"In a few days, maybe. I’ve got a lot on my plate recently."
Shi Zuozhou was usually cheerful and easygoing, but he could be quite perceptive at times. He glanced at Yu Xian. "Speaking of which, what do you think about Old Gao’s classes getting suspended?"
Yu Xian casually grabbed a tube of toothpaste from the shelf. "It’s normal. A lot of professors at his level stopped teaching undergrads a long time ago. He’s getting on in years."
"But Old Gao is different."
"How is he different?"
Shi Zuozhou scratched his head. He looked like he wanted to say something but was hesitant.
"One look at that expression of yours, and I know you’re not going to say anything serious," Yu Xian said.
"I’m serious." Shi Zuozhou lowered his voice, giving Yu Xian the illusion that they were underground spies exchanging secret intel. "I heard from a senior doctoral student at the High Energy Institute that Old Gao might be making a big move. It’s about that... pre-research project for the super-large particle collider."
The term "super-large particle collider" wasn’t unfamiliar in the physics community, but everyone in JCU’s School of Physics was tight-lipped about it. Like Voldemort’s name, no one would bring it up to invite bad luck.
Simply put, this thing required digging a circular tunnel underground—one even larger than Jiangcheng—putting charged particles inside, and accelerating them to near light-speed for collision experiments. It was like a giant spin dryer that accelerated whatever was inside round and round.
Some called it the "largest microscope" humanity could ever build, because only with this device could they observe things several orders of magnitude smaller than an atomic nucleus. For example, the "God particle"—the Higgs boson—which had recently won the Nobel Prize, was discovered using the colliders at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
People outside the physics community might wonder, what was the point of researching this stuff? In reality, many fields were closely intertwined with high-energy research. For instance, superconducting magnets, cryogenic refrigeration, and circuit chips were all directly driven by it. Things more relevant to daily life, such as the internet, smartphone touchscreens, hospital MRI machines, and various forms of cloud computing, all originated directly from particle collider laboratories.
Attitudes toward this device had split the frontier physics community into two factions: the supportive "idealists" and the opposing "pragmatists."
The idealists had quite a few supporters, and Old Gao was their biggest "head missionary." It was a grand ambition tinged with technological romanticism. They believed that the Standard Model of particle physics had reached its end, and new dark clouds were drifting across the sky of physics. Without building this machine, fundamental physics would be locked in its current year, and humanity would be forever trapped in this low-energy fishbowl.
Meanwhile, the other faction—the pragmatists, led by several Nobel Prize-level titans—voiced strong opposition. Mr. Yang, Yang Zhenning, was one of them. Their reasoning was cruel but very practical.
Mr. Yang had stated his position on the matter: "The party is over."
The grand feast was finished. The field of high-energy physics had declined, and its theories had stagnated. Furthermore, the budget required to build such a super-large collider would pile up into the tens or hundreds of billions. With other areas demanding funding—such as controllable nuclear fusion, microchips, and biomedicine—it would be better to spend the money solving immediate livelihood problems. Beyond that, constructing this type of facility would bring a heap of complex issues involving environmental protection, geology, and relocation, dragging in over a dozen surrounding cities.
"A collider..." Yu Xian searched the shelves for shampoo. "Didn’t the Science and Technology Commission vote to reject this project several times before?"
Back when Gao Jiguo was still the dean of the School of Physics and the director of the High Energy Institute, he had pushed for this with all his might within the government and the scientific community. The country had even established a major scientific engineering committee specifically for this matter a few years ago. They held meetings and voted, but due to budget plans, theoretical disputes, and various invisible power struggles, it ultimately failed to pass.
After that, Old Gao seemed to age drastically overnight. He resigned from all his administrative positions at the university and simply started teaching classes and growing flowers. This was also why no one in JCU’s School of Physics dared to mention the matter and risk bringing up a sore subject.
"Right, it was a lost cause before. The given reasons were that the funding required was too high and the scientific goals weren’t clear enough." Shi Zuozhou lowered his voice. "But I heard the Science and Technology Commission is going to restart the voting in the next few days. Their lab was still brightly lit at two in the morning yesterday. It seems the winds have changed."
"Then Old Gao must be thrilled," Yu Xian said, pushing the shopping cart. "This is probably his greatest wish in life."
"Yeah. But do you know who the biggest beneficiaries of building a particle collider are, other than Old Gao?" Shi Zuozhou acted all mysterious.
"Who? If it really gets built, the senior students majoring in high-energy physics? It should have a huge impact on their PhDs and employment prospects."
"Wrong! By directly cutting out an 8:00 AM class, we students in this batch are the biggest beneficiaries of the particle collider," Shi Zuozhou said with a smug look on his face.
Yu Xian was so exasperated that he laughed. It was probably the first time he had laughed genuinely from the bottom of his heart in days. He knew Shi Zuozhou had seen his low spirits and was just spouting nonsense to cheer him up.
After paying at the checkout, the three of them squeezed out of the supermarket, carrying large and small bags of groceries.
Outside the door curtain was an overcast sky, a cold damp wind, and the loud SPLASH of the pouring rain. The sidewalks of the commercial street were paved with anti-slip bricks, but occasionally, one would still step on a "landmine," squirting up a jet of water that soaked the trouser legs of whoever was walking nearby.
Yang Yiyi shrank her neck and reminded the two boys to zip up their jackets, listening to them gossip about the collider.
"In the past, all six fundamental science fields—mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, Earth sciences, and life sciences—took money from the National Natural Science Foundation. But the lion’s share was always snatched away by you guys in life sciences." Shi Zuozhou stomped through a puddle. "If the collider project gets approved, our physics department will finally be able to hold our heads high."
Yang Yiyi cast an exasperated glance at him. "Life sciences involve a lot of interdisciplinary fields, and experimental consumables are expensive. We already don’t have enough funding as it is. By the looks of it, it’s going to be even harder to apply for grants in the future."
"Then you can take the opportunity to retire!" Shi Zuozhou quickly followed up. "Stay away from scientific research from now on and peacefully enjoy your position as the top dog of the Student Union."
"Who told you I was planning to continue with the Student Union?" After saying that, she tossed out a remark as if it were a passing thought. "I’ll probably quit in the second half of the semester."
"Huh?" Shi Zuozhou almost stepped right into a deep puddle. "Why? Brother Yi, if you leave, who’s going to cover for me? Brother Yi, don’t go! How will I survive without you!"
Yang Yiyi smiled helplessly. "I’ll probably be doing a direct PhD program. My advisor recently took on a major research project and roped me in early to be a workhorse. I’m going to be working around the clock very soon."
"What kind of major project?"
"It’s related to sleep. Have you guys ever heard of a neuropeptide called MCH? Its full name is Melanin-Concentrating Hormone."
The two of them looked at each other and shook their heads in perfect unison, like a pair of pellet drums.
She thought for a moment and added, trying to explain it in terms they could understand. "Have you ever wondered why, most of the time, people completely forget everything they dreamed about the moment they wake up?"
Yu Xian pondered this. It was true. Many times, he clearly remembered having a long dream, but the moment he woke up, only fragmented images remained, leaving behind a profound sense of loss. After a while, even those images would fade away.
"It’s because of these MCH neurons. They become abnormally active while you dream. You can think of them as the brain’s ’cleaners.’ Their job is to make you forget the memories of your dreams the exact second you wake up." Seeing that they only half-understood, Yang Yiyi added, "Our research topic aims to suppress the neural activity of MCH, which would prevent the forgetting of dream memories and allow you to remember what you dreamed about."
Hearing that last sentence, realization dawned on Shi Zuozhou. "As the saying goes, ’Man is like the autumn goose, returning with a message, but the past is like a spring dream, fading without a trace!’"
Yu Xian silently pleaded with him not to say anything else.
"From now on, spring dreams will leave a trace! Brother Yi, I’m counting on you! A great merit for the present, and a boundless benefit for generations to come!"
Sure enough, it was exactly what one would expect from him.
Yu Xian facepalmed, dark lines forming on his forehead in exasperation.
Yang Yiyi rolled her eyes. "Give me a break. If you remember too much of that dirty trash, your brain will be completely ruined."
The sound of the man and woman bickering ahead was diluted by the rain hitting the asphalt road. Yu Xian trailed behind them. He could only catch fragments of Shi Zuozhou saying something about the scientific community gaining an insignificant nobody, while the Student Union was losing its Jerusalem, and so on.
Following the shadows of their two umbrellas, he wove through the puddles and the crowds, stepping back through the university gates that gleamed under the heavy rain.
Thus continued an ordinary Monday, thoroughly drenched by the storm.