Paper

"Ke, where'd you strike it rich?"

"I work at an organization, doing small research projects, just keeping busy." Whenever relatives gathered during the New Year, and his cousins asked, Du Ke always brushed them off with that line. "I happened to take on a major project. The higher-ups gave out a big bonus, and I got a share because I was lucky. That's how I bought a house and a car."

"What kind of project?"

"New energy, batteries and stuff."

"A house isn't cheap, and you bought a car too. You're doing the best out of everyone in our Old Du family."

"I took out loans... As for the car, a BYD Han isn't expensive. It only cost a little over two hundred thousand." Poor people pretending to be rich and rich people pretending to be poor had always been a proud tradition. Du Ke understood that perfectly well.

Even if he wanted to show off, his parents would remind him, "Keep a low profile. Don't flaunt your wealth. Projects don't come every day. What if you can't make money later? Wouldn't all that bragging come back to bite you? Besides, if people know you have money, won't they all want to borrow from you? These days, if you can avoid lending money, avoid it. Once you lend it out, all sorts of trouble follow. Things might even end with everyone falling out."

"I know. I won't lend money around carelessly."

So Du Ke had a fairly peaceful New Year. Using the excuse that he was burdened with loans, no one asked him to borrow money. As for buying his father a car, that was only discussed within the family. If anyone asked, it had been bought with a loan, and he owed the bank this much money now. The cash he had on hand was only enough to feed the family. Fortunately, life in the countryside had improved these days, and few relatives or friends were truly short of money. They would not easily come asking for loans.

Of course, Du Ke was only keeping such a low profile because his career had yet to take off. Once his company was up and running, leading his relatives to prosperity would be no problem.

After visiting relatives for several days, buying piles of gifts for his grandfathers and grandmothers, and making another round of appearances before his uncles, Du Ke had a busy New Year. With no time for research, he could only read material online during breaks and look into the current international state of technology. After catching up on the latest frontier developments, he found that the chip war was escalating ever more fiercely.

ASML abroad had already put its 5nm lithography machines into production, while Shanghai Microelectronics was still tackling 22nm lithography machines. The gap was enormous.

"Making money is important, but helping the country develop is just as important. Once I accumulate capital through the Long-Haired Battery, I'll build my own laboratory and develop more Fantasy World technology."

At that moment, Du Ke was suddenly filled with a surge of ambition. He wanted to rely on his ability to travel between two worlds and contribute to China's revitalization.

After the New Year, Du Ke did not stay in his hometown for long. He returned to Luzhou City on the sixth day of the first lunar month because a wealthy client had arrived at the modified-car factory and asked him to urgently come over and modify a car.

Du Ke had originally refused. He did not want to start making money during the New Year no matter what, and at the very least, he wanted to wait until after the Lantern Festival.

But the wealthy client immediately offered an additional five hundred thousand yuan New Year bonus on top of the modification fee. After blinking a few times, Du Ke decided to make the trip after all.

It was only modifying a car, and he merely needed to provide the plan. The actual modification work would be done by the other technicians.

When he arrived at the modified-car factory and met the wealthy boss, the man had a huge belly and an imposing air. He handed out cigarettes and drinks, treating him with great warmth and courtesy.

Du Ke thus earnestly drew up a modification plan for the man's Mercedes-Benz G500. In truth, there was not much to modify on that sort of off-road vehicle. It was already very capable.

But since the wealthy man was willing, Du Ke came up with a full plan anyway.

He earned a five-hundred-thousand-yuan bonus along with a cut of the modification fee. In a single short day, he had essentially earned back the cost of his father's Audi Q5, leaving him extremely satisfied.

Modifying cars was too easy and the money came too quickly. If he did not have such lofty ambitions, he would not even want to travel to the Fantasy World to research alien technology. He might as well open his own modified-car factory.

After that, he officially went back to work.

Whenever there was work, he went to the modification factory. Whenever there was none, he went home and obsessively researched the Long-Haired Bomb.

As his research went deeper, the structural principles behind the Long-Haired Bomb gradually came to light. It possessed a special structure unlike anything on Earth. Through a unique chain structure, it decomposed matter into electron streams and proton streams, which were then stored separately within cells.

Once the cellular barriers ruptured, the electron streams and proton streams combined, instantly releasing an enormous amount of energy.

In the Fantasy World, that energy caused explosions. On Earth, lacking some sort of medium, it merely released intense light and heat. This was undoubtedly an excellent technical approach for a New Energy battery. As long as the output power could be controlled, batteries with formidable performance could be made.

Of course, many problems still needed to be solved between the Long-Haired Bomb and the Long-Haired Battery.

But that did not stop Du Ke from applying some of the principles he had analyzed to the current mainstream lithium-ion battery. "I can start writing papers now. Electron-stream aggregation alone can be broken down into ten high-quality papers. Collisions between electron streams and proton streams could produce another dozen or twenty papers."

Once those papers were published, Du Ke felt that he would become an outstanding figure of his generation no matter what. Forget the Nobel Prize in Physics—even the Top Science and Technology Award should be within easy reach.

"I used to dread writing papers. I polished my graduation thesis over and over again. So why do I suddenly feel like I'm getting addicted to writing papers?" In the spacious, brightly lit study of his villa, Du Ke typed away at the keyboard contentedly.

He planned to write his first paper under the title <Feasibility Study of Compressed Electron Aggregation States>. It would be an overview paper, involving only a basic explanation of the feasibility of electron streams and not the core secrets of electron streams—the core secrets were not something Du Ke would reveal easily.

He referred to academic papers online while drafting his own.

Before long, a rough paper took shape. After revising it again and again, he looked at the six-thousand-word paper, thought for a moment, and called Professor Tao.

"Hello, Xiao Du?"

"It's me, Professor Tao. I wrote a paper and wanted to ask you to guide me."

"Really? You wrote a paper? Are you planning to take the postgraduate entrance exam?" Professor Tao was quite surprised. He had always thought Du Ke wanted to start a company, which was why he had asked him about the battery industry. He had not expected Du Ke to write papers as well. "Then send it to my email. I'll look at it when I have time."

"Professor Tao, how about you help me look over it in person? You can also teach me how to write a paper... At the coffee shop by the south gate. I'll drive over now."

With money paving the way, even the busy Professor Tao quickly made time to meet Du Ke at the coffee shop by Xiake University's south gate.

Without wasting a word, Du Ke handed over the printed paper. "Professor Tao, take a look."

"Alright." Professor Tao accepted the paper but did not rush to open it. Instead, he ordered a cup of Longjing Tea from the server before smiling. "Why did you suddenly think of writing a paper? Are you really planning to take the postgraduate entrance exam?"

"Haha, no, no. Even if I wanted to take the exam, I don't have the time or interest for it. I told you my goal already, Professor Tao. I want to open a battery company."

After chatting and laughing for a few moments, Professor Tao finally looked at the paper's title. "Feasibility Study of Compressed Electron Aggregation States... This title is a little hard to make sense of." He casually opened to the first page. Beneath the title was the author attribution: "Du Ke Laboratory, Luzhou, Anhui Province, Du Ke."

"What the heck is this Du Ke Laboratory?"

"A laboratory I plan to establish, affiliated with my future company. I mainly want it for researching new things in my spare time."

"Are you serious?" Professor Tao raised his head and looked at Du Ke's earnest expression. "I'm finding you harder and harder to understand. What sort of background do you have? Don't tell me you're some rich second-generation kid?"

"A university graduate preparing to start a business. Professor Tao, you can think of me that way for now."

Professor Tao said nothing further and chose to continue reading. At the beginning of the paper was the abstract—whether special methods could separate an atom's protons and electrons, forming independent proton streams and electron streams while maintaining the forces between atoms, was the main direction of this paper's argument...

"Oh, come on, this..." After reading the abstract, Professor Tao's face darkened a little. "Isn't this paper of yours a bit like crackpot science?"

If not for Du Ke's generous spending, he would have wanted to fling the paper in Du Ke's face. He was, after all, an associate professor at Huaxia University of Science and Technology, young and promising with a limitless future, yet here he was eagerly running over to review a crackpot paper full of utter nonsense.