34: Chapter 34 Soaring Confidence

Lin Yuan's rhetorical question struck hard at the heart of everyone in the conference room.

"Why not!?"

These six words, carrying an air of inevitability, exploded deep within everyone's minds.

Yes.

"Why... not?"

This absurd thought, to the extreme, uncontrollably crawled out from the bottom of everyone's hearts.

Their reason was screaming, telling them that this was absolutely unrealistic.

They all understood that the modern industrial system is an incredibly precise machine, interconnected, where the loss of a single screw could lead to total collapse.

And the Photolithography Machine is the brightest pearl on the crown of this machine.

It is the crystallization of decades of technological iteration, the collaboration of thousands of top-tier suppliers, and the hard work of generations of top engineers.

"Half a year?"

This does not conform to the laws of modern science, nor does it conform to common engineering sense.

"This is simply the raving of a madman!"

But...

In the conference room, the dozens of people present subconsciously lowered their heads, their gazes instinctively falling back onto the documents in their hands.

The steady-state micro-bunching model for the light source...

The achromatic metalens scheme for the Objective Lens...

The magnetic levitation planar motor architecture for the dual-wafer stage...

Three major cores, three complete theoretical systems capable of overturning existing technical routes, spanning several cutting-edge disciplines.

And all of this came from the hands of a twenty-year-old young man.

And it took less than half a year!

This fact itself was the most ruthless and thorough trampling of the word "common sense"!

If what Lin Yuan said was true...

If he really had created this entire set of shocking theories in less than half a year...

Then, was the difficulty of this really that much different from building a Photolithography Machine in half a year?

An extremely absurd, yet irrefutable logic emerged in everyone's hearts.

Theory is the creation from zero to one.

Engineering is just the extension from one to ten.

Now, the person who completed the journey from zero to one was going to lead an elite force assembled with the full strength of the nation to complete the leap from one to ten.

If you really calculated it this way...

Several people's Adam's apples bobbed unconsciously, their expressions complex to the extreme.

No wonder the higher-ups dared to make such a big determination.

No wonder the special task force approval was ridiculously fast.

No wonder his position on the list was ranked ahead of everyone else.

If it were this kind of unprecedented genius that could not be measured by conventional wisdom, then all this unusualness seemed to be completely reasonable.

In Lin Yuan's mind, the system progress bar that only he could see began to climb steadily at a speed visible to the naked eye.

[confidence: 4%... 6%... 8%... 10%!]

Finally, after the progress bar rose to the 10% mark, it stopped growing significantly.

A flash of understanding crossed Lin Yuan's eyes.

Relying solely on verbal incitement, this was probably about the limit.

No one present was an ordinary person.

They were the group of brains at the very top, the most stubborn, and the most pragmatic in the Xia Kingdom's scientific research community.

Being able to make them waver in such a short time and contribute this precious 10% confidence with skepticism was already an extraordinary achievement.

The deep-rooted skepticism in the bones of this group could not be completely dispelled by a few hot-blooded words.

They needed to see solid engineering progress, needed one phased result after another to be smashed in front of them, before they would hand over their "trust" bit by bit.

To continue to improve, he had to produce real phased results to repeatedly impact, crush, and reshape their cognition.

This path could not be rushed.

But, it didn't matter.

The corners of Lin Yuan's mouth curled up slightly.

The trust of experts and scholars is slow work that requires meticulous cultivation.

The real big gain was never in this small conference room.

Public opinion.

That was the fattest and largest piece of meat on the confidence progress bar.

The main course was still to come.

All he needed was for these experts to be willing to stand up and cheer for him at some critical moment in the future, and that would be enough!

Lin Yuan withdrew his attention from the system interface and swept his eyes around the venue.

The silence continued.

But the texture of the silence had changed.

It was no longer a silence of resistance, but a silence of intense digestion and reshaping of cognition.

Chen Jingshan stood up at the right moment.

"Alright."

His steady voice, like a stabilizing needle, pulled everyone back from their respective violent storms of thought.

"We have all heard Comrade Lin Yuan's determination."

Chen Jingshan looked around the room, making no comment on the shocking time frame of "half a year," neither endorsing it nor refuting it.

He just turned the conversation to another direction.

"However, I must beat the drum for everyone here."

Chen Jingshan placed both hands on the tabletop and leaned forward slightly.

"This special task force is not Chief Engineer Lin's task force alone."

"Manufacturing a Photolithography Machine is even less of Chief Engineer Lin's task alone!"

As soon as he said this, several old experts who were still in a daze instinctively straightened their backs.

"Chief Engineer Lin dares to sign a military order; this is his courage, and I personally admire it very much."

Chen Jingshan held up a finger and pointed it in the air.

"But this immense pressure cannot all be placed on his shoulders alone."

His voice suddenly raised a few notches.

"Everyone present, every single one of you, who among you hasn't been carrying the banner in your respective fields for half a lifetime?"

"He, a twenty-year-old young man, dares to pat his chest and say half a year!"

"We old guys can't just stand by and watch, dragging our feet behind him, can we?"

The lethality of this sentence was more effective than any mobilization order.

It accurately struck the softest and proudest part of every top scientist's heart present.

To put it bluntly, you've been doing this work your whole life, and a young kid dares to sign a military order, yet you don't even dare to make a sound?

If this got out, where would you hide your face?

The silence lasted less than two seconds.

Wei Jiancheng was the first to slap the table, the noise making the teacups on the table jump.

"It's just half a year!"

"As for the light source, if our Third Research Institute drags our feet for even one day, I'll write my name, Wei Jiancheng, backward!"

His shout completely ignited the whole room.

The old director of the Institute of Precision Instruments, He Yicheng, slowly closed the document and placed it neatly on the corner of the table.

"Old Wei is right."

"Since Chief Engineer Lin has spoken to this extent, if our Institute of Precision Instruments drops the ball, I won't have anywhere to hide my old face."

"We'll take the Objective Lens system! Half a year it is!"

Yang Lin from the Automation Control Institute, that lean middle-aged man, straightened up from the back of his chair and snorted.

"Heh, since Old He has stated his position, can we really admit defeat?"

He looked around, carrying a sense of unyielding spirit.

"We'll take the task for the wafer stage!"

Immediately after, the Institute of Materials Science, the Institute of Information Engineering, the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center...

One head of unit after another stood up.

"We at the Materials Institute will handle the optimization of the photoresist formula!"

"Leave the mask defect detection algorithm to our Information Institute!"

"We will be responsible for system integration!"

One statement after another rose and fell.

In the conference room, the excitement ignited by Lin Yuan's words swept through the room once again.

Only this time, it was no longer simple excitement, but transformed into real responsibility and commitment.

A meeting that was originally just for a "get-together" was forcibly turned into a pledge meeting.

In this wave of enthusiasm, He Yicheng looked at Chen Jingshan and Lin Yuan standing in front of the podium and spoke in a deep voice.

"Dean Chen, Chief Engineer Lin! The bold words have all been spoken!"

"Everyone's time is precious, so let's not talk about those empty things anymore, in a word—"

"Let's get to work!"