Special forces soldier demobilization: Starting from the county government compound, a meteoric rise

At this moment, public opinion in the city was like a pot of boiling water, almost drowning the name Liu Ming completely.

The front pages of major media outlets were filled with condemnations of his "weak remarks" at the symposium. The online outcry was even more overwhelming, with some people even holding up banners outside the National Development and Reform Commission, denouncing him as a "modern-day comprador."

But no one expected that Liu Ming, who was at the center of the storm, had already completely "disappeared".

Late at night, a jeep with military license plates passed through the densely guarded outposts deep in the Qinling Mountains under the cold moonlight. This was China's most core, top-secret research base, codenamed "201".

Liu Ming sat in the back seat, tugged at his collar, and pinned the red badge engraved with "Chief Commander of Project No. 01" to his shirt.

"Boss, people outside are practically tearing you apart with insults. You've really risked your reputation this time." The driver, Tank, glanced at him in the rearview mirror, his tone filled with concern.

Looking at the radar station flashing past the window, Liu Ming's voice was a little hoarse: "As for reputation, someone will naturally help me clear it when the lithography machine is operational. Right now, I just need to muddy the waters enough so that those old foxes think I've completely backed down."

The car stopped in front of a massive underground fortification. The gate slowly opened, and a pungent smell of burning electronic components and engine oil wafted out.

There were no spacious offices like those at the National Development and Reform Commission, no expensive mahogany desks, only endless arrays of intricate cables and buzzing servers. Thousands of top scientists, secretly gathered from all over the country, were now frantically typing away at their keyboards, their eyes bloodshot.

Liu Ming strode into the command post, propped up his cot in a corner of the laboratory, and said to the senior staff member who came to greet him, "From today onwards, I'm settling down here. Tell the canteen to send every meal to the laboratory, and I'll eat the same food as the experts."

"Minister Liu, with your position... this place is too harsh."

"Enough with the nonsense, go and call Old Qin over here." Liu Ming waved his hand and immediately got to work.

Less than five minutes later, Mr. Qin, a leading figure in China's optical industry, walked over, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

Upon seeing Liu Ming, Qin Lao's first words were: "Director Liu... no, I should call you Director Liu now. I've spent half of the 'Dragon Soaring Fund' you gave me, but the problem of extreme ultraviolet light source coherence is still missing that final 0.2 nanometers. I'm afraid this old body of mine can't get over this hurdle."

"We have to get over it, even if we can't!" Liu Ming pulled over a swivel chair covered in oil stains and sat down, staring intently at the waveform on the screen. "Old Qin, all the top laser laboratories in the country are here. If you need anything, just ask."

"If you need money, I'll approve it on the spot; if you need people, I'll have all the professors from universities across China come to you."

Old Qin gave a wry smile and pointed to the huge vacuum chamber in the distance. "We don't lack money or manpower. What we lack is that burst of power in that instant."

The laser's frequency of striking the molten tin droplets still couldn't keep up. This required an extremely rare and special rare metal for the reflector coating, but that metal... currently, only a few compradors worldwide have access to it through overseas channels.

"Don't bother looking for them, they're just throwing their lives away." Liu Ming smiled coldly, then turned to Tank and ordered, "Send a secret telegram to the Southern Military Region."

Tell them, "I remember that batch of illegally smuggled rhenium that we seized at the border three years ago is still in storage, right? Transport it to Base 201 by military aircraft within two hours. If you mess this up, I'll personally confront their commander!"

Tank chuckled: "Alright, I know this stuff. I'll make sure they fly over tonight."

Old Qin was stunned, and it took him a long time to recover. "Director Liu, you've used military reserves..."

"This is the battlefield!" Liu Ming pointed to the busy figures outside the window. "Old Qin, look at those PhDs in their early thirties. They've been here for three months without going home. Their wives and children think they're on business trips, and people outside think they're wasting their time. If I can't even get these supplies, how can I face them?"

For the next two weeks, Liu Ming became the "head housekeeper" of the laboratory.

He slept on a rickety cot, ate boxed meals that cost five yuan each, and slept for less than four hours a day. He not only had to coordinate the flow of supplies across various regions, but also personally participate in the tedious data modeling.

People in the lab often see this scene: a vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, at the ministerial level, with his sleeves rolled up, squeezes together with a group of technicians covered in oil, arguing heatedly over a decimal point in reflectivity.

"The time window for this laser pulse must be shortened by another three microseconds!" Liu Ming pointed at the computer screen, her tone stern. "This isn't just a technical problem; it's a logical error in computing power allocation! Go, drag those algorithm engineers out of bed and re-derive the model!"

"Director, they just went to sleep less than three hours ago..."

"I'm not asleep yet! Tell them the country doesn't have time to wait for them to catch up on their sleep!" Liu Ming took a big gulp of bitter, strong coffee, his eyes filled with terrifying bloodshot veins.

Under this almost pathological relentless effort, the previously stalled project began to move forward at an astonishing pace.

Late at night on the fifteenth day.

"Prepare for ignition test!" Old Qin's voice trembled as it rang out in the command hall.

Liu Ming stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, her hands gripping the railing tightly, the veins on the back of her hands bulging.

As an invisible beam of extreme ultraviolet light was precisely activated within the vacuum chamber, a massive waveform instantly filled the entire main screen.

"Success! Coherence meets standard! Yield exceeds 90%!"

The entire hall was initially deathly silent, then erupted into a tsunami of cheers. Countless elderly experts with white hair embraced each other and wept bitterly, while the young PhDs collapsed to the ground.

Liu Ming let out a long breath, feeling all the strength drain from her body in that instant.

He slowly turned around and looked at the thousands of researchers below the stage, dressed in tattered clothes and looking haggard. These top minds of China looked like a group of migrant workers who had just come down from a construction site, but their eyes shone with a light that could pierce through the darkness.

The cheers in the hall gradually subsided. Everyone was watching the young commander-in-chief standing on the high platform.

Liu Ming remained silent for a long time. He straightened his wrinkled shirt, and then, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, the thirty-year-old ministerial-level official bowed deeply to the audience.

His voice wasn't loud, but amplified by the loudspeaker, it reached every corner, resonating in everyone's soul.

"Everyone, you've all worked hard these past two weeks."

He raised his head, his eyes filled with an almost sacred resolve.

"People outside are cursing us, enemies are laughing at us, and compradors are plotting against us. But from today onward, none of that matters."

"Because we have already snatched our lifeline back from the hands of others."

He paused, his tone becoming extremely solemn.

"Gentlemen, the fate of our nation rests in your hands!"