Chapter 49: Silicon-based Nanotube_1

"Oh, I've never been to your place before, how about you take me to your home for a visit?"

Qin Ming realized he had misinterpreted her words and spread his hands wide:

"There's nothing interesting to play with at my home."

Despite what he said, under Liu Yueyue's insistence, Qin Ming reluctantly took her to his home.

They walked up the tube house, passing by a quarreling couple on the ground floor, Qin Ming took out his keys, and then opened the door.

"Should I change my shoes?"

"No need."

Upon hearing Qin Ming's answer, Liu Yueyue lifted her foot and walked in, her gaze immediately taking in the sparsely furnished room lacking even a television, but the mottled walls were entirely covered with certificates of merit.

There was a stark contrast between the two.

After a glance at the youth's handsome features, Liu Yueyue was reminded of a phrase: "Though the room be but humble, it is filled with the fragrance of virtue."

After looking around for a bit, her gaze toward Qin Ming softened, "Have you always lived here?"

Qin Ming nodded, not showing any inferiority but instead laughing, "See, I told you there's nothing fun."

"Let's go."

As they were descending the stairs, they saw a short middle-aged man with glasses emerging from a room, accompanied by a disheveled woman.

Liu Yueyue waved her hand in greeting, "What a coincidence, Miss Wang, what are you doing here?"

Director Wang looked up, having a good impression of Liu Yueyue and upon seeing her with a boy, instinctively wanted to preach, "Are you two early…"

He stopped mid-sentence and swallowed the rest, "You didn't see anything today! Got it?"

Having said that, he rushed downstairs like a thief in a hurry.

Qin Ming and Liu Yueyue watched his flustered retreat and shared a knowing smile.

Walking side by side on the street, Liu Yueyue turned around, revealing a springlike smile:

"I'll treat you to some milk tea."

"Sure."

Arm in arm with their bubble teas, they continued along the streets of Kyoto, attracting the glances of passersby reminiscing about their own lost youth.

They wandered onto a large bridge without realizing it, paused, and leaned on the railing to enjoy the cool summer breeze by the river, with the setting sun casting parallel shadows of them on the ground.

Ever since arriving in Three-Body World, Qin Ming's mood was for the first time truly relaxed, yet as he looked at Liu Yueyue's youthful and pretty face next to him, his heart felt no flutter.

Qin Ming felt a sense of melancholy, knowing he had lost many emotions, a side effect of the habitual use of NZT, as absolute reason eradicated the emotions that shouldn't exist.

Liu Yueyue looked at the boy beside her, feeling an inexplicable emotion rising within her.

"Life may be tough, but the milk tea is still sweet, isn't it?"

She lifted her milk tea against the sun, with brows arched and a radiant and sweet smile toward Qin Ming.

"Do you want to come stay at my place?"

"I think your parents would kill me."

A touch of warmth rose in his heart, knowing this girl was trying to comfort him, but the miracle had already happened.

Qin Ming thought about explaining but then felt it unnecessary, as people only believe what they want to believe, and saying it would be pointless.

Evening arrived quickly, and they parted ways to return to their respective homes.

...

The next morning, Qin Ming arrived at the neighborhood where Liu Yueyue's family lived.

He wanted to find a chance to meet her mother, Chen Fang, who was a leader at the Nanocenter, perhaps through her he could gain access to the Nanocenter and obtain data on the "Nanoblades."

He knocked on the door, and the person who opened it happened to be Chen Fang.

"Is that Xiao Ming? Have you eaten breakfast yet?" she greeted Qin Ming warmly, inviting him in.

"I have, Auntie."

"Actually, you didn't have to come over, are you feeling better now?" Chen Fang's eyes showed some concern.

"Auntie, I'm really fine, it must have been a misdiagnosis by the doctor."

"Is that so? That's really great." She wasn't sure if she actually believed him or not, changed into her shoes, and then said, "Yueyue is still sleeping, I'm off to work now."

After Chen Fang left, Qin Ming noticed that she hadn't taken her handbag with her.

She must have forgotten it.

He thought to himself, but didn't go down to remind her, because this might be an opportunity.

Qin Ming glanced at the time again and realized it was already half past eight.

Liu Yueyue really can sleep.

He went to the door, "Some lazybones still sleeping?"

"Come in."

Qin Ming pushed the door open and saw Liu Yueyue sitting on the bed in a skirt, "Isn't today Sunday? Does your mother still have to go to work?"

"These past two days seem to be very busy at my mom's workplace. She was working yesterday too."

"Is that so."

...

Chen Fang felt that her memory had become worse over the past two days, and she occasionally felt dizzy. She wondered if she had caught a cold or if the pressure lately had been too much, as she had even left her bag at home.

Luckily, her phone was still on her. Thinking so, she took it out and called her daughter, "Yueyue, I forgot to take my bag with me. I'm at my office at work. Can you bring it to me?"

"Got it, Mom. I'm coming over now," Liu Yueyue hung up the phone.

Qin Ming chuckled, "I'll go with you."

"Sure."

The two of them quickly got ready, found Chen Fang's shoulder bag, and headed to the Nanocenter.

The security guard at the main gate seemed very familiar with Liu Yueyue. After greeting them, he let them through the gate directly.

Liu Yueyue entered the visitors' lobby, went up to the second-floor office, "Mom, how could you forget your bag? I remember you've never forgotten it before."

Chen Fang took the bag and sighed, "I'm getting old, my memory isn't what it used to be."

"By the way, did Xiao Ming leave?"

"He's with me, just went to the restroom."

At that moment, Qin Ming was crouching in the restroom. In fact, he was using the telekinetic field and the Nano System to scan the surrounding environment.

The tall building behind was the main experimental laboratory of the Nanocenter.

Through the telekinetic field, he could see inside the building was a gigantic apparatus, the main part of which was a sphere with numerous converging pipes. That was the reaction black box, where chemical reactions were constantly occurring.

Looking at that sphere, Qin Ming's thoughts wandered to the cells of the human body, which also constantly undergo complex chemical reactions to maintain the life activities. Speaking of which, cells can also produce nanomaterials, such as iron oxide nanoparticles.

Perhaps biological cells could replace the black box?

A notion suddenly flashed across Qin Ming's mind, and after thinking carefully, he felt it was feasible.

However, the immediate priority was still to find the data. A minute later, he found what he was looking for in an archive room.

All the data and information gathered in Qin Ming's mind. He had thought that these nanomaterials were related to carbon nanotubes, but it turned out that they were silicon-based materials, consisting of silicon-based nanotubes formed at a special angle and structure with silicon as the main atom on a three-dimensional level.

The scale of these was much smaller than one-tenth the thickness of a human hair.

He realized that the Nanoblades that cut through the hull in the original work must be formed by entwining bundles of multiple silicon-based nanotubes, their diameter several orders of magnitude larger than the distance between atoms. Such "blades" would actually be "blunt blades," which would not pass through a living body without causing damage, as if not entering at all.

Currently, silicon-based nanotubes were produced only on a small scale in laboratories. They stacked the silicon-based molecules like bricks with molecular probes, which was laborious, time-consuming, and resource-intensive, making mass production impossible. This was the challenge the Nanocenter was currently attempting to overcome; they wanted to find a chemical synthesis method for mass-producing silicon-based nanotubes through the reaction black box.

Now that he had the method and principle for creating nanomaterials, Qin Ming crouched down for almost five minutes. He pulled up his pants, walked out of the restroom, and found Liu Yueyue.

By then, Liu Yueyue was getting ready to leave, "Mom, we'll head back now."

"Yueyue, it's almost lunchtime. Have a meal in the cafeteria before you go. There's no food at home anyway."

With that, Chen Fang led the two to the staff cafeteria. At that moment, the place was almost empty. The food in the cafeteria was quite plentiful, with various home-style meat and vegetable dishes available. There was even a big pot of bone broth stewing, sprinkled with chopped green onions and emitting steam.

Liu Yueyue took her first bite and felt something was off, so she took another.

"Why does it taste so bland, like there's no flavor?"

"I can't taste any saltiness either," Qin Ming echoed.

Chen Fang also noticed the issue and shouted toward the kitchen, "Old Zhou, did you forget to put salt in the dishes today?"

The chef named Old Zhou came out of the kitchen, "How could that be? I remember putting it in."

"You really didn't, Old Zhou. Why would I lie to you?"

"Let me taste."

After saying that, he tasted a dish and indeed found no salt.

Embarrassed, the chef tapped his head, "I got muddled; I really forgot the salt."

After speaking, he went back into the kitchen, muttering to himself, "Why do I feel like my memory's getting worse lately?"