Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

Northwest Gobi Desert.

At this moment, time was physically torn apart.

"Detonate!"

As the operator pressed the red button, a huge current instantly flowed through the 32 gold wires that Su Zheng had personally soldered.

0.0000001 seconds.

All 32 detonators were detonated simultaneously.

The shockwave from the explosion converged precisely at the center at a speed of thousands of meters per second. It was as if an invisible hand had gripped the metallic heart made of uranium-235 tightly.

The pressure instantly soared to millions of atmospheres.

The originally loose atomic nuclei were forcibly squeezed together, exceeding the critical density limit.

Chain reaction, initiated.

……

Observation station.

Su Zheng had his back to the detonator, wearing sunglasses, covering his ears with his hands, and opening his mouth wide.

Even though he was fully prepared, he still felt a chill from the depths of his soul at that moment.

light.

Endless light.

It was a bright white that defied description. It pierced through the sunglasses, through the eyelids, and even seemed to penetrate the skull, shining directly into the depths of the brain.

At that moment, all colors in the world disappeared.

The desert, the sky, the towers, and the crowds were all bleached into monotonous silhouettes by this light.

This is a light that is "brighter than a thousand suns".

Next came the heat.

Although they were dozens of kilometers apart, Su Zheng still felt as if his back had been scorched by an open steel furnace door. A burning sensation came from his exposed skin.

That was light radiation from a nuclear explosion.

At this distance, it still possesses the energy to ignite withered grass.

"Don't look back! Never look back!"

General Zhang roared from inside the bunker. In fact, he didn't need to shout; the terrifying light and heat had already made everyone's biological instincts scream "Danger!"

A deathly silence.

The speed of light is 30 kilometers per second.

The speed of sound is 340 meters per second.

At this distance, the time difference between light and sound is approximately tens of seconds.

These few dozen seconds are the longest silence in the world.

There were no cheers. There was no applause.

Only that one fireball, which was expanding wildly, rolling, and changing color, was like a demon god breaking free of the shackles of hell, roaring silently as it rushed towards the sky.

It devoured the iron tower.

It swallowed up the earth.

It swallowed the clouds.

……

at the same time.

Thousands of kilometers away from the epicenter.

Japan's Cherry Blossom Country, Yokosuka U.S. Army Base.

An earthquake monitoring center deep underground.

Several U.S. military officers on duty were idly drinking coffee and chatting about last night's baseball game.

Sudden.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

The piercing alarm sounded without warning throughout the hall.

A row of recorders on the wall all started jumping wildly at the same time, drawing alarming wavy lines on the recording paper.

"earthquake?!"

The officer on duty jumped up abruptly. "Where? Tokyo? Or Los Angeles?"

"No...it wasn't a natural earthquake!"

The geology PhD in charge of data analysis turned pale, pointing to the waveform on the screen, "Look at this P-wave! The peak is too steep! There's no prelude to the S-wave! This...this is characteristic of a point-source explosion!"

"You mean... someone set off a large firecracker underground?" the officer frowned. "What was its yield?"

The doctor's fingers flew across the keyboard.

A few seconds later, he obtained a data that sent chills down his spine.

"Magnitude 5.0...converted to TNT equivalent..."

"At least 20,000 tons."

"Twenty thousand tons?!" The officer dropped his coffee cup. "Who the hell could detonate twenty thousand tons of explosives at once?!"

The doctor did not answer.

He pulled up the map showing the coordinates of the earthquake source.

Three lines from different monitoring stations converge at a single point on the map.

That spot landed in a yellow area.

Northwest China.

"My God..."

The officer muttered to himself, "The rabbit... bit someone."

……

The White House, United States.

Oval office.

It is late at night in Washington, D.C.

The president had been asleep for less than an hour when he was startled awake by a rapid ringing of the telephone.

"Mr. President, it's an emergency."

The defense minister's voice sounded as if he had just swallowed a dead fly: "Our seismic network detected... a large-scale artificial tremor over there."

"Over there?" the president asked groggily. "Which way?"

"Red China"

The president instantly regained his senses.

He sat bolt upright, the veins bulging on his hand gripping the microphone. "Is it confirmed? Was it a false alarm? Or a meteorite impact?"

"It has been confirmed."

The Defense Secretary sighed. "Although our U-2s haven't dared to go in these past few days, we've detected a surge in radioactive fallout in atmospheric samples collected at the border. And... the waveform of that tremor just now was exactly the same as the one we had during our nuclear test at Bikini Atoll."

"They...succeeded?"

"Yes. They succeeded."

The president leaned weakly against the headboard, feeling as if all his strength had been drained away.

He recalled an assessment report from a few years ago that said it might take "ten years, or it might take twenty years."

He recalled the drone that had been shot down a few days earlier.

It turns out that it was more than just an air defense victory.

That's the giant dragon of the East showing its claws.

"Block the news."

The president remained silent for a long time before slowly saying, "Until they make an official announcement, let's pretend we don't know anything. Let's see if we can... downplay it."

"But Mr. President, seismic waves cannot be hidden. Scientists all over the world can see them."

"Then... remain silent."

The president hung up the phone.

He walked to the window and looked out at the pitch-black night.

He knew that from this moment on, the chessboard of the world had changed.

That pawn that was once at the mercy of others has now become the player.

……

Base 504.

The long silence finally ended.

"Boom—!!!"

The belated thunder, accompanied by a violent shockwave, finally swept across the land.

The earth was trembling.

Dust settled on the bunker.

But this did not instill fear in people; instead, it was like a starting gun, igniting a long-suppressed fervor.

"It rang! It rang!"

"We did it!"

Long live the motherland!

General Zhang rushed out of his bunker, took off his military cap, and threw it fiercely into the air.

The old professor knelt on the ground, holding a handful of sand from the Gobi Desert, and wept uncontrollably.

Ye Xinyi hugged Su Zheng tightly, her tears wetting his shoulder.

Su Zheng did not move.

He was still wearing sunglasses, looking at the mushroom cloud that had risen to a height of 10,000 meters in the distance.

That cloud, like a giant umbrella, opened up the sky over this ancient land.

"So beautiful."

Su Zheng said softly.

In his "eye of truth," that cloud was more than just dust and water vapor.

It consists of countless fission atomic nuclei.

It is the result of countless days and nights of hard work.

It is the totem of this country's journey from suffering to glory.

"Su Zheng!"

General Zhang strode over, grabbed Su Zheng's hand, and said, "Let's go! Let's report to the commander!"

"What are you reporting?"

"Reporting to our 'Miss Qiu,' she had a truly magnificent wedding!"

……

Command.

Next to the red telephone.

Su Zheng picked up the microphone, his hand trembling slightly.

On the other end of the phone was Beijing. It was the old man who had been waiting for news.

"Commander."

Su Zheng's voice was choked with emotion.

"I am Su Zheng."

"Report from Base 504..."

He glanced at the mushroom cloud outside the window that hadn't yet dissipated.

"The east wind has arrived."

The flowers are in full bloom.

There was a full five seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.

Then, the old man's familiar and loud voice rang out.

"good!"

"OK!"

"Comrade Su Zheng, you have worked hard! The people thank you! History will remember you!"

"Tell your comrades, tonight, the whole nation will celebrate your victory!"

hang up the phone.

Su Zheng turned around and looked at the expectant eyes in the command post.

"The commander said so."

Su Zheng took a deep breath and shouted:

"Extra meal tonight!"

"Braised pork belly! All you can eat!"

"oh--!!!"

Cheers erupted again.

For these scientists and soldiers who had spent years eating sand in the desert, there was no more substantial reward than braised pork.

……

Night falls.

A bonfire was lit at Base 504.

Although there were no fireworks, the radioactive cloud that lingered high in the sky, glowing with an eerie yet magnificent purplish-red hue in the afterglow of the setting sun, was the best fireworks of all.

Su was sitting on a small earthen mound, holding a lunchbox (filled with braised pork).

Ye Xinyi sat down next to him.

"Su Zheng, what should we do next?"

Ye Xinyi looked at the starry sky and asked softly.

The atomic bomb has been built. My greatest wish has been fulfilled. Once a person loses their goal, they feel empty.

"What are you doing?"

Su Zheng smiled and pointed to the stars in the sky with his chopsticks.

"Xinyi, look what's that?"

"Stars."

"No."

Su Zheng shook his head.

"That's our next stop."

"The atomic bomb is just a life-saving tool. With it, we can focus on construction and development without worry."

"But our journey is not limited to this Gobi Desert."

"We want to build hydrogen bombs. We want to build missiles. We want to build satellites. We want to build spaceships."

"We want to hang that red five-pointed star in the highest part of space."

In Su Zheng's eyes, a dazzling galaxy was reflected.

"This is just the beginning."

Ye Xinyi looked at the profile of his face.

In this man's eyes, she seemed to see an incredibly grand future.

"it is good."

Ye Xinyi leaned on his shoulder, "Wherever you go, I'll go."

"Even if it's to the moon."

The wind blows across the Gobi Desert.

This time, the wind was no longer harsh, but gentle.

It's like softly chanting an ancient ballad.

The East is Red, the sun rises...