"I got so absorbed in my calculations, I forgot to eat."
Shen Che looked at his frenzied yet haggard state and sighed inwardly.
’The international community had cried wolf seven or eight times, but nothing ever came of it.’
’Li Dong is taking this deduction way too seriously. If it turns out to be nothing, won’t the kid have a breakdown?’
"Li Dong, why don’t you put that prediction aside for now?"
Shen Che’s voice was gentle and consoling.
"There’s a pile of data for the main paper waiting for your review up on the mountain. You should get some rest first."
But Li Dong shook his head.
"Teacher Shen, that won’t be necessary."
Shen Che froze. ’Won’t be necessary? Has he given up completely?’
"The work for our preliminary research group,"
Li Dong said, pointing to a neat stack of scratch paper on the right side of his desk.
"I finished it while I was calculating the prediction time."
Shen Che replied reflexively.
"Even if you did, but..."
Before he could finish, he froze.
He had just seen the top line on the stack of scratch paper.
Shen Che lunged forward and snatched the stack of papers.
Page one: A complete trajectory diagram of the Li Criterion climbing up the energy bands.
From 25 GeV to 4.6 TeV, the anchor boundaries were perfectly clear.
Page two: A review of all 1.96 million data points.
[True Signals: 41,792.]
[Primary Physical Structure Concentration Range: 0.871 TeV— 1.000 TeV.]
[Break Energy Eb = 914±98 GeV. Goodness of fit χ2/d.o.f. = 23.3/18.]
[Significance over a single power-law model: 6.6σ.]
The last page: a final energy spectrum curve, corrected for systematic error.
The energy spectrum, which descended smoothly from 25 GeV, hit the 0.9 TeV point and—SNAP!—the slope abruptly steepened.
It wasn’t an Illusion Peak.
It was real.
It was a genuine spectral break, right at the TeV energy level.
An outsider could never understand the significance of this "break"—this point at 0.9 TeV where the slope abruptly shifted from γ?≈3.1 to γ?≈3.9.
It was no exaggeration to say that this was the "Holy Grail" that everyone in the high-energy astrophysics community had been coveting for over a decade.
Why?
Because behind this TeV-level break, there very likely lay the ultimate answer the entire physics community had been desperately seeking for half a century: a direct clue to the annihilation or decay of dark matter particles, or perhaps an unknown, nearby pulsar! It could single-handedly end the century-long academic debate over the "positron anomaly."
Research institutions across the globe had been fighting tooth and nail to find this turning point.
The H.E.S.S. ground-based Cherenkov telescope array in Europe had once "indirectly" glimpsed a faint shadow of it, but the systematic error was too large.
The United States’ Fermi Satellite (Fermi-LAT) had been staring at the sky for years, but it completely missed this TeV-level break simply because its particle background contamination was too high and its instrument’s energy resolution was insufficient!
Everyone knew something might be there, but until now, not a single team in the entire world had been able to produce an energy spectrum with iron-clad proof from "direct detection"!
Until today.
Until the Wukong Satellite (DAMPE), with its unprecedentedly high energy resolution and extremely low background noise, settled the matter once and for all with this spectrum—a spectrum Li Dong had painstakingly extracted from the noise!
This wasn’t just the first "direct detection" of a break in the TeV cosmic-ray electron spectrum in human history.
It was a bombshell discovery destined to shake the world and land on the cover of *Nature*!
The hand with which Shen Che held the papers was trembling slightly. He took a step back, nearly losing his balance.
"Old Shen! What’s wrong?"
Zhang Wenping hurried to steady him.
Shen Che said, his voice trembling slightly.
"Old Zhang... I’m heading back up the mountain. You keep an eye on him. Don’t let him starve!"
Zhang Wenping froze for half a second, then nodded helplessly.
’Looks like Li Dong really just solved that problem Old Shen’s team has been stuck on for five or six years, all in one fell swoop.’
Although Zhang Wenping was a member of the group, he was really just there to help and didn’t have a deep connection to the Wukong Satellite project.
Unlike Shen Che, he hadn’t poured years of his life into it.
So he understood how Shen Che was feeling.
And he didn’t mind that he, a distinguished academician, had suddenly become Li Dong’s temporary babysitter.
Shen Che clutched the stack of scratch paper to his chest and practically ran out the door.
The door slammed shut with a BANG.
Zhang Wenping turned his head, about to ask Li Dong what he wanted to eat.
But when he looked back, he found...
Li Dong had already buried his head in another calculation.
Zhang Wenping: ...
He didn’t disturb Li Dong.
Instead, he quietly took out his phone and called one of his postdoctoral students at Jinling University.
"Hello, Xiaozhao? Go to Chu Xiangfu and get two combo meals to go..."
Chen Yue: ’Chu Xiangfu???’
The days flew by.
During this time, Li Dong barely stepped foot outside the apartment.
Zhang Wenping’s postdoctoral student, Xiaozhao, delivered meals on a schedule each day, taking the empty takeout containers with him when he left.
Li Dong calculated away in the apartment.
Shen Che pushed the project forward up on the mountain.
After Shen Che brought the stack of scratch paper from Li Dong’s desk back up the mountain that night, Old Zhou, Old Wu, Old Zheng, and several research assistants and postdocs began working around the clock.
They independently re-ran every step and every set of numbers from Li Dong’s scratch paper on the Wukong Satellite’s complete dataset.
By the twelfth day, every re-verified result matched the numbers on Li Dong’s scratch paper.
By the fifteenth day...
It was October 1st, National Day.
「Zijin Mountain, Dark Matter Particle Detection Collaborative Innovation Center.」
The main control hall.
On the massive screen at the far end of the hall, an energy spectrum curve that descended smoothly from 25 GeV was slowly extending toward the 4.6 TeV mark.
With every increment forward, the systematic error band below the curve tightened.
The room was packed with people.
Old Zhou, Old Wu, Old Zheng, several research assistants, postdocs...
No one spoke.
The only sound in the entire hall was the whirring of the fans.
The curve continued to extend.
At the 0.87 TeV position, the slope began to dip.
At 0.91 TeV, the slope—SNAP!—took a sharp, distinct drop!
The break in the structure had none of the noisy spikes of an Illusion Peak.
It was just a clean, clear—break.
The moment the final pixel settled into place.
Another line of small text appeared at the bottom of the screen.
[Single Power-Law vs. Smoothly Broken Power-Law: 6.6σ.]
Shen Che slowly turned around.
He gave a slight nod to the crowd in the hall.
At his nod, the entire hall erupted.
Cheers, the sound of people slapping tables, someone so excited they pulled the person next to them into a bear hug, and a few of the older researchers who began wiping away tears on the spot...
Old Zhou grabbed the arm of the postdoc next to him, his voice trembling.
"It holds!"
"Five years!"
"It’s been five years!"
"Our team... we finally made this curve hold!"
Just then, from the far corner of the hall, Chang Jin beckoned to Shen Che.
「In the small reception room.」
Chang Jin gazed out the window at the sycamore trees, which were just beginning to turn yellow. A long moment passed before he spoke.
"Old Shen."
"This project of yours... how long has it been in the works, all told?"
The question took Shen Che by surprise.
He subconsciously glanced at the door behind him.
The sounds of cheering still faintly filtered through.
"Director Chang."
"Are you referring to the main Wukong Satellite paper?"
"Or are you referring to..."
Chang Jin waved his hand.
"I mean from the moment you incorporated the Li Criterion, to the confirmation of this curve today."
"How long was that in total?"
Shen Che blinked.
He did a quick calculation in his head.
"Umm..."
"One month and three days."
After a long pause, Chang Jin managed to force out just two words: "Fucking incredible!"

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