Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

The meeting room was filled with smoke. He Yuzhu stood in front of the blackboard, a piece of chalk in his hand, and wrote down that number.

five.

A few seconds of silence followed. Qian, the chief engineer of CNNC, took off his reading glasses, wiped the lenses, and put them back on. He didn't look at He Yuzhu, but stared at the number as if it were an unsolvable problem.

"Director He, do you know what the highest figure is internationally?" he said, his voice not loud, but every word heavy. "0.8. We've been working on this our whole lives and haven't even touched one. And you're spouting off five? This isn't scientific research, this is just shouting slogans."

People nearby began to whisper among themselves. Sun, the chief engineer of Shanghai Electric, lowered his head, wrote a few words in his notebook, then crossed them out. Li, the chief engineer of Harbin Electric, leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, his brows furrowed deeply.

He Yuzhu put down the chalk, turned around, and looked at Chief Engineer Qian.

"Chief Engineer Qian, how many years have you been working on fusion?"

Chief Engineer Qian paused for a moment. "Twenty-three years."

"How many times did you fail?"

Chief Engineer Qian fell silent. He lowered his eyes and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

Before he could answer, He Yuzhu picked up the stack of blueprints from the table and untied the rope. The blueprints were curled at the edges, and he unfolded them one by one, pressing the four corners together with magnets.

"This is our solution. Instead of the traditional circumferential and poloidal magnetic field, we've opted for three-dimensional optimization. This improves plasma stability by an order of magnitude. We're not using beryllium for the first wall; we're using a carbon nanotube composite material. We're using a liquid lithium-lead alloy for tritium breeding, tripling the efficiency."

He pushed the blueprints over.

Chief Engineer Qian lowered his head and turned the pages one by one. When he reached the page on plasma control, his fingers paused. He looked up and took off his reading glasses.

"Director He, where did you get these things from?"

He Yuzhu didn't answer. He walked back to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and drew a horizontal line under the number "5".

"Just tell me, is it possible or not?"

The conference room fell silent again. Chief Engineer Sun looked up at Chief Engineer Qian. Chief Engineer Li lowered his arm and leaned forward. Chief Engineer Qian stared at the blueprint for a long time. He put on his reading glasses, then took them off again.

"It's possible. But it requires manpower, equipment, money, and time."

He Yuzhu said, "We have the manpower. We'll allocate resources from various departments. The equipment will be purchased from abroad. I'll figure out the funding. The timeframe is three years. I want to see the device ignite in three years."

Chief Engineer Li chimed in, "Director He, stop just drawing! What about the materials for the first wall? What are we using to carry the neutrons?"

He Yuzhu didn't answer. He walked to the door and opened it.

A man stood in the corridor. Qian Zhiyuan, carrying a tin box, sweat beaded on his forehead, and a black stain on the cuff of his white coat. He walked in, placed the box on the table, and opened it.

Inside lay a thin black board, barely thicker than paper.

Qian Zhiyuan picked it up and handed it to Chief Engineer Li. "Please give it a try."

Chief Engineer Li took the board and examined it several times, turning it over and over. He tried to bend it with his hands, but couldn't. He took out his key from his pocket and scratched it hard with the pointed end. Not a single mark was left on the surface of the board. He ran his fingers along the edge of the board and looked up.

"Director Qian, how strong is this?"

Qian Zhiyuan said, "A hundred times stronger than steel. One-tenth the weight. Doesn't deform at 3,000 degrees Celsius. Neutron irradiation? I irradiated a reactor with it for three months, and it came out still like this."

Chief Engineer Li's hand stopped on the board. He didn't say anything, but slowly put the board back into the box.

Chief Engineer Qian picked up the blueprint again and turned to the first page. He pushed his reading glasses up to his forehead and traced the parameters line by line with his finger. After finishing, he put the blueprint down and stood up.

"Director He, I'll take this job."

He Yuzhu looked at him. "Three years."

Chief Engineer Qian nodded. "Three years."

He extended his hand. He Yuzhu grasped it.

By the time the meeting adjourned, it was already dark. He Yuzhu sat alone in the conference room, carefully collecting the blueprints one by one, rolling them up, and securing them with a rope. Qian Zhiyuan stood at the door, not leaving.

"Xiao He, that board, the lab can only make it one foot square. For mass production, we need to build a production line. Three years might not be enough."

He Yuzhu hugged the blueprints to his chest. "If four years isn't enough, then five. We'll keep working on it until it's finished."

Qian Zhiyuan didn't say anything more and turned to leave.

He Yuzhu walked out of the conference room. One of the lights in the corridor was broken, casting an intermittent glow. He went downstairs and crossed the courtyard. A cool breeze blew in from the alley entrance. He reached the door of the computer room; the door was open, and the room was brightly lit.

Galaxy VI was twice the size of Galaxy V. The server rack was painted light gray, with rows of indicator lights that looked like stars in the dim room. Lin Jianguo stood in front of the control panel, his hands on the keyboard, but he didn't type.

"Dean, shall we give it a try?"

He Yuzhu went inside. "Try it."

Lin Jianguo typed a command and pressed Enter. The screen lit up, and data began to fluctuate. Temperature, pressure, magnetic field strength—the data scrolled up line by line. He Yuzhu stared at the numbers without saying a word. Lin Jianguo's palms were sweaty; he wiped them on his trouser leg.

"Dean, Unit 6 is calculating fusion, a hundred times faster than Unit 5. What used to take a month for a single model now only takes a few hours."

He Yuzhu walked to the server rack and reached out to touch it. It was cool and vibrated slightly. He squatted down to look at the fans underneath, then stood up to look at the indicator lights on top. The lights were flashing, red and green.

"Lin Jianguo, you've worked hard."

Lin Jianguo shook his head. "It's not hard work."

He Yuzhu turned around and walked out of the computer room. The moon was bright, shining on the courtyard wall. He stood there for a while, then walked home.

Qin Huairu waited for him under the lamp. A glass bottle containing a pale blue liquid sat on the table. She rolled up her sleeve, revealing her arm. Several needle marks were visible on the inside of her upper arm; the old ones had scabbed over, while the new ones were still red.

He Yuzhu took her hand, wiped it with an alcohol swab, and slowly inserted the needle into her vein. He kept looking at her face. Qin Huairu didn't say anything, but her other hand gripped the bed sheet tightly, her knuckles turning white.

The medicine was finished. He put down the syringe, pressed a cotton ball against the injection site, and held it there for a long time.

"Does it hurt?"

Qin Huairu shook her head. "It doesn't hurt."

He released his grip. Qin Huairu lowered her sleeve to cover the needle marks.

"Go to sleep."

The light went out. He Yuzhu lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), listening to the wind outside. He Nianhua turned over and placed her small hand on his face. He didn't move. Moonlight shone in through the window, illuminating the room in a pale light.

My mind is still racing—three years, five years, ten years.