91: Chapter 91 The Joker is actually myself?!

This tsunami of public opinion arrived even more fiercely than anyone had anticipated.

Within a mere half-hour after the press conference ended, global internet traffic was completely drained by this single event.

The front-page headlines of all major international top news agencies simultaneously switched to bold, red, eye-catching titles.

"Xia Country's Photolithography Machine Crushes the World! 20-Year-Old Genius Announces: 10nm Chips Now Commercially Available!"

"Technological Leap! Xia Country's EUV Lithography Machine Parameters Completely Surpass Highest International Standards; Has Western Semiconductor Hegemony Officially Ended?"

"Lin Yuan: A 20-Year-Old Technological Monster, Shredding 50 Years of Western Technological Barriers in Two Months!"

...

Looking at these overwhelming news reports, each with more sensational wording than the last.

Those foreign netizens who had been absolutely certain that Xia Country could never build a Photolithography Machine within six months, and who were still crazily mocking them on forums, were now all dumbfounded.

Immediately after, the servers of major foreign social media platforms fell into a ten-minute lag due to the massive influx of instantaneous traffic.

When the servers finally managed to resume operation, the comment sections were quickly flooded with countless messages of people having mental breakdowns.

"Oh my God! Two months ago we were still mocking their Six-Month Promise, and now the clown is actually us?!"

"Single exposure resolution of eight nanometers, average power of eight hundred watts... Is this even a normal rate of technological iteration? This is simply leapfrogging while flying a spaceship!"

"What kind of monster is this Chief Engineer named Lin Yuan? Twenty years old! He finished the Photolithography Machine and special materials, and even casually researched next-generation communication technology? Does he not need to sleep? Or is he actually an alien that Xia Country snatched from Area 51?!"

Shock. Confusion. Disbelief.

These complex emotions spread like a virus throughout international cyberspace.

The condescending and arrogant view that the Western world previously held regarding Xia Country's technological strength was shattered in the face of the cold yet incredibly hardcore data thrown out by Lin Yuan.

Meanwhile, The Other Side of the Ocean.

In a top-secret conference room buried deep underground, the lighting was dim.

The cold light of a projector hit the screen, displaying a high-definition screenshot of Lin Yuan holding a microphone with one hand at the press conference, smiling calmly.

Sitting around the oval conference table were all big-shot figures of the West.

At this moment, in front of each of them lay a personnel file that had just been urgently printed out.

Opening the first page of the file, there was a one-inch passport-style photo of Lin Yuan.

A white shirt, black hair, delicate and upright facial features, with eyes revealing a depth that didn't match his age.

However, what truly made this group of big shots' scalps tingle was the resume underneath.

Clean. So clean it was appalling!

An intelligence officer was frantically wiping cold sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

"My lords... this is all the information we have gathered regarding Lin Yuan."

"Lin Yuan, 20 years old, a junior student at Jiuzhou University, has no record of going abroad, and hasn't even applied for a passport."

"He also has no experience participating in top-tier laboratories and no guidance from famous mentors."

"Even two months ago, he was just an ordinary engineering student, and hadn't even published a single core journal paper of any significance..."

"Bang!" Hearing this, an old man with gray hair slammed his hand on the table and roared:

"Absurd! This is absolutely ridiculous!"

"Are you telling me that a greenhorn who hasn't even graduated from college tapped on a keyboard in his dorm room and smashed through the Wall of Sighs that we spent half a century and trillions of dollars to build?!"

The intelligence officer swallowed, his legs feeling weak:

"My lord, although it sounds incredible, this... is the entirety of the facts we have uncovered."

"If we are not dreaming and everything isn't false, then... Xia Country has truly produced a peerless genius who transcends the era."

Everyone was silent. The answer was, in fact, already obvious.

Subsequently, the intelligence officer pressed the remote control, and the sentence Lin Yuan had nonchalantly thrown out at the press conference was highlighted in red and enlarged.

"I have gained some insights regarding next-generation communication technology and underlying intelligent systems."

This sentence became a Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

No one dared to treat this as a joke.

Since this twenty-year-old young man could finish a Photolithography Machine in two months, he was definitely not speaking aimlessly in the fields of communication and systems.

It must be taken extremely seriously.

...

On the other hand, in that luxuriously decorated top-floor office, the atmosphere was depressed to the extreme.

The blond man stared fixedly at the black computer screen, his mind constantly replaying Lin Yuan's smile on stage.

That smile had once been viewed by him as a "liar's bluff," but now it felt like resounding slaps to the face, leaving him seeing stars.

"Ring ring ring—!" The red phone on the table suddenly rang, like a death knell, breaking the deathly silence in the room.

The blond man glanced at the caller ID, his pupils shrinking sharply.

He took a deep breath, wiped the cold sweat off his palms onto his trouser legs, and picked up the phone with trembling hands.

"My, my lord..."

"You damn pig!!!"

What came through the receiver was a low, repressed, yet extremely furious roar.

No opportunity for explanation was given to him. Only a barrage of scolding and severe accountability.

Every word smashed heavily onto his heart.

The call lasted less than a minute.

Beep, beep, beep... On the other end of the line, the busy signal came through ruthlessly.

The blond man mechanically put down the receiver. His face was ashen, the last glimmer in his eyes completely dimmed, and all the strength in his body seemed to have been drained, causing him to collapse into the leather chair like a pile of mud.

He slowly turned his head to look at Dr. Harrison, who was standing in the corner, already trembling with fear.

They were completely finished!

...

Time passed slowly amidst the clamor of the outside world and the undercurrents surging beneath.

The wave of public opinion not only failed to subside but intensified as various technical details were dug deeper.

Just then, on the official website of the Xia Country government, an announcement jointly signed by multiple departments and the Xia Academy of Sciences was quietly posted.

The title of the announcement was extremely brief, and the content lacked any flowery language.

But the moment it appeared in the public eye, countless domestic netizens looked at that title and got goosebumps from excitement!

"Holy shit! Brothers, look at the official website!"

"Chip exports?! Didn't we used to have to kneel and beg others to import them for us? Now we can actually export them too, and even set up a cooperation framework?!"

"The roles have reversed, brothers! It used to be them not selling to us, now it's them begging us to sell!"

The title of that announcement read clearly— "Joint Announcement by Multiple Departments Regarding International Chip Export Trade and Related Cooperation Frameworks"