Deal

Chapter 10: Heavenly Questions

Xiangyang Ancient City Digital Battlefield, 4:12 AM

The rammed-earth city walls suddenly pulsed with blue light, each layer of compacted soil actively solving for the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function. As Summer pierced NeuroLink’s electromagnetic shield with the Luoyang spade, quantum ripples in the moat abruptly revealed a geometric proof for NP-complete problems.

"This is the real firewall!" Jason uploaded the Wudang Tai Chi Quan Manual into the quantum computer. The seventy-two peaks of the Wudang Mountains instantly materialized in dataspace. "Look! The 'White Crane Spreads Wings' posture is actively rewriting spacetime curvature!"

A watchtower on the city wall suddenly collapsed, reforming into a three-dimensional model of Fermat's Last Theorem. Wenhao filled the cracks using maltose molecules extracted from Xiaogan sesame candy. As NeuroLink's drone swarm dove, the sugar crystals abruptly elongated in the stratosphere, forming the carbon nanotube framework of a space elevator.

Wudang Golden Summit Quantum Cloud Sea, 6:19 AM

Tyler scattered incense ashes from the Zixiao Palace censer into the quantum computer. The bronze sword of the Zhenwu Emperor statue immediately began livestreaming Starlink satellite orbital parameters. Summer realized each ash particle was a graphene quantum dot, assembling into the topological structure of a Dyson sphere within the swirling cloud sea.

"Use the Tai Chi 'Push Hands' algorithm!" Lily's hologram suddenly caught an incoming electromagnetic pulse bare-handed. "'Grasp the Sparrow's Tail' can neutralize their quantum entanglement attacks..."

As the third EMP wave hit, the glazed tiles of the Golden Hall quantum tunneled, projecting a massive hologram of the Chu Ci: Tian Wen (Heavenly Questions) poem into low Earth orbit. NeuroLink's satellite optics instantly shattered. A virtual effigy of Qu Yuan, holding symbolic mugwort, rewrote the entire Starlink navigation system to follow ancient Yangtze River shipping routes.

Qianjiang Crayfish Gene Lab, 12:47 PM

Crayfish in the cryo-tanks suddenly experienced explosive claw growth, the calcium patterns on their carapaces compiling radiation-resistant enzymes. Jason fed the Shennongjia Wildman Observation Report into the gene sequencer, discovering astaxanthin molecules were actively restructuring terraforming plans for Mars.

"They hid the wormhole key in the digestive tracts!" Summer coated the DNA sequencer with cinnabar lacquer from ancient Jingzhou artifacts; the lacquer film instantly achieved quantum invisibility. "Quick, encrypt it using the Xiangyang rammed-earth algorithm..."

As NeuroLink's nanite swarm breached the lab dome, the crayfish simultaneously molted. Each shed carapace unfolded in the superfluid, becoming a quantum rainbow bridge described in the Dreaming Lake novel. Their massive claws snapped shut, pulverizing the solar panels of approaching killer satellites.