Chapter 531: Lying Down

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

“Achoo!”

Luo Zhanyuan: “What happened?”

“Nothing…”

This air conditioning is too cold, it’s making me sneeze…

Zhou Chengfu blew his nose and contemplated in his heart.

Right now, he was on a return flight. He didn’t know that he was being thought of by someone.

A dozen or so hours ago, he and Director Luo, who was sitting across from him, as well as several other experts from the China International Nuclear Fusion Energy Program Execution Center and other representatives appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in an informal ITER meeting in France.

The outcome of the meeting wasn’t positive.

However, rather than worrying about the US representative’s attitude toward them, he was more worried about the situation in China.

“Director Luo.”

“Yeah?”

Zhou Chengfu was trying to test out the waters. “In your opinion, what do the higher-ups want?”

Luo Zhanyuan highly respected this academician-level expert on controllable nuclear fusion. When he heard the question, he replied. “The higher-ups basically have no hope for the ITER project anymore. Judging by the United States and European’s sincerity toward us, even if we do disclose our technology, we might still be kicked out. Before coming here, the top leaders in the department set up a meeting for us. They asked us to drag this out for as long as possible and to not disclose any technical secrets. Unless they were willing to do a technology exchange with us, the deal is off the table.”

Zhou Chengfu heard this and silently sighed in his heart.

As expected, his worst nightmares came true.

His efforts over a decade were about to be ruined. He already knew the higher-ups’ decision, and he knew that an expert like him had no say in this matter. However, he still couldn’t help but complain.

“Then we’re just going to withdraw from ITER? We spent so much just to join…”

Luo Zhanyuan shook his head and said, “What else are we going to do? If we don’t stop the damages now, the damages will just increase over time.”

Director Luo paused for a second.

“Also, even though I shouldn’t say this, but withdrawing from ITER isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At least we can take the money we give to the Europeans, and invest it into our own fusion energy projects instead.

“Also, Professor Lu promised that we could complete the demonstration reactor by 2025… If he succeeds, we don’t have to be so passive anymore, we can take the initiative.”

Lu Zhou again…

When Zhou Chengfu heard this name, his eyebrows subconsciously twitched.

What if that kid is bragging…

Even though Zhou Chengfu really wanted to say this out loud, he decided not to; it was buried in his heart.

After all, even though he didn’t want to lose to Lu Zhou, he wasn’t an idiot…

…

According to Murphy’s law, “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

Even though the Chinese representatives tried to drag this out for as long as possible, they still had to face reality.

The last day in August.

The first “victim” appeared.

Before the United States convinced its allies, it planned on putting a little pressure on China first.

Because the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory had too high of a profile, they often appeared in the news headlines. The institute, which had nothing to do with the STAR research institute, was wrongfully killed.

Xiao Le dragged a dusty suitcase. He stood in front of his house feeling perplexed.

Three days ago, he was a visiting scholar at the General Atomics DIII-D laboratory. He planned on returning to China at the end of the year.

However, he didn’t expect that he would be sent back to China because of a document personally signed by POTUS.

Professor Li was leading the team, and he gave the team a week of holiday and told them to wait in their homes for an update. The person in charge of General Atomics said that they would escalate this matter with the Department of Energy. After all, General Atomics didn’t want to lose these talented scholars, but it was most likely that nothing would come of it…

In short, they would take a short break and wait a bit before reporting to Lu Yang.

The doorbell rang and the front door opened.

When Xiao Zhiping saw his son standing at the front door, he paused for a second.

“Aren’t you coming back at the end of the year? Why are you back now?”

“What? Our son is back?” The voice of his mother, Wang Li, traveled through the living room. When she saw her son, she walked over happily. She took the suitcase from her son’s hand and said, “Come inside and rest. Jesus Christ, you came all the way back and you didn’t even call us. I’ll tell your dad to buy pork later, I’ll braise it for you.”

Xiao Le forced a smile and said, “Everything happened a bit urgently. Our communication equipment was taken away, they only gave it back to us when we got on the plane.”

After he got off the flight, he didn’t bother calling beforehand.

Xiao Zhiping paused for a second and frowned. “Taken away? What happened?”

“Maybe… it’s related to the recent trade wars, I don’t know the specific situation.” Xiao Le shook his head and sat on the sofa. He picked up a cup and took a sip of water before saying, “The day before yesterday, we were planning on going to a plasma physics seminar. The professor in charge of our exchange team suddenly told us that the seminar was canceled. After that, when we got back to the hotel, some people that claimed they were from the FBI confiscated our communication equipment and searched our rooms…”

Wang Li was astonished, and she asked, “You guys didn’t get robbed, did you?”

Xiao Le shook his head and said, “Nope… They had a local court search order, so it’s probably not fake.”

Actually, it didn’t matter if it was fake or not.

After Xiao Le got back his phone, he found out that the photos he took of the General Atomics’ company building were all deleted. However, he posted those photos in his friends’ news feed, so the loss wasn’t huge.

Wang Li: “Th-this is too scary… How about you don’t go on any academic exchanges anymore?”

Xiao Le shook his head and said, “What exchange, my visas have all been canceled!”

Because of this incident, their names were probably all blacklisted. Not only academic exchanges, but he would probably have problems just traveling for vacation.

Honestly speaking, he was muddled. He had no idea what these Americans were up to.

From his point of view, controllable nuclear fusion was still in the far future. It might take another fifty years to realize. Suddenly, the nuclear fusion field became similar to the nuclear fission field; it was considered a sensitive technology.

He maliciously speculated and suspected that this president wanted to show his power against China.

After all, it was nearly 2020, close to the elections again.

After Xiao Zhiping heard his son’s sufferings, he was outraged, and he spoke with anger, “Ah, who cares about America. Who cares! Without them, is the earth going to stop spinning? Did we not create atomic bombs and satellites without them?”

Xiao Le shook his head and said, “Okay, fine fine, you won’t understand if I explained it to you.”

Many people didn’t realize, and obviously, the media wouldn’t report on this, but the EAST device on the Science Island wasn’t designed by a Chinese research institute. They actually heavily referenced the DIII-D tokamak device from General Atomics.

After all, there was a difference between scientific research and agriculture. It wasn’t like if someone gave you the seeds, you could grow the plants yourself.

If it were a fully developed technology, then this problem wouldn’t exist. But the large scale nuclear fusion technology research was far from being developed. The follow-up research and what to plan on doing next was far more crucial than the existing technology.

But now, their cooperation with General Atomics had been suspended.

Of course, they could still use their EAST device, but as for what they should research next…

They could only rely on themselves.

Of course, Xiao Le wasn’t totally hopeless.

Learning was part of scientific research. It was important to know one’s weaknesses, but one shouldn’t be overly humble either. In fact, they had made significant innovations on the EAST machine. For example, the superconducting D-section technology was developed by the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory.

It was just that, compared to being in a win-win situation, they had to fight alone from now on.

This made him feel somewhat unsafe about China’s future controllable fusion field…

Xiao Zhiping: “I don’t understand those stuff, but you guys are the Fuyang Institute Construction Material Laboratory, surely you are the leaders in the domestic controllable fusion field? Do your best, make your father proud. Make those Americans beg for us to go back!”

Xiao Le heard his father’s encouraging words and shook his head as he continued to eat.

Sounds easy, but it’s not easy to do.

Not to mention, we’re not the leaders in fusion energy anymore.

The ITER is planning on going toward the stellarator direction, and the United States and Europeans don’t want to play with us anymore. I have no idea if the CFTER is going to survive.

I think China is planning on pursuing the stellarator as well.

I think it’s called STAR-2?

After all, the light coming from the Purple Mountain blinded the entire world…

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