Chapter 1582: Academician Lu’s Problem?

January 14, 2126.

For Earth civilization, this was definitely a historic moment.

On this special day, the Pan-Asian Cooperation International Conference on the space elevator project that was held in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei City Group officially came to an end in the form of a joint statement.

Witnessed by representatives of major regional alliances around the world, Chairman Li Guangya of the Pan-Asian Cooperation, in a friendly and solemn tone, read out the guidelines for the use of the Redwood space elevator and reiterated the diplomatic guidelines for peaceful coexistence in the Pan-Asian Cooperation.

On the same day, more than ten engineering ships set off from the Moon Palace spaceport, carrying construction materials from the Mars colony. The ships rushed to the construction site of the space station at the top of the space elevator and began the welding work of the main structure of the space station.

Legend had it that Redwood was a bridge between heaven, earth, people, and gods, and it was also a sacred ladder for the oriental gods such as Fuxi and the emperor to travel between the earth and heaven. Therefore, this space station had been given a very mythical name—Nirvana.

The day after the summit ended, at the office of the chairman of the Pan-Asian Cooperation.

Seeing Academician Ge entering the office, Chairman Li Guangya stopped his work and cast a proud smile at Academician Ge.

He then asked in a gentle voice, “What did Academician Lu say? Did he agree?”

What Academician Ge did when he went to Jinling was signed off by Li Guangya. After all, for a major project like the space elevator and for such an important position like the chief designer, only the chairman of the board had the authority to make appointments.

In fact, before Academician Ge went to Jinling, he had already signed the document appointing Lu Zhou as the chief designer of the space elevator project. As long as Lu Zhou was fine with it, he could take up the position at any time.

Li Guangya certainly hoped that Lu Zhou could be the backbone of the entire space elevator project for the benefit of the Pan-Asian Cooperation instead of taking the title of chief consultant.

Especially after seeing the Pan-Asian Academy of Sciences’ frantic response to this super project, he firmly strengthened this idea.

Academician Ge knew exactly what the chairman was thinking, but he didn’t say anything.

After all, the strength of Lu Zhou was obvious to all. Besides, he was on the scene of the judging committee to witness this with his own eyes. If someone else came to serve as the chief designer, he might feel a little unjust, but if it was that man, he would feel like it was well deserved.

However, the problem was that everyone thought the same except for Lu Zhou himself…

“He refused.”

“Really?” There was not much surprise on his face, but after Li Guangya was silent for a while, he finally sighed. “It’s really a shame… If he can lead the entire project, we can at least avoid some trouble.”

Seeing the regretful expression on Li Guangya’s face, Academician Ge hesitated for a while before speaking, “One more thing… I don’t know if I should say it.”

“What?”

“When I visited him, he happened to be in the laboratory. He seemed to be working on a technology related to hyperspace channels… If I remember correctly, it should be called the Z particle oscillator device.”

Academician Ge gestured with both hands the shape of that strange device. However, this gesture obviously did not make Li Guangya understand anything. On the contrary, it made him more confused.

“Hyperspace channel? What is that…?”

“Actually, I don’t know much, but according to his own statement, this device can open a straight channel between two points in a curved space, so as to realize warp travel navigation and faster than light communication—”

Before Academician Ge had finished speaking, Li Guangya put his hands on the table and suddenly stood up from the chair.

“Warp travel?! Faster than light communication? Is this possible!”

Since entering the space age, communication distance had always been a major problem in restricting the continued expansion of human space activities. Take the Martian colony as an example. The shortest straight line distance between Tiangong City and Beijing was 55 million kilometers, and the farthest could even reach 400 million kilometers. It took at least three minutes for a message to be sent from Earth to Mars.

If they happened to be located further away, the delay time of the information would be even longer.

Although it was only three minutes, in this information age, even one second of delay was too long.

Due to communication delays and communication barriers caused by the high cost of communication, there had been a serious separation between society on Mars and society on Earth. If Guanghan City and other Pan-Asian cities were different cities, then the Martian colony and the cities on Earth were two completely different worlds.

The latter was the benchmark of a civilized society, while the former could only be regarded as a kind of existence between civilization and barbarism. Even the poorest towns on Earth were more civilized than Mars, despite the Martian cities being more technologically advanced.

If there was a special communication technology that could realize the exchange of information beyond the speed of light and reduce the communication delay between Earth and Mars to less than one second, it was obvious how life-changing it could be.

Otherwise, Li Guangya wouldn’t have been so excited after hearing the news.

“I don’t know if it can be achieved. Even Academician Lu himself seems to be uncertain…” Academician Ge sighed and continued, “In fact, compared to what he is researching, I’m more interested in his ideas.”

Li Guangya: “What ideas?”

“In my conversation with him, I felt that he might be mentally unwell.”

Sitting back in the office chair, Li Guangya frowned.

“Is it because of life problems?”

“Sort of, but the main reason may be in the relationships aspect.” Academician Ge nodded as he looked at Li Guangya with a slight frown. He said with a complicated expression, “I can feel that he loves his fiancee very much… Even after 100 years, he still misses her.”

Li Guangya did not speak. He waited quietly for him to continue speaking.

“… He also said to me that he plans to build a starship that can fly out of the solar system to go to Tau Ceti. This was the promise he made to his fiancée a hundred years ago, and he intends to fulfill it by himself. I don’t want to evaluate whether his ideas are realistic or not. What I want to say is that we may have ignored his feelings when asking him for help.

“If this problem isn’t solved, he may never be able to escape his past.”

In fact, even though Ge Huaizhi didn’t make any comments on the surface, in his mind, he had almost acquiesced that Lu Zhou was doing something ridiculous.

With the current technological level of human society, there was no basis for intergalactic navigation at all. Even for the most advanced starship in Pan-Asian Cooperation, the cruising distance was only to the edge of the Kuiper belt.

Moreover, this was just the theoretical cruising distance. No one had actually flown that far since there was no need to fly there.

Forget about Tau Ceti, which was light-years away.

Even if he did go, it would be a one-way trip.

“One hundred years…” After listening to Academician Ge’s words, Li Guangya pinched his glabella as he felt a headache. For a while, he didn’t know what to say. “I don’t understand this kind of emotion. It’s been so long…”

Very few people in the past could live beyond one hundred years. And even if someone did live that long, they would have already become an old grandma.

To be honest, what made him most confused was the attitude of the “old popsicles” towards the relationship between men and women.

She was just a fiancee.

Is it that important?

Nowadays, barely anyone even gets married anymore.

…

After Academician Ge left, Li Guangya fell into a dilemma.

If it was just trouble in life, he could say with confidence that as long as Lu Zhou asked him for help, he could find a way to help him solve it. But for this kind of emotional matter, he really couldn’t do anything.

Li Guangya turned his gaze to Secretary Wei, who was sitting in the office. Li Guangya pinched his glabella. Feeling a little troubled, he asked casually, “What do you think about this matter?”

After thinking for a while, his office secretary spoke.

“From a personal point of view, the best way to heal emotional trauma is to start a new relationship.”

“A new relationship?” Li Guangya sighed after tapping the index finger on the desk. “In other words, we have to find a way to find him a partner?

“I have to admit that this is the most efficient approach.”

Li Guangya never thought that one day he would actually be a wingman. His eyebrows twitched.

But then he thought that if he could add more “distractions” to Lu Zhou’s life, Lu Zhou might give up on his “unrealistic” idea.

Of course, faster than light communication was still very attractive to him, but going to Tau Ceti was still too dangerous!

The problem is…

Can ordinary women really attract him?

Forget about clicking. They’re not even from the same era.

“I admit that your proposal is indeed very attractive, but… are you sure that there exists someone that can arouse his interest?”

Secretary Wei showed a confident smile on his face.

“There are still such people.”

“Oh?” Li Guangya raised his eyebrows with interest. “Who?”

“Do you still remember that documentary?”

“I think any citizen of Pan-Asian Cooperation would have seen it when they were young… But are you talking about the new version or the original version?”

“It’s all the same, there is no difference in the plot.” Secretary Wei continued after a pause, “If I remember correctly, it was mentioned in the documentary that he had a Ukrainian student named Vera Pulyuy.”

“She sounds familiar.” Li Guangya asked, touching his chin, “What about her?”

“Out of interest in historical research, I checked her information. As one of the outstanding mathematicians in the early 21st century, she has won many mathematics awards such as the Fields Medal. She was also one of the students that Academician Lu was most proud of. And there have been rumors from the outside that the relationship between the two may be closer than recorded in historical materials…”

“This is history after all.” Li Guangya shrugged. “Not to mention this is the 22nd century, she has long—”

“Not quite. Because of her late-stage lung cancer, she accepted frozen dormancy to seek treatment in the future. According to unverified literature records, the original intention of the Freezing Human Rights Protection Foundation was partly to treat her disease.

“According to my investigation, not only has she not been released, but she is also in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei City Group!”

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