Chapter 14#
Beijing Time, 7:00 AM.
Due to the previous news on TV, the recent international situation could be described as volatile.
Just in the South China Sea, several small countries that were originally acting as “spears” for the M Country and jumping high immediately quieted down. No matter how much the M Country stomped and incited them, they dared not show their heads.
Nonsense, they weren’t fools!
Being used as a spear is one thing; what if they really get killed?
So, with no other choice, the M Country could only send out their diplomats to trade barbs with China at press conferences.
On the surface, they smilingly congratulated them on achieving such a huge success. Then, turning around, they pulled out various banners, implying that everyone is a member of the global village and hoping that China could make the relevant technologies public, striving for the common progress of all mankind.
Rabbit (China): Eagle Sauce (USA), you didn’t say that before.
Eagle Sauce: Aiya, just treat what I said before as farting, okay? Anyway, it’s not the first time I’ve done this!
Rabbit: …
Eagle Sauce is still as shameless as ever.
Smart people curse without using dirty words; back and forth, they trade verbal swords and spears, each word carrying a pit.
This wave of diplomatic warfare indeed let the domestic netizens enjoy a wave of exciting gossip.
But whether they were domestic or foreign scholars and netizens, they were all extremely, intensely, and very curious about one question—
How on earth did China research such an awesome technology?
Although the M Country also has nuclear submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers now, according to some data and materials released by the Chinese military department on the network, the nuclear aircraft carriers they are about to develop and have the ability to develop are completely not on the same level as those few currently sailing on the Atlantic and Pacific.
Just the tonnage made Eagle Sauce’s eyes turn green!
The President even directly waved his hand and allocated ten million US dollars to the CIA for a frantic investigation and inquiry into Gao Xinglu and his team members.
In the end, they really managed to get a bit of internal news.
“Gained inspiration and enlightenment from reading a novel?” The CIA director frowned and stared at this piece of information on the report, almost laughing from anger. “Do they take me for a fool?”
“Even if this is true and Gao is a scientist favored by God like Isaac Newton, what I want is only his research results! Not the apple that hit him on the head!”
He slammed the report on the spot: “Keep investigating for me!”
—Thus, he perfectly missed the opportunity to discover the truth in time.
As one of the personnel who knew the inside story, Don’t Pigeon felt more and more that his ancestors’ grave must have smoked with good fortune in this life for him to sign a “giant-tier” author like Yan Heqing.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought that behind Yan Heqing might be an entire scientific research team, but here came the question:
Why would a scientific research team not publish papers in top scientific journals, but instead run to their website to write novels?
And look at how much manpower and material resources various countries have invested in the energy field over these years. Since the millennium, the development of the human technology tree has been stagnant compared to the previous two hundred years. Many projects haven’t produced results for generations; input and output are simply not proportional. If it weren’t for the support of superpower national strength behind them, the research would simply be impossible to sustain.
Could this be explained merely by a team?
Therefore, Don’t Pigeon firmly believed that Yan Heqing must be a “supernova-tier” scientist on the same level as Newton and Einstein!
As for writing novels… geniuses always have some unique hobbies. Anyway, mortals like them can’t understand academic papers. As far as the plot of “Song of the Earth” is concerned, it is already a very mature and high-level work!
It could even be adapted into an excellent domestic TV series with just a slight modification.
“Right, it can even be remade into a TV series!”
Liu Huayi slapped his thigh. Don’t Pigeon only then realized that he had accidentally spaced out while chatting with the boss and inadvertently spoke his thoughts out loud.
However—
“Boss, are you serious?” he said with difficulty. “This kind of subject matter… which copyright holder would dare to buy it? Which film crew would dare to shoot it?”
Liu Huayi, however, laughed: “Don’t worry, I’ve asked the people on the state’s side. Their attitude is to wait and see for the time being. On the premise of not banning Yan Heqing’s account, other countries will sooner or later discover the true value of this novel. Therefore, they don’t care about our website’s own promotion. Doesn’t Xingchen Web always have the precedent of filming short video web dramas to promote novels? We can also do one!”
Don’t Pigeon said in surprise: “Then wouldn’t we also need to recruit actors and crew members? That’s quite a large expense.”
The boss changed his nature today? Actually being so generous?
Liu Huayi coughed and said shamelessly: “Anyway, it’s just short video skits. They can be shot with a phone. Our company’s editors and programmers can all handle it. As for the actors, go ask Yan Heqing. I heard many authors have their own ideas about remake casting.”
Don’t Pigeon: “…”
As expected, the four words “calculating and meticulous” are already integrated into the boss’s bones and blood.
The wage earners dared not speak their anger and could only silently log into their QQ accounts.
Don’t Pigeon: “Big Shot Yan, recently the website wants to select several excellent works to be made into short videos for online promotion. Do you have any thoughts on this?”
Short videos?
Qiao Jing remembered that when he was at Xingchen Web, there were also such activities. But the quality of the actors they found was truly… uneven. The things produced were popular, but unfortunately, they didn’t add much to the novel itself. Instead, the actors became internet celebrities and even gained the title of “Crooked-Mouth God of War.”
He typed with an indescribable feeling: “Are the actors decided?”
“Not yet,” Don’t Pigeon replied instantly. “The boss said he wants to hear the author’s opinion. Do you have any recommended candidates?”
Qiao Jing thought for a moment and replied: “None at the moment. You guys choose; just show them to me once they’re selected.”
“Got it!”
Closing the chat box, Qiao Jing continued to code.
The current plot had progressed to after returning from abroad—Yang Liu had become an external advisor for a microelectronics state-owned enterprise (SOE) in Shanghai. But because he was too young and his major was completely unrelated to chip manufacturing, no one there took him seriously. In particular, several gray-haired veteran technical workers even confronted him face-to-face during meetings.
“The salt we’ve eaten is more than the rice you’ve eaten!”
And this was just the “internal trouble.”
For this industry, “external threats” were the most serious problem. Foreign technological barriers, the silence of foreign experts, and numerous hurdles during imports… everything left Yang Liu, who had previously lived in an ivory tower, at a loss.
He went abroad with grand ambitions but returned with a heart full of grief and indignation. He wanted to complete the unfulfilled dream for Wu Zhining, but reality told him that there was far more than one mountain blocking the path of scientific research.
But a genius is after all a genius. Yang Liu was only negative for two or three days before picking himself up again.
He made a decision—
He was going to complain!
Yang Liu had, after all, made a name for himself as a “Devil King” at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Because of the success of previous experiments, although everyone acted dismissive of him on the surface, they still admired him in their hearts. Several old Academicians even argued incessantly in private to make Yang Liu their star pupil.
Therefore, upon hearing that Yang Liu had been wronged outside, they immediately called the SOE’s CEO. Yang Liu’s supervisor even specifically flew back from another province to come to the research institute during working hours to back Yang Liu up.
Facing the stares of a group of big shots, in just half a day, the entire enterprise knew that although Yang Liu was young, his background was very formidable and he was not to be trifled with. Those veteran technical workers from before could only swallow their pride and follow Yang Liu’s command.
But to their surprise, Yang Liu actually didn’t take this opportunity to suppress them. Instead, his attitude was very businesslike. As time went by, they were also gradually convinced by Yang Liu’s knowledge and began to call him “Little Teacher Yang” and humbly receive instruction.
If it were the Yang Liu before going abroad—whose self-esteem was through the roof and who thought he was second only to God—he would definitely not have done this. But now he was racing against time and didn’t want to waste energy on these meaningless conflicts. So he simply called for outside help and cut through the mess directly—first solving the internal trouble, then uniting against the outside.
The famous quote Yang Liu often had on his lips was: “A genius’s time is very precious!”
Qiao Jing was very satisfied with these chapters.
He believed he had written the transformation and growth of the protagonist—from a STEM otaku focused solely on research to an adult male who gradually became transparent and wise after experiencing the great ups and downs of life and death.
But the reaction in the comment section was vastly different from what he had imagined—
“This is a ‘group favorite’! Definitely a group favorite!”
“Why are all these researchers so warm? Yang Liu called his senior in the middle of the night, and the senior said, ‘A man shouldn’t cry easily, but you don’t even count as a man in my eyes, so cry if you want.’ This is the senior who suffered ‘social death’ because Yang Liu hacked his computer to play adult videos publicly!”
“Damn it, don’t remind me of that, okay? I was just being moved and then I laughed until a snot bubble came out!”
“I really envy this kind of research environment—no intrigue, and the supervisors are all so good, never exploiting students.”
“I didn’t understand why the author gave it this name before, but just now I suddenly realized.”
" +1. Although there is also sadness, the feeling this novel gives is indeed as beautiful as a poem."
“Is anyone joining a group? I want to draw a character design for Yang Liu!”
Qiao Jing didn’t continue reading the subsequent discussions.
Although the readers’ feelings weren’t completely consistent with what the author himself thought, just looking at these diverse and imaginative comments was a very enjoyable thing.
This was also why Qiao Jing never felt lonely.
When a person’s spirit is rich enough to be self-sufficient and no longer needs to obtain life’s value by seeking others’ approval and praise, then no matter how the outside world changes, he can guarantee his spiritual independence and the purity of his soul.
Silent yet abundant—that was the most appropriate description 008 felt for Qiao Jing.
“From the start of serialization until now, the reputation points I’ve collected here have reached over sixty thousand,” 008 said, its tone somewhat airy with disbelief, because this was much faster than it had expected!
“Deducting the previous credit and interest, there’s over fifty thousand left. Do you want to exchange for more download counts?”
Qiao Jing: “Of course.”
He spent a hundred points and exchanged for a work belonging to the future category—only a short hundred thousand words or so.
the name of that book was—
“2080, Photolithography Machine”