After seeing the young girl off, the group chatted for a while longer before getting down to business.
Sheng Jiangchen's grandfather said, "There are too many people here. Let's go to the study. Xiao Chen, fetch my Da Hong Pao tea for your uncle, Gu Yatou, and her boyfriend."
Sheng Jiangchen: "..."
In this movie of five people, only he was not of life-or-death importance.
But the other four were guests. Zhu Nian and Zhu Zhongyan were guests, and he couldn't order his grandfather or uncle around. He was the only one who could do this.
So he resigned himself to making tea for them.
Zhu Zhongyan actually didn't want to go to the study with them, but he felt even more awkward being with the other members of the Sheng family. He could only follow Zhu Nian into the study.
Sheng's uncle moved chairs for them and, from somewhere, produced a silver case. He opened it, changed into a pair of glasses, and brought out a stack of documents. With a poker face, he said, "Miss Gu, I've studied the materials you provided these past few days and found many of them feasible. My department is very interested in many of the things mentioned in your documents, especially this large-scale quantum protective shield. We urgently need to produce it to deal with a crisis. We hope you can help us..."
Once he started speaking, the others could barely get a word in. Grandfather Sheng smiled and nodded, then said to the somewhat flustered Zhu Zhongyan, "I don't understand what the young man is talking about. Does Xiao Zhu play chess? Why don't we play a few rounds?"
Zhu Zhongyan looked up, a little embarrassed, and said, "I only know a little."
"It's fine, it's just for fun, to pass the time. No need to worry about winning or losing."
And so, Zhu Zhongyan went to play chess with him on the side.
At first, he was restless, constantly listening to the conversation next to him, about particle collisions, magnetic field protection, genetic mutations, gene recombination, and then geographical changes, the impact of cosmic matter on weather, and indirectly on the entire Earth's environment...
Zhu Zhongyan's head swam, and he had no energy for chess, losing several games in a row.
Grandfather Sheng was a little displeased. "You can get distracted while playing chess with this old man. Are you deliberately letting me win? Do you think I'm too old and don't want to lose? I don't want you to go easy on me. Play seriously. You'll need my approval if you marry Gu Yatou in the future, so don't offend me."
Zhu Zhongyan found his words both amusing and exasperating.
He couldn't understand the conversation next door, and hearing Grandfather Sheng say that, he decided to focus his energy and play chess with him earnestly.
Sheng Jiangchen didn't understand much either, but he listened with great interest.
"...The influence of unknown substances is enormous, but many ordinary people cannot come into contact with it. However, the authorities cannot keep it a secret for too long. This is the number of alien monsters that officials have discovered and hunted in the past thirty years, and it has been increasing, increasing, and increasing. Through rigorous algorithmic research, we predict that within the next decade, there will be an explosive surge. These alien monsters vary in appearance, some large and some small, with almost no common characteristics. In other words, we cannot provide a universal countermeasure, and can only solve them one by one. This method is suitable when the number is small. Once there is an explosive outbreak, there will be a large number of casualties in a short period, causing immense panic. We have conducted many simulations and hypotheses before, and prevention is the best choice. However, there are no patterns to the generation and appearance of these monsters."
They still didn't know how the monsters were produced.
Although they could be killed with brute force, he had said that such a method was only suitable when the numbers were small.
Zhu Nian frowned and asked, "You still don't know how the monsters come about?"
He shook his head and hesitated for a moment. "Special department personnel have said they turn into people. Things like monsters are too absurd and lack scientific basis."
Zhu Nian smiled. "Perhaps it's not that it lacks scientific basis, but that you haven't discovered the science within it yet."
Sheng's uncle frowned, not quite understanding her meaning.
Zhu Nian said, "Do you have any specimens now? Can I see them?"
He thought about it and said seriously, "If we can reach a cooperation, you can see them, because data is needed to design the corresponding weapons or protective gear."
Zhu Nian: "..."
Sheng's uncle was a distinctively nerdy person, and communication was somewhat difficult.
"I have a hypothesis that I can create an instrument that can detect monsters, provided I can see the monsters you've captured."
The other party's brow furrowed deeper. He carefully weighed the pros and cons. After a few minutes, he said, "This matter is quite significant, so I need to report it to my superiors. Can you wait a couple of days?"
Zhu Nian was getting impatient. "First come, first served."
"Then one day is fine too."
Zhu Nian: "..."
Sheng Jiangchen was a bit confused. "Didn't we come to discuss artificial intelligence? How did it turn to monsters? This isn't a movie. Uncle, don't forget the main business. Hurry and tell Grandpa. Do you know that every minute of delay is a waste of this world, a waste of humanity's progress towards the future technological era!"
Sheng's uncle glanced at him and habitually explained, "Time does not exist. It's something humans define to help us live. Without humans, it wouldn't exist. If something doesn't exist, there's no 'waste' of it..."
Sheng Jiangchen was almost driven mad by him.
"I hope to get an answer by noon tomorrow."
Sheng's uncle nodded. "I will convene a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the feasibility of this matter. By noon... can you tell me the exact time? Noon represents a period of time, not a precise point in time, so I cannot give you a precise answer."
"...Twelve o'clock noon!"
She was grinding her teeth a little.
Sheng's uncle remained as calm as ever and even took notes on the matter.
The conversation was temporarily interrupted. Zhu Nian had originally intended to discuss more advanced topics with him. However, he was only concerned with the energy shield. His insistence was such that Zhu Nian eventually had to follow his lead.
She had experience dealing with alien monsters, and she also had a personal motive.
She had considered accelerating the onset of the apocalypse, but then rejected it. Now, seeing this data, she realized that even without Zhu Zhongyan, the apocalypse would still descend, only the timeline and severity might differ.
In this way, what would have been a loss of merit for her manufacturing efforts turned into an opportunity to earn merit by helping to save the world.
Going to that unknown world would require a lot of merit points. If his body was truly there, she might not be able to retrieve it without significant cost.
What those people wanted most was merit.
And what she used to help create the detection instrument was also merit.
She was utterly entwined with this word.