A live stream of someone hand-making a giant white robot attracted the attention of the government,

At that moment, Li Jianguo didn't bother picking up the military-grade walkie-talkie; he didn't even care about his demeanor as a major general.

Like an old cat whose tail has been stepped on, he rushed to the corner of the ruins, his hands trembling as he pulled out a red-cased encrypted satellite phone from his pocket.

My fingers were trembling as I dialed, and I pressed the wrong keys several times.

"Connected! This is Li Jianguo! Code name 'Great Wall,' requesting immediate activation of the 'Category Zero Contact' security plan! Repeat, highest level!"

There seemed to be a pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a dignified voice asking for the reason.

Li Jianguo glanced at Bai Che, who was directing the SWAT team to move things like a boss in the distance, lowered his voice, and said urgently as if he was about to run out of breath: "This is no longer some invention exhibition by a genius teenager! This kid... this kid is a humanoid self-propelled strategic nuclear deterrent disguised as a college student!"

"He built a controlled nuclear fusion reactor by hand in that basement of less than 200 square meters! Yes, the kind that can light up a city! And he even wears it around his neck as an ornament! To prevent this kid from blowing Hefei up one day when he's in a bad mood, I suggest we immediately mobilize the garrison and surround the entire High-tech Zone! Don't let even a fly out!"

Just as Li Jianguo was roaring into the phone, trying to convey his fear through his rapid speech,

Bai Che was sitting on a cleaned-out metal box, clutching the reactor core that had caused the panic, looking at the energy consumption reading on his holographic glasses with a pained expression.

"Tsk, that peak power just now actually burned three grams of palladium."

Bai Che complained to Su Wanqing, who had just recovered from her shock, his tone full of concern, "Senior, you have no idea how difficult it is to purify this material. This is equivalent to burning through half a year's worth of electricity bills for our school. Next time, we should prepare some traditional kinetic energy weapons for these people. Using energy weapons is too wasteful."

Su Wanqing: "..."

She looked at the small ring that could trigger World War III, then at Bai Che's "even the rich have no surplus grain" expression, and could only nod with a forced smile. Her worldview was still being rebuilt; if Bai Che said it was expensive, then it must be very expensive.

On the other end, Li Jianguo finally hung up the phone.

He took a few deep breaths, straightened his slightly crooked collar, put on his stern face again, and strode back.

Behind him followed four or five nuclear energy experts with gray hair, wearing radiation protection suits. They were all on high alert, their eyes fixed on the core in Bai Che's hand, filled with both greed and fear.

"Comrade Bai Che."

Li Jianguo stopped, his tone becoming extremely formal and stiff, "Given the extreme danger and strategic value of the items in your possession, orders have been issued that the technology must be immediately taken over by the military. All blueprints, data, and experimental records must be handed over and sealed immediately, classified as top secret."

He paused, looking at Bai Che with a complicated expression: "As for you personally... for safety reasons, your research work will probably have to be carried out under the close surveillance of the Northwest Base from now on."

This is called incorporation.

This is also a form of house arrest.

The atmosphere froze instantly. Su Wanqing nervously gripped the hem of her clothes, wanting to speak, but Bai Che raised his hand to stop her.

"Take over? Seal off?"

Bai Che chuckled, tossed the core in his hand into the air like a coin, and caught it steadily. This action nearly made the hearts of the veteran experts opposite him stop beating.

"Director Li, is this the kind of vision you have?"

Bai Che's eyes were playful as he swept over the row of experts who looked like they were facing a formidable enemy. "If you just want to hide it in the deep mountains as a large bomb, or just to speed up a submarine, then that would be a complete waste of resources and a desecration of science."

He pointed bluntly to the cracks in the wall in the distance: "The mainstream nuclear power plants around the world, whether pressurized water reactors or heavy water reactors, are essentially still 'boiling water.' They use the most dangerous fission reaction to generate heat to drive those bulky steam turbines. In my eyes, this technology is like primitive people setting the whole forest on fire to keep warm. Inefficient, dirty, and utterly devoid of aesthetics."

"Young man, don't speak too confidently!"

An elderly expert wearing thick-rimmed glasses couldn't hold back any longer, his face flushed as he retorted, "Do you know how difficult it is to control the stability of magnetic confinement? Do you know how much energy input a tokamak device needs to maintain a fusion reaction for just a few seconds? This is the limit of engineering! It's not something you can solve just by talking!"

The other experts echoed this sentiment, spouting technical terms like "heat resistance of first-wall materials," "neutron irradiation damage," and "tritium breeding ratio," attempting to overwhelm this arrogant young man with decades of accumulated academic expertise.

Faced with this series of questions, Bai Che did not argue.

He simply stood up lazily and casually picked up a piece of hot metal scrap that had been cut off by the laser during the battle.

Then, on the dusty black lab bench, he used a sharp metal sniper as a pen and started scratching away.

"So-called plasma turbulence is nothing more than microscopic instabilities caused by magnetic field gradient drift."

As Bai Che drew, he casually remarked, "As long as a nonlinear perturbation function is introduced into the toroidal magnetic field, combined with this type of room-temperature superconducting material with this topological structure..."

A few minutes later.

Several sets of hastily drawn formulas, yet possessing a strange aesthetic, along with a molecular structure diagram never seen before, appeared before the audience.

These few lines of seemingly nonsensical formulas, as if possessing a magical power, instantly choked all the experts.

The bespectacled old expert was the first to approach, his expression, which was originally ready to nitpick, instantly froze, and his pupils suddenly contracted to the size of pinpoints.

He trembled as he pulled out his engineering terminal, his fingers flying across the keys to perform calculations.

One minute. Two minutes.

"This...this..." The terminal in the old expert's hand fell to the ground with a "thud".

He suddenly raised his head, and the look in his eyes as he looked at Bai Che changed. That look was no longer that of looking at an arrogant junior, but that of looking at a god descended to earth.

"A perfect solution...it's a perfect solution!" The old expert's voice was hoarse, as if he had seen a ghost. "The plasma fracture problem that has plagued the academic community for fifty years can be balanced simply by introducing an imaginary term? This...this is simply a work of art!"

"hiss--"

A collective gasp of astonishment filled the air.

Although Li Jianguo couldn't understand the formulas, he could understand the expressions on the faces of these top experts.

Did this kid really solve it?

In this basement, in less than five minutes, with a few casual strokes in the dust, he overturned the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists around the world over half a century?

"The technological barriers are gone." Li Jianguo took a deep breath, forcibly calming himself, grasping his last line of defense. "But what about security? If this thing falls into civilian hands and gets its hands on terrorists, just opening the casing turns it into a dirty bomb!"

"That's why I wanted to design the underlying architecture myself."

Bai Che snapped his fingers.

He extended his finger and gently pressed a hidden node on the side of the core.

hum-

The deep blue light instantly went out, and the entire reactor looked like a lifeless piece of scrap metal.

"This is a 'deadlock' mechanism," Bai Che explained calmly. "I've implanted a quantum encryption lock into the palladium structure inside the core. Unless activated by a specific frequency pulse authorized by me, if anyone attempts to forcibly dismantle it or activate it without authorization, the internal catalyst will be released instantly, inertizing all active substances."

He casually tossed the extinguished core to Li Jianguo, as if throwing a brick: "Right now, it can't even light a firecracker. Do you think this kind of dimensional reduction security design is enough?"

Li Jianguo hurriedly caught the heavy metal lump, only to find it burning hot.

Technologically superior. Safe and secure.

All excuses have been shut down.

Bai Che sat back down on the box, hands behind his back, his tone as relaxed as if discussing tomorrow's weather: "So, the 'Zero Boundary Energy' project I'm going to promote isn't just about building a few power plants. I want to make it the size of a button, fit it into a mobile phone, so the phone will never need to be charged again; fit it into a car, accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in less than a second; and even fit it into a home butler robot."

"This is what technology should be like."

Holding the core, Li Jianguo felt as if he were holding the key to a new era. Looking at the excessively young face before him, he couldn't help but ask, "Bai Che... why are you so determined to overturn the entire energy industry? Is it for national rejuvenation? Or for the future of humanity?"

In his view, a person with such extraordinary abilities must have the vastness of the universe in their heart and the grand ambitions of a saint.

Even Su Wanqing turned her head, staring intently at Bai Che, anticipating that exciting answer.

Bai Che was stunned for a moment.

He shrugged and gave the answer that nearly caused everyone present to have a stroke, as if it were the most natural thing in the world:

"The main problem is that industrial electricity prices are too high now."

"..." Li Jianguo.

"..." the experts.

Bai Che ignored the awkward silence around him and started calculating seriously on his fingers: "Look, the things I want to build all use a lot of electricity. If I want to build a Gundam to play with, or assemble a space carrier to take my senior to the moon for her honeymoon, I can't build it and then have to drag around a power line hundreds of kilometers long, can I?"

"To avoid future power outages by the electricity company, I'll just have to upgrade the State Grid while I'm at it. That makes sense, right?"

It's like someone saying they bought up all the vinegar factories in the city just to have a meal of dumplings.

Moreover, this vinegar factory is nuclear-powered.

Su Wanqing rubbed her forehead, but couldn't help but let a wild smile spread across her face. This was so Bai Che. Using the most unconventional reasons to do the most earth-shattering things.

Just then, Li Jianguo's red satellite phone, which he had just put back in his pocket, started vibrating violently again.

Everyone held their breath.

Li Jianguo answered the phone, stood at attention, and nodded repeatedly: "Yes! Yes! Understood! Will be carried out without hesitation!"

A moment later, he put down the phone, and the look in his eyes when he looked at Bai Che had completely changed.

It's the kind of look you get when you see your ancestral graves emitting green smoke... no, it's the look you get when you see your living ancestors.

"The higher-ups have approved it."

Li Jianguo's tone was extremely complex, tinged with helplessness but even more so with awe, "Not only did I fully agree to your 'Zero Boundary Energy' cooperation plan, but I also gave you a death order."

"From this moment on, Comrade Bai Che's personal safety level is raised to 'national treasure' level. In addition to my special forces team providing close protection, even if you go to the market to buy a bunch of scallions, plainclothes officers must clear the area within 500 meters. Furthermore, the approval process for the energy company will be expedited and handled as a special case."

This is the will of the state.

Faced with an absolute technological gap, all rules must give way.

Upon hearing this, Bai Che turned and winked at Su Wanqing, his peach blossom eyes full of sly smiles.

"Did you hear that, Mr. Su?" he chuckled softly. "Our new business deal is done. From now on, don't worry about electricity bills anymore. We'll control the electricity supply on this planet."