142: Chapter 142 Will it be another six months?

Hearing Chen Jingshan's words, Lin Yuan chuckled, a relaxed smile appearing on his face.

"Dean Chen, you're saying that..."

"What do you mean by relaxed? I'm only in my early twenties, the time when I have the most energy. Why would I need so much rest?"

"Besides, regarding energy, I'm eager to push forward as soon as possible."

"I'm still thinking about cracking the hard nut that is energy, and then moving on to other big projects."

Hearing this, Chen Jingshan was stunned, then shook his head.

Was this kid truly unaware of fatigue, or did he simply not have the word 'tired' in his dictionary?

Lin Yuan ignored Chen Jingshan's reaction and continued.

"Once Controlled Nuclear Fusion is conquered, the domestic energy bottleneck will cease to exist."

"Only then will it be time to truly let go and do big things."

At this point, he paused, a meaningful curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"Dean Chen, you still remember that project I mentioned at the first Photolithography Machine launch conference, right?"

Chen Jingshan's heart skipped a beat; of course he remembered.

south heaven gate.

Since these three words were thrown out at the conference, they remained one of the most discussed mysteries on the entire internet.

No one knew its specific content, but everyone was guessing wildly.

"After the energy problem is solved, the south heaven gate project can officially begin."

When Lin Yuan said this, his speaking speed was neither fast nor slow, even carrying a hint of casualness.

But the spines of everyone present stiffened in unison.

Controlled Nuclear Fusion, the ultimate energy source that humanity had chased for over half a century, was, in Lin Yuan's words, merely a prerequisite for the south heaven gate project?

Then, what kind of magnitude was the south heaven gate project itself?

In the conference room, no one spoke up to ask.

It wasn't that they didn't want to ask, but having followed Lin Yuan for so long, everyone had figured out his temperament.

When this young man wanted to speak, he would naturally speak.

When he didn't want to speak, you couldn't pry a single word out of him.

Rather than hitting a wall by asking, it was better to wait for him to reveal it himself.

However, every time Lin Yuan revealed something, it was always even more outrageous than everyone imagined.

After a few seconds of silence, Wei Jiancheng was the first to break the stagnant atmosphere.

He held his thermos, tilted his head, and suddenly grinned.

"Alright, Controlled Nuclear Fusion—the big one is coming."

He took a sip of water, the lid creaking as he twisted it shut.

"But Lin Yuan, I just want to ask you one thing right now."

"How long do you plan to take for this Controlled Nuclear Fusion project?"

"It won't be another half year, right?"

As soon as these words came out, the tense atmosphere in the conference room was instantly diluted by more than half.

Before the laughter of the crowd had faded, Lin Yuan tilted his head and looked at Wei Jiancheng.

"Guess?"

Two words, light and airy, carrying a hint of playfulness.

Wei Jiancheng's laughter came to an abrupt halt.

He suddenly regretted that joking question from just a moment ago.

The entire conference room became so quiet because of Lin Yuan's reply that one could hear the faint humming of the fluorescent lights.

In this brief silence, deep within Lin Yuan's consciousness, the pale blue light screen that only he could see appeared, and the progress bar began to jump rapidly.

Lines of data flashed through his mind and finally settled.

[Current Lie: Complete the implementation of the Controlled Nuclear Fusion project within half a year.]

[Lie Level Assessment: Level 4 (Involves future scientific theory and physical engineering transformation, crossing multiple disciplinary barriers)]

[Current Total confidence: 3.1%]

Looking at this progress bar, Lin Yuan frowned slightly.

With so many core researchers present, including a heavyweight figure like Dean Chen Jingshan, it only managed to support a confidence of 3.1%.

In a Level 3 lie, with the same number of people, the progress bar would have already jumped to over thirty.

The gap in pool capacity between Level 4 and Level 3 was far greater than he had estimated.

However, this was within reason.

After all, Controlled Nuclear Fusion was not a Photolithography Machine, nor was it 5G; it was a hard nut that the entire human civilization had been unable to crack for half a century.

Even among this group of researchers whose trust in him was already ridiculously high, there would inevitably be a residual, instinctive doubt deep in their subconscious: "Is this really possible?"

But Lin Yuan was not panicked.

The 5G network was spreading across the country, and smartphones equipped with the Hidden Dragon System had already begun to flood into thousands of households.

The current progress bar was just the beginning.

...

Over the next few days, good news followed one after another.

News of Xia signing 5G communication technology cooperation agreements with multiple countries appeared on the homepages of major portals almost every day.

Three countries in a Southeast Asian alliance jointly purchased 5G base station equipment, with the total amount setting a new historical high for Xia's communication exports.

A resource-rich power on the northern continent exchanged energy for technology, reaching a comprehensive strategic communication cooperation framework with Xia.

A wealthy small country in the Middle East directly bought the entire set of 5G infrastructure solutions, even specifying that they wanted a construction team from Xia.

The comment section under every piece of news was a uniform celebration.

And advancing in sync with the diplomatic victories was the explosion of the domestic Hidden Dragon System ecosystem.

After 5G mobile phones equipped with the Hidden Dragon System spread across the country, the ecological shortcoming that people once worried about—that there were "too few applications"—was being filled at a speed that exceeded everyone's expectations.

The first to explode was the short video sector.

Several startups with keen instincts, utilizing the Chinese programming platform and the underlying interfaces of the Hidden Dragon System, built short video applications that were shockingly smooth in a very short time.

With the support of 5G speeds, high-definition videos shot casually by users could be uploaded at lightning speed and loaded in seconds, silky smooth without any stuttering.

Countless people experienced the pleasure of scrolling through short videos on their phones for the first time, and then they couldn't stop.

Immediately after, instant messaging applications also quickly followed.

Social software developed natively based on the Hidden Dragon System had built-in high-definition video calling functions.

With the support of the 5G network, the picture was so clear that one could see the pores on the other person's face, and the latency was so low that it was completely imperceptible.

Besides that, online map navigation, cloud collaborative office, interactive forum platforms...

A series of applications deeply embedded in daily life emerged like bamboo shoots after a spring rain into the Hidden Dragon App Store.

Behind every application stood a group of Chinese programming developers with bloodshot eyes from working late.

The user base of the Hidden Dragon ecosystem was skyrocketing by the millions every day.

Meanwhile, the number of distributed computing nodes connected to "Little Dragon" on Lin Yuan's phone was also climbing at an equally terrifying rate.

That intelligent neural network covering the whole country was becoming denser at a speed visible to the naked eye.

...

Just as the whole country was immersed in the carnival of the 5G era.

That afternoon, the official website of the Xia Academy of Sciences quietly updated an announcement.

The announcement page was extremely concise, white background with black text, and in the center was only a line of bold red title—

"Public Notice Regarding the Addition of Comrade Lin Yuan as an Academician of the Xia Academy of Sciences"