Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 576, "Ball Lightning (Part 2)," is an extra chapter for Xuegao.

It turns out that traveling from Moscow to Siberia is not much shorter than traveling from within China.

The plane landed on the Siberian ice field, and the cold wind carrying snowflakes rushed towards them, instantly throwing Chen Guang and Lin Yun from the hustle and bustle of the Moscow airport into a vast expanse of white silence.

They found a dilapidated taxi. The driver was a taciturn middle-aged man with his hat pulled low, revealing only thick glasses and tightly pursed lips.

The car bumped along the snow-covered road, with endless snow fog and dark coniferous forests outside the window, seemingly without end.

Lin Yun tried to talk to the driver in slightly broken Russian. Unexpectedly, after glancing at Chen Guang, who was shivering from the cold, the driver suddenly switched to fluent English.

“Science City…” the driver’s voice was deep, with a scholarly tone, “It’s a product of the romanticism of the last era. Back then, we naively thought we could create a new world here.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel firmly and powerfully. "Unfortunately, being far from the center of civilization and constantly losing talent, it's ultimately just an idealistic bubble."

“You don’t look like a taxi driver,” Chen Guang couldn’t help but say.

Chen Guang hadn't understood the Russian he'd just heard, so Lin Yun introduced him: "This is a researcher from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences."

"I study resource planning in undeveloped areas of the Far East," the driver added casually, "a discipline utterly useless in this fast-paced, profit-driven era."

"You... you're unemployed?" Chen Guang asked.

"It's Sunday today." The driver gave a wry smile. "I earn more in two days than I do in a week."

Silence fell inside the car, broken only by the roar of the engine and the howling of the wind and snow.

Outside the car window, the outline of the Science City gradually appeared in the snow and fog. The Khrushchev buildings from the 1950s and 60s stood in neat rows, their mottled walls covered with snow. Occasionally, a Lenin statue, half-buried in ice and snow, could be seen, pointing in a forgotten direction.

This city, unlike ancient cities with a thousand-year history, exudes a nostalgic atmosphere that is both close at hand and unattainable, like a youth that has just passed away.

The car eventually stopped in front of a row of almost identical five-story residential buildings.

"The cheapest residential area in the city." The driver rolled down the window before leaving, leaving behind a meaningful last sentence, "But the people living here aren't the cheapest."

Chen Guang and Lin Yun looked at each other, then pushed open the heavy unit door, and a musty smell mixed with the smell of disinfectant hit them.

The lobby was dimly lit, with peeling paint on the walls, and only a few blurry party campaign posters were barely legible. By the dim light of their lighters, they groped their way up the narrow stairwell, the wooden stairs creaking under their feet, until they reached the fifth floor.

Just as they rounded the stairwell, a deep, slightly hoarse male voice came from the darkness, speaking in English: "Is that you? Here for BL? Third door on the left."

They pushed open the door and were instantly struck by a contradictory feeling.

The room seemed dark, but a single exposed light bulb on the ceiling was unusually glaring. The strong smell of vodka mingled with the scent of old books. Looking around, books were piled high, yet orderly in a chaotic manner. An old computer screen flickered briefly as they entered before going dark.

A tall figure stood up from in front of the computer. He had a thick beard, a pale face, and was about fifty years old, but his eyes were unusually sharp, as if they could see through people's hearts.

“After living here for a while, I can tell if someone is a stranger just by their footsteps.” Alexander Gemoff sized up the visitors, his gaze lingering on their young faces. “And the only strangers who could get here are you, Chinese people?”

Chen Guang and Lin Yun nodded, looking at the elderly Russian man played by Liam Neeson, the male lead of "Taken," who was also a scientist from the Red Era.

“My father went there in the 1950s to help you build the Sanmenxia Hydropower Station.” Gemov paused, a hint of self-deprecation in his voice, “I heard he did more harm than good?”

Lin Yun, being well-informed, cautiously replied, "It seems that was the case at the time; the problem of siltation was underestimated."

“Ah, yet another failure,” Gemoff murmured, as if speaking to the visitor, or perhaps to himself. “It seems that all that romantic era has left us with are memories of failure.”

He gave a brief self-introduction, then looked at the two of them again with a complex expression, and said in a low voice, "You're very young... You're still worth saving."

These words startled Chen Guang and Lin Yun, who exchanged a surprised and uncertain glance.

Chen Guang thought of Zhang Bin back then, who had said the same thing to him.

Without another word, Gemoff placed a large glass jar filled with cloudy, homemade vodka and several teacup-sized glasses heavily on the table. He expertly filled three glasses, the clear liquid shimmering faintly in the dim light.

"I can't drink that much," Chen Guang quickly waved his hand.

“Then let this girl take your place.” Gemoff’s tone was cold and unquestionable. He then downed his glass in one gulp and refilled it.

Lin Yun did not refuse, and Chen Guang was astonished when he picked up the huge glass, tilted his head back, and gulped down the strong liquor in one swift and decisive motion.

After finishing her drink, she remained expressionless, reached out and took Chen Guang's cup, and drank the remaining half.

The only sounds in the room were pouring and drinking, and time flowed slowly amidst the strong aroma of vodka.

Chen Guang looked at Lin Yun, hoping she would get to the point, but she seemed to be affected by Gemoff's emotions, her eyes became somewhat vacant, she silently drank another half glass, and then stared straight at the mottled wall in front of her.

I wonder if it's related to the crying I did in Mosca before.

The audience was also quite puzzled, and their suspense deepened.

Chen Guang tapped the table lightly with his empty cup in a little anxiety. Lin Yun snapped out of his daze, glanced at Chen Guang, and then tilted his head slightly, gesturing for him to look at the wall next to him.

Chen Guang followed her gaze and his heart skipped a beat.

It was only at this moment that I truly noticed that the walls of the room were entirely covered with black paper. However, due to years of disrepair, water stains seeping from the walls had soaked into the black paper, forming winding, shocking white streaks, like some kind of mysterious talisman, or like frozen tear stains, covering the entire room.

An indescribable sense of oppression instantly enveloped them.

Those were all ball lightning.

The photos varied in size, but most were only three to five inches long, and the number was unimaginable. Chen Guang looked at them one by one, and almost none of the photos were the same.

He felt a strong sense of excitement. Clearly, this was a legacy from Brother Su's work in the last century. He wondered when they started this research.

It seemed that Gemoff had been lonely for too long. He had Lin Yun drinking with him and Chen Guang discussing ball-fighting with him. They chatted for a while, and then after a phone call, he told everyone to leave.

"Let me show you the real thing."

The three got into a jeep. Only then did Lin Yun and Chen Guang realize the effect of the vodka they had just been given. They felt a faint warmth throughout their bodies to combat the bitter cold.

After boarding an old-fashioned biplane, Gemov introduced the two to the elderly pilot, "This is Uncle Levalenko, and this is the thing he uses to spray pesticides in the forest. Let's go."

Chen Guang was somewhat worried about the hoarse sound of the biplane's engine. "What if... what if it crashes later?"

After listening to Lin Yun's translation, Gemoff laughed heartily, and after a long while, he said meaningfully, "Sometimes, you fly to the top and find that it would have been better to fall down halfway."

This segment was actually filmed in Canada, featuring aerial footage from a drone, showcasing the vast and magnificent landscape of Siberia from the perspective of an airplane window.

The camera slowly pans across the landscape, emphasizing the vastness of the space and the sense of the passage of time. Below lies an endless expanse of dark green coniferous forest, covered by thick white snow, like a giant white carpet.

The light from high above is clear and cold, reflecting off the snowfield and creating a large area of ​​bright white, which contrasts sharply with the deep green and almost black of the forest.

The overall color scheme, dominated by blue, white, and black, leans towards a cool tone, creating a pure and magnificent yet slightly alienated and desolate atmosphere.

The short ten-second clips left the directors in the cinema room amazed. They were aware of the existence of drone filming technology and believed that with the promotion of "Ball Flash," this market would be opened up.

"Siberia, suffering, romance, ideals, dedication." Lin Yun leaned against the porthole, gazing emotionally at the foreign land.

Chen Guang was no longer surprised by her strange behavior after she returned that night, and he and the female officer immersed themselves in the legacy of the red empire from the last century.

But the people of the latter did not buy it: "You are talking about the Siberia of the past and the Siberia in novels. Now there is only loss and greed left here. On this land below, there is unrestrained logging and hunting everywhere, and black crude oil leaking from the oil fields flows everywhere."

Everyone fell silent until they got off the plane and followed Gemoff as they walked laboriously along the snow-covered subway tracks. The three of them arrived at the entrance of a hidden tunnel, and Gemoff, as if leading them on an adventure, moved aside a large, protruding boulder.

A black hole with a diameter of one meter was revealed.

We crawled almost on our hands and knees through the low cave, the narrow space suffocating, and the claustrophobic fear intensified as we went deeper.

Suddenly, Gemoff straightened up, and Chen Guang and the other man also stood up straight. Under the beam of their flashlights, a wide tunnel appeared in front of them, gently leading down into the depths of the underground. The railway tracks they had seen earlier stretched into the distance in the darkness.

The tunnel walls were smooth, covered with nails and iron rings used to secure cables. As they descended the tunnel, the chill gradually subsided, the air was damp, and the faint sound of dripping water could be heard; the temperature had risen above freezing.

The space ahead suddenly opened up, and the beam of the flashlight seemed to pierce the boundless night sky. The beam spread out into a dim circle high up, vaguely illuminating the towering cave ceiling.

Each step echoed through the cavern, making it impossible to gauge its size. Gemoff stopped, lit a cigarette, and prepared to recount the story of this place.

"More than forty years ago, I received my doctorate in physics from Moscow State University. I still remember that day clearly. I watched with thousands of others as Gagarin, who had just returned from space, rode through Red Square in an open jeep."

"He waved flowers, his chest adorned with medals. At that moment, I was filled with enthusiasm and eager to create a great achievement in a completely new world. I volunteered to go to the newly established Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences."

A fervent light ignited in Gemov's lifeless eyes; it was a generation's recollection of their revolutionary past, a time when they too stood atop the world.

"Project 3141, the person in charge of that project, was the earliest ball lightning research center in the Soviet Union." The old scientist pulled a bottle of vodka from his pocket. "He convinced me with just one sentence—"

"Gagalin can't drop a rock on the track like a bomb on Wall Street, but if we succeed, we can turn imperialist tanks into toys."

“So I came.” Gemoff paused. “And that was the beginning of my lifelong nightmare.”

He looked at Chen Guang and Lin Yun, whose faces were grave, with a hint of mockery: "Do you know why I said you can still be saved?"

"Right beneath your feet, more than 5000 of the Soviet Union's top physicists and mathematicians spent thirty years studying that specter."

"The world's largest lightning simulation system, the most complex magnetic field generator, and giant aerospace wind tunnel were once installed here to simulate the environment in which ball lightning is generated from all angles to the greatest extent possible."

"At its most extreme, the lightning intensity produced by the giant lightning simulator was several orders of magnitude greater than that of natural lightning in the wild. As a result, when NATO's nuclear monitoring system detected the shock wave, it thought it was an underground nuclear test. Our government admitted it and suffered a lot of losses in nuclear disarmament negotiations because of it."

Chen Guang looked up at the trapezoidal platform where the giant electrodes were placed. Against the backdrop of deep darkness, it stood out in the three beams of light from the flashlight, like an Aztec altar in a dense forest, giving it a sacred feel.

Tragically, when these poor followers of ball lightning eagerly sought to gain access to the research experience of the former empire, they were told it was all just a dream.

a nightmare.

Under Lin Yun's persistent questioning, Gemoff recounted his nightmare.

"The Empire's top team successfully produced a ball flash in 1962. I can still remember the parameters at that time: the lightning current was 12,000 amperes, the voltage was 80 million volts, and the discharge time was 119 microseconds."

"Just when we thought we could easily manufacture it according to the established parameters, and then develop it into a supernatural weapon to forge a sword for the country during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we found that it was not like that at all."

Liam Neeson plays the elderly scientist Gomoff, whose face is flushed from alcohol and ashen from pain, appearing poignant and weathered in the slightly enhanced contrast of the shots.

"At that time in China, determinism and mechanism were the overriding ways of thinking. Scientists were also to be led by the right ideology. Ball lightning was positioned as an application project. Traditional linear thinking meant that we could only keep trying according to the parameters, but we kept failing."

“Everyone, countless people, from youth to old age, from illness to death,” Gemoff remarked. “We have spent the golden years of our lives here, constantly updating and rebuilding the lightning simulation system, the external magnetic field system, the microwave maser system, and the aerodynamic system.”

"In the mid-1980s, influenced by the Star Wars program, research on sphere flash was expanded and reached its peak. But the most tragic thing happened: we were simply unable to produce it, let alone control it."

"Even if it succeeds once out of tens of thousands of trials, it will suddenly appear somewhere through the wall, like the Grim Reaper, randomly taking someone's life."

With tears blurring his vision, Gemov led two foreign researchers to the back of the trapezoidal experimental platform, which was covered with dense Russian letters that made one's scalp tingle.

"These are the patriots who have sacrificed themselves for 3141 over the past thirty years. The terrible working conditions killed them, and the political turmoil in China could send them to jail at any time."

He pointed to a name with difficulty on tiptoe: "This is my wife, a nurse I met during my convalescence while I was being persecuted."

"This is my son. He was evaporated of all his blood by the last sphere produced by the base, and became a dried-up corpse."

"The control center was so bright and clean back then, but right in the middle of that white anti-static floor lay my son's remains. Even in this state, he was still our subject of research."

“From that moment on, I was already dead.” Grumoff closed his eyes in anguish. “Humans are so insignificant in the face of such natural or supernatural forces.”

"The entrance to science is the entrance to hell!" In a close-up shot, Liam Neeson, playing a former Soviet scientist, cries out like a child, tears streaming down his face!

Many audience members were moved to tears as the camera switched to the plane carrying the two men back to base, and Chen Guang's inner monologue.

This was the second time he had heard this phrase before; the first time was on the title page of Zheng Min's notebook, and this time it came from an old scientist who was nearing the end of his life.

He couldn't help but think of Dante's *Divine Comedy*, where a line of text is written above the gates of Hell:

Those who enter this gate must abandon all hope.

An unexpected trip to Siberia has come to an end, but the shock it brought to Chen Guang and Lin Yun is far from over.

Chen Guang, who was timid and pessimistic due to the tragic deaths of his parents and the failure of the entire Red Empire, asked for a long leave from the military's lightning research group.

If it weren't for his mentor Gao Bo's strong persuasion, he might have even resigned directly.

Even though he is a mathematician and physicist who plays a key role and is currently the only complete model builder, Dr. Chen is now finding it difficult to concentrate on his work.

Unless he can erase the image of Gemoff weeping miserably before him, and figure out that deep-seated doubt and question—

What am I chasing when I chase ball lightning?
But what about Lin Yun?

Despite the unforeseen circumstances, she remained completely unaffected, continuing her research on ball flash and ball flash weapons day and night due to the deteriorating external situation.

More than a year later, Lin Yun's boyfriend, Jiang Xingchen, found Chen Guang.

Chen Guang, who was timid and had a good impression of Lin Yun, had met the young captain once before, but he was puzzled as to why the other party had called him.

Huang Xiaoming, who plays Jiang Xingchen, makes his first appearance in the film: "Dr. Chen, would you be interested in going out to sea for a spin?"

"Um...is that okay?"

"Of course." Curiosity led Chen Guang to meet the young leader of the Everest aircraft carrier for the first time.

He traveled south to the port, where slogans about air defense and counter-espionage were everywhere, and the pre-war atmosphere was astonishing.

For more than a year, Dr. Chen has been completely oblivious to the world around him, but he has made revolutionary progress in another aspect of his previous doctoral research: the formation and forecasting of tornadoes.

His papers and research findings have even been nominated by five people for the World Meteorological Organization Prize, which is known as the Nobel Prize of meteorology. He will be attending the International Tropical Cyclone Symposium in Oklahoma next month.

This is all thanks to the application of high-intensity mathematical and physical tools in ball flash research in recent years, as well as the research thinking in meteorology.

However, at the same time, Chen Guang, having severed ties with military scientific research cooperation, was also unable to gain a deep understanding of the current war situation through military personnel.

It wasn't until Jiang Xingchen talked to him about these things on a sailboat at sea that he understood.

The enemy forces are powerful, having deployed a combined carrier fleet and are about to advance into our territorial waters. Overall, the situation is far from ideal.

Chen Guang stared at him blankly; it seemed the young aircraft carrier captain hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time.

This is because director Lu Kuan deliberately downplayed the connection with reality in order to pass censorship and achieve global release; it is a completely fictional world situation.

Jiang Xingchen, a soldier, is straightforward and kind. After enthusiastically teaching Chen Guang some nautical knowledge, such as reading nautical charts and using a sextant, they landed on a small deserted island.

"To be honest, I came here this time to persuade you to go back, back to the Thunder Weapons Research Center." The aircraft carrier captain sighed. "You don't have to refuse me first. I learned about your experiences in Russia from Lin Yun."

"I believe they are using a rigid weapons research mechanism to study a fundamental topic in the natural sciences, which inevitably leads to a lack of new ideas, imagination and creativity."

"There was also the political environment in the former Soviet Union at that time, which I believe you can see from his description. It was not an open research environment."

“But now…” Jiang Xingchen paused, “we need you, and Lin Yun and the lightning weapons need you too.”

Seeing that Chen Guang remained silent, he sighed slightly and began to talk to Dr. Chen about a secret military matter.

Through his narration, the film's narrative simultaneously depicts and showcases Lin Yun's character to Chen Guang and the audience, continuously enriching and perfecting the character.

The film flashes back to reveal that Lin Yun's obsession with weapons has led to disastrous consequences.

She invented a liquid landmine during her undergraduate studies, but it was actually nitroglycerin modified with nanotechnology. This removed the liquid explosive's sensitivity to vibration but increased its sensitivity to pressure. Therefore, the depth of this liquid storage was strictly limited, and the container holding it was divided into many unconnected layers to prevent the liquid at the bottom from being detonated due to excessive pressure.

The deployment is completed by simply splashing this liquid on the ground. Walking on this ground will detonate the explosives, which are extremely lethal and cannot be detected by traditional sappers.

Lin Yun was overjoyed and recommended this type of landmine to her superiors, but since China had already joined the International Convention against Landmines, she was severely criticized.

But just at the beginning of last year, this type of landmine appeared on the battlefield of a border conflict between Chile and Bolivia. What's even more frightening is that both sides used it.

It goes without saying who provided the technology.

“I think your personalities complement Lin Yun’s perfectly at work; you’re the firewall,” Jiang Xingchen said in a deep voice. “Sometimes she’s really too crazy, and nobody stops her madness.”

“I’m probably even less capable of doing it,” Chen Guang said with a self-deprecating laugh, but the situation on the surface and Lin Yun’s concerns eventually convinced him. “I will return to the research center after attending the academic conference next month.”

A smile finally appeared on Jiang Xingchen's tired face.

The narrative on screen is sped up, concisely and clearly explaining how Chen Guang subsequently went to Oklahoma to attend the meteorological conference as scheduled.

Using his previous research findings, he invented a detection and forecasting system that can discover the "wind eggs" in the "mother" thunderstorm before a tornado is formed, and then launch fuel-fueled bombs through a missile system to accurately strike the descending cold air.

This type of incendiary bomb can release a huge amount of heat instantly, causing the descending cold air mass to heat up, thereby disrupting the formation of a tornado, that is, destroying the "wind egg".

This is Dr. Chen's contribution to "science benefiting mankind" after witnessing the cruelty and helplessness of ball flash over the past year, and it is also clear evidence of the stark difference in personality between him and Lin Yun.

The audience was eager to know the follow-up research on the ball flash and the scientific principles behind the various unusual phenomena, so they didn't pay much attention to this simple explanation.

But clearly, such a narrative is not meaningless.

Chen Guang's first stop after returning home with honors from abroad was a family dinner hosted by Lin Yun.

He had known Lin Yun for many years. A year and a half ago, she was able to successfully participate in a low-level military delegation to Moscow, which made him realize that this female officer came from an extraordinary family background, including the story of liquid mines that Jiang Xingchen told today.

If it were an ordinary person, they would probably have been punished long ago, right?

But Dr. Chen never expected to meet this famous senior general with a science and engineering background in front of a compound and a two-story building in the style of the 1950s. His epaulets had three stars on them.

Li Youbing, who plays Lin Feng, is a refined and elegant man. He chats happily with Chen Guang about ball lightning and his recent research findings on tornado "eggs".

Lin Feng is a top student from Harbin Military Engineering Institute, majoring in electronics, but he has not been engaged in technical work for a long time, instead switching to the field of pure military command.

However, given his vision and perspective, including his experience listening to his daughter's exchanges with Gemov in Russia, he was still able to offer some advice and direction to these two exceptionally talented PhDs.

"Studying ball lightning is difficult, but it can also be quite simple," Lin Feng said casually to his two younger colleagues at a family dinner table. "Let me give you an example—"

"The first computer we saw in the 1950s and 60s was from the Soviet Union. I forget the clock speed, but the memory was 4K implemented with magnetic core memory. The box that contained it was taller than a bookshelf. Xiaoyun always bragged to me about how amazing she was as a programming expert, but when she got to that computer, writing a program that calculated 32 would make her break out in a sweat."

Lin Yun laughed and said, "Back then, there was only assembly language, right?"

"No, there are only 0s and 1s. The machine doesn't compile; you have to write the program on paper and then translate it into machine code, one instruction at a time, which is a string of 0s and 1s. This process is called manual translation."

"Perhaps we're overthinking it?" Chen Guang suddenly recalled the lighthouse he saw with Jiang Xingchen last month when they went out to sea, and murmured to himself, "That light was always there, but you could only see it when it was lit..."

"What?" Lin Yun was taken aback by his unexpected question, but then cleverly realized, "You mean..."

"Yes!" Chen Guang suddenly stood up. "Could it be that the 27 spherical flashes discovered by Gemow's 3141 were not created by them at all, but merely discovered?"

"So our previous mathematical and physical models were all garbage! Now, using the simplest 0 and 1 thinking, we shouldn't be trying to produce lightning. The key is not the structure of lightning itself, nor external factors like magnetic fields and microwaves, but rather making lightning cover as much space as possible!"

Lin Yun looked at Lin Feng with great excitement: "Dad! Is it possible for the military laboratory to support us in building... a lightning array of no less than twenty square kilometers? I want to install thousands of lightning generators in this area."

“That involves superconducting battery storage. One battery costs more than 300,000 yuan, and you need 10,000 batteries…” Lin Feng’s expression was strange. “That’s enough to equip several Su-30 squadrons.”

Lin Yun was immediately discouraged. She knew that she couldn't pull any strings with her father, especially since she, a colonel-level officer, was applying for an experiment with this level of funding, particularly after learning about Brother Su's previous failure.

Experimental research can only be funded with experimental funds.

Chen Guang, who had been silent until now, suddenly slammed his hand on the table. "I remembered when I went out to sea a while ago, how did the fishermen fish? They didn't put up nets everywhere in the nearshore area, did they?"

"So all we need to do is move the lightning around, and make sure the area it covers is large enough, and we can establish the basis for detecting ball lightning."

Chen Guang said confidently, "Now, we can move the target of the lightning weapon's discharge attack from the ground to another helicopter, which will create a discharge arc that stretches across the sky."

"If two helicopters fly at the same speed, they can scan a large area of ​​space with this electric arc, achieving the same effect as a lightning array, requiring only a small number of superconducting batteries!"

Lin Yun was so happy that he forgot to eat. "I'm going to call the base right now!"

As Lin Feng watched his daughter walk out the door, he remarked to Dr. Chen, who was visiting, "From a very early age, it seems that the only thing worth going crazy for is weapons, all kinds of weapons."

"And their applications," Chen Guang added to himself.

“This is her mother.” Lin Feng seemed to remember something and lost his appetite. He led Dr. Chen to the study and pointed to the photo on the wall.

He suddenly looked at the meteorology PhD and said something that was roughly the same as Jiang Xingchen's: "Xiao Chen, if possible, help her more, but you must maintain your bottom line."

The soldier spoke frankly and without preamble: "I'm not saying my daughter has no moral bottom line, it's just that her mother's situation had such a big impact that it caused her to lack a scientific and ethical bottom line."

Lin Feng sighed: "Lin Yun was raised by her mother when she was little. I was on the front line and could not go home even once a year."

"But in 79, her mother also went to South Vietnam as the commander of the communications company. At that time, the communication equipment was relatively backward, and the front-line communications still used a lot of telephone lines. The enemy was also used to cutting the telephone lines and then setting up ambushes."

"Once, during a fierce battle, she led a team to check the lines and was ambushed. Three communications soldiers were killed by a bomb disguised as bamboo while they were making connections."

Chen Guang paused, remembering the decorations on Lin Yun's car, and the same was true for the audience below the stage.

She used the landmine that nearly killed her mother as a decoration, and then invented another kind of "elegant" liquid landmine.

Lin Feng paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the edge of the photo frame: "During the mine clearance process, her mother unfortunately disturbed a swarm of bees left behind by the Vietnamese army. The wasps chased and stung her, so she jumped into the pond. Every time she looked up to breathe, she could see the swarm of bees hovering around her."

"Frontline communications cannot be delayed for a moment." The general's Adam's apple bobbed. "She finally rushed out of the water and, braving the swarm of bees, reconnected the lines. She was already unconscious when the patrol found her."

"In the hospital, the toxins caused her skin to turn black and fester all over, and her facial features were swollen and unrecognizable. Five-year-old Xiaoyun saw her mother one last time." He turned to Chen Guang:

"For a whole year after that, Lin Yun didn't say a word. When he spoke again, his speech was very slurred."

Lin Feng's tone grew increasingly somber: "Later on, just like you, who became fascinated with ball lightning, she fell deeply in love with these weapons."

"That's how people are; these things that change their lives will always occupy their hearts in different ways...until death do them part."

Like Chen Guang at this moment, the audience in front of the screen is slowly beginning to see the true protagonist, Lin Yun.

From around the 30-minute mark when Dr. Chen introduces the core clue, the film spends its time laying the groundwork and showcasing the story. Now, through Jiang Xingchen and Lin Feng's memories, the film concretizes the origins of her personality.

But Woody Allen and others were particularly surprised—

No director would reveal the protagonist's logic and motivations to the audience in the middle or later stages of a film, because that would disrupt the narrative structure and make the later content lose its appeal.

Because this is a film adapted from a novel, many people already know the ending.

To enhance the impact, the narrative structure must be altered to make it more emotionally resonant.

What does Lu want to do?
Director Jia, who likes to use metaphors in his films, recalled a scene in the movie about the Red Empire and Gemoff where Lin Yun went out and returned with red eyes. Could this be the foreshadowing?
In his mind, if this genius director gives you a delicious piece of bread first, then there will definitely be a delicious steak later. He will never let you eat until you are half full.

All the directors who had doubts at the moment were waiting to see how and where this steak would appear.

……

In any case, research on ball flash has found a new direction.

Due to the tense war situation, the ball flash discovery experiment, which would have been unlikely to be approved in peacetime, was still approved thanks to Lin Yun's hard work.

Lin Feng would not show favoritism; everything had to be done according to the rules and regulations. Therefore, their so-called military project to manufacture ball flash weapons, which they had not yet fully understood, only received support from two Z-9 attack helicopters.

The weather was great on the day of the first test. There was almost no wind on the ground in the early morning. All the people involved in the project came to the test site. There were only about twenty people in total, including all the engineers, workers and ground staff.

Not far from the helicopter takeoff point, an ambulance was parked, and the white uniforms of the medical staff were dazzling in the early morning light.

Lin Yun brought out two yellow jumpsuits for the pilot to wear. "These are shielding suits borrowed from the power supply bureau. They are worn by workers who perform live work on high-voltage lines. They use the Faraday cage principle to generate electrical shielding and also provide some protection against lightning."

One pilot took the protective suit and laughed, "If it's more terrifying than a Stinger missile, there's no point in wearing it."

Lin Yun had no intention of joking. He watched as the two Z-9 attack helicopters took off, flew with the wind, and approached each other to begin discharging electricity.

From the telescope on the ground, the two machines began to gradually increase the distance between them, and the electric arc was also being stretched. It started as almost a straight line, but as the distance increased, the fluctuations became larger and larger.

As the two helicopters reached their final positions, the electric arc resembled a veil dancing wildly in the air, as if it were about to break free from its restraints and soar into the sky.

But for these humans who knew nothing about the ball flash, even with thorough preparations, the unexpected still happened quickly.

An uncontrollable lightning strike destroyed the control circuitry of the tail propeller, causing it to stop spinning.

The helicopter's tail rotor is used to balance the torque generated by the main rotor. Once it loses power, the helicopter's fuselage will rotate in the opposite direction to the main rotor.

With a terrified expression, Chen Guang shouted at Lin Yun, who was in charge of the command, "Let them jump! Let them jump!"

"Wait a little longer." Lin Yun remained unmoved and even took a few more steps forward.

Fortunately, under everyone's anxious gaze, the two pilots landed smoothly, even though the speed and the dust they kicked up were a bit too much.

Remembering Jiang Xingchen and Lin Feng's instructions to him, Dr. Chen angrily dragged Lin Yun to a corner.

"Why not let them parachute out and abandon the helicopter?"

Lin Yun remained silent, only looking at him indifferently. "You know why, and besides, it's fine for my earpiece to receive messages from those two army aviation pilots."

Yes, Chen Guang, who had been cooperating with the military for several years, certainly knew.

Abandoning the aircraft by parachute now would mean a major failure of the experiment, and the project would inevitably be shelved.
However, with the pilots managing to land safely, there is still a good chance, or as Lin Yun said, that they can collect data and continue their journey.

Chen Guang, suppressing the churning in his stomach, roared at the female officer he secretly admired for the second time today: "If you were in charge of the attack, and there were liquid mines along the route that you had developed, would you order them to wade through them?"

Lin Yun gave him a strange look, without revealing any extra emotion: "According to the new military regulations, female officers cannot serve as front-line commanders alone."

As she had done countless times before, she effortlessly bypassed the rules and continued to probe the depths of her fanatical scientific ethics.

As Chen Guang watched Lin Yun's retreating figure, a bad premonition surged within him, and he wondered when it would erupt.

The arduous research continued day by day, but what increased with each passing day was the increasingly tense external war situation and the gradually grim atmosphere within the base.

Everyone was under a lot of pressure, especially Lin Yun.

Although no one expected that her supernatural weapon project, undertaken by a mere colonel, could have a significant impact on the overall situation, Lin Yun herself was full of confidence, just like the liquid mines she had developed during her undergraduate studies.

That day, Chen Guang found Lin Yun, who hadn't slept for two days and two nights in the lab, and gave her a suggestion that would change the history of ball scintillation:
“Germov didn’t give us any materials, and his materials were of no value. I’ve also completely absorbed my advisor Zhang Bin’s work, and now my mathematical model can no longer make any progress…”

Lin Yun's eyes were bloodshot: "What are you trying to say?"

“I am reminded of something Zhang Bin said: ‘If we are to deduce within the framework provided by basic theory, it is impossible to go beyond the boundaries. Mathematics has reached its limit. Now we must move to the forefront of modern physics.’”

Lin Yun agreed.

She once again broke with tradition and used her influence to her advantage. Within the limits of the rules, the General Armament Department organized a meeting to expand the ball lightning project team. The attendees were mainly representatives from non-military research institutions, mostly physics majors, including leaders from the National Institute of Physics and heads of physics departments from several prestigious universities.

Unfortunately, their physical foundation in ball flash and meteorology is not even as strong as that of Chen Guangqiang, who previously invented tornado larvae.

"Don't you have anything more fundamental? We need scholars who can overturn the entire framework of fundamental physics." The head of the physics department gave Lin Yun a cold look: "Do you know what you're saying? Or should I bring Hawking over for you?"

"If only it were true," Chen Guang sighed.

It wasn't until Colonel Xu, who had been in charge of coordinating their experiments, thought of someone, "Sir, how about Ding Yi?"

"Him?" The physics department leader stood up impatiently, ready to leave. "He's a non-profit scientist now, he has nothing to do with us. Go find him yourselves!"

Chen Guang was not in the system and did not know much about this mad scientist known as "Sexant" in the Three-Body world; he had only heard of his name.

Lin Yun got up and, after learning the address of Ding Yi, this self-taught scientist, drove there with Chen Guang without hesitation to visit him.

The screen also revealed his identity through subtitles; the final important supporting character of this hard science fiction film had appeared.

Ding Yi holds a PhD in Philosophy and Quantum Physics, a Master's degree in Mathematics, and is a first-level professor. He is the youngest academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was the chief scientist of the National Neutron Decay Research Project, for which he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Chen Guang asked in confusion, "Then why doesn't he have a work unit now? Why is he called a 'self-made man'?"

The camera then cuts to a scene that quickly answers his question.

The first time Ding Yi appeared to the audience and the two main characters was in the form of Duan Yihong, the actor who played him, after a period of extreme weight loss.

He was in his early thirties, tall and thin. He hadn't even closed the door, and was wearing a loose vest and shorts. Saliva was dripping from his mouth onto the floor.

It's unbearable to look at.

Chen Guang helplessly woke him up, and the latter wiped his mouth with a "whoosh", got up in a daze, and then flew into a rage!
"Why did you mess with my calculation sheets? I put them in order, and you've messed them all up!"

Lin Yun said helplessly, "I'm really sorry they're blocking the way."

“Blocking our way? What a joke!” Ding Yi picked up his pipe from the small table. “Let me tell you about your sweet dream that you two interrupted.”

He gestured comically, “In my dream, I was sitting right here, holding a watermelon knife, and there were two round things on the coffee table, a proton and a neutron.”

"I first cut the proton open, and its charge flowed onto the coffee table, sticky and emitting a pleasant fragrance; after I cut the neutron in half, the quarks inside tinkled and rolled out, each about the size of a walnut, colorful and rolling around on the coffee table."

“I picked up a white one, it was very hard, but I managed to bite it open. It was a delicious mare’s milk grape. Just then, you woke me up.”

Ding Yi spread his hands: "Alright, pay up!"

The audience burst into laughter. Lin Yun scoffed, "This is extortion. Protons, neutrons, and quarks all exhibit quantum effects. Would you really have such a dream that defies the common sense of physics?"

"What do you know about physics?" Ding Yi suddenly dropped his childlike expression, gesturing with his pipe. "And what do I know about physics?"

"Hey, it's all a joke."

Having observed him silently all along, Chen Guang, seeing his personality, had no choice but to change the subject: "Professor Ding, how did you... become a folk scientist?"

“Oh, it’s very simple!” Ding Yi said nonchalantly. “I remember it was at an academic forum in Europe, where a reporter asked me what I thought about being a Nobel Prize contender.”

"I say the Nobel Prize has always favored craftsmanship and luck."

"For example, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, but today, he is just an old and faded prostitute, with no beauty left, relying only on his gorgeous clothes and complicated techniques to please his clients."

“If you insist that I receive an award for this kind of old bitch, I will refuse, but I forced myself to take my pants off because I need national funding.”

The scathing satire of the Nobel Prize and the exposure of scandals in the scientific community in recent years caused Westerners familiar with the situation to burst into laughter at the Palais des Festivals.

This Eastern director always has so many ingenious ideas, so why did he bring out such a clown before the ball flash was about to be revealed and Lin Yun's moment of glory arrived?

There is not a single sense of incongruity in the narrative. It seems to have instantly transformed hard science fiction into a blockbuster with Hollywood commercial appeal, cleverly combining the advantages of both, which is quite rare.

In the eyes of Woody Allen and others, this was perhaps a bit too masterful.

"So because of this speech, you lost the Nobel Prize and your job?" Chen Guang said with amusement.

Lin Yun, however, had no interest in such idle chatter. Before Ding Yi could answer, he preemptively asked, "Dr. Ding, the organization has invited you to participate in a national defense and military technology research project. We need scholars like you who have disruptive capabilities in fundamental physics."

Subversion? What a beautiful word.

Upon hearing that it wasn't a project about "old bitches," Ding Yi immediately became interested: "Then what is it?"

Lin Yun solemnly stated, "Ball lightning."

In a close-up shot, Duan Yihong, who plays the mad scientist Ding Yi, is so speechless that he almost collapses to the ground:

“Those academics still hold a grudge against me.” He sighed and took a puff of his pipe. “If you came here to humiliate me… congratulations, you’ve achieved your goal.”

His expertise in physics is evident in the very term "ball lightning."

This time, however, Ding Yi was presented with the culmination of the lifelong research of Chen Guang, Lin Yun, Zhang Bin, Zheng Min, Gemoff, and others. He watched Dr. Chen calculate mathematical models on the computer and reviewed the data from the base over the past six months since the research direction was adjusted...

"Hmm... Xiao Chen, do you know where I can buy tobacco?" A few hours later, Ding Yi gestured to his pipe, his tone casual and nonchalant.

However, he no longer speaks recklessly, nor does he drool; instead, his wise thinking has taken over the high ground of his intelligence.

"Professor Ding, you agree?" Chen Guangxi was overjoyed. Even Ding Yi, who was seeing his model for the first time, had already shown some insightful opinions during the demonstration.

Without a doubt, he is the most urgently needed fundamental physics expert for this project right now.

From Chen Guang, whose lifelong fighting spirit was ignited by the killing of his parents by a ball-flash attack, to Lin Yun, who is endlessly fascinated by supernatural and new concept weapons, now there is a physics "old philanderer" who is only interested in "fresh goods".

Everyone in the industry present could see that this was a welcome "final piece of the puzzle" in Hollywood commercial films.

The capture and unraveling of ball flashes is about to enter a fast track.

Upon entering the research base and learning the full picture of the experiment, Ding Yi quickly became engrossed in the work. Based on the research of Chen Guang, Lin Yun, and all the other mathematicians and weapons experts, he provided a clear solution to the current predicament.

First of all, according to common sense in physics, charged areas are no-fly zones, as demonstrated by the previous accidents involving two WZ-9 attack helicopters.

Ding Yi suggested that Beihang University has a helium airship, but its precise control performance cannot guarantee the discharge aiming, which is still unclear. Alternatively, it would be better if the insulation of the WZ-9 attack helicopter could be made the same as that of a pilot wearing a shielded suit.

This sentence reminded Chen Guang, and also planted a seed in the audience's mind that had been dug in the first ten minutes of the film—

Zhang Bin, the mentor whom his student Zhao Yu jokingly called the one who most liked to do some thankless research, once invented a lightning protection coating with extremely low cost-effectiveness.

However, when the troops brought Zhang Bin to the base, Chen Guang learned that the latter was already suffering from leukemia.

This is due to years of worry.

The problem-solving process continued relentlessly. Under Ding Yi's organization, the first "ball flash capture experiment" was finally launched three months after he participated in the research.

The two helicopters took off as scheduled. Chen Guang and his teacher Zhang Bin sat in one of them, and Lin Yun sat in the other.

The first two require boarding the plane to provide on-site guidance to the pilots. Zhang Bin strongly requested to board the plane to watch, because of his confidence in his invention of lightning protection coating and his expectations for the research results of Chen Guang, Ding Yi and others.

The two helicopters slowly approached each other. After a crisp cracking sound, an electric arc began to connect, and everyone was enveloped in a blinding blue light.

Because the two machines were very close together and the electrodes were located below the fuselage, Chen Guang and the others could only see a small section of the electric arc. The blinding blue light was too intense to look at directly.

Wearing goggles, Zhang Bin could barely contain his heart pounding in his chest. He and Chen Guang, who were equally excited, waited for the plane to scan them back and forth for half an hour.

Unfortunately, nothing was gained.

Everyone in the sky and on the ground remained silent, but the first to break the silence was Zhang Bin, who was suffering from a terminal illness.

“Xiao Chen, keep going. I’m more certain than ever that you’re right.” He paused, then repeated his instructions for the third time in the video: “If you discover anything, remember to tell me.”

The camera zoomed in extremely slowly, finally settling on a close-up of Zhang Bin's face.

The composition of the image deliberately creates a sense of loneliness. His face, which is extremely thin due to the torment of illness, occupies most of the picture. The background is a blurry, empty night sky and flashing instruments, as if he is floating alone in a void composed of data and the unknown.

Chen Guangxi felt utterly hopeless, staring blankly at his face, inevitably thinking about what would happen if that day ever came...

They must have passed away.

The brightness of the electric arc gradually diminished, and the superconducting battery was almost depleted of its energy. Lin Yun's voice came through the headphones:
"Attention all aircraft, extinguish the arcs, disengage from each other, and return to base."

Her voice still betrayed no emotion, especially in this kind of military experiment, where she treated everyone, including herself, as tools to be used in accordance with regulations and laws.

Just as the arc of light was about to fade and the night sky was about to return to darkness, a pilot's urgent and clear call suddenly came through the headset:

"Target spotted! Approximately one-third of the way from Arc 1 machine!"

The shout was like a thunderclap, exploding in the dull cabin.

Dr. Chen and Zhang Bin were both jolted at almost the same time, and they rushed to the porthole, eagerly looking into the darkness behind them.

The camera closely followed their gaze: at first, there was a blurry darkness, and then, an orange-red dot of light entered their field of vision.

It was not stationary, but drifted slowly along an unpredictable, elegant, and eerie curve, leaving a faint trail behind it.

What's most astonishing is that it seems completely unaffected by the strong air currents at high altitudes, as if it exists in another dimension, completely out of step with the physical rules of this world.

The close-up shot quickly switched to Chen Guang and Zhang Bin's faces.

An indescribable light burst forth in Zhang Bin's eyes, a mixture of the ecstasy of his long-cherished wish finally being fulfilled and the near-exhausted relief.
Chen Guang was dumbfounded. The ghost he had been searching for for years appeared in such an abrupt way, leaving his mind blank. The two of them were frozen in place, as if they had been put on a spell.

Thirty years later, Zhang Bin and thirteen years later, they finally discovered ball lightning again!

Lin Yun's calm, almost cold, command came through the earpiece again, shattering this magical moment:

"Attention all aircraft! Immediately increase distance from the target! Repeat, maintain a safe distance! Danger!"

When they met again on the ground, the female officer played by Zhou Xun only said one sentence to Chen Guang and his students, which could hardly be called a celebration:
"The destination you seek is my starting point."

Yes, there is still a long way to go in the research and development and application of ball flash weapons.

Under the tense pressure of the surrounding war situation, the lightning weapon research base and the ball flash team, which made their first breakthrough, also received more resources.

At the same time, Ding Yi, a physics prodigy in his early thirties, began to gradually unveil the mystery of the spherical glint.

The audience at the cinema knew that this was the first "hard science fiction" film they had seen so far, comparable to "2001: A Space Odyssey," that was beginning to unravel and refine its scientific logic.

The various mysteries from before will soon be solved step by step.

If we want to use it for weapon applications, logically, the problem after capturing it is storage. Whether we use ball lightning as bullets or shells, we can't just "recruit" it every time before a battle, can we?

Moreover, it needs to be stored so that its physical model can be further studied.

Ding Yi then proposed that ball lightning is a transparent sphere visible to the naked eye, a bubble with a circular boundary that appears due to the bending of light, no different from a soap bubble.

Several pilots who had not been able to detect the "soap bubble" with the naked eye during repeated experiments refuted him, only to receive a sarcastic comment from Sextant: "You guys are probably very nearsighted."

Unlike Chen Guang and Lin Yun, the soldiers didn't understand Ding Yi. In their eyes, the experimental results should be attributed to the former two, so they naturally dismissed his so-called cavitation as mere empty talk.

Ding Yi laughed heartily and declared that he would catch the ball back for everyone to see, to prove that what he said was true.

However, his experimental requirements aroused public outrage; he demanded that the pilots use a long pole to poke the lightning ball.

are you crazy?
He further explained that the experiment could be conducted using anti-missile probes commonly used in tank warfare worldwide, but this still carries risks, even though he repeatedly assured safety based on the rules of physics.

The specific steps are as follows: an electric arc is used to induce a ball flash, and after it disappears, a probe that pulls the superconducting wire is immediately used to contact the location where the ball flash disappeared. The other end of the wire is connected to the superconducting battery that has been emptied inside the cabin.

Faced with opposition from almost everyone, Lin Yun once again invoked her privileges.

But when the experiment began, she personally boarded the plane to operate the lightning rod.

About half an hour after takeoff, a ball lightning was triggered as expected. The moment the orange arc went out, the probe was extended by the wire, with an interval of less than half a second.

A strange, loud bang came from beside Lin Yun, as if something had exploded in the cabin, immediately filling the air with scorching steam.

However, the helicopter maintained its normal flight attitude until it returned to base and landed, where it was inspected by Ding Yi, Chen Guang, Colonel Xu, and others.

It turned out that a bottle of mineral water that the ground crew had left under their seats had exploded. The energy from the lightning ball was released into the water, instantly turning it into superheated steam.

Even Lin Yun couldn't help but feel a little scared: "We were really lucky that the helicopter's cooling system used cooling oil, otherwise we would have turned into a fireball in the sky by now."

"Lucky?" Ding Yi joked without any emotion. "You're overlooking an even bigger stroke of luck: there was actually water on the plane."

"And..." Chen Guang suddenly realized, "It's blood! Blood from a human body!"

Suddenly, the scene of his parents turning to ashes thirteen years ago flashed before his eyes. Clearly, each ball of lightning seemed to have its own "attack attribute".

For example, the target of the one just now was water. And as Lin Yun mentioned before, there was the idea of ​​using lightning weapons for electronic warfare. Is there a ball lightning that targets chips or electromechanical devices?

Chen Guang, who always wanted to avoid excessive killing, inevitably thought of this.

Ding Yi wasn't thinking about all that. He was focused on proving his point and showing everyone the true nature of ball lightning, as he had deduced using a physics model.
A cavitation bubble.

"Now, let's welcome this historic moment."

On screen, the absurd nature of this physics genius is once again highlighted. He walks to the battery, places his finger on the red switch, and gently presses it.

But nothing happened.

"Hahaha!" The whole place burst into laughter. The straightforward soldiers teased him for his eccentricities, and of course, they were also very dissatisfied with the risky experiments he had always proposed.

For example, what if Lin Yun and the others had just narrowly escaped death? What if the target of this ball's attack was human blood?

Ding Yi remained unmoved, surveying the entire room with the seriousness of a normal physicist. "Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing now is ball lightning in its unexcited state."

Suddenly, a "pfft" came from the ranks. A young soldier laughed so hard he choked on his water: "Professor Ding, you're a bit like the tailor making the emperor's new clothes!"

Apart from Chen Guang, Lin Yun, and others who looked serious, everyone thought the analogy was brilliant and burst into laughter at the physicist's shameless sense of humor.

But a strange scene appeared.

Ding Yi took a chessboard and slowly descended from above the magnetic field generator. The squares on the chessboard were visibly deformed in some areas!

Anyone with common sense knows that there is a transparent bubble there, like a highly transparent crystal ball placed in front of a chessboard.

Is that the "real" form of ball lightning? A "cavitation bubble" that was captured in a superconducting battery and then released?
As the sun set, everyone from ordinary soldiers to scientists and mathematicians like Chen Guang was speechless in the face of this "miracle," experiencing a profound shock at the first appearance of the supernatural unknown.

At the celebratory banquet that evening, Ding Yi explained the nature of "ball lightning" to everyone. As a Nobel Prize-level fundamental physicist, the conclusion he had reached after more than half a year of painstaking research was almost a settled matter.

In front of the cinema screen, the audience was also captivated by the unraveling of hard science fiction.

Isn't this a million times more interesting than that colonial story about painting faces blue?
Ding Yi said calmly, "I understand that many people have made arduous efforts to solve this mystery of nature, and Dr. Chen and Major Lin are representatives of them. You have devoted yourselves to weaving electromagnetic and fluid equations into a dazzling and complex network, almost touching the limits of analysis."

"But then we had to fill in the gaps layer by layer, like repairing a dam that was leaking everywhere; we had to keep adding supporting components to barely maintain the precarious theoretical framework. What was ultimately presented was a bloated and ugly theoretical system."

He paused, then put on his usual casual smile: "But Dr. Chen, do you know where you went wrong? It's not that you didn't think things through properly, but that you didn't think them through simply enough."

Chen Guang nodded. He had heard Lin Yun's father say the exact same thing at Lin Yun's house. The two wise men from different fields had reached a consensus on their understanding of objective things.

"First of all, it is an electron."

“An electron the size of a soccer ball,” Ding Yi added.

Before today, even ordinary soldiers without any knowledge of physics could easily disprove his claim: "Even a middle school student knows that an electron that big is impossible!"

But now, because of Ding Yi's authority and the bizarre nature of his answer, everyone present, including Dr. Chen, has almost lost the ability to ask further questions.

Thus, it became a one-man show for the genius scientist.

“Alright, I’ll give you a quick lesson first.” Ding Yi explained in a simple and easy-to-understand way, “First of all, the universe is geometric, not physical.”

The simple words evoke an unparalleled sense of scientific beauty, which, combined with his disheveled and dissolute appearance, makes him seem even more mysterious.

"You mean that nothing exists in the universe except space?" Colonel Xu gestured to the leg of lamb in his hand: "It's still real, isn't it? Did I just eat space?"

“Of course, it is space, and you are space, because both mutton and you are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons.” Ding Yi gestured on the tablecloth. “If space is this cloth, then atomic particles are the tiny wrinkles on the cloth.”

Lin Yun couldn't help but ask, "Why can an electron be so big? This is so counterintuitive."

"For a very short time after the Big Bang, the entire universe was smooth. Later, as the energy level decreased, space began to wrinkle, which gave birth to various elementary particles."

“Previously we only knew that there were microscopic particles, but now I can confirm with 100% certainty that there are also macroscopic particles.”

Chen Guang continued, "Then why do you think it's an electron, and not a proton or neutron?"

“Good question,” Ding Yi said. “Actually, the answer is quite simple. The process of a cavitation bubble being excited into a ball lightning and then returning to a cavitation bubble is actually the process of an electron being excited from a low energy level to a high energy level and then falling back to a low energy level. Among the three types of particles, only the electron can be excited in this way.”

Chen Guang and Lin Yun were stunned for a moment, and at the same time they felt as if they could breathe again.

The research and exploration of the nature of ball flash over the past many years has been like diving into murky water, with everything shrouded in mystery.

Now it suddenly surfaced and seemed to be able to breathe deeply.

Chen Guang suddenly remembered the water tower in his father's painting, his mother's white hair, and Zheng Min's 3.4-inch floppy disk, and asked tentatively, "If that's the case, will we be able to discover the nucleus of macroatoms soon?"

Macro-atomic, that's the name Ding Yi just casually came up with.

Macro-electrons, macro-atoms, macro-protons.

Ding Yi reverted to his usual nonchalant attitude, scoffing, "Who told you that it must be a cavitation bubble?"

"Isn't that right?" Chen Guang felt his body trembling slightly.

Ding Yi shook his head: "Theoretically speaking, they are as different from macro-electrons as ice and fire, completely different. Isn't that amazing?"

"In other words..." Chen Guang swallowed hard, "we are still far from being able to perceive what shapes of macroparticles float around our bodies?"

For example, what about people of this size? That is... that is, what the people of the Dragon Kingdom call ghosts.

To this day, he still cannot distinguish whether the ghosts of his parents and Zheng Min from that night were hallucinations.

They were also affected by ball lightning, which is essentially macro-electron and has been raised to a high energy level.

Many audience members in the cinema were moved to tears. What level of hard science fiction was this? Could it possibly explain the human soul so reasonably?
However, the beastly director once again abruptly ended the story, choosing to cover up many of the mysteries from the previous chapters once more.

Only then did Woody Allen and the others finally see the hidden location of the delicious steak—

He must be using some major events and minor reminiscences to detonate these nuclear warheads and give the audience a satisfying experience.

From this perspective, this Chinese director's ability to wrap auteur themes in the skin of commercial films has reached a state of perfection.

After successfully capturing the "true form" of cavitation, or ball lightning, the path of research suddenly became clear, and results emerged one after another, just like "after passing through mountains and rivers, one finds a village hidden among willows and flowers."

For the "trio," from Chen Guang's basic mathematical model to Ding Yi's subversion of physical laws, it's now time for Lin Yun, the genius of technological application, to truly play his role.

To turn a ball into a bullet, we must first study its mechanism of action.

Under the lens of an ultra-high-speed camera, the trio and the ever-growing research team finally witnessed the entire process of energy release from ball lightning.

In the first ten seconds of slow-motion video, as the brightness of the sphere increases dramatically, the wooden block serving as the target gradually loses its color and becomes transparent, eventually becoming a cube with a vaguely visible outline.

When the brightness of the sphere reaches its extreme, the outline completely disappears, and then reappears after five seconds, but it has already turned into a cube of fly ash.

This reminded Chen Guang of his parents and Zhang Bin's lover, Zheng Min, who had disappeared in the same way.

"This is wave-particle duality, a familiar term, isn't it?"

Nobel Prize-winning fundamental physicist Ding Yi continues to explain in a simple and easy-to-understand way the concepts of Lin Yun and others are needed for practical application.

"In a brief moment, both the cavitation bubble and the wooden block exhibited wave properties. They resonated and merged into one. The wooden block wave received energy released by the macro-electron wave, and then they each regained their particle properties. The charred wooden block reassembled into a solid in its original position."

Chen Guang recalled his parents' intact clothes and Zhang Bin's notebook, whose pages had been burned: "Then why does it selectively interact with objects?"

“You can think of it as a background removal software,” Ding Yi said. “Each macroelectron has its own spectrum, or you can think of it as a ‘color’. It will only remove colors with the same properties from an object.”

Of course, these are just theoretical speculations by physicists, and true confirmation still requires experimental verification.

Thus began a large number of animal experiments, which involved placing animals similar to human targets, such as rabbits, pigs, and sheep, into the target area, and then releasing macro-electrons to excite ball lightning.

If the ball lightning kills an animal target when it explodes, the macroelectron is selected for weapon reserves and becomes the bullet for the ball lightning machine gun.

Some ball lightning specifically destroys bones, while others only vaporize blood, making the scene often quite horrific.

Fortunately, Ding Yi developed a spectrum recognition technology that, just as fingerprints are used to identify humans, spectra are used to identify ball lightning, thereby distinguishing their properties and storing and capturing them in large quantities.

Chen Guang remained relatively detached during this period. His inherent weakness prevented him from confronting the bloodshed, as he was merely a mathematician with no physical strength and far less composure than Lin Yun and Ding Yi.

"Don't you... feel anything at all?" He asked Ding Yi by chance.

The latter looked at him leisurely, a pipe dangling from his mouth, and asked, "Why don't you ask Lin Yun?"

"She is a soldier, and we are all scholars."

“Hehe.” Ding Yi smiled and said, “The things I study are either on a scale of less than 10 to the power of negative 30 centimeters or more than 10 billion light-years. On these two scales, Earth and humanity are insignificant.”

Because of his childhood experiences, Chen Guang's personality has a natural weakness: "Is life so insignificant?"

Ding Yi's casual and serene expression was clearly the best answer, but he still spoke a few more words to his golden partner:
"From a physics perspective, the material movement of life does not have any higher meaning, and you cannot find new physical laws in life."

"So from my perspective, there is no essential difference between a person's death and the melting of a piece of ice. Dr. Chen, you sometimes think too much. You should learn to look at life from the perspective of the ultimate laws of the universe, and you will live a much more comfortable life."

“You’re a mathematician, I’m a physicist, remember what I said?” The eccentric scientist grinned and said, “We’re just tiny folds in the universe, just space, nothing more.”

Dr. Chen listened in silence. He could certainly understand Ding Yi and Lin Yun's values, especially the latter, who, like her, could never escape the shadow of that day because of her childhood experiences.

Feeling troubled, he took leave to visit Zhang Bin, who was nearing his death, in the hospital. Zhang Bin made his last request to his student.

Zhang Bin hoped that after his death he would be burned to ashes by ball lightning, just like his wife Zheng Min, and then buried together with her—a romantic wish shared by two scientific partners.

Chen Guang granted his last wish and sighed deeply.

With the world situation becoming increasingly volatile, the research base for lightning weapons has gradually come into the view of higher authorities, receiving greater attention and pressure.

One late night in September, after a field experiment that had gone on very late, Ding Yi and his two companions drove past the lightning stimulation laboratory, the same place where they had previously conducted experiments using ball lightning to kill animals.

The abandoned laboratory was filled with the mixed smell of preservatives and metal; only the low hum of the instruments proved that it had not been completely forgotten by time.

Chen Guang suddenly raised a finger to his lips, his pupils slightly contracting in the dim light: "Listen! What's that sound... is it a sheep bleating?"

Compared to Ding Yi and Lin Yun, Chen Guang was already familiar with paranormal phenomena related to ball lightning, but this discovery sent chills down his spine.

Ding Yi pushed up his glasses, Lin Yun gripped the detector in his hand, and the three of them met their gazes in the air, confirming that they had all heard the sound that shouldn't have been there.

A layer of frost seemed to have condensed in the air, and in this abandoned environment, which had been confirmed to be devoid of any life, the clear bleating of sheep could be heard.

"There can't possibly be any living creatures left here." Lin Yun's words carried the certainty of a soldier, yet they sent an even deeper chill down Chen Guang's spine.

He looked around and could almost see the afterimages of those transparent creatures moving through the air.

The horrific scene of the night her parents disappeared, Zheng Min's death, and the reappearance of her hallucinations...

All the figures carried away by the ball lightning resurfaced in Chen Guang's memory, and he couldn't help but speculate about the connection between ghosts and macro-electrons.

Lin Yun was hardly a woman. She and Ding Yi got out of the car and headed towards the laboratory. Chen Guang, who had a childhood nightmare, seemed to have lead in his legs. He froze for a few seconds before hurriedly following.

Zhou Xun, playing a female military officer, forcefully pushed open the heavy iron door of the laboratory. The metal tracks emitted a piercing roar, instantly swallowing up the faint bleating of sheep in the air.

Once the loud noise subsided and the laboratory returned to deathly silence, the eerie cries also completely disappeared.

She pressed the switch, and the pale light from the overhead lights illuminated the empty, factory-like space.

The camera followed her gaze, focusing on a square area in the center of the field, enclosed by a two-meter-high iron fence. This was the core site for the stimulation experiments, where hundreds of experimental animals had been reduced to ashes in ball lightning.

The iron cage was empty at the moment, with only the cold metal reflecting the light.

Lin Yun strode quickly through the neatly arranged instruments and equipment, her military boots echoing clearly on the concrete floor. Her sharp eyes swept over every corner, but there was no trace of any living creature.

"Let's go." Ding Yi remained leaning against the door frame without moving. His eyes behind his glasses were slightly narrowed as he quietly observed Lin Yun's futile search, as if verifying a conclusion he had vaguely guessed.

Chen Guang recalled asking Ding Yi about the question he had asked earlier: "What shapes of macroparticles would float around the body?" and couldn't help but exchange a glance.

Coincidentally, the latter was also looking at him, and perhaps he was thinking of the same thing.

Ding Yi is too clever.

“Dr. Chen,” Ding Yi approached with a serious expression, “have you experienced any unusual events in your life over the years… I mean, since you came into contact with ball lightning?”

Chen Guang was uneasy: "What are you referring to?"

"Something you never thought you would encounter."

"I..." He hadn't figured out what to say yet, and he didn't realize how ugly his smile was. Fortunately, a phone call Lin Yun received interrupted them.

Colonel Xu's voice, cold and clear, emanated through the receiver, each word sharp and impactful, more so than anything terrifying!

"Return immediately! Return immediately! The enemy fleet is about to cross the median line in the southeast coastal direction. The higher command needs to conduct a wartime requirements and adaptability evaluation of the lightning weapon project."

Suddenly, an air raid siren sounded at the base not far away, making the three men's temples throb in the hazy night. They jumped into the car and rushed back to the base.

The war has begun.

……

As the audience in the cinema watched the grand scene of the two opposing fleets confronting each other, blurred on the screen to pass censorship—a scene that was originally filmed by drones on the USS Kitty Hawk—they couldn't help but take a deep breath.

As everyone knows, the scientific truth about macroparticles and the ghosts and strange phenomena seen by Chen Guang;

The thrilling ending for Lin Yun, the female protagonist whose story was depicted for nearly sixty minutes;

The ultimate narrative about ball lightning in the World Wars is about to begin!

(End of this chapter)