Building a Sci-Fi Empire: Starting with Cold Nuclear Fusion

"I remember you majored in applied physics, right?"

"You have a pretty good memory. I only told you once and you remembered it already?"

"Of course, I have a very good memory. I remember you said that your dream was to become a great inventor and engineer like Tesla."

"Hehe, I really envy you. My memory isn't as good as yours; I'm always forgetting things."

Chen Yuan lay in bed, chatting casually with a female netizen on Douyin who had been with him for 132 days, while glancing at the star-studded night sky outside the window.

He met this female netizen named "Ayu" in the comments section of a video.

At first, the two were just trying to rekindle their romance, but somehow they ended up chatting.

The two went from awkward small talk at the beginning to now routinely reporting on and sharing their lives.

Unfortunately, apart from listening to the voice messages sent by the other party, Chen Yuan had never seen a photo and did not know what the other party looked like.

Chen Yuan's dream is indeed to become a great inventor and engineer like Tesla.

However, he was self-aware that his talent was average, and becoming a "Tesla" was almost an unattainable dream, something impossible.

At this moment, Ayu sent another message, "You're going to interview for a product development engineer position at 'Galaxy' company tomorrow. Are you confident?"

Chen Yuan said helplessly, "Xinghe Company is a leading new energy development company in the Yangtze River Delta region. They usually recruit product R&D engineers with at least a master's degree. I am just a bachelor's graduate who hasn't even obtained an assistant engineer qualification. To be honest, I really don't have confidence. And it's strange that Xinghe Company's product R&D department requires at least an assistant engineer qualification, which I don't have, but they still sent me an interview invitation. I even have some doubts about whether they made a mistake."

Ah Yu encouraged him, "Have some confidence in yourself. Since they sent you an interview invitation, it means they value your abilities. Keep going, I believe you can do it."

Chen Yuan was initially a little apprehensive.

Seeing the other person's encouragement made him feel inexplicably more at ease.

He typed a message and said, "Okay, thank you for your kind words. I will definitely try my best to get the job."

At this point, Chen Yuan tried sending a message in a half-joking tone: "I've known you for 132 days and I've never seen your picture before. Could you send me one? An artistic photo would be fine too."

Ah Yu on the other end suddenly fell silent, and no more messages came back.

Chen Yuan appeared quite helpless.

This wasn't the first time I'd asked the other person to send photos, but each time I'd only get a change of topic.

This is probably the first time Ah Yu has not replied to messages like this.

He didn't know if the other person was angry, and since they didn't reply to his message, he simply stopped talking.

Chen Yuan put his phone aside and closed his eyes to think about tomorrow's interview.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he suddenly felt a "sparkling" sensation in front of his eyes, as if someone was shining a flashlight on his closed eyelids. He didn't know if it was just his imagination.

Ok?

What happened?

Chen Yuan was startled and involuntarily opened his eyes, but there was nothing in front of him.

He thought he was just imagining things because of the stress of the job interview he was going to the next day.

He decided not to think about it anymore and closed his eyes again.

Sure enough, this time he didn't experience the same situation as before.

Perhaps I was a little tired after going to several company interviews during the day.

He closed his eyes and soon drifted off to sleep.

One hour...

Three hours...

After an unknown amount of time, Chen Yuan suddenly "woke up" from his sleep.

It wasn't a physical awakening; it was more like having a strange dream, only with an exceptionally clear mind.

In his dream, Chen Yuan arrived in a strange world.

This place is filled with a vast expanse of particles, each with a different shape and color.

These particles have very strange shapes.

Perhaps because he was in a dream, he could clearly perceive that when he did not observe a certain particle, it could exist in multiple locations or present different states, but once he observed it, the particle would "collapse" in an instant.

This is somewhat similar to the "superposition and uncertainty" in quantum mechanics.

The amazing thing is that when Chen Yuan observes a certain particle and causes it to collapse, a certain particle on the other side will also be affected and collapse almost simultaneously, as if the two have a "telepathic" connection.

This phenomenon is somewhat similar to quantum entanglement.

Chen Yuan was puzzled and didn't understand where he was.

He tried hard to recall if he had been to a similar place during the day, which was why he was having this dream.

As Chen Yuan began to recall, everything before him suddenly changed.

The vast, boundless particles seemed to be drawn by some force, moving and combining in an instant, stretching into a series of images.

The next moment, a "movie" began to play in front of Chen Yuan.

A "movie" of everything he experienced from waking up this morning until he just closed his eyes to sleep.

The picture is very clear, and the content is very detailed.

He understood everything down to the smallest detail, including the countless sounds he had gleaned from the crowd during the day and the sounds he had heard in the noisy throng.

For example, at 9:32 a.m., Chen Yuan was on a crowded subway. He was far away from a couple and could only vaguely hear some disjointed conversations that he hadn't paid attention to. But at that moment, he learned the entire content of the couple's conversation. They were talking about how tomorrow was their one-year anniversary and where they were going to celebrate.

It was as if Chen Yuan, in this state, possessed the ability to remember everything he saw.

Chen Yuan didn't understand what was going on; his head was full of questions.

When he began to have doubts, everything before his eyes collapsed.

All the scenes returned to their original, desolate, particle-like form.

Moreover, those particles seemed to be affected by Chen Yuan's doubts and began to move violently once again, as if they were about to form some new scene.

Unfortunately, this time Chen Yuan felt mentally exhausted, and the process of particle recombination suddenly stopped. His "consciousness" was also suddenly engulfed by the boundless darkness.

……

The next day, at dawn.

The ringing of the cell phone alarm woke Chen Yuan from his sleep.

He groggily opened his eyes, picked up his phone, and turned off the alarm.

"Phew, I slept so well last night."

Chen Yuan couldn't help but yawn.

He planned to scroll through a few Douyin videos before getting out of bed.

Suddenly, the images from his dream last night flashed through his mind.

To Chen Yuan's surprise, he remembered the contents of his dream very clearly.

This includes vividly recalling all the events of the previous day in my dreams.

"That's strange, when did my memory become so good?"

Chen Yuan was extremely puzzled.

It's not unusual to remember the content of a dream.

It's a bit unbelievable that you can remember everything that happened in your dream yesterday.

Just as he was racking his brains, he suddenly noticed several unread private messages on Douyin.

When Chen Yuan looked at the message interface, he found that it was a message sent by A Yu.

There were five messages in total, the last one was just sent: "Good morning, I'm up. Remember to do your best today too!"

This is what you can see on the interface.

Chen Yuan clicked on it and saw three more messages and a photo.

"This was taken on the spot, so please don't laugh at it."

"I was looking for the right angle to take a picture, were you asleep?"

"Okay, I'm going to sleep now. Remember to look for me when you wake up. Sweet dreams, goodnight."

These are three more unread messages.

Chen Yuan glanced at it and felt a strange sweetness in his heart.

He never expected that, 132 days after they met, Ayu would actually send him a photo.

Most importantly, it was filmed on the spot.

He looked at the photo carefully and saw a young woman in pink pajamas. She looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with shoulder-length medium-length hair, a delicate face, and big eyes that made his heart flutter for no reason.

Very beautiful.

Ah Yu is very beautiful.

Chen Yuan glanced at it a couple more times before confidently replying, "Good morning, Ayu, thank you for your encouragement last night. I'm sure I'll pass the interview today!"

Ah Yu replied very quickly, almost instantly, "I have a lot of confidence in you too, keep it up, keep it up."

Upon seeing this encouraging message, Chen Yuan couldn't help but feel some pressure.

He could see sincerity in Ah Yu's message.

The other party genuinely hoped that I could pass the interview.

Chen Yuan wondered if A Yu would feel sad for him if he failed the interview.

To be honest, this is something he doesn't want to see.

Chen Yuan had made up his mind: he must perform well today and try his best to get the job he wanted!