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

The task of reinforcing the superconducting rings was left to Qian Zhiyuan and his team. He Yuzhu urged them to hurry up every three days, but he had other things to do as well. Ten days later, Zhao Chunjiang from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences called, his voice urgent: "Dean He, something's happened to the soybeans, you have to come."

He hung up the phone and rushed over. The first words he heard as he entered the door made him stop in his tracks.

"The fourth generation of dwarf soybeans has undergone a gene mutation and has been rendered unusable."

Zhao Chunjiang pulled He Yuzhu to a corner of the cultivation room, lowering his voice as if he were talking about something shameful. The bean sprouts in the white square pots on the cultivation racks were drooping, their roots showing a grayish-black color, as if they had been burned.

He Yuzhu squatted down, picked up a bean sprout, and frowned at the nodule at the base. "The first three generations were fine, how come the fourth generation suddenly collapsed?"

Zhao Chunjiang rubbed his hands together, avoiding eye contact. "For the first three generations, we used lead plates to shield the cabins, keeping the radiation dose below 0.1 milligrays per day. In the fourth generation, we thinned the shielding layer, trying to simulate the protection level of a real spacecraft. As a result, the radiation dose tripled, and the soybean's DNA repair mechanism couldn't keep up. The mutations accumulated and erupted in the fourth generation." He paused and swallowed. "It was my oversight."

He Yuzhu didn't reply, gently placing the bean sprout back into the pot, his fingers stained with grayish-black soil. After a few seconds, he spoke, his voice soft, but each word like a nail. "Why didn't you tell me beforehand that you were thinning the shielding layer?"

Zhao Chunjiang's lips trembled slightly. "I thought it would work. The top three teams performed so well, I..."

"So you just took it upon yourself to do it?"

The fluorescent lights in the incubator hummed, like a giant fly buzzing around. Zhao Chunjiang stood there, his hands hanging limply at his sides, like a schoolboy waiting to be scolded. He Yuzhu stood up, brushed the dirt off his hands, and moved very slowly.

"Two hundred and thirty seedlings, all ruined?" His voice suddenly rose. Zhao Chunjiang instinctively took a step back. He Yuzhu realized he had lost his temper, took a deep breath, and lowered his voice, "Do you know how many samples these seeds were selected from? Three thousand. This batch was chosen from three thousand samples, planted for four generations, and you just say they're ruined?"

Zhao Chunjiang's eyes reddened, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "Dean He, I..."

"Don't call me." He Yuzhu turned around, his back to him, his shoulders tense. The lights in the incubation room buzzed, like a giant fly buzzing around. After more than ten seconds, he turned back, his face expressionless. "Continue. What other bad news do you have? Tell me all at once."

Zhao Chunjiang led him through an airtight door, its hinges creaking as they went dry. Several boxes of nutrient solution were piled up in the corridor, and they squeezed past them sideways. Sun Wanqiu, a researcher from the Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology, was already waiting inside, carrying a rectangular tray covered with a thin layer of black nutrient soil. A dozen or so wheat plants were growing in the soil, the tallest no more than thirty centimeters tall.

"The wheat is doing a bit better than the soybeans." Sun Wanqiu pointed to the wheat plant with an ear of wheat on it and showed it to He Yuzhu. "The 'Hangmai No. 5' variety that we selected completed its entire life cycle from seed to seed in a thinned and shielded environment, which took ninety-seven days. This wheat plant produced twenty-three seeds."

He Yuzhu's hand froze in mid-air, not reaching for the ear of wheat. "Twenty-three grains? A person eats five hundred grams of grain a day, and you're showing me twenty-three grains of wheat?"

Sun Wanqiu's hands froze, holding the tray, unsure whether to move forward or backward. Her eyes reddened, and her voice trembled, "Dean He, this is the first wheat plant to flower in a simulated space capsule. In all of China, in the whole world, there is only this one."

He Yuzhu stared at the short ear of wheat for a long time, so long that Sun Wanqiu thought he was about to get angry. The wheat grains were small and shriveled, incomparable to the plump grains on the ground, but the awns were still green, and although the spikelets at the top were dry, it was clear that they had once bloomed.

Finally, he reached out and took the tray, placing it gently on the shelf beside him.

"I know it's not easy," he said, his voice lowering, "but it's not enough."

He pulled a notebook from his pocket and wrote down a set of figures: wheat matures in 97 days, yields 23 seeds, and weighs 15.2 grams per thousand seeds. Soybeans have undergone a fourth-generation genetic mutation, rendering them all unusable. Then he closed the notebook and looked at Zhao Chunjiang.

What kind of support do you need?

Zhao Chunjiang hesitated for a moment. "Two directions. First, screen for more radiation-resistant varieties, not just wheat and soybeans, but also rice, peanuts, and vegetables. We need an irradiation simulator to screen them in batches on the ground, without waiting for the space environment."

"How much?"

Three million.

He Yuzhu wrote "three million" in his notebook, without marking it with an X or a checkmark. "Anything else?"

"Second, improve the radiation shielding materials for the spacecraft. Lead plates are too heavy. Are there any new materials that are lightweight and have good shielding effects?"

He Yuzhu thought of carbon nanotubes. "I'll have someone test the new materials. You submit your proposal first, and I'll approve three million. But there's one condition—the selected varieties must complete five consecutive generations of stability verification in a simulated spacecraft. They can't collapse after only four generations."

Zhao Chunjiang nodded vigorously.

Sun Wanqiu chimed in, "Dean He, there's another discovery. In simulated microgravity, wheat flowers six days earlier than on Earth. This indicates that plant circadian rhythms change in space, and we may need to adjust our lighting program."

Who manages the lighting process?

"Lin Jianguo's team at the Ecological Laboratory of the Fifth Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology. Coordination between the two sides is not smooth. Sometimes when we report a problem, it takes several days to make adjustments."

He Yuzhu added another line to his notebook: "Establish a data link between the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Fifth Academy." He looked up. "I've had Lin Jianguo send someone to be stationed here specifically for real-time communication. Just tell him what parameters you need to change."

Zhao Chunjiang's eyes lit up. "That's great!"

He Yuzhu was about to leave when Zhao Chunjiang called him back, his voice even lower. "Actually, there's a third way."

"What road?"

"Genetic engineering. Transferring the repair genes of radiation-resistant bacteria into crops to solve the problem at its root."

He Yuzhu turned around and looked at him. The two stared at each other for three seconds.

"The policy does not allow it."

"I know. But we can build up our technology reserves first. We won't do field trials; we'll just focus on constructing and validating vectors at the cell level. Once the policies are relaxed, we can use it immediately."

He Yuzhu put down his pen and leaned against the culture rack. The metal rack wobbled, and he reached out to steady it. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

I'm afraid you won't agree.

"Write a technical proposal and I'll forward it to Dean Hua." He Yuzhu picked up his pen and added another line to his notebook, "But there's one condition—the red line cannot be crossed. No genetically modified material is allowed to leave the lab."

Zhao Chunjiang nodded vigorously.

It was raining outside when they left the lab. He Yuzhu stood on the porch, rain pelting his shoulders and soaking his jacket. Zhao Chunjiang caught up to him with an umbrella, but He Yuzhu pushed it away and kept walking. Zhao Chunjiang had no choice but to keep up, enduring the rain himself.

"Dean He, you'll get sick if you get caught in the rain."

"I've been caught in the rain a lot."

Upon reaching the parking lot, a black sedan was already waiting there. Sun Xiuying climbed out of the driver's seat, dressed in a military uniform with the collar buttoned up tightly. She was carrying a silver-white metal insulated box, raindrops pattering against it and trickling down its edges.

"Director He, I've finally found you." Sun Xiuying held up the insulated box in front of him. "The first batch of samples for Huayuan No. 2 is ready. Dean Hua asked me to send them to you as soon as possible."

He Yuzhu took the insulated box and opened the lid. Inside lay twelve sealed ampoules, each containing a pale blue, transparent liquid that shimmered faintly in the dim light of the rainy day. He picked one up and examined it against the light.

What are the differences between Huayuan-2 and Huayuan-1?

Sun Xiuying pointed to the label on the bottle. "Number One is fully enhanced and designed for combat personnel. Number Two is specifically designed for astronauts, with its target focused on bones and muscles—increasing bone density and preventing calcium loss under weightlessness in space; improving muscle endurance and slowing down muscle atrophy due to weightlessness. It also provides protection for the cardiovascular and immune systems, but does not enhance explosive power."

How many animal experiments were conducted?

"Three hundred and sixty rats, six dosage groups. The femoral bone density of the high-dose group increased by 33% and the muscle cross-sectional area increased by 21% compared with the control group. Four weeks after stopping the drug, the effect did not decline." Sun Xiuying pulled out a thick stack of experimental reports from her briefcase. "This is the complete data. Dean Hua said that Director He should be in charge of the technical oversight. You were the first subject of Huayuan No. 1, so you have the most authority to speak on this."

He Yuzhu didn't flip through the report; instead, he stared at the ampoule in his hand. The pale blue liquid was swaying slightly. He suddenly remembered something, and his hand paused.

"Huayuan-2 is for astronauts."

"right."

"If Nianhua becomes an astronaut in the future, he will also need to get this injection."

Sun Xiuying didn't know how to respond and remained silent. Rainwater streamed down the outside of the insulated box, dripping onto He Yuzhu's shoes. He put the bottle back in the insulated box, closed the lid, and moved much slower than usual. He held the insulated box in his arms, standing in the rainy parking lot, as if he were holding a powder keg he didn't know how to open.

"We'll conduct human clinical trials first." After he finished speaking, he turned around, opened the car door, and didn't look at Sun Xiuying again.

He sat in the driver's seat, the insulated box on the passenger side. He didn't start the car immediately, but stared at the silver-white box for a long time. Huayuan-2. If that child really went to space, this medicine would be the injection his son would need.

He reached out and touched the cool outer shell of the insulated box, his thumb lingering on the latch for a second before withdrawing it.

He started the car and drove out of the parking lot. In the rearview mirror, the agricultural research institute's laboratory building grew smaller and smaller until it became a blurry cube in the hazy background. The insulated box bounced on the passenger seat, and he reached out and pressed it down, not letting go.