The night before the college entrance exam results were released, I redeemed my Peking University ad

"Ji Bai is missing?"

This sentence was like a thunderbolt that had been ignited, speeding along the telephone line all the way from No. 99 Middle School to the district education bureau, from the county to the city, and then all the way into the provincial party committee compound. Every level it reached stunned a group of people.

Academician Wang was the first to notice something was wrong.

The results from various laboratories were in, and he originally wanted to congratulate His Highness the Holy Son.

They found that they couldn't get through on the phone no matter what they tried!

Old Wang panicked!

He knew better than anyone else what this kid was capable of, and he also knew better than anyone else how many people were eyeing him.

When the news broke that top laboratories around the world had confirmed the achievement of room-temperature superconductivity, stock markets worldwide went crazy. Traditional energy stocks plummeted across the board, while superconducting concept stocks surged to their daily limit and were even subject to circuit breakers.

That was no ordinary academic breakthrough; it was a technological revolution that could propel human civilization forward by half a century.

Zero-loss long-distance power transmission, civilian-grade maglev transportation, controlled nuclear fusion, and iterative performance upgrades of electronic equipment across all fields…

Any one of these initiatives, once implemented, could become a trillion-dollar industry, a core factor capable of rewriting the nation's destiny.

Ji Bai is the sole source of this technology.

All the reproductions in the world are simply imitations of the steps in his published papers. The most crucial material ratios and crystal preparation processes are held by only him.

This child is no longer an eighteen-year-old high school student; he is a national treasure that the whole world is watching with envy, and the key that allows China to skip a century of Western accumulation in the field of science and technology and achieve a leapfrog development.

Countless red eyes are now fixed on him!

Foreign intelligence agencies, multinational corporations, competitors...

If we were to be targeted, the consequences would be unimaginable!

Old Wang hurriedly contacted Principal Wang again.

Wang Jianguo was equally terrified when he heard that he couldn't contact Ji Bai!

He also hurriedly contacted Ji Bai.

The phone can't get through.

Then he went to Ji Bai's house in person.

I knocked on the door for ages, but no one answered!

Old Wang panicked!

They immediately reported the news.

Magistrate Ma was in an economic coordination meeting when he received the call.

"Comrades! A once-in-a-century opportunity is right before us! Seize this wave of room-temperature superconductivity, and our county will be lifted out of poverty in three years and enter the top 100 in the country in five years—this is not just empty talk!"

The directors of the various bureaus nodded in agreement, their faces beaming with undisguised excitement.

Everyone knows that Ji Bai is a native of Fucheng, a gift from heaven, an extraordinary fortune bestowed upon him.

Just then, the secretary rushed in, her face ashen. She forgot to knock, staggered a few steps to County Chief Ma, and handed him a crumpled note, her voice trembling as she spoke in a very low voice:

"County Magistrate... Something terrible has happened! The 99th Middle School reported that Ji Bai... can't be contacted, he can't be found."

boom!

The smile on County Chief Ma's face instantly froze!

"Call the county public security bureau immediately and activate the highest-level missing persons contingency plan!"

"Checkpoints will be set up at all exits from the city; not a single vehicle or person will be allowed to pass!"

"Use all available police resources to search every house in Ji Bai's neighborhood!"

"If we can't find anyone, nobody's going home!"

County Chief Ma leaned back in his chair, his back completely soaked with sweat!

If the boy really gets into trouble in his jurisdiction, not only will he lose his job, but he will also never be able to face the people of Fucheng or his superiors.

At the same time, in the Fucheng City government office building, in the prefect's office.

Prefect Liu panicked as well.

He had originally planned to boost his business through the superconducting industry and make Fucheng the "hometown of superconductors," but then he heard that the man had passed away.

He urged the municipal bureau to immediately launch a citywide investigation while simultaneously making a report call to the provincial supervisory office, his voice trembling.

After listening to the report, the provincial governor slammed his hand on the table, his face instantly turning ashen.

"Nonsense! How can someone so important just disappear like that?"

The provincial governor took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

He was all too aware of the consequences of this.

The world's top laboratories have just reproduced room-temperature superconductivity, marking a crucial juncture for technology implementation and industrial development.

Ji Bai is the sole core of the entire technology and the key to the country's leapfrog development.

If anything were to happen to him, it would not only result in economic losses of hundreds of billions, but also severely damage the entire technological strategic layout, and might even allow foreign forces to exploit loopholes.

That's a loss on a national scale!

"Find it! Find it now!"

Upon receiving the order, all security forces in Fucheng City mobilized instantly.

This small fourth-tier city in Northeast China has never experienced a mobilization of this level before.

In places unseen by ordinary citizens, a comprehensive search is unfolding, radiating outwards from the dilapidated old house of Ji Bai.

All available police forces, including public security officers, traffic police, patrol and special police, local police officers, and joint defense team members, were mobilized.

However, Fucheng is ultimately a small city, and its surveillance infrastructure is far too weak.

In the old town area where Ji Bai lived, several security cameras were mounted on utility poles. Some were old and broken, while others had such blurry images that you could only see a person's silhouette, making them practically useless as decorations.

Time passed by, second by second.

The search area has been expanded to the entire city, but Ji Bai seems to have vanished into thin air, leaving not a trace.

The more they couldn't find out, the more panicked everyone became.

Those worst guesses swirled in everyone's mind countless times, yet no one dared to voice them.

The provincial governor stared at the large screen in the provincial command center, listening to one report after another that said "no abnormalities," his face growing increasingly dark.

"Expand the scope!"

"All checkpoints in the province have been upgraded to Level 1 alert! Police forces from surrounding cities are assisting in the deployment, forming an encirclement!"

"I refuse to believe that a living person can just vanish into thin air!"

Once the order was issued, all surveillance resources in the province were mobilized.

Hundreds of police officers took turns monitoring the screens, checking information on every truck entering and leaving the city—it was as big a operation as if they were handling some major national case.

After another two hours of frantic searching, just when everyone's hearts were about to sink to the bottom, a shout suddenly came from the monitoring team at the high-speed rail station checkpoint: "Found it! It's here!"

In an instant, everyone in the command center crowded around, making it impossible to move.

On the screen, the surveillance footage clearly showed Ji Bai wearing a baseball cap, carrying a small suitcase, and boarding the high-speed train bound for Beijing.

"It's Ji Bai!"

"You went to the capital?"

Everyone breathed a long sigh of relief.

Just going to the capital.

What kind of place is the capital?

It's perfectly safe under the emperor's nose!

But before they could finally breathe a sigh of relief, a new problem arose: they still couldn't get through on the phone, and the WeChat messages went unanswered; they still couldn't contact the person!

The province wanted to follow up by accessing surveillance footage from Beijing, but they lacked the necessary authority; the capital's Skynet system was not something Liaoning Province could easily access.

There was no other way but to report it to higher authorities.

When the news reached the Council of State, the leader in charge immediately frowned and criticized him over the phone: "Why did it take you so long to report this? He's been missing for several hours, and you're only just realizing it? Do you even know how important he is?!"

The provincial governor held the phone, his heart filled with bitterness he couldn't express.

Who would have thought that this kid would just leave like that, without even saying goodbye!

After the Senate took over, the efficiency was astonishing.

The results came out in less than half an hour.

But when they saw the result, everyone's hearts, which had just been at ease, instantly jumped into their throats again.

They were even more panicked than before!

"What did you say?"

"You went abroad?"

Ji Bai... went abroad?