Director Wei realized that the original plan was not only very unfair to Professor Lu's research, but even biased and discriminatory, and raised his glass apologetically, and said to Professor Lu with a sincere face, "Professor Lu, when the MSA formulated the action plan, we did not get the news that your team joined, and we don't know what your specific plan was. We also hope to listen to Professor Lu's opinions in our plan, and only by working together can we make a breakthrough. ”

To my surprise, Professor Lu's face did not show the slightest unhappiness, as if he was in deep thought, playing with a small wine cup in his hand, but his body was motionless. Team Cao picked up the wine glass and touched Professor Lu's glass, the wine glass made a crisp impact sound, and Professor Lu suddenly woke up, and asked a little urgently, "Director Wei, thank you, thank you, can you tell me more about your plan A, and about the waterspout, is there any detailed information recorded and analyzed in the South China Sea?"

Lu Binglin and Director Wei sat together rarely, the two lowered their heads, like confidants for many years, one spoke up, the other listened carefully, and from time to time they dipped tea and drew something on the table. We couldn't spoil the rare atmosphere of communication, so Team Cao pulled Huansheng and sat down next to me again, and asked me in a low voice, "Lao Chang, the situation seems to be good, what do you think of their plan in Wei?"

Before I could speak, Liao Huansheng on the side whispered: "I feel that Wei's plan is about to run away." ”

"How can you see it?" Team Cao sat next to Huansheng with great interest. Huansheng has not been engaged in teaching and research in the past two years, and his bookish atmosphere has faded a lot, but his intuition about many things is accurate and scary.

Huansheng lowered his voice and slowly explained to us: "It's very simple, if the abnormal weather conditions cause the disappearance of the Eastern Star, it is impossible for the ship's electronic equipment and power to fail immediately, and the crew will not even have time to send a distress signal. I don't think that Ding Jian hallucinated on the Dongxing, on the contrary, an artist's insight is far beyond ordinary people, and some of his detailed observations make me think that what the Dongxing encountered must not be a natural phenomenon. The most important thing is that Wei's plan is a regular search and rescue plan, a normal logical reasoning plan, the East Star has disappeared until now, and half a year has passed, and the regular plan must have been implemented after the East Star disappeared, since nothing was found at that time, there will definitely be no progress this time. I think that the supply ship is most likely carrying out a real Plan A. ”

"What do you mean?" Team Cao scratched his head and asked puzzled.

"Since it is not caused by natural factors, it is only caused by human factors, such as being sunk, hijacked or something, especially the transportation of goods on the ship is strictly confidential, which makes people have to think of it, and Team Cao, you were assigned to this ship, there must be a reason. ”

Team Cao nodded thoughtfully, tapped his fingertips lightly on the tabletop, and turned his gaze to me again.

"Team Cao, don't you think it's strange that Professor Lu suddenly asked me about Haiyanjing and Xuanmen? ”

As we were talking, Lu Binglin on the other side suddenly opened his mouth to us, "Huansheng, meet again after a long absence, why don't you have a drink or two with the old senior? In the past two years, it has always been good? I haven't left a single book behind you left back then, and I have read them all." ”

Hearing Lu Binglin's name, Huansheng's face couldn't help but turn red, and he said curtly, "Binglin, we had a lot of quarrels when we were doing research together, but I actually miss those days, and now I can't find someone to quarrel with." ”

Lu Binglin waved his hand, "I used to think about the left, thinking that not only academically we have to divide the winners and losers, but also life should be like this, it is difficult for strong people, and in the end, I am embattled, and I thought that I have reached the realm of solo fishing in the cold river." So there was nothing wrong with you leaving public or private back then, and today you are a good drinker, don't mention the past, can you have a drink with me?"

Huan Sheng looked at Lu Binglin in surprise, as if he was looking at a stranger, hesitated for a moment, but walked to Lu Binglin with a wine glass, and asked: "Binglin, why don't I know you a little?"

Lu Binglin laughed, drank all the wine in the cup, patted him on the shoulder, pulled Huansheng to sit on the side of me and Team Cao, and said to me: "Old Chang, you just asked me how to determine that the mirage will still appear, and how do we make the closest route to the Dongxing? ”

As soon as Team Cao heard this, he hurriedly pulled out a bottle of Luzhou Laojiao from the cardboard box behind him, unscrewed the lid, and poured it for Lu Binglin.

It was the summer of '95, and Lu Binglin took eleven physicists and twenty-three students to the uninhabited Taklamakan Desert. It took him nearly two years to get a scientific research fund from the institute, another year to prepare, get all the equipment, contact the local border guards, hire a few local workers and guides, and then start his huge experimental program.

The purpose and method of Professor Lu's experiment were introduced to me in detail by Huansheng before, and they are basically the same as what Professor Lu is telling now, the only difference is that the role of the tricolor flag on the flagpole is the role.

According to Huansheng's speculation at the time, the three-color flag was hoisted to enhance visual recognition and facilitate long-distance observation. But Professor Lu's idea is much more than that, and based on many sightings of mirages, he found a strange phenomenon, the scenery in the mirage seems to lack a hue, red. It is the lack of red that makes the whole picture appear blue-gray tones, which looks as eerie as a ghost.

Professor Lu believes that when the light is projected into the atmosphere through the irradiated object, the red spectrum is blocked, so the meteorological conditions around the irradiated object must be extremely special, resulting in the scattering of light. Of course, there is also a very low probability that the irradiated object itself has an anomaly and absorbs the red spectrum.

Hanging a flag of three colors on the flagpole in the desert, Professor Lu hopes to find the real reason for the disappearance of the red light through repeated observations.

The development of an experimental plan is always easy, but in practice, it has to go through a lot of difficulties. It didn't take much of Professor Lu's time to set up the proving ground, but it took him nearly a year to find the location where the mirage occurred.

With four off-road vehicles and two trucks in his hands, Professor Lu divided the mirages into two groups and searched west along the desert. Initially, he searched for its own range with a radius of 10 kilometers, and then returned to the test site after the search. But soon, the search area was expanded to a hundred kilometers, and by this time, it was impossible for the Mirage to return that day, so they took a tent in an off-road vehicle, spent the night in the desert, and returned the next day.

When autumn comes, the Mirage Chasers spend two, three, or even five days in the field, and the search radius expands to 500 kilometers after half a year, at which point trucks must follow with full supplies, and each operation requires a week of preparation.

Although Professor Lu and the others were ready to find a needle in a haystack before the experiment began, they were still caught off guard by the cruelty of reality. The scorching heat of summer, the bitter cold of winter nights, the loss of water from extreme dryness, sandstorms, quicksand pits, and even the legendary desert wolf, mirages have all come across.

After that, they had difficulty in supplying, especially the water tank around the flagpole, which evaporated a staggering amount of water every day, and the truck had to make two trips back and forth every day to fetch water from a small river more than 50 kilometers away. The electric heating equipment is driven by diesel generators, and every three days it has to go to the Corps 100 kilometers away to deliver diesel. After the search radius was increased, the deployment of vehicle personnel became a problem, and the two hundred days of search did not find a single mirage image of the flagpole, which made everyone very frustrated, and even some team members began to doubt Lu Binglin's theory.

In the course of a year, about 11 people left the test team for personal reasons, but what really worried Lu Binglin was that there was not much money left for the experiment, and even if he saved it, it was estimated that he would not be able to last for three months.

When Lu Binglin said this, Huan Sheng, who had been silent, suddenly interjected, "Binglin, are you dividing the desert west of the flagpole into five square kilometers of grids, and one grid is one grid for testing? If it is in the inland plains, one person is stationed in each grid, so that your manpower can verify one hundred square kilometers at a time, but you can't stay in the desert to observe people, so if you cast a net to touch it, isn't it like a blind cat touching a dead mouse?" Did you already have a mathematical model of a mirage imaging before, and the search in the desert was just a validation process?"

(Confucius climbed the East Mountain and Xiaolu, climbed Mount Tai and the world, so it is difficult for those who look at the sea to be water, and those who swim in the gate of the saint are difficult to speak.) If you have the skill to watch the water, you must watch it. The sun and the moon are bright, and the light will shine. Flowing water is a thing, and it is not possible to do it without Yingke, and the ambition of a gentleman is also in the Tao, and it is not in accordance with the rules. --Mencius)