New Element

New Element

"They got it! They got it!"

The museum staff quickly hauled up a box. When they opened it, there was a two-foot-tall Buddha statue inside.

Several old men immediately stepped forward to inspect it and soon confirmed, "It's the Tang Dynasty Golden Buddha that was stolen last year."

"But this is bronze..." a criminal investigator beside them muttered.

"Could it be fake?" Everyone present was astonished.

An elderly man smiled. "No mistake. At first, we also thought it was a bronze statue, but we soon realized the weight was wrong."

"This Buddha statue is much heavier than an ordinary bronze statue! Measurements showed that it weighs nearly as much as gold of the same volume."

"So we guessed that it was actually gold inside, with only a layer of bronze cast over the surface."

Only after hearing his explanation did everyone understand.

Indeed, weight could not lie. It looked like a bronze statue, but the moment it was weighed, its hidden secret was exposed.

Of course, it was an important cultural relic. No one would think of breaking it open just to see what the golden Buddha inside looked like.

The only universally recognized Buddha Finger Relic that had been passed down to the present day was from the Tang Dynasty.

Back then, the Tang Dynasty imperial family had specially produced batches of gold and silver ritual implements to enshrine the Buddha Finger Relic.

Afterward, Tang emperors would occasionally commission Buddha statues to enshrine the relic. For example, on his thirty-ninth birthday, Emperor Yizong of Tang reverently commissioned a gilded bodhisattva covered from head to toe in pearl ornaments to honor the Buddha Finger Relic.

These Buddhist artifacts reverently made to enshrine the Buddha Finger Relic were all priceless treasures. Produced by the imperial court, they represented the pinnacle of craftsmanship of that era and were extremely important cultural relics.

Judging from its craftsmanship, the golden Buddha before them was also a similar product. Scholars all believed that it had been made by some great figure of the Tang Dynasty to enshrine the relic.

Trading such an important cultural relic was itself illegal.

"What the hell? It's gold inside?" Huang Ji was somewhat speechless as he listened to their discussion.

No one knew better than him whether the Buddha statue was made of gold.

With a single glance, he knew that the statue contained no gold at all...

Something really was sealed inside, but most of its information was unknown.

For the moment, Huang Ji only knew that it was extremely heavy! Its density exceeded gold's, and it mainly contained iron, silicon, tungsten, and some unknown element.

Huang Ji had memorized the periodic table and understood such things, so no matter what element it was, he could sense related information.

However, one of the elements contained in the object inside had an extremely strange name. It had not automatically translated into the name of any of the 107 elements discovered by humanity.

And its relative atomic mass was very high. This was a new element!

Or rather, it was an element that Earth's humans had yet to discover, so it had no Earthly name.

"The thing inside the Buddha statue came from a person... Its maker was Gautama Siddhartha? Who's that?"

Huang Ji continued sensing more information. As time passed, he learned more and more, until the Buddha statue was taken away. Only then did he discover in surprise... that there was a precise artificial alloy mechanism inside.

"It's roughly shaped like a finger, with an extremely complex structure. It's an alloy!"

"And that new element—Keng Element. That should work as a translation..."

Since its name had not automatically become something familiar to him, he could just define one himself. Just as the race on the moon should be transliterated as Zeta, yet he had named them the Watchers, the information would then take a form more convenient for him to understand.

The civilization that created this element was extraterrestrial!

Huang Ji had not expected to find something related to an alien civilization so quickly.

Unfortunately, just from the golden Buddha's exterior, he could not learn any more information about the object hidden inside.

And cutting open the golden Buddha was something he could not even consider.

However, judging from its name, it did not belong to the Watchers.

It belonged to another race... Its name was once again in a language that was difficult to understand, faintly carrying the meaning of "sinking."

He did not choose to call it the Sinking Element. That sounded terrible. Since it was an element name, transliteration would be better. Taking one syllable from it, he could call it Keng Element.

"Since humanity doesn't know what to call these things, then from now on, I'll name everything related to aliens."

"Or rather... translate them..."

Huang Ji thought that as he came into contact with more things like this in the future, perhaps he could decipher and summarize alien languages and writing.

And once he understood alien writing or language, the information he could obtain would surely increase.

A language system had to contain an enormous amount of information about its own civilization.

Just like Chinese, Huang Ji could trace from Chinese every character, every word, and every idiom back to its creator, as well as the time it was created.

Especially idioms—he even knew the stories behind them without needing to look them up!

Of course, that only applied to things like idioms and common sayings that had defined, standard answers.

The matter of the golden Buddha dragged on until noon, and everyone eventually dispersed.

Huang Ji did not linger over the golden Buddha either. It was not something he could touch yet; it was a national-treasure-level cultural relic.

He also did not act rashly regarding the money. Only that night, after arranging for Grandpa to fall asleep, did he head to the place where the money was hidden at the other end of the reservoir.

Holding the shovel his family used for farming, he silently began digging.

In the dead of night, no one could approach him without his knowing because of sound.

The moment he heard even the slightest sound, he could tell who had made it, how far away they were, what material had produced the sound, and even its frequency and pitch.

Hearing was the same as seeing. The instant he sensed it, things like its shape and color appeared as clearly as if he had seen them with his own eyes.

"Found it... the combination case."

Huang Ji dug up the combination case. He knew that the three million yuan was inside.

The case had an electronic combination lock. Huang Ji merely smiled at it.

A padlock would have given him more trouble, but a combination lock? It was no different from having no lock at all...

Passwords had no security whatsoever before Huang Ji, because the information contained the correct answer.

From Chinese, one could learn the entire history of how Chinese had formed.

From an idiom, one could learn the story behind it. It was a similar situation.

"Any question that has been artificially set, as long as an answer has also been set, will have that answer clearly recorded in its information," Huang Ji muttered.

Unfortunately, his brain had once been under too much strain, leaving his thoughts muddled and confused. He had only gradually improved after dropping out of school. Otherwise, there would have been no need for him to give up the Junior High School Entrance Examination.

Forget the Junior High School Entrance Examination—any exam with standard answers came with its answers attached in his eyes...

Information perception was the strongest test-taking ability.

If he understood data and code a little better, then simply looking at things like U Disks and hard drives would let him know what they contained.

"My knowledge is still far too limited. I need to study."

"I really want to go to school..."

Huang Ji pondered. Although he could directly observe things, "take all things as his teachers," and derive all kinds of knowledge from them himself...

That method was not very efficient and required a great deal of reasoning.

For example, to understand how a tree grew, Huang Ji would need to observe it for a long time, slowly sort through the information within it, and finally understand how the tree absorbed energy and grew.

More broadly speaking, for the question of how trees grew, the Natural Realm had its own answer, while humanity had humanity's answer.

Nature's answer was so vast, complex, and broad that it was almost like having no answer at all.

By comparison, humanity's answer was much more convenient. For instance, one could first learn about photosynthesis.

That way, learning would yield twice the result with half the effort. He only needed to learn the existing human knowledge called "photosynthesis," or even just gain a rough understanding of it. Then, when he observed the process in action, he could immediately unlock all kinds of information about photosynthesis.

If he first learned photosynthesis and then observed a tree, the feeling would immediately become different. The tree's entire process of photosynthesis would unfold in his mind in an indescribable form, allowing him to sense it deeply.

His understanding would be deeper than that of someone who had merely learned the knowledge of photosynthesis! He would reach further into its essence!

There was already so much ready-made knowledge in society to learn. Why rely entirely on slowly reasoning everything out by himself?

If he learned humanity's existing knowledge and then observed and experimented, not only could he understand it deeply, he could also sense more useful details.

Then, by summarizing things humanity had yet to discover and reasoning further from them, he could feed that knowledge back into himself, increase his knowledge base, and gain knowledge not found in books.

Study, observe, summarize, increase his knowledge, feed it back, observe again, summarize again, increase his knowledge again... over and over!

For him, this path was practically unobstructed!

"With information perception, I can learn at an incredible speed! I can grasp almost anything the moment I study it, draw inferences from it... and rapidly apply it in practice..."

"By learning other people's knowledge and combining it with self-study through my own ability, if I keep working hard, I alone can develop technology beyond humanity's current level!"

"Yes! That's it. If I surpass the aliens' technological tree, humanity can be saved."

Huang Ji quickly set his goal. He would relentlessly raise his level of knowledge.

Knowledge was power. If he mastered enough advanced technology, he could break the Earth's current predicament.

"Right, I can't neglect my body either. I also need to find ways to strengthen my physique."

His physique was linked to whether he could block more unknown information. Information perception was passive. If he could not block it, then he would be constantly bombarded by information and forced to think at every moment.

Although his body was young and healthy now, allowing him to block much of the information from everyday society and regain normal intelligence...

There was still plenty of unknown information he could not block. The stars, for example, assaulted him every moment.

His daily life was like being continuously affected by every sort of sensory stimulus without interruption. It was extremely uncomfortable.

"And... Grandpa has always been in poor health. He won't be able to hold on much longer."

Huang Ji looked worriedly at Grandpa, who was sleeping soundly inside the house.

No one understood Grandpa's illness better than he did. His body was deteriorating by the day, and each year would only be worse than the last. If this continued, Grandpa would die in five years...

He had to find a way to cure Grandpa's illness.