The river of time flowed quietly.
Within Blue’s top research institute, a legend and a “joke” grew side by side.
At seven years old, Herta’s reputation had long since broken through the barriers of academic circles, shining as brilliantly as a supernova, radiating across the entire planet’s consciousness.
She had successively solved the “Hermann Energy Collapse Paradox,” the “Charon Gravitational Constant Anomaly,” the “Riemann-Boson Superposition State Conjecture,” and several other world-class problems that had perplexed the scientific community for decades or even centuries.
She was crowned with titles like “A Treasure Unearthed Once in a Millennium” and “The Crystallization of Blue’s Wisdom.” Her laboratory had become both a holy land longed for by top scholars worldwide and a pressure cooker of intimidation.
And in the corner of this laboratory filled with precision instruments, holographic projections, and data streams—that spot covered with a soft carpet, tacitly recognized as a “safe zone”—Baida (physically seven years old) sat cross-legged, conducting her most important “research” of the day.
Before her lay a box of colorful Play-Doh.
Her fingers were stained with bits of clay in various colors as she focused on molding a…
well, for now, call it a “neither-fish-nor-fowl” object.
It had what looked like a dinosaur’s tail, bird wings, and a head that somehow resembled a potato.
“Hmm…
a bit more red…
here, pinch a horn…” Baida mumbled to herself, her little face filled with seriousness, as if carving a masterpiece for the ages.
At her feet sat several similar “masterpieces”—a tangled mess of green lines (“seaweed”), a flat, smiling round pancake (“sun cake”), and a purple object vaguely recognizable as a long stick, which she had named “Herta’s Magic Wand” (though Herta had explicitly stated she had no interest in magic).
She was the most out-of-place presence in this laboratory.
The researchers and assistants who came and went had long grown accustomed to this “genius girl’s burden.” Their gazes toward her mixed pity, helplessness, and sometimes a hint of barely concealed disdain.
A “fool” who at seven still couldn’t engage in normal academic communication, whose language ability barely reached a few simple words, who spent her days playing with Play-Doh—appearing in such a sacred hall of knowledge was undoubtedly a mockery of the word “genius,” an inconspicuous and even unsightly footnote on the perfect canvas of Herta’s life.
Herta never paid it any mind.
She seemed to tacitly accept her sister’s presence within her domain.
Baida too was content.
Her world was small, small enough to hold only Herta and her colorful mud.
She would usually sit quietly in the corner, or cling to Herta’s waist like a human pendant, pressing her face against her back, listening to the rapid tapping of keys and Herta’s calm discussions with her assistants, soaking in that reassuring presence that belonged to her sister.
But the calm was broken when Herta turned eight.
To verify a new theory on “the conductivity efficiency of imaginary energy in confined fields,” Herta had independently designed an experimental apparatus called the “Cross-Dimensional Energy Resonance Bridge.” The complexity of its blueprints and the boldness of its concepts made even the senior engineers involved in the project shake their heads.
It wasn’t just precision—it was the ultimate challenge to existing materials science and processing technology.
The theoretical strength requirements for many components exceeded the limits of known materials, and the precision required for certain interfaces surpassed the nanometer-level capabilities of current state-of-the-art lithography.
Blue’s most top-tier craftsmen and engineering teams, hired at great expense, had toiled for months in the advanced workshop attached to the laboratory.
They tried countless alloy formulas, processing methods, and construction techniques.
In the end, the team leader—a white-haired, highly respected senior academician—along with his core members, clutching the thick stack of repeatedly revised and annotated blueprints, reluctantly made their way to Herta’s core laboratory.
“Miss Herta,” the old academician said heavily, his voice laced with defeat, “we…
have done our best.
Components No.
7, No.
13, and especially the core ‘resonance cavity’ you designed—with the materials and processes currently available to us…
cannot be realized.” He pointed at several key areas on the blueprints.
“You see, at these stress concentration points, any known material will experience lattice slip before reaching the theoretical strength.
And this multi-dimensional curved surface interface—the precision required…
forgive me for being blunt, but this exceeds the limits of physical machining.”
His team members behind him also lowered their heads, their faces filled with helplessness and shame.
Being stumped by an eight-year-old girl’s design was undoubtedly a major failure in their professional careers.
Herta set down the data pad she was calculating on and raised those clear yet cold eyes, sweeping them over the dispirited “elites” before her.
The oppressive aura emanating from her small body made these adults feel suffocated.
“Can’t be realized?” Herta’s voice was crisp, but piercing as an icicle.
“So, you’re saying my theory is wrong?
Because of your ‘can’t be realized’?”
“No, that’s not what I mean!” The old academician quickly explained.
“Your theory is flawless!
It’s our technology…
that’s lagging behind.”
“Technology?” Herta sneered, the laughter filled with undisguised mockery.
“When thinking is shackled by existing technological frameworks, so-called ‘top craftsmen’ are nothing more than slightly more advanced assembly line operators.
I provided the ‘optimal solution,’ and you’re toddling about in the shallows of ‘possibility.’ After months of work, you give me nothing but a ‘we did our best’?
It seems I overestimated the average level of Blue’s engineering.
Or rather,” she paused, her sharp gaze sweeping across each person, “I overestimated the imagination and problem-solving abilities of everyone present.
A bunch of…
fools.”
Her words were merciless, lashing each person’s self-esteem like a whip.
The laboratory fell into dead silence, broken only by the faint hum of operating instruments.
The assistants’ faces flushed red, but they couldn’t refute, because what Herta said was, to some extent, true.
In her presence, their intellectual superiority had utterly vanished.
Just then, Baida, who had been clinging to Herta from behind like a koala, her chin resting on her shoulder, playing with a strand of her grayish-white hair, suddenly let go.
This was a common enough movement—maybe she was tired of sitting, or distracted by something else.
But this time was different.
Baida’s eyes no longer held their usual dazed vacancy.
They had become unusually focused, even carrying a kind of…
empty depth.
She seemed completely unaware of the tense atmosphere in the lab, nor did she pay any attention to the adults being verbally flayed.
Her gaze bypassed Herta, bypassed the dejected engineers, and landed directly on the workbench in the corner, piled high with discarded parts, scrap materials, and failed experiment remnants.
There lay broken high-strength alloy rods, fragments of discarded energy conduits, oddly shaped crystal chunks left over from grinding, and even some bizarre components stripped from damaged instruments, their purpose unknown to anyone.
Under the stunned, bewildered, and even slightly dismissive gazes of everyone—wondering “what is this fool up to now”—Baida trotted over on her short legs and stood before that pile of “trash.”
She crouched down, her small hands rummaging through the jumbled heap of parts, as if searching for something.
“What’s she doing?”
“Don’t mind her.
Probably found a new ‘toy.'”
“Sigh, at a time like this…”
The assistants exchanged low whispers, helplessness tinged with annoyance.
Only Herta stopped her scolding, slightly furrowed her brow, and watched her sister’s back with a trace of curiosity.
Baida’s consciousness was in a peculiar state at that moment.
She couldn’t understand the complex terminology and didn’t grasp material strength or machining precision.
She only knew one thing: her sister wanted the thing on those blueprints, and those adults couldn’t make it.
Then, a thought so simple it was almost brash rose in her mind: ‘I reckon I can make it.’
That thought was like flipping a mysterious switch.
Her eyes grew even more vacant, as if her soul had left her body.
But her hands—in that moment—became two blurs of motion!
She didn’t even look at the blueprints (she couldn’t understand them anyway).
She simply relied on some indescribable intuition, accurately picking out several seemingly unrelated pieces of scrap from the pile: a dark red piece of high-density alloy scrap, a broken blue crystal conduction rod, and some silver, highly ductile metal wires.
No measuring tools.
No furnace.
No precision lathe.
With nothing but her small, tender hands—the same hands that usually played with Play-Doh—she began an operation that left everyone gaping.
She gripped the dark red alloy block.
Her fingertips seemed to contain inconceivable force.
With a gentle twist and pull, the incredibly hard alloy bent like soft clay as she shaped it by hand into an extremely complex core component with internal cavities and multi-layered structure.
Its form bore a striking resemblance to the “unmachinable” resonance cavity on the blueprints, maybe seventy or eighty percent there.
“Th-this…
how is this possible?!” The old academician’s eyes nearly popped out.
The engineers beside him all had their mouths hanging open, as if witnessing a miracle.
Shaping ultra-high-strength alloy with bare hands?!
This defied the fundamental principles of materials science!
Next, Baida picked up the broken blue crystal conduction rod.
Her fingers lightly rubbed the fracture.
Under her touch, the rough break smoothed to a mirror finish at a visible speed, perfectly combining with the alloy cavity she had just shaped—seamlessly, as if they had always been one piece.
She then picked up the silver wires.
Her fingers flew like those of the most nimble weaver, threading and winding the wires around the core component, forming an extremely intricate and orderly energy conduction network.
Its paths and nodes matched the dizzying circuit diagrams on the blueprints with startling accuracy!
Occasionally, she would pick up screws, small bearings, or even tiny shimmering fragments of unknown origin from the junk pile, casually embedding them into the instrument taking shape.
Her movements were fluid and natural, carrying a wild, unrestrained “beauty” that defied all existing knowledge systems—or rather, a kind of “brute force.” She completely ignored physical laws and process limitations, as if under those small hands, the properties of materials and the difficulty of machining only needed “I reckon it’ll work” to be solved.
The entire laboratory was dead silent.
The only sounds were the soft, rapid clicks, buzzes, and clinks of Baida fiddling with the parts.
Everyone, including Herta, was frozen in place, staring transfixed at the small figure “busy” by the corner junk pile.
A few minutes.
Maybe less.
Baida’s movements stopped.
In her hands, she held a complex, precision instrument about the size of two fists.
It glowed with a strange, naturally occurring metallic luster, all components seamlessly integrated, lines smooth and flowing.
Those interfaces and curved surfaces deemed impossible were now quietly radiating a cold gleam.
It matched Herta’s blueprints in the holographic projection perfectly.
It even gave off a natural sense of “this is exactly how it should look.”
Baida turned around.
The focused, vacant expression on her face was gone, replaced by a pure, radiant, slightly smug smile.
Like a child presenting a treasure, she trotted over to the still-stunned Herta and raised the instrument high with both hands:
“Herta…
present…
for you.”
It was the first time in her life she had spoken such a clear, coherent, and meaningful phrase.
“…”
The entire laboratory fell into a silence even deeper and more eerie than when Herta had scolded them earlier.
You could hear a pin drop.
The assistants and engineers whom Herta had called “fools” were now completely brain-dead, their CPUs fried, their worldviews teetering on the edge of collapse and reconstruction.
They looked at the instrument their “foolish” sister had handcrafted from a pile of trash, perfectly matching the design, and then at the fruit of their own team’s months of effort and massive expenditure—nothing to show for it.
A sense of absurdity washed over them.
‘What…
what exactly have we been doing all these months?
Are we, so-called top experts, truly inferior to a…
a Play-Doh-playing “fool”?!’
The old academician clutched his chest, struggling to breathe.
He needed heart medication.
Even Herta was uncharacteristically, completely stunned.
Her eyes, always filled with the light of wisdom and insight, now held nothing but disbelief.
She even forgot to take the instrument, just staring blankly at the pure smile on Baida’s face, then slowly shifting her gaze to the creation in her hands, a work that could only be called art.
She reached out, somewhat hesitantly, and took the “Cross-Dimensional Energy Resonance Bridge.”
The instrument was slightly heavy in her hands, cool and solid.
She carefully examined every detail, every interface, every energy circuit.
Perfect.
Flawlessly perfect.
Even more than the theoretical model she had designed—it had an indescribable, natural harmony about it.
This wasn’t “manufactured.” It was more like…
it had “grown” into being.
Herta suddenly looked up, her eyes burning as they fixed on Baida, as if trying to pierce through her silly exterior and see the secret hidden within, a secret even Baida herself might not know.
Baida just kept smiling, showing a few little white teeth, completely unaware of the earth-shattering feat she had just performed, only happy that she had given her “present” to her sister.
Herta said nothing.
No exclamation.
No question.
No explanation.
She just used her free hand to abruptly and tightly grab Baida’s little hand, still covered in metal shavings and Play-Doh.
Her palm was a bit cold, but her grip was firm, carrying an undeniable strength.
Then she pulled her foolish sister and turned, walking out of the lab, leaving only a light snort that left the petrified crowd behind even more disoriented:
“Hmph.”
Their footsteps faded.
The lab door slowly closed behind them.
Left behind were a group of top engineers and assistants, standing in disarray, exchanging bewildered glances, questioning their very existence, and even starting to wonder, “Am I the fool here?”—along with that pile of scrap parts that seemed to mock them in silence.
And at this moment, being tightly pulled away by Herta’s hand, Baida had only one thought in her mind, accompanied by babbling hums:
‘Herta’s holding my hand!
Holding it so tight!
So happy!
Tonight I’ll hold her even longer!’