Chapter 748: Qiankun No. 1 Controlled Nuclear Fusion Device

The command hall buzzed with activity, everyone attending to their duties, compiling data from the first ignition and inspecting the condition of every component.

“I’m going back to catch a quick nap—call me if anything comes up,” Xu Qingzhou said to Ren Nan.

Ren Nan nodded with a smile: “Alright, go rest. We’ve got the rest.”

He knew that, to check the equipment, Xu Qingzhou hadn’t slept until past three a.m. last night.

What remained were simple cleanup tasks—if they couldn’t even handle these, they might as well go buy a block of tofu and pretend to be dead.

Xu Qingzhou nodded, dragging his weary body back to his office.

Administrative Building.

When Xu Qingzhou pushed the door open, he saw Song Yao bent over a book; upon seeing him, her bright eyes lit up and she hurried over. “Did it work?”

“Yeah, done,” Xu Qingzhou pulled the girl into his arms.

“Professor Xu is amazing,” Song Yao first gave him a big hug, then cupped his face and planted a loud kiss on his cheek.

The control room is divided into three zones: the core area, the monitoring area, and the observation area.

The institute strictly enforces the nuclear industry’s ironclad rule: “No unauthorized personnel allowed in high-risk experiments.”

Since this was the first ignition test, the observation area remained closed.

Although Song Yao was officially affiliated with the institute, she wasn’t a researcher and couldn’t be on-site, so she simply waited in the office for Xu Qingzhou.

“Of course—I personally stepped in, what have I ever failed at?”

Xu Qingzhou sat back in his chair, smug.

“Yes, you’re the greatest,” Song Yao replied half-heartedly, walking behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders and gently massaging.

Xu Qingzhou closed his eyes, savoring Song Yao’s massage; back in the office, the tension faded, and exhaustion surged in.

A faint, unique fragrance from the girl drifted to his nose.

After a while, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. “Did I worry you?”

“Who’d worry about you?”

Song Yao slapped away his mischievous hand—he always liked to move counter-clockwise.

Though she spoke that way, hearing Xu Qingzhou confirm it himself finally eased her lingering anxiety.

Controlled nuclear fusion is a clean energy source requiring extreme heat and pressure to sustain; even if the device fails or conditions are missing, the reaction halts automatically, with no risk of runaway explosion.

Compared to nuclear fission, it’s undoubtedly safer—but still, it’s a major experiment.

“Women, always saying one thing while meaning another—‘I don’t care’— Wu ~”

Before Xu Qingzhou finished speaking, Song Yao clapped her hand over his mouth.

Before the experiment began, they prepared over a dozen emergency protocols.

The institute had a dedicated fire brigade, all personnel on standby, ready to respond to any emergency.

Controlled nuclear fusion isn’t like ordinary experiments—short circuits in high-voltage equipment, coolant leaks, these could all count as major accidents.

Song Yao rested her chin on Xu Qingzhou’s shoulder, holding him quietly, savoring the stillness.

They held each other like that for a while.

She asked: “Come home for dinner tonight?”

“Sure, we can leave early today.”

These past days, to test the equipment, Xu Qingzhou had lived and slept at the institute; the remaining work was handed off to others.

“Alright, I’m heading back to the company—you can sleep a bit.”

Song Yao pecked Xu Qingzhou’s cheek, grabbed her bag, and stepped out.

The office was left with only Xu Qingzhou.

The first ignition was over; the post-ignition shutdown procedures for the fusion device would take at least ten hours.