Ever since Biosphere A had been attacked by unidentified armed assailants and some of its experimental data destroyed, the entire Spark Plan had ground to a halt.
Although no research institutes had ended their cooperation with the Spark Plan as a result, safety concerns had prompted many experts from foreign institutes to consider withdrawing from the research.
The project's researchers had now been transferred to the Hua Academy of Sciences Institute of Space Technology, and repairs to Biosphere A had begun. Local troops had tightened security in the surrounding area, but even so, the losses already suffered could never be recovered.
Nearly half a year's hard work had gone up in flames. Watching the Spark Plan reach an impasse had been agonizing for Professor Hu Yang, the project director, and he had lost a considerable amount of weight.
Although no one blamed him for it, sometimes the hardest person to face was yourself.
So when he received a call from Professor Lu and heard that he had important information about the Spark Plan to share, he immediately set off from Shangjing for Jinling.
After a journey involving several transfers, he finally met Lu Zhou, the man who had called him, in the director's office at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
"This is what I wanted to give you." Lu Zhou took an external hard drive out of a drawer, walked over to the sofa by the coffee table, and sat down. He handed it to Professor Hu, who sat opposite him, and said solemnly, "I hope you'll put the data inside to good use."
Looking at the external hard drive being offered to him, Hu Yang hesitated briefly and asked in confusion, "...What's this?"
"Data obtained from Mars."
The office fell silent for a full half minute.
Professor Hu