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

"Do the Americans want to buy our fusion device?"

Old Sun placed the telegram on the table. Before He Yuzhu could even reach for it, he noticed the red heading of "U.S. Liaison Office in China." He picked up the paper, which was printed in neat English. The gist of the translation into Chinese was: The U.S. hopes to conduct technical cooperation with China in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, is willing to send experts to China for inspection, and invites the Chinese side to visit the Princeton Laboratory in the United States.

After reading the telegram, He Yuzhu didn't say anything, but picked it up and read it again. Old Sun sat opposite him, his hands crossed on the table, his thumbs circling, his eyes fixed on He Yuzhu's face, waiting for him to speak.

"They've got their eye on our superconducting rings." He Yuzhu placed the telegram on the table, his fingers pressing on the corner of the paper, not letting go.

Old Sun pulled a stack of documents from his briefcase, flipped to the middle page, which was densely filled with data. "The Americans' TFTR device uses copper coils, with a maximum magnetic field of fifteen Tesla, and it has to be shut down for cooling after running for half an hour. Although our three-meter ring is small, it has been running stably for several minutes at twenty Tesla. With the addition of the carbon nanotube reinforcement solution, they judged that we are ahead in high field strength technology."

Lin Jianguo leaned against the window, holding the same telegram in his hand. He folded the paper twice and stuffed it into his pocket. "They proposed an exchange. We can see their equipment, and they can see ours. It seems fair on the surface, but our equipment isn't finalized yet, and showing it to others at this stage would be like revealing our hand."

He Yuzhu folded the telegram, put it in his jacket pocket, and actually transferred it to the system space. He stood up, walked to the wall, pulled back the curtain of the Asian map, and traced his finger from Beijing to Washington, then back to point at Moscow.

"Old Sun, what price are the Americans asking?"

Old Sun turned to the last page of the document and read aloud: "A CDC Cyber ​​176 mainframe computer, with computing power eight times that of the most powerful machine in the country. Five five-axis CNC machine tools, with an accuracy of 0.001 millimeters. They are willing to 'share' these."

Lin Jianguo's eyes lit up for a moment, then dimmed again. "The CDC Cyber ​​176 is a product from the early 1970s. The Americans are already using the Cray-1. Trading outdated technology for our latest technology is a shady deal."

He Yuzhu turned around, leaning against the map, his hands in his pockets. He looked at Lin Jianguo, then at Lao Sun.

"They took what was outdated, and so did we."

Old Sun frowned. "What outdated fusion technology do we have?"

"Yes. A T-7." He Yuzhu walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote these words. "That Soviet-made one in the Institute of Physics' warehouse, imported in 1974, has been sitting there ever since it broke down. It can still be powered on after some repairs, but its performance is terrible, with a Q value of less than 0.5. When the Americans come, we show them this."

Old Sun lit a cigarette, took a drag, and the smoke swirled under the fluorescent light. "You want them to see a piece of scrapped Soviet machinery?"

"Let's add another copper coil solution we developed ourselves. It has a Q value of 1.2 and a Tesla value of 15, which is better than the T-7, but not as good as the American TFTR." He Yuzhu wrote the numbers "Q=1.2" and "15T" on the whiteboard. "This solution needs to be realistic, with blueprints, data, and experimental records. But it must be an outdated solution; it cannot involve superconductivity, and it cannot mention curvature."

Lin Jianguo walked over from the window, picked up another marker, and drew a timeline on the whiteboard. "The Americans aren't stupid. The experts they sent can tell at a glance that we're just fooling around."

"Then let them take their time to look." He Yuzhu pointed to the timeline on the whiteboard. "Our superconducting ring reinforcement will take three months, the curvature experiment will take another six months, and the Kunlun will take seven years. Every extra month we gain brings us one month closer to our goal. They spend their time verifying the T-7 and copper coil schemes, so they don't have time to figure out what we're actually doing down there."

Old Sun flicked his cigarette ash into the empty teacup on the table, making a soft "hiss." "Aren't you afraid of things going wrong later? What will we do when they find out we've been lying to them?"

He Yuzhu put down his marker, turned around, and looked out the window. It was getting dark; the poplar trees outside the courtyard wall were just silhouettes in the twilight. He remained silent for a few seconds, without turning back.

"Old Sun, do you know what Pu Zheng said to me before he died?"

Old Sun was taken aback. "What did you say?"

"He said, 'The Qing Dynasty can't be restored, but your path is difficult too.'" He Yuzhu's voice wasn't loud, but each word seemed to be dug out from a deep place. "I ignored him at the time. Now that I think about it, he was right. This path is inherently difficult. Americans, Soviets, British—everyone wants to get a piece of the action. If we don't fool them, they'll fool us. There's no third way."

He turned around, looked at Old Sun, and there was no hesitation in his eyes. "If the truck overturns in the future, I'll take the blame. You just focus on doing your jobs well."

Old Sun stubbed out his cigarette in his teacup, the red butt seeping into the remaining tea and sending up a wisp of white steam. He stared at the steam for two seconds, then nodded.

Before sunrise the next day, He Yuzhu was already standing at the entrance of the Institute of Physics' warehouse. The gatekeeper, Old Zhang, holding a flashlight, pulled out a rusty iron key from a large bunch of keys, inserted it into the lock, and twisted it for a long time before it finally popped open. The moment the iron gate opened, a musty smell wafted out. The flashlight beam illuminated a dusty, ring-shaped device, over two meters in diameter, with Russian labels affixed to its exterior.

The T-7 tokamak was sold to China by the Soviets in 1974 for three million rubles, but it broke down in less than two years. Three layers of copper coils burned through, the vacuum chamber leaked, and even Soviet experts couldn't fix it after two months of work. The machine sat in the warehouse for four whole years, its welds rusted, and a layer of white oxide grew on the flanges.

Lin Jianguo followed behind, covering his nose with a handkerchief. "This thing can conduct electricity?"

He Yuzhu walked around the T-7, his flashlight beam slowly moving across the rusty exterior. "No need to power it on. When the Americans come, we'll power it on and let them see the waveform. For the waveform faking, Lin Jianguo, you pull up a set of old magnetic confinement data from the Galaxy VI simulation system, set the parameters to a Q value of 0.5, and make the waveform look like the machine is running unstable, jerking every now and then."

Lin Jianguo took out his notebook and wrote it down. "What about the data for the copper coil scheme? The one with a Q value of 1.2?"

"Use real, calculated figures, don't fabricate them. Pick the worst set of test data from the earliest days of the three-meter ring, and recalculate the parameters with the superconducting coil replaced by a copper coil. It's not a lot of work, it can be done in a week."