia Country, known as the "Voice of the Nation"—

The Xia Country Daily.

The title of the notification was extremely concise.

But those few words seemed to carry a weight of a thousand tons, enough to make the hearts of everyone who saw them skip a beat.

[Congratulations! Our country's Photolithography Machine technology has achieved a major theoretical breakthrough!]