Chapter 102: The Night of the 18th
On Friday morning, April 1st, the world's first slow reactor was launched.
"April Fool's Day!" Sakuma deliberately pronounced the holiday with two extra consonants in his Japanese accent. "Today! Any shocking news in the newspaper will be exempt from any moral or legal responsibility, and the government and judicial authorities will not pursue it! However, jokes can only be made before midnight."
Sakuma woke up bright and early, pacing energetically in front of the institute, wishing everyone he met a Happy April Fool's Day. Seeing Xie Zeyi driving Chu Wang across the border to build a road, he raised an eyebrow and became even more excited. "In the West, jokes can only be made until midnight. But in Shanghai, I hear interesting things happen every day."
She got out of the car and walked towards the institute, wearing a white sweater and white trousers under a ginger short coat. Sakuma's eyes were almost fixed on her, and he said, "I can hardly imagine how you will dress up tonight."
Chu Wang brushed past him without noticing him. He turned around and glanced at the corner of her clothes. Then he turned and smiled at Xie Zeyi, who was walking towards him, and said, "People say that Western women have thin waists, but they're made of steel wire and whale bones, as if they were made of iron. No wonder some people come back from such great distances to trace their roots, right, my dear captain?"
Xie Zeyi paused and gave him a standard smile when seeing a scoundrel: "It seems that you are better than me."
In the British Army, it was a miracle that Xie Zeyi had such a rank at his age. Sakuma was the same age as him, but he was already a major.
Sakuma said, "If you were willing to be like your other colleagues, maybe you would have the right to punch this bastard like me right now."
"We don't have any competitions where you kill people to get promoted." Xie Zeyi narrowed his eyes. "I'm sorry, compared to your country, the British team still has some sense of shame."
Xie Zeyi left without stopping. Sakuma stared at his back and laughed. Every country that appeared in this weak land was equally shameless in eroding this nation. What was the difference?
He had heard elsewhere about the prowess of this pale, yellow British captain with dark pupils. If he had realized that the ants in this land were all his compatriots, if he had not helped the British make any decisions that would destroy this land, how could he have achieved this rank in the British army at such an early age?
And if the balance in his heart was not completely tilted towards the British, what would he feel when he saw the British army repeatedly bullying the Chinese?
Sakuma thought: If he were an American officer who had entered Japan with the US military during the massacre, he would either be assimilated into the bloodthirsty murderer, or he would not want to stay in that land for a moment. If it was the former, he could easily imagine it; if it was the latter, then this person's endurance was unmatched by ordinary people.
So which one does he belong to?
——
A quarter past ten.
The British and Japanese envoys and military officers from Nanjing had already gone to the stands at the north end of the stadium to wait, and Xie Zeyi was among them.
Hundreds of instruments were carried out from the research institute, and the counters were installed one by one.
Chu Wang and Orben were checking the installation of instruments around the boiler platform one after another. Fermi and Bohr had already gone up to the stands to debug the exponential curve sensitivity of the proliferation counter to see if it matched.
He stayed in the stands, manipulating another horizontal cadmium rod, and asked Chu Wang to go to the boiler platform to work with Fermi and Bohr on the liquid cadmium filling device. At a quarter past ten, Orben checked his pocket watch and nodded to Chu Wang.
The makeshift ladder built onto the two-story boiler was provided by the mill workers and wasn't designed with women in mind. The steps were wide enough to accommodate adult men over five and a half feet tall. Every time she reached the top of the boiler, Xie Zeyi had watched over her as she climbed each step. She had worn long pants today to make the climb easier, but it still proved a bit difficult, and she nearly fell several times.
A burst of laughter came from the officers in the stands below.
At the top of the stands, Fermi and Bohr reached out and pulled her up, sitting her on the edge of the boiler. She patted her dirty hands without a care, pulled the draft from her coat pocket, and concentrated on checking it for the last moment.
Yoshio Nishina and a dozen Japanese scientists stood around the boiler, holding forms in their hands, staring at the counter intently.
Zhu Ercha, along with the Consul to Britain, the Japanese taipan, the ** Colonel, and the Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, stood atop the north end of the stands, staring at the ticking stopwatch and exchanging glances. The Consul looked around at the crowd and shouted, "Begin!"
As the operators slowly pulled hundreds of cadmium rods from the top of the boiler, hundreds of counters began to tick. Like clockwork, the Japanese scientists quickly filled in a new line of numbers on a spreadsheet every thirty seconds. After about ten sets of data were completed, the vertical cadmium rods were completely withdrawn, leaving only Oppenheimer's twenty-six-foot horizontal cadmium rod, the same diameter as the boiler, used to control the reaction intensity.
Yoshio Nishina kept reading the numbers on the instrument panel. Then, from the stands, Bohr called out to Orben, who immediately began to pull out the cadmium rod, very carefully and slowly, one foot at a time. As the horizontal cadmium rod was withdrawn bit by bit, the counters around the boiler ticked faster and faster until it reached half the diameter of the boiler, thirteen feet.
Chu Wang held the liquid cadmium filling equipment, held his breath, and stared at the radiation intensity meter on the top of the boiler without blinking. The meter automatically drew the slow-reacting radiation index curve in the boiler - its reading gradually went up, and then gradually stabilized, indicating that at the bottom of the boiler, the cadmium rod in Oppenheimer's hand had been completely pulled out.
A stable irradiation index curve means that the value-added coefficient is one, and the output power inside the boiler is greater than the input power.
It also proves that controlled nuclear fission has begun to proceed automatically.
Fermi stared at the irradiation index curve with her, while Bohr watched Oppenheimer from afar, ready to ask him to insert the cadmium rod back into the boiler at any time if anything unexpected happened. He himself would immediately inject liquid cadmium from the top together with Fermi and Chu Wang.
Whether in the stands or in the audience, scientists or officers... everyone held their breath and watched all this unfold quietly.
In the entire research institute, only a few hundred counters remained, ticking rapidly and steadily without stopping for a moment.
The longer and steadier the ticking sound, the faster Chu Wang's heartbeat grew. Her hand, gripping the liquid cadmium perfusion device, had gone from sore to numb, but a single thought rang through her mind: humanity's first successful slow reaction was about to be achieved!
Until Oppenheimer looked at his pocket watch and yelled to Bohr and Chu Wang: "Fifty-six minutes, no accidents!"
Chu Wang's eyes widened little by little. It was twelve years earlier than in his previous life!
Yoshio Nishina exchanged glances with the Japanese boss, while the others were still counting. Yoshio Nishina put down the counting book in his hand and quickly walked over to shake hands with Oppenheimer.
The officers in the stands stood up and applauded.
Below the boiler, Chinese government and chamber of commerce representatives congratulated and shook hands with the British and Japanese envoys. Three aides opened bottles of champagne and brandy and distributed a bottle to each of the scientists and officers. Scientists and soldiers in the stands stepped forward and signed their names on the bottle labels.
Sakuma and the Japanese boss were staring at her. She looked up at him, a smile on her face, as if to say, "Six weeks. I mean what I said."
A voice in her heart said: I will definitely do what I say for the rest!
Bohr and Fermi each gave Chu Wang a big hug. The former then left the stands to explain the count, while the latter whispered in her ear, "Congratulations."
The moment Chu Wang smiled at him, his eyes suddenly became moist.
Femi patted her again and said, "Go down and sign your name on the bottle."
She nodded and followed him down the steps to the boiler with difficulty.
Oppenheimer was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs. When Fermi came down, the two of them high-fived each other in perfect rapport, and Fermi naturally accepted the glass of brandy offered by Oppenheimer.
After Fermi left, he stood below and opened his arms towards Chu Wang. Chu Wang grinned and threw himself into a big bear hug without any hesitation.
"That's not reasonable in China," Oppenheimer said in his oddly pronounced Mandarin.
…
"This is the only true and best news in human history since the birth of April Fool's Day, isn't it?" Sakuma wrote his name in Chinese on the wine bottle and said with a smile to the group of heroic officers.
Xie Zeyi looked at his watch and said, "It's past twelve o'clock. Please stop boring yourself."
Sakuma continued to smile shamelessly, "Aren't you going to write down your name, our handsome Captain? Are you hesitating between writing your Chinese or English name, or are you waiting for your little beauty to leave her name in history together?"
Zhu Ercha came over and motioned him to go under the boiler to take a look.
Xie Zeyi stared at the stairs from a distance, then followed Zhu Ercha toward the crowd. Someone offered him a glass of wine, but he politely declined.
Seeing that he was distracted, Zhu Ercha glanced towards the stairs and patted his shoulder helplessly: "Go."
He nodded and thanked his superior, then walked towards her through the crowd. Chu Wang happened to see him and ran towards him with a bright smile on his face.
Xie Zeyi looked at that extremely contagious, almost reckless smile, and was almost infected by her.
I stopped immediately and was about to say, "Congratulations."
Before he could finish his words, the small figure in front of him flashed, and the next moment, he felt her tightly embrace him from the waist. He took the heavy bear hug and took a step back, while at the same time reaching out to protect her and prevent her from falling to the ground. (m.)138TXT
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