Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 577 Foreshadowing of The Three-Body Problem, Quantum Rose (Bonus chapter for Monchhichi, thank you for adding another patron)
The war came too soon, but the time left for the Lightning Weapons Research Institute was too short.

The day the three returned from the field firing range was also the day the world's first ball lightning weapon was established, with only one company of soldiers.

The camera zooms in on Lin Yun, played by Zhou Xun, as she makes a phone call to her boyfriend Jiang Xingchen on the way, but the young aircraft carrier captain clearly doesn't have time to answer.

As a "ball flash force" that is regarded by higher authorities as a strategic reserve weapons department and a source of research and development results for new concept weapons, it is obviously too far from front-line combat.

The Lightning Weapon Research Institute held an all-night meeting to arrange research and troop training under wartime conditions.

Judging from the information revealed by Colonel Xu, the director, and Lin Yun, the two sides are still negotiating. The bandits are powerful, but modern warfare is not something that can be started at any time; the influencing factors are very complex.

The following morning, before dawn, the troops had already moved to a heavily guarded valley firing range.

Far from the front lines, this place is filled with a tension even more suffocating than the front lines. The scene opens with a drone aerial view of the distant landscape, where several makeshift observation posts and a vast, empty area appear particularly desolate, surrounded by rugged mountains.

"Why are you here?" Lin Yun and Dr. Chen stood at the observation point, looking at Ding Yi's visit with curiosity.

He's now part of the research institute and the spherical flare unit, but he basically spends all his time in the lab conducting theoretical research and actively seeking other breakthroughs in macroparticles; he never cares about practical application.

“Last night…” Ding Yi glanced at Chen Guang openly, “After I went back last night, I actually made some discoveries, which I’m here to tell you today. These are crucial for mastering shooting accuracy.”

"And I'm going to show you my PhD side, and a certain spectacle."

Dr. Chen pursed his lips and remained silent. He didn't know how to tell this "wise man" these things, or perhaps the man had already guessed something.

"Speak." Lin Yun acted decisively and immediately summoned Lieutenant Colonel Kang Ming, dressed in camouflage uniform and played by mainland actor Hou Yong.

Even with a major battle looming, Ding Yi maintained his casual and unrestrained style: "Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Chen, Major Lin, do you usually engage in philosophical thinking?"

The group seemed to have gotten used to this physics eccentric. They looked around the target range under the dark clouds with a sigh. At the other end of the open space were some temporary buildings and abandoned vehicles used as targets. It was hard to see what this place would have to do with philosophy.

“Alright, after all, you're not philosophy PhDs.” Ding Yi spread his hands and said, “Lieutenant Colonel, please cooperate with my experiment—”

"First, shut down all surveillance and filming equipment on site. Second, and most importantly, please close your eyes after aiming before firing."

He turned to look at Chen Guang and Lin Yun: "Everyone, including you and me, must close your eyes."

Kang Ming asked in confusion, "Professor, may I ask why?"

"I'll explain. By the way, how accurate are your shots normally?"

"It's almost 100%, because the lightning ball is unaffected by airflow, and its trajectory after acceleration is very stable. If you aim as you said and then close your eyes, it would be very difficult to miss the target."

Ding Yi smiled and said, "Very confident. Let's wait and see."

Everyone closed their eyes and soon heard the crackling sound of the lightning ball generating electric arcs on the acceleration rail, which gave them goosebumps.

Then, something astonished the audience and soldiers: almost all the targets were intact.

"Fire! Fire!" Several soldiers rushed forward to extinguish the burning weeds near the target, coughing from the ozone produced by the ball lightning explosion.

“Quantum effect,” Chen Guang remarked. “It seems that electrons at the macroscopic level and electrons at the microscopic level are consistent in terms of quantum effects.”

“That’s right, another Schrödinger’s cat.” Ding Yi nodded. “When there is an observer, the state of macroelectrons collapses into a definite value that matches our experience in the macroscopic world, so they hit the target.”

"But when there is no observer, everything about it is uncertain, and the location can only be described by probability."

He pointed to the only target in the middle of the field that had been grazed and exploded: "In this case, those ball lightning bolts were just a cloud of electrons, also called a probability cloud, and the probability of them hitting the target was very small."

After Ding Yi finished speaking, he fell silent and simply looked at Chen Guang, exchanging glances that only the two of them could understand.

Indeed, Chen Guang thought of his parents and Zheng Min's "soul".

Lieutenant Colonel Kang Ming asked with some doubt: "Isn't this a bit too superstitious? The lightning ball missed just because I didn't look at it?"

“This is philosophy, and you soldiers should also read about philosophy,” Ding Yi continued nonchalantly.

Chen Guang pondered deeply, Kang Ming was puzzled, but Lin Yun was excited: "Let's try again. Let's study the physical form of the probability electron cloud. Maybe we'll make a big discovery."

Ding Yi shook his head: "Impossible. Quantum states only exist in the absence of an observer. Once an observer appears, they collapse into our empirical reality. We can never see the probability cloud."

"Like when they discovered Hong Electronics, are they using ultra-high-speed cameras?" Kang Ming asked.

“Lieutenant Colonel, your understanding of observers is insufficient.” Ding Yi explained with little patience to these people whose physics abilities, in his eyes, were only at the middle school to doctoral level:

"Cameras are also observers, even if they themselves are not conscious."

Chen Guang felt he had found a flaw: "If that's the case, then everything around the ball lightning could become an observer?"

"Just as a spherical flash leaves its image on the sensor of a camera, a spherical flash leaves an ionization trace in the air, so the air is the observer; the light it emits affects vegetation and causes sand and dust to shift and fly, so it is also an observer?"

"Given so many observers, shouldn't it continue to collapse, thus ensuring perfect accuracy?"

This is also a question on the minds of the audience in front of the cinema, as well as future fans of this hard science fiction film.

The reason it's so hardcore is that from the moment Ding Yi appears, the Chinese director has been trying to weave scientific explanations of the aforementioned anomalies into the plot, forming a logical loop.

Ding Yi smiled and said, "There are also differences in the strength of observers. Taking pictures is similar to human observation. It is an active recording and determination of information, which is strong observation. But sand and dust are just physical displacements, which is weak observation."

Chen Guang suddenly realized!

No wonder Ding Yi requested that four monitors with no blind spots be installed in the laboratory when he was conducting macro-atom observation experiments.

It turns out that this Nobel Prize-winning physicist deduced that the 3141 ball flash murder accident in the former Soviet Union might have certain characteristics of quantum theory simply by describing it himself.

The surveillance cameras, with no blind spots, are there to act as observers and prevent the recurrence of accidents and tragedies like the "ball flash" killing someone through a wall.

Chen Guang felt that the day when the fog of mystery would be lifted was drawing ever closer, and he remarked with some emotion, "It's so mysterious that it's hard to believe. Sometimes science sounds like superstition."

Lin Yun then told a lame joke at the opportune moment: "Luckily, Einstein is already dead."

Ding Yi laughed loudly, while Chen Guang shook his head.

Some of the Westerners in the cinema's theater understood the joke and burst into laughter.

The theories of “collapsed state” and “observer” proposed by Ding Yi, a PhD in quantum mechanics physics, are the main achievements of the Copenhagen School, represented by Bohr and others.

They believe that the nature of the world is probabilistic, and that there is no independent, definite reality.

But Einstein disagreed. He believed that the laws of physics should be deterministic, not probabilistic, and based on this, he uttered a widely known famous quote:

God does not play dice.

Starting with Ding Yi's characterization and the introduction of the concept of "observer," the elusive, mysterious, and wall-passing ball lightning that we have encountered by chance in human history has been explained.

This is likely because the witness was in a probability cloud of macroelectrons at the time, and his or her accidental observation caused the quantum state of the ball lightning to suddenly collapse.

The brilliant physicist Ding Yi put forward his own judgment, and in the following three days of experiments, the macroscopic quantum effect of ball lightning was further confirmed.

Once the observer is removed, the impact point of the ball lightning fired by the lightning ball weapon will be severely dispersed, and the hit rate on the target will be only one-tenth of that when the observer is present.

But just when everyone was convinced of Ding Yi's theory and experimental proof, an unexpected incident occurred in the final control group...

Without any observers present, the ball lightning fired by the lightning machine gun hit its target without exception. This type of macro-electron uses metal as its energy source and has a very high excitation energy. One-third of the wrecked armored vehicle that was the target was melted.

Lin Yun asked in surprise, "What happened?"

Those present were puzzled, so Kang Ming specifically directed the soldiers to check the surveillance cameras and all observation equipment one by one to ensure that everything was correct.

A piece of music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto quietly begins to play, and then Duan Yihong's brilliant performance as Ding Yi begins.

The camera first focuses on a long, slow, close-up of his face, accompanied by deliberately amplified cinematic sound effects:

The sizzling sound of melting metal from the armored vehicle in the distance, the hurried footsteps of the crowd, and their discussions all became exceptionally clear.

He fell into deep thought, his brow furrowed, his fingers unconsciously tracing lines in the air as if he were working out some complex formula. Suddenly, an extremely astonishing and terrifying conclusion seemed to have been reached!

Ding Yi's pupils suddenly contracted, and the usual composure and detachment of a top physicist vanished from his face in an instant, replaced by an expression of disbelief and deep fear—a look of utter astonishment he had never shown to outsiders.

Lin Yun keenly noticed Ding Yi's change, and her military thinking immediately turned to the most realistic threat: "Is there... an enemy reconnaissance satellite passing overhead? It's an observer too!"

"Damn it, a KH-12 keyhole!" Kang Ming whirled around and ordered, "Attention everyone! Immediate cover! Minimize exposure as much as possible!"

This refers to the most advanced optical reconnaissance satellite currently in the United States, which has extremely high resolution.

Researchers and soldiers acted swiftly, using camouflage nets and terrain concealment in an attempt to hide key data about this secret unit and its supernatural weapons from any potential "eyes in the sky."

Only Chen Guang noticed that something was wrong.

This is Ding Yi, isn't it?

How could a scientific eccentric who vehemently denounces current fundamental physics and even the Nobel Prize as outdated and worthless possibly elicit such a shocking and revolutionary expression from him, even with enemy reconnaissance satellites overhead?
In the midst of the chaotic covert operation, Dr. Chen silently followed the distraught Ding Yi away from the center of the firing range. After a few steps, Ding Yi, as if in a dream, muttered something in a barely audible voice:
"If it really is an enemy satellite... then it's easier to handle..."

These words, though spoken as lightly as a whisper, carried immense weight.

Chen Guang was completely confused, and the audience in front of the screen was once again shrouded in mystery.

Just when one mystery seemed to have been solved, the director dug an even deeper hole, a hole that could never be filled in this movie.

The camera slowly pulls up, from the busy, concealed crowd to the entire valley shooting range, then to the azure Earth's atmosphere, and finally settles on the dark background of deep space.

This upgraded space camera symbolizes that the answer to the problem and the source of the threat may be far more complex than just a satellite.

This is cinematic language that directors like Woody Allen can understand, but at this moment, only Liu Cixin, who has just finished writing "The Three-Body Problem III: Death's End," knows that the "observer" hidden in space may not be, or may not be, just an enemy satellite.

The audience members present will only realize this when they read or see the story of "The Three-Body Problem" someday in the future:

On that day, a higher-dimensional being called "Sophon" was quietly unfolding its omniscient perspective, silently observing and locking onto all technological breakthroughs on Earth that might threaten the foundation of the Trisolaran civilization.

This is a foreshadowing that director Lu Kuan has laid for Chinese science fiction series, and it also lays the foundation for a science fiction universe that he or other directors will participate in later. We look forward to more movie fans discovering it.

……

Amidst the tense external combat readiness and mobilization situation, the world's first ball lightning force has achieved comprehensive improvement. However, there is still a difficult leap from the basic physics research led by Ding Yi to the actual military application led by Lin Yun.

Now, aside from the lethal weapons collected in live animal ball flash weapon experiments, intended for destroying human blood and bones, a weapon application problem is looming—

How can ball lightning weapons be used to strike enemy weapons and equipment?
In today's increasingly prominent trend of electronic warfare, this is even more efficient than effective personnel killing.

The screen shows Chen Guang, Lin Yun, and others conducting research day and night. Their first thought is to use it to destroy steel armaments, just like the previous shooting training targets.

But this is obviously unrealistic, because of the law of conservation of energy. If the ball flash weapon is a cup of water, you can't expect it to extinguish a forest fire.

Entering this stage, Lin Yun fully demonstrated her military science genius, quickly taking charge of capturing a macro-electron that could be used to destroy chips.

The material of the chip is very special, and unlike wires, there are no similar but insignificant objects to disperse the energy of ball lightning.

At the same time, the chips are very small, and the energy released by a handheld weapon can destroy a large number of them. The burning out of electronic chips is absolutely fatal to modern high-tech weapons.

Let's assume the ball flash weapon is a glass of water, with only that much capacity. In comparison, the chip becomes a tiny, almost invisible spark, making it much easier to destroy.

Finally, in a military-led strike test against a Type 2000 main battle tank and obsolete missiles, the ball flash weapon received top-level approval for the first time.

Amidst a strong smell of ozone, the engineers first opened the back door of an armored vehicle, where four military computers were neatly arranged. However, upon opening the computer cases, a pile of white powder was poured out.

The communication equipment and radar main unit of the Type 2000 main battle tank, as well as the guidance unit of the air-to-ground missile, were all turned into ash boxes of chips. As a result, the two missile company sergeants responsible for disassembling the warheads looked up at Lin Yun and the others in horror, and then looked at the Thunderball machine gun in the distance through the gaps in the crowd, with a look of as if they had seen a ghost.

A lieutenant general's assessment set the tone for the future application of this ball lightning weapon:
"From among ten thousand troops, take the general's head."

The term "general" here no longer refers solely to the enemy commander-in-chief in the era of traditional cold weapon warfare, but rather to the "brain" of the enemy in the context of electronic warfare.

Ironically, even Dr. Chen's laptop, which was located relatively close to the armored vehicle, was affected.

Because the chips were so small, the ball lightning destroyed them, and due to the law of conservation of energy, the attack range was objectively expanded, spreading outward and destroying the CPU and two memory modules.

As it turns out, under the pressure of war, every expedient measure propelled the work of military-integrated research institutions like the Thunder Weapons Research Institute. However, compared to Lin Yun and Ding Yi, who were fully committed, Dr. Chen's mind was clearly not so calm.

In particular, a sudden counter-terrorism operation completely ignited his fear and aversion to weapons-based killing.

Before a day of routine training, Colonel Xu and Lin Yun of the Ball Lightning Force suddenly received orders from their superiors to immediately set off with all equipment in combat readiness, and to clarify that this was not an exercise.

The army dispatched a platoon of soldiers, carrying two sets of mine-ball machine guns, to rush to a certain place. It wasn't until they landed that Dr. Chen, Lin Yun, and others discovered a cluster of white buildings that were dazzling in the sunlight, with the tall cylindrical building in the center being particularly eye-catching.

That's right, this is a large nuclear reactor, and also the world's largest nuclear power plant, which has just been completed.

Inside the power plant's guesthouse, several commanders quickly briefed each other on the current situation. Hearing the commotion, they looked up and asked, "Why have they brought in regular troops too?"

"Oh, they were transferred from the General Staff. Their new equipment might play an important role." A commander-in-chief who pushed open the door answered his question and then greeted Lin Yun, Chen Guang and others.

"Time is limited, so I can only briefly describe the current situation—"

"You should know about the international terrorist organization Eden. Taking advantage of the current chaos, they have taken hostages and entered the nuclear power plant. They now have thirty-five hostages. Apart from the hostages who entered the plant with the bus, the remaining eight are engineers and operators of the power plant."

The sound of "da da da" filled the screen, and a brief introduction to the Eden Organization began.

They are a group of tech escapists, like demonized "environmentalists," who built an experimental small society on a small island in the Pacific Ocean, trying to escape modern technology and return to a pastoral life.

Therefore, they hate technology and abhor science. Their mission is to eliminate modern technology and restore the pastoral era to the world, and they carry out terrorist activities.

Lin Yun gained the opportunity to negotiate with the leader of the terrorist organization.

Another Western woman's face appeared in the video; she was a teacher, but with a resume that Dr. Chen and the other onlookers could never have imagined—

This character, played by Scarlett Johansson in a cameo role, is the third-in-command of Eden. Last March, he assassinated two Nobel laureates in a single day in North America and successfully escaped.

"Oh, a woman! Finally, a woman here! You are truly charming!" She was clearly referring to Lin Yun, her hands clasped in front of her chest, a look of delight on her face.

This Hannibal-esque elegance and terror might be too much for someone as weak-willed as Dr. Chen to handle, but Lin Yun certainly could.

She may be far more ruthless than the teacher in Eden.

“Looks like we can chat for a while.” The “teacher” smiled as if speaking to a close friend. “We women are inherently anti-technology, unlike those disgusting, machine-like men.”

"I'm not against technology, I'm an engineer," Lin Yun said calmly. "Could you let me in in exchange for a hostage? I'm a major, which is more valuable to you."

"Come on," Scarlett shook her head with a smile. "You think I can't see what kind of person you are? Your blood is as cold as mine. You'll come in, take the gun in half a second, and then shove two bullets into my eye sockets."

"Then let's talk about terms. Why did you kill him?"

Looking at the pool of blood on the ground, the "teacher" of Eden smiled gently: "He said he wanted to be a scientist when he grew up. His little brain has obviously been corrupted."

Facing the trembling hostages, unseen by the camera, she said, "Sweetheart, let's not be scientists, engineers, or doctors. Let's all be little shepherds..."

The female teacher suddenly turned fiercely to Lin Yun, raising her gun at the camera: "But you destroyed all of this! Ugly cities are everywhere on earth, the grass is withered and the streams are black, and the cattle are locked in iron cages on farms to become milk and meat-producing machines!"

In a close-up shot, Scarlett Johansson breaks the fourth wall, looking both stunning and ruthless: "So, die!"

With a "bang," the camera was destroyed by a bullet, and the screen went blank.

It is obvious that this world's largest nuclear power plant has become their target. In their eyes, it is a festering sore on the earth. Their only goal is to cut it open and let the radioactive pus flow everywhere, so that the world can see the truth about the technology.

Lin Yun had just returned to the control room when the commander-in-chief briefed all parties on the latest information:
"According to the reconnaissance, they have no intention of negotiating at all. The reason they haven't detonated it yet is because they are trying to broadcast the situation to the outside world using a small satellite dish. The situation is urgent and they could detonate it at any time."

Without waiting for anyone's reply, he looked directly at Lin Yun and Colonel Xu and asked, "Can your weapons distinguish between hostages and terrorists?"

"No."

"Could we just target and kill the terrorists in the control room?"

Lin Yun continued to shake his head: "That won't work either. Our weapons attack buildings as a whole; walls can't stop it. Depending on the size of the building and the number of people inside, it won't stop from any direction..."

She paused for a moment: "There is absolutely no chance that any creature inside will survive."

The commander-in-chief was horrified: "What kind of weapon is this? A neutron bomb?"

"I'm sorry, without orders from above, I have no comment." Lin Yun was even calmer than Scarlett, the female leader inside.

But at the same time, she is also colder.

"Sir, the current situation is as clear as one plus one equals two."

"Lin Yun!" Colonel Xu's eyes widened in fury. He and Chen Guang rushed forward and pulled her away. After signaling to the commander-in-chief, who was deep in thought, they left the conference room.

"You are crazy!"

Lin Yun looked at Chen Guang, who was also staring at her in disbelief, and silently shook her head: "The capacity of this reactor is more than ten times that of Chernobyl. Once it is destroyed, hundreds of kilometers around will become a no-man's land, and hundreds of thousands of people may die from nuclear radiation."

"This is the battlefield, this is part of the war."

Colonel Xu, who had been entrusted by Lin Feng to look after his daughter, looked somewhat dejected. "I understand that. If the higher-ups give an order, we will obey without hesitation. The problem is that it shouldn't be up to you, a major, to make such a suggestion."

Chen Guang couldn't help but ask, "Lin Yun, actually... you long to use that weapon, don't you?"

The close-up shot zoomed in suddenly, focusing intently on Lin Yun's face.

She didn't answer immediately. The slow movement of raising her chin made her neck taut, revealing an almost arrogant stubbornness. Her eyes met Chen Guang's questioning gaze directly without flinching, and there seemed to be a cold flame burning deep in her pupils.

The composition deliberately uses a slightly upward angle to highlight her undeniable aura at this moment, while the background is blurred into the cold instruments and flashing data screens of the laboratory, isolating her in a world full of rationality and decisiveness.

The female officer played by Zhou Xun has a fully realized on-screen persona at this moment: "This is one of the reasons, I can't deny it."

During the two minutes they waited for orders from their superiors, no one spoke.

The hot summer wind blew across the rooftop, and the sound of screeching brakes echoed downstairs, followed by the rapid footsteps of soldiers getting out of vehicles and the clanging of weapons and helmets.

Until the commander-in-chief's voice came through the intercom, Chen Guang knew that the days of these terrorists and the innocent victims were numbered...

He wasn't some saint; it was just that years of shadows had lingered in his heart, refusing to dissipate.

Lin Yun even personally took up a firing position on a Thunderball machine gun. Lieutenant Colonel Kang and Colonel Xu exchanged a glance and tacitly approved of this.

Chen Guang and the others saw an undisguised excitement in her eyes and movements, like a child finally getting their favorite toy, which sent chills down their spines.

The electric arc on the acceleration rail of the lightning ball machine gun ignited, and the sharp crackling sound made the people downstairs look up.

When a swarm of ball lightning flew into the control room, the "teacher" had already stopped lecturing and was hunched over the control panel fiddling with something. Because the ball lightning that struck the building had briefly lost its observer and entered a probability cloud state, when the observer reappeared and caused the probability cloud to collapse into a deterministic state, they had lost speed and were just drifting slowly along random paths.

The Lightning Ghosts began their killing spree, and Scarlett Johansson, who played a female terrorist in the eyes of the audience, died from the very technology she hated most—a macro-electron she had never even heard of.

Chen Guang and Lin Yun entered the control room to inspect the scene of the first real-world application of ball lightning, but stopped in front of a small pile of ashes. Unlike the other ashes, the small hand of this victim had escaped destruction.

It was white and tender, and the tiny dimples at the base of each finger were clearly visible, as if it had never been separated from a living body.

Lin Yun squatted down and gently picked up the small hand, holding it in both hands. Dr. Chen stood behind her, motionless, his thoughts in disarray.

The close-up shots were chilling, and viewers couldn't help but empathize with Dr. Chen.

Unsurprisingly, under immense mental pressure, he submitted his resignation upon returning to the base. Lin Yun remained silent, while Ding Yi maintained the rationality of a scientist.
“Old Chen, even without the ball flash weapon, they would still die, and in a much more painful way. There are tens of thousands of them who will die from radiation sickness and leukemia, and their offspring will be deformed…”

“Professor Ding!” Chen Guang interrupted him, then looked at Lin Yun, whom he had secretly admired for a long time, “It was agreed before that I would be responsible for building the model until the discovery of ball lightning, and then it would be your job.”

“I know no one is to blame for this, but looking at the ashes on the ground, you can still see how young and small they were in life.”

"Watching the entire floor of the nuclear reactor control room being painted with the weapons we invented, creating a giant abstract painting that depicts life and death..."

He didn't continue speaking and left under Lin Yun's silent gaze.

The scene shifts to Dr. Chen, who has been tirelessly pursuing the mysteries of ball lightning since he was fourteen. After experiencing countless failures and setbacks, he finally discovers its true nature with Ding Yi and Lin Yun. However, he decides to stay away from this specter for the time being.

From animal experiments to the Garden of Eden incident, everything pulled him back to the nightmare he experienced at the age of fourteen.

The war seemed to be dragged on by negotiations. From early spring to the beginning of winter, people gradually adapted to wartime life. Air raid sirens and food rations, like concerts and cafes in the past, became a common part of life.

The scene flashes to Dr. Chen's life after his sudden retirement. He returned to the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences where he originally worked. Because of his previous achievements in tornado research, he took charge of several projects with the strong support of Gao Bo and became the youngest meteorology doctoral supervisor in the institute.

Chen Guang sometimes debates with grassroots military netizens on forums, refuting the fallacies of those who hate the country seeking peace;

Occasionally, I would return to my old family home, stand in front of the door and contemplate the past, silently looking at the water tower emerging from my father's painting, pondering its connection to macroparticles.

As time passed, Woody Allen and the others checked their watches, knowing that this feature film, which was about the same length as Avatar, was about to enter its final 30-minute climax.

The mystery will soon be solved.

A line of subtitles fades out on the screen, indicating to the audience that the time has entered the first month of the lunar calendar, the day before the most important festival of the year for the people of China.

The camera focused on the stage in the academic lecture hall, where Chen Guang, dressed in a slightly worn but neat suit, bowed slightly to the audience.

He had just completed an academic report entitled "East Asian Winter Monsoon Anomalies and Triggering Mechanisms of Severe Convective Weather Systems," which was rigorous and solid. However, only he and a few insiders knew that behind those seemingly abstract meteorological models and data lay his research on ball lightning over the past ten years.

"That concludes our discussion on the unusual weather patterns this winter." His voice was calm, yet carried a steadiness born of experience.

Chen Guang paused, his gaze sweeping over the many scholars and students below the stage, as well as some special audience members with resolute faces and upright postures, and raised his voice:

"As the old year draws to a close, I wish everyone a happy new year!" These words brought a touch of festive warmth, but then his tone became incredibly firm, and he declared, word by word: "Dragon Kingdom! Victory is assured!"

Thunderous applause erupted from the audience, reflecting not only recognition of the academic content but also a strong sense of solidarity and determination to overcome difficulties together during this special period. Many young students were so excited that their faces turned red.

Dr. Chen, who seemed to have emerged from the nightmare of the ball flash, suddenly felt a burning sensation in his left chest as he was being seen off!
He reached into his shirt pocket and found that the phone was unusually hot. When he took it out, the device was emitting white smoke. After disassembling it, the internal chip turned into fine ash and scattered.

Chen Guang's heart skipped a beat. A wildly plausible guess, almost unbelievable to him, flooded his mind, and he, along with the sea of ​​moviegoers below the cinema, all realized—

Someone is using ball lightning, which can destroy chips, to launch a macro-electronic attack!
Before he could react, the entire place went dark and descended into chaos.

The close-up shot focuses on the chip in Chen Guang's hand, now reduced to ashes, while slow motion shows white smoke rising slowly. He keenly senses something amiss:

If one were directly struck by ball lightning, there should be an explosion and signs of energy decay, but at this moment, the surroundings are completely silent, yet the area of ​​destruction is enormous.

Gao Bo stepped forward to maintain order and led the team on an inspection. They discovered that neighboring research institutes and laboratories had suffered similar levels of damage. The camera then switched to footage of several investigators moving through the quiet streets, bringing back even more shocking news:
All electronic chips within a radius of three to five kilometers were destroyed simultaneously, with the proportion precisely maintained at one-third.

"If it's an enemy weapon, that would be deadly!" A student's desperate lament in the darkness was heartbreaking.

Chen Guang and his mentor Gao Bo exchanged a glance. They were the only ones in the entire meteorological research institute who knew about the existence of ball lightning and ball lightning weapons. Their first thought was that the enemy had stolen their technology and was using it against them!

Dr. Chen glanced towards the South China Sea, then drove north like a madman. He drove all the way to a small county town on the outskirts of the city. Although there was also a power outage there, the chip damage rate from ball lightning was not high, indicating that they were clearly outside the radiation range.

He found an internet cafe and contacted Ding Yi and Colonel Xu. Without hesitation, the latter immediately offered to send a military plane to pick him up.

However, during his conversation with Ding Yi, news that was far worse than Chen Guang had anticipated left the two of them in a long silence.

A wide-angle overhead shot begins with a close-up of Chen Guang's astonished expression and reddened eyes, then rapidly zooms out. Here, director Lu Kuan brings to life on screen the events that happened to Lin Yun during the year or so that Dr. Chen was gone, through Ding Yi's narration.

In other words, the narrative approach of introducing various clues and revealing the character's personality through the "pseudo-protagonist" Chen Guang has been overturned. From this point on, the spotlight will be completely focused on Lin Yun, played by Zhou Xun.

International directors like Woody Allen certainly know that this is a variant of emotionally guided flashback, transforming the audience's emotional peak into an entry point for retrospective narrative.

On the screen, Chen Guang's last expression faded, and the time stamp went back to six months ago.

The scene that reappeared on camera was a standoff at sea, with the enemy attack beginning with more than forty missiles.

But contrary to expectations, the missiles were all detonated outside the Everest's defense perimeter, scattering large amounts of white powder from the air and launching high-powered lasers in the area, which looked like they were detecting submarines.

Although the movie was quite long, there were still some attentive moviegoers in the theater who recalled Chen Guang's lecture at the Oklahoma Meteorological Symposium a few years ago.

The scene flashes back to the white powder, which is exactly the same as the weather simulation animation that Chen Guang showed in his lectures.

That's a highly efficient refrigerant!
What are the enemy troops doing?
They used Chen Guang's "tornado prediction and forecasting" technology, which was developed to benefit mankind, to do the opposite, creating an extremely strong tornado in our naval waters in an attempt to destroy the Everest!

The core of a "wind egg" that can develop into a tornado is a mass of descending cold air. By heating it up and preventing it from descending, the potential natural disaster can be eliminated.

Conversely, releasing high-intensity refrigerants can artificially create such natural disasters. Chen Guang's research results have made the birth of this "super weather weapon" a reality.

Thus, the super tornado that appeared on screen, generated using top-notch special effects, with a diameter of 200 kilometers, surpassed the largest natural F5 tornado to reach the F7 level and began its merciless slaughter.

The Everest made an emergency turn, but it was too late to avoid it. After its main deck broke off, it tragically sank!
In the final moments of the footage, the captain decisively ordered a Class A seal on the two pressurized water reactors, minimizing the possibility of nuclear leakage, but also causing the Everest to completely lose power.

Thus, Jiang Xingchen, along with more than two thousand of our soldiers, died a heroic death!
The audience was mostly Westerners, and they didn't quite understand the scene yet. They were just curious about when this Chinese special effects company had reached such a level.

But Chinese people and future mainland audiences will surely feel indignant and heartbroken by this outcome, even though it's a fictional world.

In reality, we don't even own this sunken giant ship.

Aside from the soldiers, Lin Yun, and Lin Feng, the person most consumed by longing was Dr. Chen, whose image flashed back at that moment.

Even though his acting achievements were subject to domestic review before he was allowed to participate in overseas exchanges, this technology, which was originally intended to benefit the world, ultimately became an executioner.

The enemy forged his plow into a sword, which pierced the motherland's coastal defenses.

At this moment, he was able to understand Lin Yun's feelings even more.

The scene then cuts to Lin Yun, looking haggard with bloodshot eyes, mobilizing and saying goodbye to the Ball Lightning Force at a naval base.

That's right, they were to be sent on a mission with a high risk of death: to use ball flash weapons to destroy the electronic equipment chips on the enemy's aircraft carrier, providing an opportunity for our shore-based anti-ship missiles to strike.

That is, to attack the enemy's aircraft carrier and destroy its chips.

However, given the current limitations of ball flash weapons, such as the inability to conduct beyond-visual-range strikes, the inability to launch underwater, and the lack of airborne versions, the only option for the soldiers is to approach stealthily by fishing boat.

This means that if the operation goes wrong even slightly, they will have no chance of escaping.

With the Exocet missiles intended for attacking aircraft carriers delivered and deployed, fifty fishing boats were moored in the harbor in the morning mist. As the enemy's USS Stennis battle group penetrated into the ambush range, Lieutenant Colonel Komming issued the firing order!
In the movie, those lovable soldiers who were joking and encouraging each other before the battle, and remained calm and composed during counter-reconnaissance, decisively activated their ball flash weapons.

The intense flashes of blue lightning illuminated the surrounding sea, and strings of red-glowing lightning balls flew close to the surface, their trailing fluorescent lights forming fan-shaped patterns centered on the fishing boats, expanding as the ball lightning strings moved.

From the perspective of the entire battlefield, the strings of spherical lightning balls and the even greater number of fluorescent lines formed a giant net that ensnared the fleet.

A glorious moment in the history of warfare seems to have arrived.

Despite knowing that the first attempt might not be successful, given the film's length and Lin Yun's character and plot, moviegoers who judged that they were still in the "darkest hour before dawn" were still full of anticipation for these fearless warriors!
Unfortunately, ball lightning, which overturned the basic physical framework, ended in failure in its first appearance in the history of modern warfare.

Just as the first batch of ball lightning was about to hit its target, their trajectories suddenly took a bizarre turn. The burning orbs of light either shot into the sky and disappeared into the clouds, or plunged into the turbulent sea, or grazed the bow and stern of the fleet, never managing to touch the ship's hull in the slightest.

It was as if each warship was shrouded in an invisible barrier, firmly keeping all the ball lightning out.

"Magnetic field shielding!"

The chilling word flashed through Kang Ming's mind. It was something that had appeared countless times in the nightmares of ball lightning weapon developers, and now it had finally become a reality.

Without hesitation, the lieutenant colonel roared, "Cease fire! Destroy your weapons immediately!"

Without a moment's hesitation, firing from all the fishing boats abruptly ceased.

The ball lightning, having lost its target, drifted above the fleet like headless flies, their trailing tails of light weaving into a vast net of light in the night sky, the once orderly whistling sound turning into a chaotic buzzing.

The chaotic sounds seemed to be playing a mournful elegy for this short-lived attack.

How the enemy learned of the existence of the ball flash weapon and took targeted defenses is not hard to guess; the film has already provided enough hints and foreshadowing in the aforementioned plot.

The existence of the observers that Ding Yi mentioned at the firing range that day, and the Eden counter-terrorism battle that shocked the world a year ago, even if well concealed, still provided the enemy with sporadic information gathering channels.

The Everest spacecraft was cut in half, Jiang Xingchen died for his country, the ambush failed, and facing the enemy's overwhelming force, China seemed about to sink, which made Lin Yun even more desperate and vulnerable.

She seemed to have returned to the day when she was five years old, witnessing the horrific scene of her mother's disfigured corpse.

After the failed naval ambush, the Ball Lightning Force suffered a severe blow, and research and combat participation were temporarily suspended. The nation could not place its hopes for retaliation solely on such conceptual weapons.

At this very moment, Zhang Bin, who had been suffering from a terminal illness, also passed away.

At his request, Ding Yi decided to replace Chen Guang, who had faded out of the research team and was no longer suitable to handle military secrets, and to fulfill his promise to him by cremating his body with ball lightning so that he could be buried with his wife Zheng Min.

For some reason, the sky was clear and blue on the day of the cremation. Lin Yun and Ding Yi, who were extremely haggard and pessimistic, came together to see this sphere flash researcher off on his final journey.

Without his lightning protection coating, there might not be the current research results on ball flash.

The camera cuts to a cemetery near Badaling, where the two walk silently, the golden leaves beneath their feet a sign of autumn's arrival.

A season of departure, a season of death, and also a season for writing poetry.

The two stood quietly before Zhang Bin's simple tombstone, the cool sunlight filtering through the sparse branches, casting dappled shadows on the mountain path.

The winding outline of the city wall in the distance is faintly visible in the thin mist. A few sycamore leaves twirl and fall onto the blue stone tombstone, as if bidding farewell to the season. Occasionally, a lonely bird's cry can be heard, adding to the desolation.

In this quiet autumn light, even the wind seems to have slowed its pace.

Two roads diverged in the golden woods.
Unfortunately, we cannot get involved in both at the same time.
But we made that choice.
The one that is rarely visited by people
This decided it from then on.
Our lives.

Lin Yun murmured Frost's poem, her voice like a clear spring in the woods.

"Have you considered taking another path?" Ding Yi asked.

"Have it?"

“After the war, leave the army and join me in studying macroparticles. I have theoretical abilities, and you are an engineering and applied genius. We are very likely to achieve a major breakthrough in modern physics.”

"I can't live without the army." Lin Yun smiled calmly, squatted down and brushed away the withered leaves in front of Zhang Bin's grave. "From birth to death."

"Huh? What's this?" the female officer suddenly exclaimed!

Ding Yi leaned closer to look and saw that the tombstone, which originally only had Zhang Bin's name and dates of birth and death, was now densely covered with small characters.

These tiny characters even covered the top and back of the tombstone; they were all equations and calculations. It was as if the tombstone had been immersed in a liquid composed of equations and formulas.

"They're disappearing!" Lin Yun exclaimed.

“With one less observer, its collapse will be slower.” Ding Yi decisively pushed her away, lay face down on the tombstone, and stared intently at the words “Floating Light Leaps Gold” without moving.

"I'll go get paper and pen."

"It's too late, don't bother me." Sextant was completely focused. These equations might not be very understandable to Chen Guang, Lin Yun, and others, but for him, a physics genius who had devoted himself to the study of macroparticles for more than two years, they were like a life-saving rain!
The more he looked, the more alarmed he became, because he and Lin Yun had borrowed Zhang Bin and Zheng Min's manuscripts and notes from Chen Guang, and they both recognized that it was the latter's handwriting. The words described and deduced the mathematical model of macro atoms!
The last sentence reads: "Bin, the speed of f is only 426.831 meters per second. I'm so scared."

The last rays of sunlight in the west painted the tombstones with an eerie blue hue, and soon it was completely dark.

Whether or not he had read the entire inscription, Ding Yi, with a blank expression, leaned back with a sigh of relief and collapsed onto the lawn.

"Lin Yun, we've found the atomic nucleus."

The female officer was overjoyed: "What! Really?"

What is the significance of Ding Yi's discovery of the atomic nucleus of macroatoms when the strategic situation was extremely passive?
The macro-atomic model, much like the first periodic table, provides a fundamental framework for understanding the composition and laws governing the entire macroscopic world of matter.

From the perspective of using ball lightning and its essential macroelectrons as weapons, if the former can only serve as a "tactical" weapon to destroy ships and electronic equipment, then the discovery of macroatoms and atomic nuclei could provide a world-destroying weapon known to every modern person.

Nuclear fusion.

Moreover, it is nuclear fusion of macroatomic nuclei.

Seeing that he had been lying on the lawn thinking for a while before getting up, Lin Yun tentatively asked, "Any results yet?"

"Yes, I had deduced some of the content on the inscription before, and she directly gave me the key points, otherwise I really wouldn't have had time to read it."

Ding Yi exclaimed, "The beauty of nature, the beauty of physics—do you know that the nucleus of a macroatom is a string?"

"string?"

"Yes, it is basically on the same scale as macro-electrons, with a length of about one to two meters, depending on the type of atom. As for its thickness, the string is infinitely thin, and every point on it is a singularity without size."

Lin Yun asked with some surprise, "Don't you need to conduct experiments to be absolutely certain that the handwriting on the inscription... seems to be Zheng Min's, and that's definitely correct?"

Ding Yi looked at her solemnly: "There are some things that I have only just come to understand, but now I can be sure that Zheng Min has become a quantum state."

"You can think about it: if there were no friction in the world, Newton's third law might have been discovered by an ordinary person a long time ago."

"Similarly, for someone who has been studying ball lightning since the 60s, Zheng Min, who has now become a quantum state, would naturally find it much easier to understand that world."

……

The emergence of macro-atomic nuclei has brought renewed attention to the project, and the base has been relocated to the Northwest, the place where another national treasure was once born, due to the previous leak of the ball flash weapon.

The first to migrate were the twenty-five macroatomic nuclei captured in the first batch. No matter how beautiful these string-like things looked, they could not be kept around the capital forever.

Meanwhile, a top-level meeting was held in the auditorium. As one of the few science and engineering-minded generals in our army, Lin Feng took a day out of the intense war to preside over the meeting, which shows the importance attached to it by the higher authorities.

At the meeting, Ding Yi gave a key report on the macro-fusion equivalent of macro-atomic nuclei and their role.

In short, strings, like macroelectrons before them, have different spectra, or fingerprints, which can produce quantum-based attacks on different targets.

He also gave an example that he thought was funny, but no one could laugh at:
If 20 million tons of energy were released without selectivity, it would simply turn an area within a 50-kilometer radius into scorched earth.

But if this energy only affects hair, it would be enough to burn everyone in the world bald.

In other words, if enough macro-atomic nuclei targeting chips are successfully captured and fused, with effective deployment, all chips in an enemy country's territory can be reduced to ashes.

Because chips, like hair, are small in size, few in number, and consume little energy.

With the full support of the nation, the guide rails used to guide macro-fusion were fully deployed in less than two weeks. Each rail is more than ten meters long, like two small railway bridges. The two strings will be accelerated to 250 meters per second by electromagnetic fields in the two bridges, and then collide at a point to cause macro-nuclear fusion.

But the current precarious situation is that capturing such macroatomic nuclei takes time, while enemy forces are encroaching on the border, and time is of the essence.

With the situation at a standstill, Lin Yun called her father. It seemed that the father and daughter had their first big argument in their lives, though the camera did not show the reason for the argument.

But Ding Yi, a highly intelligent genius physicist who was watching Lin Yun from a short distance away, understood somewhat.

That night, Lin Yun and several engineers were still making final adjustments to the "bridge".

To avoid aerial reconnaissance, the two "bridges" were placed inside a tent the size of a stadium. During the experiment, this tent would be destroyed first by the energy of the fusion.

Ding Yi called Lin Yun out, and the two walked slowly in the cold wind of the Gobi Desert.

He suddenly broke the silence: "Lin Yun, leave the base."

"what are you saying?"

“Go on, don’t do anything foolish. I may not be a soldier, but I know you won’t succeed, no matter what you try to do.” Ding Yi’s expression was more serious than ever before. “Your father will definitely stop you.”

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lin Yun walked away without turning his head.

The two seemed to be exchanging cryptic messages, engaging in a conversation that appeared to belong only to highly intelligent people, and the answer to the riddle was revealed not long afterward.

The very next day, a special leadership team arrived and took full control of the base's operations.

Upon hearing this news, people were extremely excited. This was the clearest signal that the macro-fusion experiment was about to take place, but for Lin Yun...

Her worst-case scenario has occurred.

To prevent her from making any more impulsive moves, Lin Feng instructed Du Yulun, the head of the special leadership group, to announce Lin Yun's dismissal immediately!

Clearly, Chen Guang could think of it, Ding Yi could think of it, and Lin Feng was even more certain that—

After witnessing Zheng Min transform into a quantum state and reveal the true secrets of the macroatomic nucleus to them, it's hard to imagine what crazy things Lin Yun, a weapons expert with no "scientific ethics" bottom line, would do in the face of the increasingly tense situation.

Du Yulun, who came with a mission, said with a serious expression: "Lin Yun, the matter of your illegal transfer of liquid mine technology to both Zhibo and other parties has been investigated and confirmed."

"The military believes you are no longer suitable to serve as the deputy leader of the macro-atomic nuclear fusion team. You are to be dismissed immediately and return to Beijing for investigation. Immediately!"

"This is also General Lin Feng's intention." Seeing that Lin Yun remained silent, he emphasized this point in front of everyone, "Lin Yun, remember your identity and obey orders."

After two unsuccessful attempts, the female officer could only say in a low voice with tears in her eyes, "I'll go to the fusion point and retrieve some things."

"You follow her," Du Yulun instructed a lieutenant colonel with a gun.

When Lin Yun turned around, his eyes were fixed on Ding Yi. In the close-up shot, Zhou Xun's gaze seemed to speak volumes.

She wanted Ding Yi to shut up, because only the latter might be able to guess her "ambition" and plans.

As Ding Yi watched the girl's lonely figure disappear into the distance, he felt an impulse beyond the rational thinking of a physicist for the first time, and he forcibly suppressed his words and expressions.

He suddenly remembered a short poem that Lin Yun had recited at Zhang Bin's grave.

Two roads diverged in the golden woods.
Unfortunately, we cannot get involved in both at the same time.
But we made that choice.
The one that is rarely visited by people
This decided it from then on.
Our lives.

……

Which path will she take? The audience in the cinema seemed to have already anticipated it.

Just as Du Yulun was organizing a meeting of the base's core officers to announce the takeover, a sudden gunshot outside the window shattered the tranquility of the Gobi Desert.

The fusion point is thousands of meters away from here, and the sound is very weak by the time it reaches here. Du Yulun's expression changed, and he pushed aside the soldiers and rushed out. A very ominous premonition arose spontaneously!

The lieutenant colonel he had instructed to supervise and accompany Lin Yun rushed over like a madman, clutching his bleeding shoulder: "Lin Yun is going to forcibly start the macro fusion experiment. She has mobilized all the officers in the large tent and forcibly kicked me out!"

Du Yulun led his soldiers to capture the fusion point, but they were quickly forced back by ball lightning fired by Lin Yun and other officers, and the flames burned away the barren weeds around the base.

Having no other option, he dialed Lin Feng's number.

The latter gave only one instruction, an instruction that sent chills down the spines of everyone present:

"Contact the nearest Red 331 tactical missile site and destroy the fusion point immediately. Everyone evacuate now."

Without the struggles and fights typical of movies or TV dramas, the most authentic soldier's duty to obey orders is revealed. Du Yulun seemed to hesitate for only a second before quickly contacting the missile site.

Why did Lin Feng take such drastic measures? Because he knew the uncontrollability of this kind of macro-fusion. From the perspective of a senior commander, it is naive and shallow to think that a war can be won by relying on a new weapon.

Neither he nor Lin Yun himself could predict the consequences of such a risk.

The position was only 150 kilometers away. After receiving authorization from higher authorities, the missile was launched based on the coordinates and four precision parameters. It would arrive in 3 minutes. Du Yulun ordered everyone to retreat and wait for orders.

But before Lin Feng could hang up, Lin Yun's voice, along with a breathtakingly detailed fusion scene, emanated from the large tent.
Macro-fusion is silent.

A blue sphere of light made the giant puff almost transparent, and then it began to shrink toward the fusion center until it was sucked into a sphere of light.

Ding Yi looked at this first macro-fusion experiment in human history with a complicated expression, and the subject of the study was his friend Lin Yun.

The sphere of light continued to expand, and soon appeared on the Gobi Desert as a blue sun. Within its two-hundred-meter radius, the enormous energy nearly destroyed everything!
"Sir, shall we retreat a little further? The missile will arrive in three minutes."

Du Yulun glanced at Ding Yi and waved his hand weakly, "No need."

"What's going on?" Lin Feng's solemn voice came through.

Before Du Yulun could even form a word, Lin Yun's voice, accompanied by the ongoing macro fusion process, came through the loudspeaker of the large tent.

"Dad, you're too late."

In a close-up shot, a climactic scene of Lin Yun's quantum transformation, previously filmed on the USS Kitty Hawk, is displayed in exquisite detail on the screen. The unique quantum effect produced by this process instantly transcends space, and its probability cloud envelops the entire carrier battle group.

Under the intense blue light, Zhou Xun's character Lin Yun is not offering her head back in sacrifice, but rather her chin is precisely "pulled" by an invisible force, presenting a mechanical sense of being subjected to force.

The smile on her face stripped away all emotion, leaving only the physiological spasms of her facial muscles caused by the impact of the energy flow, mixed with the cognitive pleasure bursting forth when brain cells were overloaded to understand extreme physical phenomena. Her body leaned back without grace, more like a rigid collapse after the supporting structure failed instantly.

The raised hand showed no lingering attachment, more like the last unconscious impulse before a neural circuit completely collapses.

All the international directors watched as Zhou Xun on the screen completely abandoned "acting" and became an object "used by the rules," perfectly interpreting the cold process of how people are reconstructed by the laws of physics.

Woody Allen unconsciously took off his black-rimmed glasses, leaned forward slightly, and ran his fingers absently along the temples of the frames. His signature muttering was barely audible in the quiet screening room, "God... she made quantum mechanics visible..."

Tim Burton's index finger lingered on his lower lip for a long time, his eyes shining beneath his gothic dark circles.

When Lin Yun's jaw was pulled by an invisible force on the screen, he opened his mouth slightly, as if witnessing a mechanical ballet from another world. "This is simply...like a human marionette being reassembled by the laws of physics."

As if to complement Lin Yun's last "last words" in this world, the incoming missiles had their internal chips destroyed instantly when they approached the position coordinates. They first spun and fell, and then exploded in mid-air with a tremendous bang.

Meanwhile, before he could say a final goodbye to his daughter, Lin Feng could only hear a series of beeps.

The general, who had a science and engineering background and had just organized a demonstration of macro-fusion, slumped into his chair in his office, knowing it was all too late.

He may have won a battle, but he lost a daughter.

While Lin Yun effectively struck the enemy's carrier battle group, the indiscriminate nature of macro-fusion also resulted in the "formatting" of nearly one-third of the country's territory.

The macro-fusion that Lin Yun forcibly triggered with his own life was not essentially the release of thermonuclear energy in the traditional sense, but rather the triggering of a chain reaction in the macro world.

The scene then cuts back to Ding Yi and Chen Guang's narration, through which Ding Yi provides a logically closed-loop science fiction explanation for all the strange and perplexing aspects of the film.

"Do you know why she's been able to exist for so long without collapsing?" The former took a sip of his drink: "Self-observation."

Chen Guang asked in surprise, "Self-observation?"

Ding Yi nodded and said with emotion, "Lin Yun used himself as an experiment, which made me understand this point."

“A conscious individual in a quantum state has a crucial difference from an ordinary unconscious quantum: in the wave function describing the former, we ignore a vital parameter, specifically, we ignore an observer, namely itself.”

A physics genius dropped a bombshell conclusion: "The observer includes oneself! Lin Yun is observing himself! This can negate the influence of other observers, preventing him from collapsing immediately and allowing him to launch a targeted attack on the enemy fleet!"

Normal macro fusion can instantly destroy all chips in a specific area, which is undoubtedly a huge tactical victory, but it is also equivalent to announcing to the world that the country possesses such an ultimate weapon.

The enemy will immediately recognize the threat and devote all its resources to developing countermeasures and retaliation, which may even trigger a full-scale nuclear war.

This is a "one-off" deterrent; once it's used, the world will descend into a more dangerous, fear-based arms race.

But what does Lin Yun, who knows the principle of macroatomic nuclei, want to do after learning the equation engraved on Zheng Min's tombstone?
Her goal is far more than just destroying a fleet; she aims to create a perpetual, indefensible, and non-lethal ultimate strategic deterrent!

This is what Ding Yi referred to as self-observation.

From then on, Lin Yun transformed into a quantum probability wave that could exist anywhere and could never be observed by the enemy, because she could cancel it out by self-observation.

She is a quantum state, without physical form or national boundaries. The enemy does not know where she is or when she will launch an attack. You cannot use a missile to attack a probability wave.

If the enemy invades, although she cannot directly kill or distinguish friend from foe, she can use the "mutual destruction" strategy to deter and "format" the Earth, this giant hard drive.

Lin Yun finally transformed himself into a weapon, a weapon he had been obsessed with since childhood.

Chen Guang left Ding Yi's place.

He strolled alone in the light rain, watching the jubilant people flood the streets to celebrate the victory in the war.

For him, the overturned water glasses in the old house, the white hair on the washbasin, the extra water tower in his father's paintings, and Zheng Min's corrections in Zhang Bin's notes...

Everything has been explained.

The most important festival for the people of China was not disappointed after all. On the night of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Guang drove back to his old house overnight.

He pushed open the door and no longer felt the same fear as before.

Dr. Chen, who has been away from home for nearly twenty years, carefully cleaned every corner, straightened the overturned cups, and re-hung his father's faded paintings.

On the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year, he went to the market to buy firecrackers, but hesitated when he picked up the lighter.

Firecrackers were used in ancient times to drive away ghosts and beasts, but he now knows that some "beings" do not need to be driven away; this is the romance of the Chinese people.

So he bought a bouquet of white roses, and when he got home, he carefully put the flowers in a vase and placed them in the center of the dining table.

In a close-up shot, just as he adjusted the angle of the flower stems, he caught a glimpse of an exceptionally vibrant blue rose blooming in the bouquet, its familiar fragrance wafting towards him—

That was the first time he smelled that faint fragrance in the car when he and Lin Yun went to the Thunder Weapon Research Institute.

"Can you use perfume in your military camp?" he asked instinctively, recalling the question from years ago.

The fragrance suddenly dissipated, and the quantum rose vanished like a phantom.

Chen Guang smiled with relief.

Whether it's what the Chinese call ghosts or quantum states in the sense of macroparticles, his beloved relatives and friends who died from ball lightning will forever exist in the most poetic way, between observation and being observed.

As the screen dims, a blue quantum rose appears and disappears intermittently.

(End of this chapter)