For the next two days, Li Dong worked through his physics path from beginning to end.
The string that had been holding him back had been plucked by Mr. Yang’s words: "They aren’t on the same layer."
His derivations flowed incredibly smoothly over these two days; he was even a little reluctant to stop.
From the work function of the tip segment, to the image potential of the vacuum segment, and then to the effective potential barrier of the Au(111) substrate with the Ligand Field.
He traced the κ value all the way from its source, and every segment had a clean physical origin.
It wasn’t an inversion.
It had slowly grown out of fundamental physics.
By the morning of the third day, Li Dong had finally finished the work on paper.
Next...
He needed to support this model with data.
「North Chemical Building, Basement Level Two.」
When Li Dong pushed the door open, Zhang Yan was frowning at a computer screen while sketching a wiring diagram in a notebook on her desk.
Hearing the door, she looked up.
"East God, you’re here?"
Li Dong nodded at her.
"Sister Yan, I think I’ll need to get hands-on today."
Zhang Yan put down her pen and said with a smile.
"Alright, tell me what you need."
Li Dong handed her a list.
Run a control group on the DFT cluster, use XPS to scan the valence state of the iron center.
And most importantly...
An I-z scan on the LT-STM to create tunneling current decay curves at different tip-sample distances.
He wanted to resolve three independent exponential segments from the tail of that curve.
Zhang Yan looked at the list, nodded, and didn’t ask any further questions.
She had already cooled down the vacuum chamber of the LT-STM yesterday.
It was ready to be used today.
This was indeed Li Dong’s first time handling the transfer arm of an LT-STM.
Zhang Yan stood beside him and slowly explained the process.
"For this step, you have to start the roughing vacuum first."
"Wait until the reading stabilizes to this level, then start the secondary pump."
"Once the secondary is stable, you can unlock the sample holder."
"If you rush any step in between, the entire chamber will have to be purged all over again."
Li Dong listened very attentively.
His Memory was now at 0.6, and he had the [Memory Palace] to back it up.
He could commit an operational procedure like this, with its specific numbers and sequences, to memory completely after hearing it just once.
After Zhang Yan finished, she let Li Dong have a go.
Li Dong started the procedure.
As he placed his fingers on the set of knobs, he subconsciously paused for half a second.
Then he moved.
In that half-second, he reviewed the dozen or so steps Zhang Yan had just explained in his mind.
After the review, from starting the vacuum to stabilizing the pressure to unlocking the sample holder, he completed it all in one smooth sequence.
The timing of each interval was perfect.
Standing to the side, Zhang Yan’s eyebrows shot up.
’This kid...’
She’d mentored her fair share of junior students.
But no one operating an LT-STM for the first time had ever executed this pressure gradient sequence so cleanly for her.
Most beginners would mess up at the secondary vacuum stage at least twice on their first try.
Li Dong’s run this time was a textbook-level demonstration.
Zhang Yan said nothing, just silently crossed an item off her "teaching checklist."
Over the next two hours, Li Dong ran three sets of I-z curves on the LT-STM.
After the first set was done, Zhang Yan had intended to lean in for a look.
But when she saw the screen, she was a bit stunned.
The decay curve was so clean it looked like it had been printed out of a textbook.
And what’s more...
Li Dong had already manually marked three inflection points on its tail.
Three segments.
Not one complete exponential curve.
It was a superposition of three independent exponentials.
He had forcibly pulled out the unique tail belonging to the third shell from the tunneling current.
Zhang Yan stood behind him, speechless.
She just looked at the screen, then at Li Dong.
The string that she herself had been stuck on for months...
...had been plucked by the subshell independence of κ that this kid had casually written on the whiteboard.
She could even see what Li Dong was going to do next.
’He’s going to take the κ_i corresponding to each tail segment and cross-reference it with the orbital extension direction given by the DFT.’
’If they match, then this Gamov factor will truly be grounded in fundamental physics.’
Zhang Yan was silently amazed.
’This path... how is it so smooth?’
She’d been in this field for five years.
She’d joined this project team with Teacher Wu, and then followed Professor Lu to observe the engineering on the SX-STM side.
She had seen the research directions of a dozen or so groups, both domestic and international.
None of them, not a single one, was as... simple as Li Dong’s.
She couldn’t help but glance at Li Dong again.
This kid had something that no one else in this field possessed.
Meanwhile, Li Dong was adjusting the initial values for the DFT.
"Next, I need to match the extension direction of the iron center’s 3d_z2 orbital with that κ_2 segment from before."
He was originally just muttering to himself.
But Zhang Yan, standing beside him, immediately followed up.
"I’ve already pulled the U-J for PBE+U to 3eV. You can use that for now. If it doesn’t align well with the κ_2 exponent, I’ll run another set of DFT+DMFT for you."
Li Dong’s movements paused slightly.
He turned his head and glanced at Zhang Yan.
’Sister Yan’s words... are following my train of thought, and with remarkable accuracy.’
’It seems my initial feeling was right. Sister Yan’s Basic Attributes are definitely not low.’
He quietly made a mental note of this.
It was already noon by the time he finished running the three sets of data.
Li Dong put away the equipment.
He had to go.
That afternoon, Professor Wiles was giving a public lecture at Yan University.
Liu Ruochuan had sent him the seat assignment via WeChat yesterday.
Li Dong closed his laptop.
"Sister Yan, I’m heading out."
"I’ll just leave today’s data here for now."
Zhang Yan smiled and waved at him.
"Alright, go on."
She watched Li Dong’s back as he walked out the door.
Several seconds passed before she looked away.
She lowered her head, looking at the three clean exponential segments on the screen, her conviction solidifying.
’East God’s path... It works. It’s viable.’
「Sunshine Hall.」
This was Yan University’s main venue for its most prestigious academic events.
The lecture started at two in the afternoon.
Li Dong left at 1:40.
He thought he had plenty of time.
He even had a seat in the front row.
It seemed like a sure thing.
But when he walked all the way from the North Chemical Building to the entrance of the Hero Communication Center, he knew—a sure thing, my ass.
The steps at the entrance of the Hero Communication Center were packed with people.
On the steps, below the steps, along the greenbelt, even in the small plaza outside Sunshine Hall—there was a sea of heads.
Li Dong had been so busy recently that he had no idea what a stir Professor Wiles’s lecture at Yan University had caused.
So he hadn’t expected a scene like this today.
He squeezed two steps into the crowd and heard a student say.
"Hey man, excuse me, could you let me through? I rushed over from Jiao Da."
"Took the five a.m. high-speed train. This has been a real fucking ordeal."
Li Dong turned sideways and squeezed his way in.
With every bit of progress he made, he could hear complaints from students of various universities.
There were students from Shuimu, Renmin University, Jiao Da, some who came from Hecheng, and others who flew in from Shanghai...
"Did you hear? Professor Wiles is only giving one lecture today."
"On what grounds? Shuimu has invited him so many times and he never came, but this is his second time at Yan University!"
"Less talk, more squeezing! Let’s get inside first!"
Li Dong was already having a hard time squeezing through, but hearing this, a strange sense of superiority welled up inside him.
Just as he was musing on this, a strange voice came from behind him.
"Front rows of Zone B, who wants one? Two hundred a pop, no bargaining."
"Middle section of C-Zone, three hundred, aisle seat guaranteed."
Li Dong froze.
He whipped his head around.
A young guy in a plain gray hoodie was holding a stack of small paper slips.
Printed on the slips were sets of seat numbers.
Li Dong: ...
He even saw a student from another university pull three red bills from his pocket and hand them over.
The guy deftly tore off a seat number slip and stuffed it into the student’s hand.
"Zone B, sixth row, on the right. Someone’s saving it."
"Just go over and take the seat in a bit."
Li Dong stared at the slip of paper for several seconds.
’...Academic scalpers. So that’s a thing.’
He silently cursed, ’Holy shit.’
He himself didn’t need to find a scalper.
He had the seat number Professor Liu Ruochuan had sent him in his pocket.
But the problem was—he fucking couldn’t get through.
Li Dong gritted his teeth and shuffled forward a few steps.
The area near the door was the most crowded. He saw a security guard outside pulling a boy who was clinging to a window back down.
"Student, if you keep climbing up, I’m going to have to ask you to come down."
"You think you’re a gecko or something?"
The boy on the window craned his neck and yelled.
"I just want to hear a little! Just a little, sir!"
Li Dong sighed.
He went around that area and squeezed in through a side door.
Once inside the hall, it was even more crowded than outside.
The aisles were completely blocked.
On the stairs at the sides, there were even two people sitting on every single step.
Li Dong swallowed.
He silently cursed Liu Ruochuan in his head.
’Teacher Liu, I appreciate you saving me a seat. But could you please tell me how my scrawny self is supposed to squeeze through all this?’
He had no choice but to push his way in.
Halfway through, he was blocked by a burly, broad-shouldered man.
Judging by his build, this guy was probably a PE student from some university who had snuck in.
Li Dong gently tapped the man’s shoulder.
"Excuse me."
"Could you please let me through?"
Hearing someone ask him to move, the burly man’s eyebrows shot up.
He turned around, clearly ready to retort.
But when he got a clear look at Li Dong’s face, he froze.
He didn’t say a word, just nodded woodenly.
Then he tapped the tall, skinny guy with glasses in front of him.
"Excuse me."
"Could you please let me through?"
The tall, skinny guy turned around, also ready to retort.
But his gaze went past the burly man and saw the person standing behind him.
He opened his mouth, but in the end, said nothing.
He nodded woodenly.
He also tapped the guy in a plaid shirt in front of him.
"Excuse me."
"Could you please let me through?"
The guy in the plaid shirt turned around...
A very bizarre scene unfolded in the aisle of Sunshine Hall.
Every step Li Dong took forward...
The person in front of him would get a tap on the shoulder.
After the tap, they’d turn around to argue.
Halfway through their argument, they would freeze.
After freezing, they would nod woodenly.
And then they would tap the person in front of them.
This chain of dominoes pushed all the way forward, forcibly carving out a small path for Li Dong in the once-impenetrable aisle of Sunshine Hall.
Li Dong made his way to Zone B.
Second row.
He finally found his seat.
He looked up and to his left...
Liu Ruochuan, Wang Zhigang, Penrose, and several other senior professors of academician-level, some he recognized and some he didn’t, were all already seated.
Tian Gang was sitting in the middle of his row.
Li Dong shuffled over and sat down in the empty seat next to Tian Gang.
The moment his butt hit the seat, Tian Gang turned to him.
"Kid."
"Next time."
"Just take the staff entrance over there."
He pointed to the left side of their row.
Li Dong followed his finger.
To the left of the stage was a small, half-open door.
A sign was posted on it.
[Staff Entrance].
Li Dong nodded.
He didn’t say anything.
He just complained silently in his head.
’Teacher Liu, oh, Teacher Liu.’
’When you sent me the message, could you not have mentioned I could take the staff entrance?’
’You made me tap the shoulders of half of Yan University, half of Tsinghua, and half the students from other universities on my way through the aisle.’

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