Chapter 211

Zhao Jianguo's fingers hovered over the keyboard, the waveform diagram on the screen still trembling. He was just about to create a cross‑analysis task when Dong Xu shoved the door open, clutching a drawing softened by sweat.

"The reaction chamber temperature won't hold!" Dong Xu panted, "The cooling valve is clogged again, and crystal growth has drifted off the standard curve."

Zhao Jianguo got up and left, his meal ticket still sitting on the operation console corner. The two rushed into the underground laboratory one after another, the air filled with the burnt smell of overheated metal. The thermometer outside the reaction chamber read sixty‑eight degrees, the red warning line long left behind.

"Let's take it apart and see." Zhao Jianguo said, grabbing the wrench from the toolbox.

It took them forty minutes to remove the valve, inside which was lodged an alloy fragment the size of a fingernail. Zhao Jianguo picked it out with tweezers; its edges showed clear melt marks.

"It's residue from the last failed print." Dong Xu frowned, "The material didn't fully evaporate; instead it re‑condensed in the circulation pipes."

"Make a temporary pipe hookup, switch to dual‑channel cooling." Zhao Jianguo said while pulling up the microcirculation model from the bionics module on the control panel, "Lay the pipes along this route and heat‑dissipation efficiency will rise by thirty percent."

Dong Xu didn't ask further, got to work. In less than ten minutes, two silver tubes coiled around the reaction chamber in a rectangular loop, the coolant began to flow steadily. The temperature gradually fell and the green light came back on.

"All right." Zhao Jianguo wiped his brow, "Restart the seventeenth simulation."

When the computer's loading bar reached eighty percent, the printer let out a low hum. Zhao Jianguo stared at the screen, suddenly noticing that the fluctuation frequency of the nano‑deposit layer bore a resemblance to the neural signal of fetus C just moments before.

He froze for a moment, then immediately pulled up the data packet for "Nanomaterials Studies Fragments". A sequence of self‑assembly in an amorphous metal never seen before sprang out, its structure so regular it didn't look like a man‑made product.

"Wait." He told Dong Xu, "Pause the crystal growth algorithm for a moment."

He imported that sequence into the model, trying to add a bio‑like self‑healing mechanism. The system prompt indicated that manual calibration of the laser focus parameters was required.

"I'll handle it." Dong Xu leaned in, "You keep an eye on the feedback values."

The laser beam moved slowly across the atomic layer, each nanometer of etching needing precision to three decimal places. Seconds ticked by, the printer buzzed, and its housing grew ever hotter.

When the final groove was finished, the holographic projection jerked briefly, then steadied. A complete diagram of the crystal structure hovered in the air—a neatly ordered array of hexagonal quantum wells, its edges sharply visible.

"Is… is it done?" Dong Xu's voice trembled.

Zhao Jianguo said nothing, zoomed in to check the precision. The system automatically annotated: **0.8‑nanometer‑level etching successful, structural integrity 99.6%**.

At that moment, a faint glow appeared in the air. Chen Jianguo's projection slowly materialized, his gaze falling on the hologram.

Three seconds later he said, "This structure… is a full ten years ahead of my era."

Zhao Jianguo finally exhaled: "Is it usable?"

"More than usable." Chen Jianguo's expression turned grave, "This design bypasses the need for extreme‑ultraviolet light sources, using nanomolecular self‑assembly to achieve quantum tunneling control—far more efficient than the path we later took."

He paused: "But you need to build a clean‑room right now. The first batch of wafers can't be made here; airborne dust would ruin every product."

Zhao Jianguo nodded, turned and felt the housing of the 3D printer. Heat radiated into his palm, the plastic frame already beginning to soften.

"Underground level two, area B." He said, "It's the sealed warehouse of the old military factory, meeting a hundred‑grade clean standard and also shielding against electromagnetic interference."

"I'll draft the modification plans." Dong Xu grabbed paper and pen, sat at the nearby desk, and his pen flew, sketching vent locations and equipment layout.

Zhao Jianguo opened the internal comms system, called logistics: "Get ready the HEPA filter units, static eliminators, and isolation transformers. They need to be in place by tomorrow noon."

After seeing to those, he returned to the main control console, about to export the core parameters, when a red notice suddenly popped up in the lower‑right corner of the screen.

【Spacetime fluctuation detected】

【Recommendation: Complete technical sequestration within three days】

【Threat level: B+】

He frowned, pulled up the logs for comparison. The fluctuation occurred at 2:17 a. m., lasting four seconds. During that interval, Xu Da Mao was in the prison visitation room talking with his family.

"Someone sensed it." He said quietly.

Dong Xu looked up: "What?"

"Nothing." Zhao Jianguo didn't elaborate, "Let's dispose of the waste first."

He fired up the high‑temperature furnace, tossing in all the shards and film records left from the seventeenth experiment. Flames flickered on the wall.

Next, he entered the deep layer of the biological module interface, located the backup zone for the triplets' gene map. An encrypted data segment was embedded there, appearing as an ordinary base sequence at glance but actually containing the core algorithm for the crystal design.

"Living backup complete." He muttered to himself.

Dong Xu had already finished the preliminary drawings for the clean‑room and was now measuring the scale with a ruler. His eyes were bloodshot, his fingers slightly trembling, but his pen didn't stop.

"Go get some rest." Zhao Jianguo said.

"No way." Dong Xu shook his head, "I still need to calculate wind speed and pressure differential, otherwise the purification won't meet spec."

Zhao Jianguo glanced at the countdown: **729 days 23 hours 15 minutes**.

He turned back to the screen, ready to launch the sequestration program, his finger hovering over the confirm key, not yet pressed.

At that moment, the printer emitted a strange noise. Its previously off indicator light came back on, flashing green.

Zhao Jianguo turned around, discovering the equipment was rebooting on its own.

"I didn't do anything." Dong Xu also noticed, "It hooked itself up to power."

Zhao Jianguo rushed over a few steps, cut the main line. Yet on the screen, a progress bar was slowly loading.

"Generating copy……" a line of small text displayed below.

He immediately unplugged the data cable, only to find the backup battery still supplying power. Checking the backend revealed a hidden command executing an upload task.

"Who issued the command?" Dong Xu stood behind him.

Zhao Jianguo quickly flipped through the permission log. The last operation record read: **User: Unknown|Terminal: External Access|Time: 37 seconds ago**.

He immediately switched to offline mode and forced a shutdown. The host fan gradually wound down, and the laboratory fell silent.

"Has the system been hacked?" Dong Xu whispered.

Zhao Jianguo stared at the blacked‑out screen, offering no reply. He recalled the spacetime fluctuation warning from moments ago—the timing matched perfectly.

"Notify the security department." He said, "From now on, anyone entering or leaving the laboratory must sign in—including me."

Dong Xu nodded, picked up the notebook on the desk, and began writing the list.

Zhao Jianguo then walked to the wall corner, opened the hidden cabinet, and took out a metal box. Inside was a black crystal the size of a thumb, its surface etched with fine patterns.

This was the first successfully printed sample, which he had kept untouched.

He slipped the crystal into his pocket, gave it a quick feel. Its temperature had dropped a bit compared with before, but residual warmth remained.

"First thing tomorrow morning, take a crew to area B to clear the site." He said, "During construction, equipment can only be brought in, never taken out."

Jia Dongxu answered, continuing to revise the drawings.

Zhao Jianguo sat back in the chair, restarted. System self-check normal, no abnormal processes remained.

He opened an encrypted email, entered several lines of commands, and sent it to a transfer account never used before.

After doing these, he leaned against the chair back and closed his eyes for a while.

By his ear was the sound of Jia Dongxu's pencil scratching paper, rustling.

After an unknown time, he opened his eyes and looked at the monitor on the other side of the operation console; there still hung an unclosed simulation interface, the last frame image frozen at the moment the crystal structure unfolded.

In the center of the hexagonal array, there was a tiny blank spot, diameter about 0.2 nanometers.

He hadn't noticed it before.

Now looking at it, he always felt something was off.