With three superpowers at his fingertips, he could dominate the 1970s.

The next morning, as soon as Jiang Zhiyu stepped into the experimental zone building, she sensed something was different.

The researchers passing by in the corridor would pause for a moment longer whenever they met her. It wasn't out of curiosity or scrutiny, but out of respect. Some even stopped what they were doing and nodded slightly to her.

The news spread really fast.

In three days, she cleared residual radiation from the bodies of seventeen researchers and professors. In this closed laboratory system, such things couldn't be hidden, and no one wanted to.

Qian Weiguo walked ahead, his steps brisk and powerful. He turned back and smiled at her, "Come on, today I'll show you everything we've accomplished since we moved here."

A handwritten wooden sign hangs at the entrance of the first laboratory: High-Temperature Alloy Materials Group.

The room was steaming hot, and a small high-temperature furnace was rumbling along, its light casting a reddish glow throughout. An elderly researcher with gray hair, wearing goggles, was carefully removing a thumb-sized metal sample from the furnace with pliers.

"This is what we've worked on these past few days, day and night, using the ore you brought back," Qian Weiguo said in a low voice, his tone barely concealing his pride. "A new type of nickel-based high-temperature alloy, its temperature resistance has been increased from 1100 degrees Celsius to 1300 degrees Celsius. Do you know what that means?"

Jiang Zhiyu looked at the elderly researcher. The old man took off his goggles, smiled at her, and the burn scars on his face were stretched and distorted with the smile.

"This little thing has pierced a corner of the bottleneck in the aero-engine blades." The old researcher's voice was calm, but his hands trembled slightly. "The temperatures we couldn't reach before, we can now."

Jiang Zhiyu nodded. "Amazing."

"What's so great about it?" Qian Weiguo waved his hand. "Without the ore you brought back, even if we had three more years, we still couldn't refine this stuff."

After leaving the high-temperature alloy group, Seventeen muttered something to herself:

"1300 degrees—that's not even a fraction of the exhaust plume of a starship engine."

"Shut up, it's 1976."

"I was just expressing my feelings."

The second laboratory was noticeably quieter. Along the wall, a row of glass flasks contained various metal specimens, the liquids ranging in color from light yellow to dark brown. Several young researchers were hunched over microscopes recording data.

"Anti-corrosion coating." Qian Weiguo pointed to a steel plate on the wall, its surface covered with a thin, grayish-green film. "It's for ships. With this coating, the salt resistance test results tripled."

He patted the steel plate. "The Navy guys almost robbed this lab after they came to see it last time."

Jiang Zhiyu bent down to look at the test pieces in the glass bottle. One of them had been soaked for the longest time, and bubbles had started to form on the edges, but the coating in the core area was still intact.

"Is this still being optimized?"

"We're optimizing it." A young researcher next to him looked up, adjusted his glasses, and said, "The main issue is that the adhesion isn't uniform enough; we're adjusting the formula ratio."

He glanced at Jiang Zhiyu, then suddenly stood up and said somewhat hesitantly, "Thank you."

Jiang Zhiyu was stunned for a moment.

"My mentor... is Professor Li, the one you helped clean up the radiation last time." The young man's voice was a little hoarse. "Yesterday, for the first time, he walked into the lab without anyone's help."

Jiang Zhiyu shook her head. "No need to thank me, it's my pleasure."

Qian Weiguo coughed and pulled her along as they continued walking.

The door to the third laboratory was closed, and a note was posted on the door: Ultra-pure silicon purification experimental group, no entry without permission.

Qian Weiguo knocked on the door, and a voice from inside said "Come in."

Pushing open the door, Jiang Zhiyu paused slightly.

The cleanliness of this laboratory was completely different from the previous one. The floor was spotless, and there was a faint acidic smell in the air. In the very center was an extremely complex-looking distillation apparatus, with crisscrossing glass tubes through which some kind of transparent liquid flowed.

A middle-aged man wearing thick-rimmed glasses was timing with a stopwatch. He looked up and saw Qian Weiguo and Jiang Zhiyu, paused for a moment, and then gave a shy smile.

"Mr. Qian."

"Let me introduce you, this is Comrade Jiang Zhiyu," Qian Weiguo said.

The middle-aged man's smile suddenly became warm. He reached out his hand but then withdrew it, as if he felt it was impolite to have chemical reagents on his hands. In the end, he just wiped it on his clothes.

"Comrade Jiang, it's an honor to meet you. I am Sun Mingyuan, head of the ultrapure silicon group."

Behind him, a crystal-clear drop of liquid was slowly falling into a collection bottle from the device.

"We're working on purifying high-purity polycrystalline silicon." Sun Mingyuan's tone suddenly changed, as if he were a different person, and his speech quickened. "Among the equipment you provided, there are several precision temperature controllers, with an accuracy two orders of magnitude higher than our original ones. Combined with the improved zone melting process, we obtained 99.9999% pure 6N-grade silicon for the first time last month."

His voice was trembling when he said that number.

"Six nines," Qian Weiguo translated for Jiang Zhiyu, "for semiconductors."

Jiang Zhiyu looked at Seventeen.

Seventeen paused for two seconds before speaking.

"Six nines... that's the limit for this era. Going any further, they can't manufacture the necessary lithography equipment. But for basic components, it's enough."

"That's enough," Jiang Zhiyu thought to herself.

Sun Mingyuan continued talking, getting more and more excited as he went on, from the purification process to the subsequent epitaxial growth plan. Suddenly, he stopped, as if he had just realized that he had used too many technical terms.

"Sorry... this might be too technical."

"No," Jiang Zhiyu said, "I understand. What you're doing is very important."

Sun Mingyuan paused for a moment, then smiled.

After leaving the ultrapure silicon laboratory, Qian Weiguo did not rush to the next room, but paused in the corridor.

At the end of the corridor, a young researcher was pushing a wheelchair out. The elderly man in the wheelchair was thin with high cheekbones, but he was in good spirits. He had a well-worn notebook open on his lap and was writing and drawing in it.

It's Old Zhou.

When he passed by Jiang Zhiyu, he stopped writing, looked up and looked at her.

He didn't speak, but simply nodded, then pointed to his notebook.

Jiang Zhiyu nodded and continued walking forward with Qian Weiguo without stopping.

After taking a few steps, Qian Weiguo suddenly spoke, his voice much lower than before.

"Look at these people."

He didn't turn around, but Jiang Zhiyu knew he wasn't talking about her.

"Old Zhou, last year the doctor said he wouldn't live more than a few years. But look at him now, he can still write and paint."

"Sun Mingyuan inhaled too much exhaust fumes while conducting experiments two years ago, and he still has shadows on his lungs."

"And Old Zheng, Old Liu..."

He paused.

"These people aren't fearless. They're afraid to die because they haven't finished what they're doing."

Footsteps echoed through the empty concrete walls of the corridor.

"Girl," Qian Weiguo's voice regained some strength, "this country really needs to stand up."