Chapter 1306: Congratulations From Beijing
It seemed like Lu Zhou handled this situation poorly.
Right after the big announcement, when the whole world was waiting for an explanation from him, he disappeared.
Even though he threw Luo Wenxuan to replace himself, it was clear that Luo Wenxuan could not handle the pressure.
Forget about Luo Wenxuan.
In the face of such a major news event that sensationalized the whole world, even the ILHCRC couldn’t handle the pressure…
The day after the ILHCRC conference ended…
Immediately after the president confirmed the news, two congratulatory messages were sent from Chang’an Avenue to the Jinling launch site and the ILHCRC headquarters in Shanghai.
In the congratulatory message, the higher-ups praised the aeros.p.a.ce engineers of the Jinling launch site and all the physicists of the ILHCRC for their great contributions to the future of human civilization.
This wasn’t just from the Chinese side.
The same happened in other countries.
High-level leaders from more than 50 countries, both from partic.i.p.ating countries and non-partic.i.p.ating countries of the project, told the public to pay attention to this matter. They also sent congratulations letters to the ILHCRC and Lu Zhou himself.
Regardless of whether it was genuine or not, the president of the United States also sent a congratulatory message to ILHCRC. He said that the ILHCRC was a monument of human civilization and the hope for the future of mankind.
The US president also asked the most important question, which was the question everyone was concerned about.
Which was how long before human civilization could achieve faster than light travel…
…
Zhongshan International.
Outside the front gate, a black Volkswagen parked at the entrance. Beside the door stood an excited old man with a thick neck and a driver with a smile on his face.
Director Li looked at the man standing at the gate like a steel wall. His blood pressure quickly soared as he spoke.
“I have something urgent, can’t you compromise?”
“No compromises.” w.a.n.g Peng shook his head and said, “He said he’s not seeing anyone for two days.”
“You!” Director Li angrily said, “Why can’t you be more flexible? I am not looking to have a conversation, I’m in a hurry! Can you just ask him? If he agrees, it’ll only take five minutes… At most ten minutes. If he disagrees, I’ll leave!”
w.a.n.g Peng shook his head; his att.i.tude didn’t change.
“If he is willing to see you, he will answer your call. Director Li, you should leave.”
Director Li stamped his foot anxiously. “The president asked me to come. Let me inside!”
w.a.n.g Peng’s expression stayed the same as he said, “I have to listen to Lu Zhou’s orders. How about you ask the president to fire me?”
Director Li shook his head and sighed angrily. There was nothing he could do.
Even though his rank was higher than w.a.n.g Peng’s boss, but rank was one thing, and authority was another. Also, just like w.a.n.g Peng said, standing here was Lu Zhou’s orders. If Lu Zhou didn’t want to talk, there was nothing he could do.
“Forget about it, I won’t argue with you. This kid, on a retreat my a*s—”
w.a.n.g Peng coughed.
Director Li was amused. He glanced at him.
“What? I’m not allowed to stand here and complain?”
“Um… This actually has nothing to do with me. It’s just that if Academician Lu is in the study room, he might hear you talking.” w.a.n.g Peng looked at Director Li and said in a serious manner, “I’m worried that if you continue to talk about him, he won’t come out on purpose, and we would have to wait longer to see him.”
As soon as Director Li heard that Lu Zhou might be able to hear him, he suddenly shut his mouth.
He was scared.
If Lu Zhou really decided to extend his retreat because of this and stayed at home for months, the whole of Chang’an Avenue and the world would go crazy.
“Okay! You… When did he begin the retreat yesterday?”
w.a.n.g Peng: “Five in the afternoon.”
“Okay, okay! Then I’ll come back at 5 o’clock tomorrow afternoon!”
After that, Director Li didn’t linger around for any longer. He waved at his driver and returned to his Volkswagen car.
After a while, the car disappeared at the end of the street…
w.a.n.g Peng breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. He was about to continue standing at the front gate when he suddenly received a call.
He took out his phone and saw that Lu Zhou was calling.
Without hesitating, he picked up the call.
“h.e.l.lo?”
“It’s me… What’s going on outside?”
“Director Li just came…” w.a.n.g Peng hesitated for a bit and said, “Apparently, it’s urgent.”
“Is he still outside?”
“He left.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Not knowing whether Lu Zhou was satisfied or dissatisfied, w.a.n.g Peng hesitated for a few seconds before asking, “Should I call him to come back?”
“For what? I said I’m not seeing anyone for two days.”
w.a.n.g Peng smiled and said, “Okay.”
After hanging up the call, Lu Zhou put his phone aside.
He didn’t care if Director Li was in a hurry. He was too busy with his own affairs. He didn’t have time to deal with other people’s business.
Lu Zhou took a deep breath and picked up the pen again. He tried to calm his mood and continued to focus on the unfinished work in front of him.
Even though he was less busy than a few days ago, he wasn’t doing nothing.
Most of his time was spent adapting to the changes brought to him by level 10 in physics.
Honestly speaking, the feeling of level 10 in physics was strange.
It was so wonderful that it was difficult to describe in words.
Leveling up to mathematics level 10 felt like abstracting the laws of everything into a world of numbers. Reaching physics level 10 was more like using pure reason to “see” everything in the world.
Why did the water evaporate?
How did the atmosphere work?
How to answer the negative sign question in quantum Monte Carlo simulation?
From high school problems to esoteric physics propositions, everything was clearly written in front of him.
Even though his intuition did not give him a direct answer, his intuition was like chess pieces falling on a chessboard, simplifying the world.
This felt extremely pleasurable.
Especially for a scientist like him.
Most of the time, what troubled people was not the c.u.mbersome experimental process or the numbing calculations. Instead, it was the frustration of not knowing how to proceed with the research project at all.
The feeling of entering a dead end and not being able to squeeze out any inspiration… That was more painful than anything.
But now…
At least for the problems known to mankind, except for wild guesses and conjectures, even if he couldn’t find the answers to the propositions immediately, he could still solve the problem if given enough time.
In addition, apart from adapting to the huge changes brought to him by physics level 10, another thing that occupied most of Lu Zhou’s energy was the prize he drew from the system s.p.a.ce two days ago.
This was thanks to the system’s “golden” lucky draw.
In the past, Lu Zhou didn’t believe that the system could really extract things like cosmic stars.h.i.+ps, but that had changed.
He still didn’t get anything as awesome as a stars.h.i.+p, but he did get a blueprint for a s.p.a.ce station.
Some people might say that the s.p.a.ce station was nothing impressive.
But if this s.p.a.ce station was large enough to accommodate tens of thousands or even millions of people, could dock hundreds or even thousands of s.p.a.cecrafts, and handle millions of tons of materials, maybe those people would change their minds.
However, even though the blueprint was impressive, it couldn’t be achieved with the existing technology of human civilization.
Forget about the human civilization, even the Calan civilization would not be able to complete such a huge task without making compromises.
Lu Zhou was sure that even with the right construction technology and conditions, it would take at least half a century or even a century to create this s.p.a.ce station…
However, even though this thing was intangible for now, it was too pessimistic to say that it was totally useless.
The pen in Lu Zhou’s hand stopped. He looked at the blueprint on the table. A smile suddenly appeared on Lu Zhou’s face.
A thought flashed in his mind.
He suddenly had an idea on how to use this blueprint…