With this method of making dough, he could even fine-tune the process, arranging the starch molecules in a more orderly pattern and stacking them together. That way, he could create naturally thin, chewy sheets of dough that he could toss straight into the frying pan without rolling them out with a glass bottle.
Huang Si made several fried dough sheets in a row, then tried one.
The sheet was thin and crispy, with a nice fried aroma, but somehow it still didn't taste quite right.
Why was that? Huang Si felt that its texture still fell short of ordinary dough.
He took out the original bag of flour and carefully read the ingredients list.
Main ingredient: wheat flour.
There aren't any additives listed? Huang Si scratched his head.
He pinched out a little flour and went back inside it to take a closer look.
Huang Si saw the molecular composition of the flour again. This time, he zoomed in and out, examining it carefully, and finally spotted a kind of molecule he hadn't noticed before.
It was an extremely complex, enormous molecule—far larger than the starch and water molecules, at least. Unlike the brightly colored starch and water molecules, though, it was a faint gray, which was why Huang Si hadn't noticed it at first.
There weren't many of them in the flour, either.
What is this? It looks like a fighter jet among molecules.
After a moment's thought, Huang Si realized that it was probably the protein in the flour.
Plant protein molecules?
It seemed these were what gave pancakes some of their aroma and texture, which explained why the pure-starch pancakes he'd made hadn't tasted as good.
According to what Huang Si remembered from middle-school chemistry, starch molecules were made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Protein molecules were much more complicated. They definitely contained nitrogen, and might also include elements such as iron.
But that wasn't important. What mattered was whether he could try to replicate a protein molecule.
He tried to envelop a plant protein molecule with a thread of power, then did his best to analyze and memorize its molecular structure.
His power gathered ever so slightly.
A strangely shaped macromolecule suddenly appeared beside Huang Si, then twisted oddly before breaking down into several short chains and dissipating.
He'd failed, but that was fine. Huang Si tried more than a dozen times.
After all, as long as the threads of power he divided were fine enough, manipulating molecules consumed very little.
On his twenty-third try, Huang Si finally managed to form a complete protein molecule that didn't fall apart.
Huang Si recorded the protein molecule's composition in the book.
Next, he kneaded ordinary flour into a small ball of dough and examined its molecular structure. After a few attempts, he finally succeeded in making dough indistinguishable from ordinary dough, with starch, water, and protein in it!
Into the pan, then fry!
Tasting the second batch of fried dough sheets, Huang Si was satisfied. They were crisp, fragrant, and delicious!
Huang Si also recorded the structure of the second batch of dough in the book.
But when it came to the fried dough sheets, Huang Si was stumped. Their structure wasn't simple. The things he'd learned in middle-school chemistry—starch gelatinizing during frying and protein denaturing—were one thing.
The problem was that the dough underwent an overall transformation as it fried, developing bubbles and layers, among other things.
The finished pancake couldn't be mass-produced using a simple chemical formula.
Huang Si kept trying until he ran out of power, but still couldn't fully replicate a fried pancake. It seemed that, for now, he'd have to settle for frying dough in oil.
For lunch, Huang Si simply chopped up half the potatoes and half the ham and stir-fried them. He also minced the carrots and tossed them in. Carrots that had been left out too long might have dried out a little, but they were still edible.
Naturally, he had pancakes for his staple food.
After finishing what might be the last great meal of his life, Huang Si rubbed his stomach and sprawled out in the living room again.
That was satisfying. Even if there might not be another meal after this one.
He'd deliberately saved half the potatoes and ham. Who knew—maybe he could use them as a model to make copies someday.
With his power depleted and nothing else to do, Huang Si checked his phone's battery out of boredom.
It was down to 69%.
Honestly, after using his phone as a flashlight all night, having 69% left today was pretty impressive.
Huang Si switched it to ultra power-saving mode and set it aside. The house still had no running water or electricity. Apart from the Book of Creation, which could provide light, there was no energy source at all.
Unable to play on his phone, Huang Si wandered into his study.
There were plenty of books in there, and as an engineering graduate, he owned quite a few science and math books. Huang Si decided to see if he had any chemistry books. They would surely help with his manufacturing efforts.
Before long, Huang Si had searched the whole bookshelf.
To his despair, he really hadn't bought any books related to chemistry.
It made sense. As a computer science graduate, he might buy a few books on physics or circuitry, but what did chemistry have to do with computers?
Not much.
Huang Si couldn't help asking himself, Why didn't I major in chemistry? Why did this book have to pick someone from computer science to bring here? If it's so interested in chemistry, why didn't it just find someone who studied chemistry?
But what was done was done. There was no point worrying about it now.
With nothing better to do, Huang Si randomly picked up a book called VOA Standard English: Science and Technology News.
It wasn't that he'd suddenly felt like studying English. He'd realized that he'd never even unwrapped the book since buying it. Since the books in this house were the last of his intellectual possessions, he might as well read them all, right?
Huang Si gave up after a while. He was in no mood to study English. He tossed the book aside and picked up a novel instead.
The day passed peacefully. That evening, Huang Si considered how staying in such a sealed-off environment for a long time might harm his physical and mental health.
Fortunately, he had an elliptical machine at home. It was a cheap one he'd bought from Ma Yun's shop for 899 yuan. After only a few uses, it had ended up serving as a clothes rack.
But now, it seemed it might finally come in handy.
Huang Si pedaled on the elliptical for half an hour, until he was panting and drenched in sweat.
Then he went to the bathroom, condensed a large amount of water on his skin, and took a shower.
Condensing water molecules alone consumed very little power. The shower had used no more than one unit of power.
Huang Si checked how quickly his strength was recovering. He'd only need to wait a little while for that amount of power to return.
After his shower, he felt much fresher. He put on his pajamas and got into bed.
It was only eight o'clock. Without a phone or computer, and with no internet or games, the hours became especially hard to bear.
Huang Si looked through his bookshelf again. Half of it was full of professional books, and there were dozens of works on social sciences, like How So-and-So Changed China. There was also a pile of English study books, since he'd planned to take the IELTS soon, along with all sorts of light reading.
Huang Si now deeply regretted not bringing more books from his hometown. He had two encyclopedias and a complete set of One Hundred Thousand Whys, but those were books he'd read as a child. After he started working, he'd left them at his parents' house.
Thinking about it, if he'd had those three sets of basic popular-science books with him, wouldn't he have everything he needed? He wouldn't be completely in the dark every time he tried to make something!
Regretting it, Huang Si picked up a novel and lay down to read.
The novel wasn't very good, and Huang Si read it absentmindedly. Then, all of a sudden, he realized he'd forgotten something important.
Encyclopedias?
Using encyclopedias to help make things?
Because they contained detailed explanations?
"Damn!"
Huang Si stopped reading, tossed the book beside the bed, and sprang up like a carp leaping from the water. How had he forgotten? His laptop had a complete offline copy of Wikipedia!
He'd found it while searching for a good way to study English, so he'd downloaded the Chinese and English Wikipedia databases. Then he'd used a program to load them into an offline browser.
That way, he could study English easily by comparing the Chinese and English versions side by side.
But... wasn't that the most precious and important resource he had?
A simplified collection of human civilization's knowledge: the bilingual offline version of Wikipedia!
Huang Si abandoned the book and forgot about sleep. He leaped up and ran to the study without even putting on his slippers.
There was no electricity now, but his laptop was usually plugged in, so the battery should be full.
Huang Si immediately turned it on.
The familiar desktop appeared. Huang Si clicked the database program on the desktop.
He opened the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia one after the other.
Now he could look up any entry he wanted. The descriptions might be brief, but they had all the essential information, including molecular formulas!
This was incredible! It was wonderful! Never before had Huang Si been so grateful that he'd recently been studying English in preparation for the IELTS exam.
But he couldn't celebrate too soon. Huang Si glanced at the battery icon in the lower-right corner of the screen.
99%. There was still plenty of power. He clicked it, and the system told him he had five hours and thirty-two minutes remaining.
In other words, he had only five and a half hours to look things up.
As soon as he realized this, Huang Si closed the database and shut down the laptop.
After the laptop screen went black, Huang Si sat in the dark room and thought for a while.
It seemed he needed to plan carefully how to use those five and a half hours.
Huang Si took out a pen and paper, set the Book of Creation beside him for light, and lowered the pen tip to the page.
He wasn't short-sighted enough to treat those five and a half hours as an absolute limit.
The most urgent thing was to find a way to keep the laptop running before its battery ran out.
In other words, he had to find a way to provide it with energy—to charge it!
Huang Si looked at the Book of Creation, which was shining brightly beside him.
The book was providing light energy, the only inexhaustible source of energy in the room.
As for other kinds of energy, Huang Si thought, he couldn't create energy directly, but he could create matter.
And matter contained energy!
Liquefied petroleum gas, for example, or batteries. Both contained energy.
Huang Si had already tried. He couldn't alter existing matter, which meant his power could only be used to create things, not to change the objects themselves.
So he couldn't restore his dead phone battery.
That meant he could only generate electricity externally by some means.
Huang Si drew a mind map on the paper.
In the center, he wrote "Energy."
Then he drew four branches:
"Light energy," "chemical energy," "electrical energy," and "heat energy."
Beside chemical energy, Huang Si wrote "carbon-zinc battery" and "alkaline battery."
Beside light energy, he wrote "solar cell."
Beside heat energy, he wrote "steam power generator."
Beside electrical energy, he wrote "direct current" and "alternating current."
Then he drew lines connecting the three types of batteries to direct current, and the generator to alternating current.
Before you continue