Great Power Reclamation

Chapter 2892 Ye Yuze and Yang Geyong, Spectators
He straightened his tie, his eyes as sharp as ever. The decisive battle in the chip industry had begun; the furnaces for forging chips domestically were burning brightly, while the journey to break through overseas barriers was not yet halfway complete. Ye Feng picked up the internal phone, his voice steady and firm:
"Emily, pass on the message: First, prepare the mass production ceremony of the 3-nanometer chip of Junken Electromechanical to the highest standard, invite core global partners and important media, and I will personally go back to preside over it."

"Second, we will launch a comprehensive legal and lobbying countermeasure against the CASA bill by hawkish lawmakers, codenamed 'Shield Mountain'."

"Third, we should accelerate negotiations on the establishment of a European chip factory and strive to complete the signing before EFSFDI 2.0 officially takes effect."

"Fourth, the 'Icebreaker' program has entered its second phase, which focuses on showcasing the Warrior Group's philosophy and practices in artificial intelligence ethics and open collaboration in quantum computing."

The hard mahogany of the Brussels negotiating table felt coldly penetrating Ye Feng's fingertips.

Outside the window, the spires of Gothic buildings pierce the leaden sky, like spears pointing towards the unknown.

The EU Trade Commissioner's voice was hoarse with exhaustion: "Mr. Ye, the final text of EFSFDI 2.0... has maximized flexibility. The assessment mechanism of 'the EU's overall strategic interests' is a huge concession."

Ye Feng's gaze fell on the newly added footnotes in the last few lines of the document, the ink still wet.

It's a labyrinthine technology transfer review process attached to investments in "countries of interest," like an intricately woven spider web, designed to ensnare any insects that try to break through.

He closed the heavy folder, his fingertips tracing an invisible line across the smooth leather cover. "Flexibility?"

He looked up, his voice steady, yet carrying a chilling, penetrating power:

“Commissioner, what I see are more locks and longer review channels. Junken Electromechanical’s factory in Ireland needs the green light to start, not an endless flashing yellow light.”

The commissioner's body tensed almost imperceptibly. The Asian man before him was more difficult to deal with than he had anticipated. He tried to salvage the situation:

"This is the result of a balance, Mr. Ye. We must take into account the concerns of some member states."

"Concerns?" Ye Feng leaned forward slightly, and the air above the negotiating table suddenly compressed:
"When European car factories halt production because of a tiny control chip, when your energy transition stalls due to shortages of core equipment components, are those concerns still so heavy?"

Without waiting for a reply, he stood up, his dark suit outlining his tall and stern profile.

“My team will study the outcome of this ‘balance.’ But the final site selection agreement for the European green chip factory will have to be put on hold until we are sure it can truly pave the way for cooperation rather than set up new obstacles.”

He turned and left, leaving behind a silent figure and fine beads of sweat on the commissioner's forehead.

The door closed silently behind him, shutting out the calculating and hesitant atmosphere of Brussels.

Ye Feng strode through the long, carpeted corridor, his assistant Emily close behind, reporting rapidly:

"Mr. Ye, Mr. Ni has an urgent encrypted document. Also, the hawkish senator's office released a message half an hour ago that CASA will force its way into the full Senate debate next week, and they will hold a press conference tomorrow morning to build momentum."

Ye Feng didn't stop walking, only squeezing out two words between his teeth: "As expected."

This increasingly aggressive stance confirms his worst-case scenario. The EU's "lock" has not yet been opened, but their "knife" is already at his throat.

He needs time.

At the Military Reclamation Research Institute, Professor Ni and his team are racing against time, pushing the limits of physics.

At the same moment, in the depths of the Gobi Desert in Northwest China.

The core research institute of the military reclamation machinery and equipment company, codenamed "Sword Casting," is buried deep beneath the mountain.

The heavy lead alloy door slid open silently and then quickly closed behind them, completely isolating them from the outside air.

The air here has a unique smell—cold metal, scorching ozone, a faint hint of chemical solvents, and… an almost stagnant focus.

In the huge cleanroom, the mirror-like floor reflects the dense network of pipes on the ceiling.

At the very heart of the building stands a colossal machine—the extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machine.

Its body is covered with complex cooling pipes and sensors that shimmer with a ghostly blue light, like a lurking steel behemoth, with a deep and continuous hum emanating from its core vacuum chamber.

Mr. Ni, this nearly octogenarian master, still stands ramrod straight, but beneath his gray hair, deep eye bags and wrinkles etched with weariness.

He hunched over, his hands, covered in age spots, steadily cradling a wafer that had just been removed from the lithography machine, bringing it close to the eyepiece of the high-powered electron microscope.

His movements were slow and precise, with a kind of pilgrimage-like devotion.

On the screen, a world at the nanoscale unfolds before your eyes. Intricate circuit patterns extend across the silicon substrate, so fine they are breathtaking.

However, at a critical connection point, a fine, irregular ablation mark was clearly visible under the microscope—a deathly "black line."

"Failed again."

Old Ni's voice was hoarse, with a slight, almost imperceptible tremor. He slowly straightened up, took off his reading glasses, and rubbed his temples vigorously.

He had been glued to this machine for thirty-six consecutive hours, and his physical strength was nearing its limit, but the fire in his eyes burned even brighter.

This damn 1-nanometer node, which is close to the physical limits, is like dancing on a knife's edge at every step.

"Old Ni!" A similarly hoarse voice rang out. Kevin, the most energetic genius in the team, was already only sixty years old. With his messy, bird's-nest-like hair, he waved a simulation data report that had just come out of the supercomputer and practically rushed over.

"The model results are in! The problem is most likely in the chain reaction of the photoresist! The coupling effect between energy dose and exposure timing is more sensitive than we expected! Especially this 'inflection point'..."

He pointed to a steeply rising curve on the report:

"Look here! Even a 0.5% energy fluctuation is enough to cause local overexposure and form a black line within that millisecond-level exposure window!"

Old Ni's cloudy eyes suddenly sharpened, like a hawk locking onto its prey.

He snatched the report, his cloudy eyes fixed on the steep curve Kevin had pointed out. "0.5%? A millisecond window?"

He muttered to himself, his brow furrowed, "So, our current photoresist formulation and process control precision have reached the theoretical limit at the 1-nanometer scale? The problem isn't the equipment, it's the material itself?"

Kevin nodded vigorously, sweat trickling down his forehead.

"Yes! The molecular chain structure of traditional photoresists simply cannot withstand the impact of EUV high-energy photons at the 1-nanometer scale!"

“We need a completely new material! Something…something that can remain ‘rigid’ at this energy density and timescale, yet can be precisely ‘cut’!” Researchers from all over the area gathered around, the air so heavy it was almost tangible.

They knew all too well what this meant—it was not a simple matter of fine-tuning the process, but a fundamental revolution in materials science! Time became the most luxurious and deadliest enemy.

Old Ni's gaze swept over the young faces, each one etched with anxiety and exhaustion.

He saw despair, but deeper still, he felt a burning resentment and a fierce fighting spirit born from being pushed to the edge of a cliff.

He took a deep breath, a breath that seemed to inhale the resilience of the entire Gobi Desert. His chapped lips slowly parted, and though the sound was soft, it struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.

"limit?"

A defiant smile curled at the corners of his lips:

"We, the people of the military reclamation unit, are born to break limits! If the old adhesive doesn't work, we find a new one! There's no ready-made one? Then we'll make one! We'll design it from the molecular structure! We'll assemble it from the atomic level!"

He slammed his hand on the cold casing of the equipment beside him, the metal producing a dull echo:

"Tell the materials team to drop everything and concentrate all their efforts on this photoresist! Theoretical basis, synthesis path, performance simulation, rapid verification... I need the shortest path!"

"Logistics, contact all the top polymer materials laboratories and organic synthesis research institutes in the country! Utilize all available resources!"

"Kevin, you lead the computational team and give it your all in materials modeling! Make the molecular simulations run like lightning! Everyone else, optimize the existing processes and squeeze out every bit of stability and precision you can! Buy some time for the new materials!"

His voice echoed in the empty, clean workshop, carrying an undeniable resolve:

"We have no way out! Lucy has already raised her knife! President Ye is outside shielding us from both open and hidden attacks, and every second counts!"

"If we hesitate even a moment, our soldiers' spines could be broken! Everyone, stay alert! We'll crawl through this 1-nanometer-death gate, no matter what!"

The command surged through the entire team like an electric current. Deep murmurs of response rang out, fatigue replaced by suppressed excitement.

The materials team members rushed to their respective terminals and began frantically searching for literature and accessing databases.

Kevin quickly pulled over the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and the pen tip hissed as it sliced ​​across the board, the complex molecular formulas beginning to flow.

The others quickly returned to their respective workstations, their eyes focused, their fingers flying across the control panels, beginning a new round of pushing the limits of existing processes.

Old Ni stood there, watching his team ignite in an instant, his chest heaving violently.

He quietly reached into the pocket of his white coat, pulled out a small insulin pen, and skillfully and quickly injected himself with an insulin.

The cool liquid injected into the body brought a brief moment of clarity.

He raised his head and looked at the silent EUV behemoth. His gaze behind the lens was sharp as a knife, as if trying to pierce through the cold metal shell and look directly at the chaotic world churning at the 1-nanometer scale.

Napa Valley, California. The afternoon sun generously pours down, turning the rolling vineyards into a breathtaking golden-green hue.

The air was filled with the fresh scent of new grapevine leaves and the warmth of sun-baked soil, a stark contrast to the cold, tense, ozone-filled cleanrooms deep in the Gobi Desert thousands of miles away—a world apart.

Ye Yuze was wearing a faded old work vest, revealing his strong, bronze arms that were etched with the marks of time.

He stood in front of a lush Cabernet Sauvignon vine, a pair of gleaming pruning shears in his hand, precisely and steadily snipping away an unnecessary side branch that was wasting nutrients.

His movements were clean and crisp, carrying a rhythmic quality refined by time. Sweat trickled down his deep wrinkles and dripped into the fertile soil beneath his feet.

Beside him, Yang Geyong, also wearing a vest and still possessing a robust physique, was holding a portable tablet computer, the screen displaying the latest dynamic briefing transmitted via encryption.

Regarding the impending passage of the CASA bill by hawkish lawmakers, Ye Feng's tough stance in Brussels that led to the suspension of chip factory contracts, and the "black line" predicament encountered by Ni's team at the 1-nanometer node.

"Tsk," Yang Geyong clicked his tongue, his thick fingers swiping across the screen, his brows furrowing into a knot:
"This time, Feng is really backed into a corner. The EU wants to impose new restrictions, those lunatics are going to stab him in the back again, and Lao Ni's side... the 1 nanometer hurdle sounds really scary."

He looked up at Ye Yuze. His old friend's profile, under the sunlight, was like a rock carved by a knife and axe, calm and unmoving.

"You're doing fine, hiding under this grape trellis like a hermit. Aren't you going to say a word?"

Ye Yuze's gaze remained focused on the grapevines before him. He pinched an old leaf between his fingers and gently plucked it off. His voice was low and calm, like a stream flowing slowly through a valley:
"Make a sound? What sound? In war, the worst thing is for someone in the rear to give orders."

The pruning shears fell again, and another unwanted branch snapped off.

"Back then, when we developed the soldier's engine and the 7-nanometer chip, what did we rely on? Was it the unguided guidance or the sheer grit of working relentlessly on our own?"

He paused, then finally turned his head to look at Yang Geyong. In those eyes that had seen so much of life, there was no anxiety, no impatience, only a bottomless calm, and beneath that calm lay a rock-solid trust.

"The wind will forge its own path. Old Ni will face his own challenges. That's all we can offer..."

He pointed to the thick soil beneath his feet: "These are the roots. They are letting them know that no matter how strong the wind and rain are outside, as long as the roots are deep, they will not fall."

He bent down, picked up a handful of dark brown, fertile soil from the ground beneath his feet, and rubbed it between his palms. “Just like this grapevine, only when the roots are firmly planted can the fruit be strong enough.”

Yang Geyong looked at the dirt in Ye Yuze's palm, then at the cold text and charts on the screen. His tense facial lines slowly relaxed, finally turning into a helpless, bitter laugh.

"Old buddy, in this whole life, I've always done whatever you say. I can't think that much, and I don't have that kind of vision."

"But seeing the pressure Feng'er is under right now... my heart is still clenching with worry. That's 1 nanometer! A critical bottleneck!"

Ye Yuze straightened up and looked at the Napa River shimmering in the sunlight in the distance, his gaze distant:
"Strangling?"

The corners of his mouth seemed to twitch slightly upwards, forming an extremely subtle yet all-knowing curve:

"The tighter the neck is choked, the more deadly the knife will be."

He patted Yang Geyong on the shoulder: "I exchanged all the shares of your Warrior Group because I was afraid that after we're gone, the younger generation definitely wouldn't be as tacit as we are..."

He said no more, picked up the pruning shears again, and focused intently on the vibrant greenery before him.

Sunlight fell on his back, as if draping this former warrior in a golden, serene armor. The wind of Napa Valley, carrying the sweet scent of grapes, gently caressed him.