19: Two heavy punches

2026 was destined to leave a significant mark on human history.

This year, there was no outbreak of a world war, no global economic crisis, nor any earth-shattering terrorist attacks.

However, in the classified files of high-level government officials and the analytical reports of top-tier think tanks, this year was unanimously marked as the "Year of Turning Points."

The world was shifting violently in a way that ordinary people could not perceive.

And at the center of this storm were the two most powerful forces on this planet—China and the United States.

February 2026, Hainan, Boao.

Against a backdrop of coconut trees, blue seas, and skies, a world-renowned summit between heads of state was underway.

The two most powerful people on this planet sat side by side at a simple round table, and on the background board behind them, the flags of the two countries were closely aligned in an unprecedented posture.

Their talks were not filled with the sharp-tongued maneuvering and confrontational probing of the past.

Instead, it was replaced by a rare, pragmatic, and even "intimate" atmosphere of cooperation.

The results of this meeting were made public the next day in the form of a "Joint Statement by China and the United States on Future Space Exploration and Global Security Cooperation," which instantly dropped the jaws of all political commentators and strategic analysts worldwide.

The statement announced that both sides would set aside most of their geopolitical disputes to open a new era of space cooperation.

The two countries would jointly invest trillions of dollars to build a lunar research base within the next decade and achieve the grand goal of a joint manned landing on Mars.

This statement triggered a violent chain reaction globally, like a political nuclear bomb.

Everyone could see that this was not an ordinary cooperation agreement.

The greatest possibility was that these two biggest rivals had formed a strategic alliance in the face of some higher-level common pressure.

The United States, the former world police, began to withdraw from global hotspots at an astonishing speed.

The tense military standoff hanging over East Asia subsided overnight.

The war that had been burning in the Middle East for decades began to cool down rapidly as it lost its biggest external "fire-stoker."

In Europe, two brothers who had once been at each other's throats finally shook hands and made peace.

In just a few months, after losing the intervention and support of major external powers, a large number of regions that had been in proxy wars and armed conflicts for years miraculously ushered in peace.

Under the mediation of the United Nations, many countries or local forces signed hard-won ceasefire agreements with their opponents.

The world situation was stabilizing at an incredible speed.

It was as if an invisible giant hand had forcibly pressed the mute button on this noisy planet.

The purpose was to let everyone prick up their ears to listen to those approaching footsteps from the distant starry sky.

However, beneath this seemingly peaceful surface, a deeper technological race concerning the future of humanity was quietly taking place with unprecedented intensity in the top laboratories of China and the United States.

...

Beijing, a certain national high-energy physics research institute, 500 meters underground.

This was the "dome project"—the core base of the China-US Joint Technical Committee on the Chinese side.

The huge circular experimental hall was brightly lit.

Academician Chen Haikang and Professor Liu Zhaodong were gathered in front of a huge holographic projection with a group of the country's top physicists and material scientists, their expressions grave.

Opposite them were the holographic images of Dr. Alice Thorne and her team at the NDSM-RD headquarters, projected in real-time via high-bandwidth quantum encrypted channels.

This was a very rare scene in human history—the brightest minds from two countries that had once been in the fiercest competition were sharing their wisdom for the same goal.

But at this moment, their wisdom had hit an invisible wall.

"...That is the situation, Dr. Alice." Academician Chen Haikang's voice carried a trace of helplessness. "We have utilized the Tianhe supercomputer and your Summit supercomputer to conduct joint simulations and analysis on the [Basic Theory of Micro-Material Science] for half a year. We have made some progress, for instance, we can now manufacture perfect crystals with a theoretical purity of 99.999999%, which is enough to advance our chip manufacturing process by two generations, but..."

He paused, pointing to the design drawing of the [Controllable Nuclear Fusion Reactor] from "the guide" on the holographic screen.

"But we still cannot see the possibility of manufacturing this device."

The core of the design was a spherical reaction chamber called "Star Candle."

According to the description in the attached materials, the inner wall material of this reaction chamber needed to maintain structural stability for hundreds of years while enduring the continuous scorching of plasma at temperatures of thousands or even tens of thousands of degrees.

"This violates all the material science laws we know." Dr. Alice Thorne's voice was also full of frustration. "No alloy, or even any elemental substance, can withstand this level of energy density without vaporizing. We speculate that this might be an ultra-stable material that uses the strong nuclear force to lock directly at the atomic nucleus level, but the prerequisite technology tree for [Basic Theory of Micro-Material Science] is too long. If we want to fully understand it and convert it into industrial productivity, we might need twenty years or even longer."

"And this is just the first problem." Professor Liu Zhaodong pointed to the coil-like structures surrounding the Star Candle reaction chamber in the design drawing.

"The second problem is the superconductor. To achieve the technology in the drawing that uses high-frequency gravitational fields to directly compress fusion fuel, we need a room-temperature superconductor capable of conducting massive amounts of current without loss in a room-temperature, normal-pressure environment. Our most advanced high-temperature superconductors currently require harsh environments of minus one hundred degrees or lower to work, and the current density they can carry is far from the requirements."

Two insurmountable bottlenecks.

One was a super heat-resistant material capable of withstanding the surface temperature of the sun.

The other was the "Holy Grail" that only existed in the dreams of theoretical physicists—a room-temperature superconductor.

Without these two things, the [Controllable Nuclear Fusion] design drawing provided by "the guide" would forever be just a piece of waste paper.

Humanity would not be able to obtain the "heart" to step into an interstellar civilization.

"We are like a group of primitive people holding a recipe from the future," an American scientist self-deprecatingly mocked, "We know this dish is delicious, and we know the ingredient list. But we can't find the 'pot' that can withstand the flame, nor can we find the 'kindling' that can ignite the flame."

This top-level scientific conference spanning the Pacific Ocean finally ended in a dull and powerless atmosphere.

Everyone understood that they had encountered a dead end.

A dead end that could not be solved in a short time relying solely on existing theories and technology.

And the countdown from 13 light-years away would not stop its pace because of this.

...

Lei Wen learned of this predicament through "white flower."

The current authorization level of "white flower" could already be described as omnipresent.

It was like a real digital ghost, silently infiltrating the seemingly impenetrable internal network of the "dome project."

It did not steal any core data, but like a quiet auditor, it silently recorded every meeting, every failure, and every sigh of the Chinese and American scientists.

When Lei Wen saw the problem report on "super heat-resistant materials" and "room-temperature superconductors," he knew it was his turn to play his card.

He did not directly throw out the finished technology corresponding to the Faleim technology tree.

That would be too abrupt and too dangerous.

He needed a more clever, more gradual way to "inspire" these brightest minds on Earth.

He needed to let the mysterious company, Paradox Technology, walk into the world's spotlight in a logical way.

So in July 2026, Paradox Technology, a mysterious company that had only been active in finance and mergers and acquisitions, suddenly displayed two scientific research achievements that shocked the entire scientific world in an extremely high-profile manner.

The first achievement was a paper published in the journal "Nature."

The title of the paper was [Room-Temperature Superconductivity Phenomenon Based on Topological Insulator Heterojunctions and Its Material Realization].

The author of the paper was signed by only one name—Star River.

This paper perfectly explained the realization mechanism of room-temperature superconductivity with a brand-new, breathtakingly elegant theoretical framework.

It did not directly provide a formula for a room-temperature superconducting material that could be mass-produced.

But like a patient teacher, it pointed out a clear and feasible technical path.

It told scientists all over the world: "You have all been on the wrong path before, come, look this way."

If it were just a theory, it might only cause academic debate.

But along with the paper, an irrefutable video was released.

In the video, in a standard laboratory with a thermometer hanging, a black metal flake that looked unremarkable was steadily floating above a permanent magnet without any cooling equipment.

A perfect Meissner effect.

Perfect room-temperature superconductivity.

This paper and video were like an exploded hydrogen bomb, instantly turning the global physics community upside down.

Countless laboratories began to crazily try to replicate this experiment according to the ideas provided in the paper.

And just when the eyes of the whole world were attracted by the explosive news of "room-temperature superconductivity," Paradox Technology threw out a second achievement.

This time it was not a paper, but a public product sales catalog.

There was only one product on the catalog.

[el-3 composite target material]

The product description was very simple: a special industrial material manufactured through atomic-level vapor deposition technology and can be used in extreme environments.

Attached below was a detailed performance parameter table.

Melting point: 9000 ℃ (slightly higher than the surface temperature of the sun).

Tensile strength: 300 GPa (100 times that of the current top special steel on Earth).

Thermal conductivity, radiation resistance... Every piece of data read like a setting collection from a science fiction novel.

At first, not many people believed these parameters.

Everyone thought this was an exaggerated commercial hype by Paradox Technology.

Until...

The China Aerospace Group and the American Lockheed Martin Corporation, two former arch-rivals, unexpectedly ordered the first batch of samples from Paradox Technology at a very high price.

Less than 24 hours after the samples arrived at the top material science laboratories in China and the United States, two reports with almost identical wording, marked "Top Secret," were placed on the desks of Academician Chen Haikang and Dr. Alice Thorne.

The conclusion of the report was only one sentence:

"The parameters are true, the material performance is true... Beyond the scope of understanding."

At that moment, whether it was the underground research institute in Beijing or the command center of NDSM-RD, it fell into a dead silence.

Everyone realized a fact.

While they were at their wits' end for those two insurmountable bottlenecks.

A mysterious company had nonchalantly placed the answer directly in front of them in a way they could not understand.

This was not a coincidence.

This was definitely not a coincidence.

"Investigate!"

"Use all resources, find out everything about this Paradox Technology, find out who that person named Star River is!"

Academician Chen Haikang and Dr. Alice Thorne issued the same order at almost the same time.

They both keenly sensed an unusual atmosphere.

That mysterious "the guide," after giving them a "test paper," seemed to have sent a mysterious "teaching assistant."