How Many Molecules Are in a Drop of Water?

Huang Si immediately understood what he was looking at.

Those spheres had to be atoms.

The slightly bluish ones were hydrogen atoms, and the slightly yellow ones were oxygen atoms.

The spheres' edges were blurry because of the probability distribution of the electron clouds.

Electrons appeared around the nucleus according to probability, so on the microscopic level, they formed an overall blurry presence.

Where the three spheres connected, that blur extended slightly, making them look like a single entity from the outside.

This had to be the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, represented by the partial overlap of their electron clouds!

Huang Si had never imagined he would become the first human to observe the shape of an atom with the naked eye.

After watching for a while, Huang Si wondered, How do I get out of this microscopic state?

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the scenery around him shifted. In an instant, Huang Si found himself sitting by the table again.

This is amazing. I can actually see water molecules! Unable to resist, Huang Si tried it again.

This time, he entered even faster. All he had to do was focus on the water, and as soon as the thought arose, he saw the structure of the water molecules.

Huang Si was fascinated. Then he tried to move backward in the microscopic world, putting some distance between himself and the molecules, but stopped halfway.

The water molecules gradually shrank in his field of vision, slowly blending into a vast, white blur, then becoming smaller and more distant.

He used his mind to move closer again.

The water molecules came back into focus.

Then Huang Si thought, Since I can create things, I should be able to make water molecules too, right?

These were among the most fundamental particles of all matter. Surely he couldn't mess up something this basic?

So Huang Si tried to channel the power inside him while in the microscopic world.

This time, he clearly felt his power grow immensely strong and robust. As soon as it surged up, it nearly swallowed all the water molecules. On second thought, that made sense: what he was experiencing now matched the scale of the microscopic world.

He separated an exceedingly fine thread of power from the rest.

Separating his power came as naturally to him now as breathing.

That was only to be expected. This power that could create things had originated inside him, and now he controlled it as easily as his own limbs.

Then Huang Si used that tiny thread of power to envelop the nearest water molecule and sense its state.

Next, he copied that state in his mind and created it.

A triangular water molecule instantly appeared beside Huang Si. It floated effortlessly for a while before blending into the vast army of water molecules, impossible to pick out again.

Huang Si was delighted. The fact that the water molecule he had made could blend in with the others meant the two were exactly alike.

He immediately followed the same steps, separating another thread of power, enveloping a water molecule, copying it, and creating it.

Another brand-new water molecule came into being.

But wasn't this way of making molecules far too inefficient?

Huang Si fell silent. Was he an idiot? A single drop of water probably contained billions upon billions of water molecules. If he made them one by one, he would die of thirst before he finished making even one drop.

At the thought, Huang Si realized he was indeed a little thirsty.

Thinking back, he hadn't had anything to drink since he got off work.

He left the microscopic world, carried his glass to the kitchen, and poured himself some water from the thermos.

He gave the thermos a shake and muttered, "There's only a little left, about half a glass."

Huang Si tried the kitchen faucet again, but no water came out.

That meant there was no water or electricity at home, and his phone had no signal. If he didn't think of something soon, he might be left with no choice but to wait for death.

With that in mind, Huang Si filled his glass halfway and carried it to the living room, where he continued to figure out how to make water.

This was a matter of life and death. He could die of thirst.

Huang Si stared at the water and entered the microscopic world again.

This time, he kept a little distance from the water molecules, then tried enveloping three of them with his power at once.

Create.

Three new water molecules appeared instantly and slowly drifted away.

He could make three at once, but the process was still too inefficient...

Huang Si frowned and thought, If only I could mass-produce them. I could record the blueprints somewhere, then use them to make a whole batch...

As soon as the thought formed, he suddenly "saw" the Creation Book in his mind.

The book flipped open on its own, and an image took shape on the second page.

The image disappeared. Huang Si hurriedly left the microscopic world and looked at the Creation Book on the table.

The Creation Book hadn't opened. It was still shut, and its light hadn't dimmed at all.

Huang Si opened the cover and turned to the second page.

There, he saw an image of three connected spheres, exactly like the water molecule he had just seen.

An invisible connection formed between Huang Si and the Creation Book. At the same time, he sensed that he could use the image in the book to create large quantities of water molecules directly.

"Record?" Huang Si felt information surface in his memory. It was only one word, but it seemed to carry a great deal of meaning. Well, he might as well give it a try.

Huang Si stayed in the real world and gathered his power inside the glass.

His power felt as convenient as a set of tentacles. When he used it to condense water directly, an indescribably wondrous sensation came over him. His power seemed to split into countless tiny parts, then resonate faintly with the Creation Book.

Splash! A large mass of water fell from the air into the glass, filling it to the brim.

Huang Si was surprised to find that, with the image in the Creation Book helping him, he'd created that much water without the slightest effort. It seemed to consume far less power than making bread or paper had.

He picked up the glass, sniffed it, then stuck out his tongue and gave it a lick.

Mm. It tasted about the same as ordinary water.

"That's only natural, isn't it? I made the water molecules myself. It's even purer than purified water."

Huang Si didn't think he had anything to worry about.

He tipped his head back and drank the water in one gulp.

The water had no particular taste, and it was refreshing.

After finishing it, Huang Si felt like using the bathroom.

Once he'd taken care of that, he casually created another mass of water in the air and flushed the toilet clean.

He had no idea where the drain led. Into the darkness outside? Well, at least the water hadn't overflowed. As long as it was gone, that was fine.

That meant he had at least managed to survive for now in this room without water or electricity.

Next, Huang Si decided to deal with the problem of food.

He had just eaten dinner and wasn't hungry, but he had no idea when he'd be able to leave the apartment. Figuring out how to get a steady supply of food was important.

He looked at the refrigerator in the kitchen. Since he rarely cooked at home, he didn't have much food stored.

The power was out, so the refrigerator was useless. To keep the food from spoiling, he'd better eat it as soon as possible—and, while he was at it, figure out how to make food that was actually edible.

Huang Si took everything out of the refrigerator and tallied up his food supplies.

He had:

Two small potatoes.

One carrot, probably left over from a few days ago and no longer fresh.

Half a plate of stir-fried greens left over from last night.

One sealed sausage roll, the kind in branded plastic packaging sold at supermarkets.

He also found the following in the kitchen:

A bag of flour.

Half a package of Italian pasta.

Various seasonings.

Two bottles of blended cooking oil, provided by his workplace.

And one zongzi, also provided by his workplace. It was a red date zongzi, but Huang Si didn't like sweet ones, so he'd left it untouched. It was sealed in plastic, so it should be fine at room temperature. Still, it had been sitting there for over a week. He had no idea if it had gone bad.

After carrying his provisions to the living-room table, Huang Si sat down and wondered which one he should try to copy first.

After trying for a while, Huang Si realized he should be asking what he could copy instead.

He'd failed at everything.

Potatoes and carrots were living organisms, which made them far too complex for him.

As soon as Huang Si entered the microscopic state, he was stunned by the complex structure of plant cells.

What's more, he was blocked from entering the cells by what looked like translucent cell walls. He couldn't get inside to observe them at all.

There were tiny pores in the cell walls, and even tinier substances moving in and out near them.

Huang Si figured that copying them would probably require him to analyze and record the structure of the entire cell.

That was terrifying. He couldn't even get past the cell wall. From the outside, he could only zoom in as far as the atomic level of the cell wall and see a long chain of connected spheres. It was especially long, and he guessed it was a cellulose molecule.

All right, Huang Si gave up. This was too complex for him to handle.

He put the vegetables and meat—things made of cells—aside and started studying what was left.

First, he took out some flour and examined its microscopic structure.

The instant he looked, it seemed familiar. Another complex chain of connected spheres. Wasn't this cellulose again?

No, the color was different.

Huang Si thought it over. This had to be a starch fiber in the flour.

He tried using his power to envelop one starch-fiber molecule, memorize its structure, and then create it.

But the chain of atoms in this starch molecule was simply too long, and its structure was too complex.

While making it, Huang Si let his attention slip for just a moment, and he got it wrong.

The newly created starch molecule lasted only a fraction of a second before quickly collapsing and breaking apart into a mass of atoms.

Huang Si refused to give up and tried again.

This starch molecule collapsed in seconds too. The main problem was that Huang Si had poor control. Generating a hundred or two atoms at once and controlling the chemical bonds connecting them sounded incredibly difficult.

Still, Huang Si was clever.

"Starch is a polysaccharide, which means it's made up of multiple monosaccharide molecules. I should first analyze and memorize the molecular structure of a monosaccharide, then try to copy starch."

He had learned all this in middle school chemistry, and Huang Si was glad he still remembered it clearly, even after graduating so many years ago.

He went to his bedroom and rummaged around until he found a bag of wedding candies. He couldn't remember which coworker had given them to him.

But a whole hard candy looked big and solid, making it hard to examine. Huang Si simply made another glass of water, dropped a hard candy into it to dissolve, then poured out a drop and spread it across the table.

Huang Si brought his awareness close to the surface of the water. Since he was already familiar with water molecules, he quickly found the sugar molecules among the mass of them.

Looking at the symmetrical structure before him, which resembled two hexagons joined together, Huang Si knew he'd found a sucrose molecule.

Sucrose was a disaccharide, meaning that each sucrose molecule was made up of two monosaccharide molecules joined together. Huang Si used his power to envelop the sucrose molecule and familiarize himself with its structure. With a single thought, he created it.

The sucrose molecule appeared. Then Huang Si also created a monosaccharide molecule.

It seemed that as long as he knew the structure, he could create things from nothing without needing a reference.

After creating a monosaccharide and a sucrose molecule, he didn't even need to refer back to the starch anymore. With a thought, Huang Si generated a long starch molecule nearby.

After that, things were simple. Huang Si recorded the methods for creating monosaccharides, disaccharides, and starch molecules in the Creation Book, then returned to the macroscopic world and mass-produced them with a single click.

A glass of glucose water, a glass of sucrose water, and a portion of plain starch.

Huang Si tasted the sugar water he'd made. Glucose was a monosaccharide, so the glucose water wasn't very sweet. The sucrose water was sweet, and he'd made so much sucrose that it was sickeningly sweet.

The starch was plain and ordinary. Huang Si sniffed it and sneezed, choking himself.