Mei Ziqing greeted them. The beautiful woman was also surprised to see Qingmu, but the little girl beside her was very happy and sweetly called out, "Uncle Qingmu."
Mei Ziqing asked in surprise, "You two know each other?"
Qingmu scratched his head and laughed, "You could say we know each other."
Meimei Mei Yiqiu, saying respectfully, " Professor Mei, it's an honor to meet you! My name is Situ Yuli, and I've long wanted to visit you, but unfortunately, I've never had the chance. Today, my wish has finally come true." She then nodded to Qingmu, "Mr. Qingmu is here too, that's wonderful."
Seeing her reminded Qingmu of Xia Wenyuan's daughter; the woman in that photo looked remarkably like Situ Yuli before him. However, he couldn't very well ask directly. Whether he had mistaken her for someone else or she had some hidden story, it would be awkward to inquire directly.
Upon hearing this name, Mei Ziqing recalled the indescribably handsome man she had met in Copenhagen. What was the relationship between this woman, who also shared the surname Situ, and him? She knew that in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Europe and America, it was common for women to take their husband's surname after marriage. And indeed, the woman's appearance and demeanor were a match for that man.
She wanted to ask, but didn't know how. Asking if he and Situ were husband and wife would be too abrupt. Besides, she wasn't familiar with Situ; they'd only met once, and aside from thinking he was handsome, she didn't even know what he did for a living.
Mei Yiqiu certainly wouldn't ask who a strange woman's husband was, but he naturally assumed that such a young woman couldn't be the one who provided him with the ideas for discovering the virus. So, he assumed that Situ Yuli was an assistant to some scientist, like Mei Ziqing, and asked her, "Which laboratory does Situ. Situ work in?"
Situ Yuli said, "I used to work at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, but I left a long time ago."
"Oh, that's the best scientific research center in the world," Mei Yiqiu said. "I wonder which scientist you're an assistant to? I might even know them."
"I'm not anyone's assistant. I'm in Laboratory No. 19," Situ Yuli said.
" Laboratory No. 19?" Mei Yiqiu and Mei Ziqing were both taken aback.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), located on the hill behind the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, is one of the most outstanding laboratories in the United States and the world. It is affiliated with the United States Department of Energy and is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, a famous experimental physicist at Berkeley.
In the scientific community, LBNL is synonymous with "excellence." The experimental center has produced 15 Nobel Prize and has more than 70 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences. As early as World War II, it provided the most basic experimental and mechanical support for the development of the first atomic and hydrogen bombs in the United States.
Today, LBm•hetushu. com. comNL has 18 laboratories and research centers covering multiple disciplines such as high energy physics, earth science, environmental science, computer science, energy science, and materials science.
However, only a few people know that it also has a Laboratory No. 19.
This is a mysterious organization, and all its research projects are highly classified. There were even rumors that its importance and pioneering spirit surpassed that of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ).
"I really admire you, you're so young!" Mei Ziqing exclaimed in admiration. As fellow researchers and women, she couldn't help but compare herself to the beautiful and intelligent Situ Yuli, and felt a little ashamed.
"Miss Mei Ziqing, you flatter me. It is equally enviable that you are Professor Mei's chief assistant!" Situ Yuli replied politely.
Mei Yiqiu now believed that the email was sent to him by Situ Yuli, and raised his question, "Why didn't you continue your research yourself? Since you've already hypothesized the existence and properties of the virus, and given the conditions at the Lawrence Laboratory, isolating the virus particles shouldn't be difficult!"
"As I've said before, I'm no longer working at LBNL, and I didn't propose this virion hypothesis. The reason I'm telling you this is because it relates to a study I did previously."
Situ Yuli took out a USB drive and handed it to Mei Yiqiu. "This contains data from a computer neural network project that Laboratory No. 19 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory once conducted. The original intention of this project was to study the possibility of mechanical life, but it was later stopped because it was considered inhumane."
"Isn't that inhumane?" Mei Yiqiu took the USB drive, but couldn't help feeling puzzled. The projects in the 19th Laboratory were all top secret; how could they just be taken out so casually?
"Don't worry, I have my ways of getting this information," Situ Yuli said. "Actually, this project has been going on for a long time. I don't know exactly when it started, but it probably started before the Internet was even born. And it wasn't originally done by Laboratory No. 19. The initial goal of the project was to build a more intelligent Internet. Later, during the research process, the project team discovered that the speed of Internet development was far too fast, far exceeding human expectations. So they raised the question of whether the Internet itself possesses intelligence and can self-evolve."
"I'm familiar with this topic," Mei Yiqiu interjected. "This topic once caused a huge stir in the scientific community, but most people considered it a false proposition, and it was later replaced by artificial intelligence research."
Situ Yuli said, "You're right, the topic has been dropped, but the experiments at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory haven't stopped. They continue to monitor and record the development of the Internet, and have moved the project to Laboratory No. 19. The lab has adopted a more radical approach—connecting the Internet to the human body, essentially making people a terminal on the vast Internet."
"That's impossible," Mei Ziqing said. "The human neural network and the Internet have different information transmission modes, and information cannot be exchanged. Even if they could, the two types of information cannot be translated, and people would not obey the instructions of the Internet. How can m•hetushu•com. com. com become a terminal?"
Mei Yiqiu also showed the same puzzled expression.
"Human chip," Situ Yuli uttered those four simple words.
"Human microchip?"
Mei Ziqing was astonished, Mei Yiqiu fell into deep thought, while Qingmu unconsciously thought of someone.
Situ Yuli and said, "This is what I meant by the inhumane aspect. The laboratory has invented a very sophisticated microchip that is implanted in the human spine and connected to the spinal cord. This chip can accurately sense the electrical signals transmitted by the nerves in the human body and access the Internet through specific satellite signals. Of course, its working principle is very complex and far from being as simple as I described."
Mei Yiqiu asked, "What is the purpose of the chip experiment?"
Situ Yuli said, "The researchers want to use this intermediate chip to achieve mutual communication and translation between the human nervous system and the Internet's mechanical neural network, in order to observe whether humans and the Internet will influence each other, whether humans, as special terminals, will affect the local development of the Internet, whether the Internet will affect human thinking, or whether there will be no influence between the two."
And the result?
"The result is—" Situ Yuli glanced at everyone, " The Internet has completely taken control of people with chips implanted in their devices."