Chapter 677 - 658: Openly Repairing the Walkway

"Huanxing... Laboratory?"

Fu Mingdong looked at the name of the building before him with some confusion; it was different from what he had envisioned.

As today happened to be April 1st, it couldn’t possibly be an April Fools’ joke, could it?

Instead, Ai Quan, who was with him, sized up the recently renovated laboratory, or more accurately, a large factory, and thoughtfully explained,

"This place is newly built or rather refurbished. It used to be the old factory area of New Yuan, the original site of a tractor factory."

Fu Mingdong’s eyes widened as he saw the spacious six-lane asphalt road surface and the tall and sturdy walls erected around the laboratory. Everything was extremely neat, with no trace of the tractor factory to be seen.

"Look at that abnormally huge gate and the vast space inside; it’s all designed for the transportation of space shuttles and rockets.

Xinyuan No.1, No.2, and also H1 all came from here. Later, this place must have become a production base for parts, and it must have been converted into a laboratory only recently.

Hey, look at the small print under the sign."

Fu Mingdong took a close look and read out the elegant gilded font that Ai Quan was pointing to:

"Key Cooperative Unit of the National Academy of Sciences"

"Key Cooperative Unit of the Institute of High Energy Physics"

"National Key Confidential Unit"

"China’s Frontier Physics Research Center"

"..."

It seemed like a very remarkable place, almost on par with EAST.

And judging from the fine print, this place also seemed to focus on frontier physics research. Could this really be related to the business scope of a private company?

However, he didn’t stay rooted in place questioning life for too long as he was soon ushered in by the reception staff and taken to the core office, where he met Ye Changsi, who had just flown back to attend the inauguration ceremony of Huanxing Laboratory.

Ye Changsi, of course, knew these two influential figures working at EAST and greeted them enthusiastically with a handshake as soon as they met.

It was only during their response that they realized that the ones just engaging in conversation with Ye Changsi were Wu Yunfeng of the Institute of High Energy and the Vice President of the Academy of Sciences—both were high-profile individuals.

"I’m sorry, gentlemen, we’ve just done a simple renovation here, and the conditions are quite modest. However, the apartments converted from the staff dormitories are quite nice. You’ll have to make do for the next few days."

Fu Mingdong visually confirmed the veracity of this statement; there were still some renovation materials left in the corridor that had not been completely cleared, and most of the rooms were locked tightly and sealed, clearly undergoing an extensive remodeling project.

From here, he could see a part of the interior courtyard that wasn’t visible from outside, filled with large wooden crates of various sizes, presumably the newly procured heavy laboratory equipment.

Although the procurement of these equipment had started four months ago, it would normally take six months to a year for them to arrive. However, New Yuan had leveraged its own influence, and most of the equipment was purchased as second-hand goods already in existence. Yet, dismantling and reassembling them was also time-consuming.

Fortunately, most of what needed to be purchased were general machinery for national laboratories. The equipment for tackling core areas was produced by the base itself, intended exclusively for internal use and with more reliable performance.

Most of the production equipment of Level C Base had been dismantled, and now they were just waiting for the installation of new equipment to be completed, so that Huanxing Laboratory could be officially put into use.

"Far from it being a hardship... President Ye, are the devices you can provide... also produced here?"

Fu Mingdong asked the question that had been on his mind from the start, as he had thought he would be brought to the main base.

"Ah, no, of course not, at least not now."

Ye Changsi immediately understood his implication and explained with a smile:

"Firstly, in the future we’ll move more advanced research to the Huanxing Laboratory, and also, our main base is not very convenient now. It is likely that for a long time we will need to strictly control the entry and exit of personnel. We can discuss those things we talked about just as well here.

Yes, we should go there to communicate, all the main R&D personnel have arrived."

Ye Changsi took the lead and walked out, continuing to introduce to Fu Mingdong:

"I published a paper on gas plasma mirror reflection technology a year ago. In fact, the initial idea was to provide a more powerful microscopic research tool, constantly destroying fundamental particles to explore the ultimate structure of matter.

The theoretical prospect of this technology is to increase the laser power by seven orders of magnitude, that is, by ten million times, to a maximum of 50 petawatts."

"At this energy level, it is indeed possible to tear apart the most basic microscopic structure."

Fu Mingdong nodded in agreement, as he had also seriously studied the paper over the past two weeks.

"That’s right, but we are still far from that powerful. The magnification is only a little more than a hundred times, and the ultimate energy that can be released is just around 10 gigawatts, far from what we anticipated."

"That is already very impressive!"

Fu Mingdong could not help but say:

"To precisely align plasma at tens of millions of degrees Celsius into a smooth plane and construct multiple reflective paths within a tiny space, this kind of control is what we need.

I have never thought Electromagnetic Force confinement could be both so forceful and precise. To put it bluntly, you’ve achieved shooting an arrow to the Moon."

"Haha, no, we have spaceships, there’s no need for bows and arrows.

But it is indeed tough. It was something we ourselves considered impossible, but ultimately we still found a way."

Ye Changsi paused the conversation there and continued to lead the way with a smile until they reached a meeting room that looked well-used.

Upon entering, one could see a dozen or so people scattered around sitting. There wasn’t a traditional conference table here; everyone sat on simple chairs, and a blackboard and a whiteboard for projections hung at the front, making it look more like a classroom.

This room gathered three Level A+ engineers, ten Level A engineers, and two exceptionally talented Level B+ engineers, almost the entire essence of the base’s frontline scientific force.

"Master Engineer Fu, we meet again."

Cheng Nankai stood up to greet him, which brought Fu Mingdong’s thoughts back to the previous year.

They had worked together for almost two months, but Cheng Nankai hadn’t made a standout impression on him. Although not exactly introverted, he had not left a deep impression either.

Fu Mingdong was surprised to see Cheng Nankai here. Could it be that he had also dabbled in "trampoline" and strong magnetic and laser technology?

However, Fu Mingdong didn’t ask further questions. After greeting everyone, he sat down and began the planned technical presentation.

The process was fascinating, and with the main researchers present to answer questions at any moment, the two hours nearly flew by.

By the time the meeting ended and the EAST visit team was still eager for more, chattering as they headed to their prepared accommodations, the base personnel dispersed in a different direction and eventually entered another more concealed room.

The moment the door closed, Ye Changsi couldn’t wait to look towards Cheng Nankai:

"What do you think, can it be done?"

Under his expectant gaze, Cheng Nankai nodded fiercely.

"No problem, judging from the technical specifications they require, we are confident we can create a fusion test device similar to EAST. The expensive parts of the Tokamak test reactor are just the superconductors, ignition, and the core vessel.

Based on the technologies we’ve mastered and by overcoming ’Chi Ren’, we can directly start research on laser-constrained inertial plasma fusion reactors.

It will still take some time to master Chi Ren, which is perfect for deeply understanding EAST. Once we’ve made a breakthrough with "Chi Ren," we can immediately start building our own fusion test reactor."