Silicon Valley, Cupertino, California, 2025

☆☆☆

In the wee hours of the morning, the empty Silicon Valley was deserted and lonely, and the headquarters of Lancer was heavily guarded, and tall security guards patrolled back and forth in pairs. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 The light of the info flashlight is particularly dazzling at night, and a beam of light slides through the main body of the building, and only Dr. Zhou Jia's laboratory is lit at the moment.

While drinking coffee and looking at the DNA extraction report of the microbial genome, Zhou Jia looked focused. The touch-screen computer placed behind him played Taiwan's ghost story program, and the voice was not loud, the male anchor told the story of the haunting of an old house in Hualien Alley, and the female anchor made a sound of fear and fear at the right time. Zhou Jia doesn't care about the content of the show at all, maybe she is used to watching such a nonsense program that does not kill brain cells, or maybe she is used to hearing the wavelength of this kind of woman's voice, in short, this makes her feel very relaxed.

Zhou Jia's great-grandfather was from a prominent background, and after his ancestor was a famous family Zhou Dunyi, Zhou Shuren, Zhou Enlai and others in his great-great-grandfather's generations were even more famous figures in China. My great-grandfather was later assigned to the Guangzhou Air Force as a pilot, and the family settled in Guangzhou. My father was born in the late sixties and was a very ordinary person. As a new generation of the post-90s, Zhou Jiasheng is extraordinary, seemingly integrating the best genes of the Zhou family, and has shown a prodigy-like IQ since he was a child. In an International Mathematics Olympiad for primary and secondary school students, Zhou Jia met her mentor, Lan Shien, a Taiwanese-American and professor at Stanford University. At the invitation of Lan Shien, Zhou Jia went to the United States after graduating from primary school and became Lan Shien's disciple. Under Prof. Lan's personal tutelage, she spent two years not only completing a graduate program at a university in the United States, but also demonstrating her extraordinary abilities in bioengineering technology and medicine. Lan Shien has high hopes for her, not only teaching her personally, but also treating her like his own daughter.

Zhou Jia first met her grandmother and three-year-old little Christie, who had just returned from London, when she had dark brown hair, fair skin, and blue pupils, but she had a Chinese expression. Zhou Jia was also puzzled why Chris's face had changed completely, and he couldn't see the genetic characteristics of his father's side at all.

Twenty-two years have passed in the blink of an eye, and Dr. Ph.D.Doc., a postdoctoral fellow in biomedical sciences, sits in the best biotherapeutic research center in the United States, nay, the world, that Chris has provided for himself, and it seems that everything is going according to his plan. So the next step, will you go according to your expectations?

Zhou Jia looks much younger than his actual age at thirty-five. Her black eyes were deep and wise, and her white coat was the only weapon that could add sternness to her. Taking it off, Zhou Jia, dressed in civilian clothes, is petite, and with a young Asian face, she looks like an immature college freshman, which makes many of her suitors much younger than her.

Zhou Jia threw down the report in her hand and stood up, and walked to the glass box, which contained her pet. On time, she put a piece of food in. If you don't look closely, you won't notice a tiny black spider hiding in a corner, patiently waiting for its prey to throw itself into the net. The food that is placed in the glass box crawls restlessly, and it is unknown when it will crash into the net, but the patience of the hunter can make the prey despair.

Zhou Jia looked at his watch, it was past four o'clock, and the phone that should have rang did not ring, and it was four minutes late.

"Buzz...... Buzz......" The mobile phone on the table made a vibrating sound, Zhou Jia walked over, picked it up and looked at the display, it was "Lady-Gandalf", to be honest, she suddenly didn't want to answer the call, but she believed that the caller would stubbornly keep calling, so she pressed the answer button, "Hey?"

"Xiao Jia, I have experienced the most wonderful thing in the world, better than any other year's New Year's carnival. I ......"

"Listen to me!" Zhou Jia said angrily, "I'm working, and I don't want to be disturbed." I don't want to hear any details of your kinky parties. Then he hung up.

The nickname "Mrs. Gandao" is named after the so-called "lewd parties" in Zhou Jia's mouth. Almost everyone on the East Coast or the West Coast knows that Christy L. Smith's party is a dizzying one, and no party will be repeated, and the party will always offer a variety of food, sometimes exquisite, sometimes pure, sometimes dreamy, sometimes exotic, and will definitely make you laugh and laugh. Most of the performances are well-known bands or singers, of course, there are also some unknown musicians, and as long as they perform once at a party, these music will become gold songs and platinum songs on the major charts, and of course, the most important thing must be the wine, in addition to the classic types of drinks, all kinds of new cocktails are concocted for each party. Anyone who has ever been to her party will find her creativity as dazzling and distracting as Gandalf's magic, and the nickname was born. Let's talk about why Zhou Jia was filled with the word "promiscuity", which is also inseparable from Chris's debauchery life in New York in the early years. Although the colorful descriptions of gossip magazines are suspected of adding fuel to the fire, many things are not groundless.

The mobile phone began to vibrate and beep again, and Zhou Jia simply turned it off.

Within a minute, the office phone on the desk rang. Zhou Jia sighed helplessly and picked up the phone.

"Little Jia......"

Zhou Jia lowered his voice and cursed, "What the hell do you want to do!"

"You go down to the U zone at once. There was a beep of the phone hanging up in the receiver.

"What kind of nerve is this?" Zhou Jia pondered for a moment, guessing the change in Chris's attitude before and after the two phone calls. A while ago, she suddenly disappeared, and she called so late, but she was in the company? Zhou Jia didn't have a clue in his mind.

☆☆☆

Area U is classified as Level 3 in the company, which is the core planned development zone of Lancer.

When Chris gave up the good situation created in the industrial design industry in New York and returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was born, to start a business, many friends and classmates persuaded her to give up trying such an adventure, and many more people were not optimistic, and even laughed at her for being a prodigal child for starting a company, pure ignorance and arrogance. But in just a few years, the company she founded has created one business miracle after another, making the world remember the name of this new technological monster - Lancer. Chris has exerted his unique vision and perspective, combining new technology with the ultimate perfect design concept, constantly innovating, and even some people call her "female Jobs", etc., a series of laurel blessings, but also make Lancer a vane of new technology business and a leader in technology fashion.

The U-zone is the cradle of the birth of these core technologies.

The first generation of Lencer's series of products was the development and commercial application of deformed memory metal (5). The person in charge of the technology development is called Eddie Eastwood. Yes, he is the youngest son of Clint Eastwood, a veteran Hollywood superstar, an illegitimate child, to be exact. Because of his status, he always kept a low profile, went to New York to study, and stayed away from his family life.

His father's 90th birthday celebration was held in New York, and it was at this reception that his half-sister Alison forced him to attend, and it was at this reception that he and Chris met. The waiters at the reception are dressed up in Eastwood's films, and Chris is dressed in the classic Red Dead Redemption (6) look, smiling toothily and asking Eddie if he needs a glass of champagne. For a moment, Eddie thought he was dazzled, this big cowboy was like a father who came out of the movie, at least, from temperament to appearance, he was the closest "imitator" he had ever seen.

After the reception, he inquired with Alison, and found out that the waiter was the famous "Mrs. Gandao". It is incomprehensible that a person who spends a lot of money and lives a dissolute life should work part-time at a drinking party. Alison teased, "Add, when did you judge someone by those frivolous news from gossip magazines?"

Eddie, who doesn't like to deal with people, asked for contact information from Alison, this is the first time he took the initiative to make strangers, and even confessed his feelings in front of the other party, the surprise of the first acquaintance, those rumors about Chris and Alison's teasing, which made Chris laugh out loud, she said that she was crazy a few years ago, but she wanted to change her ways, and wanted to work hard to save money and plan to open her own company.

Hearing Chris's words, Eddie empathized with him, and somehow poured out the bitterness of the things that had been stored in his heart - the constraints of his family and the struggle to pursue his ideals - not only because they were both born in San Francisco and had similar backgrounds, but also because he felt that the person in front of him would never laugh at him. There is no intersection in life at all, and two people who are completely unrelated have become close friends.

And it was in New York that they forged not just a friendship, but a willingness to work together. Chris listened quietly to Eddie's whimsical ideas, not only did not laugh at Eddie, but also continued to put forward reasonable ideas and opinions. And finally one day, Chris and Eddie returned to Silicon Valley to form a company together.

The second-generation flagship product of Lancer is the new music player Biop, and it is Zhou Jia who is responsible for the technical development, and Chris personally designs the appearance and packaging of this product, including the operation and promotion of the whole set of products, and Eddie is responsible for the core chip. Like Apple's first-generation ipod player, Biop amazed the world as soon as it was born, because it is not an MP3 player in the general sense, but a bio-signalized music playback, which not only changes the storage mode and transmission mode of music, but also restores the sound quality to a perfect state.

The "super chip" made of graphene can conduct biological signals, and it also has a unique "light pressure" driving performance, which never needs to be recharged. The birth and application of this technology is a leap forward in modern science and technology, which has far-reaching significance. Launching a pleasing entertainment product first can only be regarded as revealing the tip of the iceberg. Because Zhou Jia's focus on the field of biotherapy is a deeper expansion of this technology.

As early as the beginning of the company's establishment, Chris threw an olive branch to Zhou Jia, but at this time, Lan Shien was also inviting Zhou Jia.

In the end, Zhou Jia did not choose his father, but chose himself, which made Chris full of gratitude and trust in Zhou Jia.

Compared with the fifty-one district (7) that his father mastered and his own small company, he thought with his toes that no one would choose Lancer, but Zhou Jia not only came, but also brought dazzling technology, which Chris did not expect.

So she promised Zhou Jia that she would build a world-class research center for Zhou Jia, with the best equipment and the best researchers.

As soon as she went out, Zhou Jia saw Eddie waving to her: "Dr. Zhou, this way!"

"Add, what the hell is going on?"

"I was just ordered to pick you up," Eddie replied, "please go this way." As for what it is, let the boss tell you personally. Although he is a partner in the company, Eddie always calls Chris his boss.

couldn't ask why, Zhou Jia had to follow Eddie in front of him in a muffled voice.

The U-zone is monitored by real-time holographic scanning, and people who are not registered in the system cannot enter it at all. The battery car that set up the line took them around in turns, this road Zhou Jia had never walked before, and she frowned unconsciously. Next, they entered an elevator that showed only one destination on the LCD screen, and the elevator stopped running for a while.

"We're underground. Eddie's reminder confirmed Zhou Jia's guess. What is the use of the huge space hidden underground, Zhou Jia is full of curiosity, but he is faintly angry, because it is obvious that Chris has hidden something from him in many aspects.

Coming to a glass door, Eddie pointed inside, "She's waiting for you inside." Looking at Zhou Jia's inquiring expression, Eddie yawned, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I worked overtime every day during this time, and I finally finished it, it's like walking in hell, I'm going to take a shower and sleep, and I'm out of company." ”

Eddie walked away without looking back.

Zhou Jia's heart began to pound, the glass door in front of her opened automatically, and she walked in alone.

A huge dark space, only two rows of indicators on the floor, indicating the way forward, and there was something in the glass walls on both sides, half-hidden in the snowdrifts, the fluffy snowdrifts had frozen, forming large icicles, some of which were two or three times the size of Zhou Jia's body. She caught a faint glimpse of the light and moved closer to the glass, the white icicles inside gradually emitting more light, and the light caused a domino effect, and the light source quickly spread along the point where she stood, lighting up the entire space. When her eyes adjusted to the change in light, she realized that it was a large circular room, surrounded by glass walls full of white icicles.

Zhou Jia tried to take her eyes off the light source object in front of her, turned to the center of the space, and a tall familiar figure met her eyes and beckoned to her, "Xiao Jia, come over here." ”

Zhou Jia walked over and saw that there was also a round glass cover behind Chris, with black crystals placed in it, and several aurora-like lights were emitted around it.

"Do you think it's beautiful?" said Chris, smugly.

Zhou Jia squatted down to carefully observe these black crystals, and a sudden silence enveloped the two of them, and no one made a sound. The black substance suddenly dimmed as if to match the atmosphere.

"What is this?" Zhou Jia's voice broke the previous silence.

"Kryptonite, black kryptonite. "Chris interface.

"Lan Zhongqing, your Bullsh*t (8) won't work with me. Zhou Jia's voice was majestic and powerful.

"Ah, Xiao Jia, can you not call people by that name. "Lan Zhongqing is the Chinese name that Lan Shien gave to his daughter, because he wanted her to be a person who could shoulder heavy responsibilities and stand up to the sky. But later, this name was misinterpreted by Chris's Chinese friends as "the pillar of optimus in the middle", Chris can be regarded as understanding the breadth and depth of Chinese, of course, she dislikes others to call her this name the most.

Chris looked at Zhou Jia innocently, hoping to get a good face, but saw Zhou Jia frowning. She had to pull Zhou Jia and walk to a touchscreen of equal height next to her, which can be seen everywhere in the U area in order to facilitate access to information. Chris opened the top-level encrypted internal data, touched the screen with his fingers, and a group of data and charts were displayed in front of Zhou Jia's eyes, and finally Chris called up a monitoring data graph, seeing this, Zhou Jia's face immediately changed, because this is the biological signal data she is most familiar with, "Is this thing alive?" Zhou Jia couldn't help but get goosebumps with excitement.

The same can be said. At the moment I call it 'Kryptonite', which is its temporary codename. ”

"'Kryptonite'? It really doesn't look like the stuff on Earth. ”

"Do you remember three years ago?" Chris began to explain to Zhou, "that we bought an oil company based in Alaska. They had several legacy developments that required Eddie to come to the site to evaluate. But when he returned, he was surprised to find that some of the parts of the equipment he was carrying had changed, and the material used to make these parts was the I16 deformation memory metal developed by our company! He and I carried the same equipment and walked again as he had been, and sure enough, we got the same results, and finally determined that the site where I16 had deformed was in a mountainous area in the Barlow region. ”

Zhou Jia and Chris looked at each other for a moment and motioned for her to continue.

"Eddie offered to continue to look for other sources of interference, and over the next two years, we used drones with I16s to search all of Alaska while negotiating with the Inukpitit leaders on the Alaskan side, but we found no other sources of interference. It was later proposed that the search be carried out at the same latitude as the current source of interference. Just a year ago, at the same latitude, on the other side of the Bering Strait, the same source of interference was discovered somewhere in the Siberian region of the Russians. It was only in view of the complex political factors in Russia that we did not rush into the next step, and on the other hand, there was good news from Alaska that the local Inyupitt leaders had finally agreed to allow us to enter their territory for exploration. ”

Chris lit up the touchscreen again.

"To be honest, I didn't know what we were looking for at first. The Biop player carried by the construction crew will make noise inexplicably, and even cannot be used normally, Eddie determined that the biomagnetic field generated by the thing below seems to have a biological radiation effect on Biop, and as we dig deeper, we find that high temperatures will be generated around it, and the closer we get to it, the temperature will become higher and higher. However, this high temperature is not the heat energy that can directly melt the ice and snow, but also convinces us that it produces a unique biological heat energy. The black kryptonite was found in October last year, and it is still being excavated. What you see is only a very small part. ”

After talking so much in one breath, Chris stopped and looked at Zhou Jia, who was listening intently.

"That's not a small amount of money, where did you get the money?"

"Rest assured, the project at hand will not be affected, this is my promise to you to come to Lancer to do. ”

"You know I don't mean that, I'm not worried about my own expenses. ”

"Who else is paying for it? Of course, it's the super big coffer, Hatty, and we both contribute half of it. ”

"This is the real reason why you went to Masda City (9) two years ago?" Zhou Jia suddenly realized.

"Well, of course, I wouldn't have learned that damn old Arabic if it was just to please a man, and of course, even if I had done what I liked and nothing good, Hatti wouldn't have been interested. ”

Hatti Selim Mohammed, the most powerful of the UAE princes, is the true master of the city of Masda.

"I told him that if he cooperated with me, I could make his city of Mastara a truly 'city of the future'. But I'll tell you the truth," Chris smirked, "I wasn't even sure when I said this, but Harty seemed to be really moved and simply agreed." With the backing of this rich man, are you still worried about money? Hahahaha. ”

Zhou Jia repeatedly looked at the data on the touch screen, and thought to herself: Although she is now talking about it lightly, it is hard to imagine how much effort Chris has spent to impress that iron rooster.

"White kryptonite emits a lot of heat, light and biomagnetic energy, which can be used to develop new energy sources. And black kryptonite has a higher temperature, and as you can see, it also has strong magnetic radiation around it, which requires more in-depth research and detailed analysis. ”

"Why didn't you tell me sooner, you know what I'm good at, maybe I can help. Zhou Jia's tone looked a little frustrated.

"I don't want you to be involved in a dangerous situation where I can't be sure, what will Lancer do if Eddie and I are finished? Chris said softly.

"Don't think I'll spare you if you say that, and if you hide something so important from me in the future, I'll leave Lancer. Zhou Jia threatened, she was still angry that Chris was hiding from her.

"I was wrong, I don't dare, I'll leave this project to you later, I'll serve you tea and water, and Eddie will give you a hand." Chris immediately got down on one knee, smiling and looking like a knight. She felt something in her pocket, clenched it in her fist, and said mysteriously, "Most importantly, I want to surprise you on your birthday, because I have found a stone as black as your eyes." She flipped her wrist and opened her hand, and a small black kryptonite stopped in her palm, "Happy birthday!"

When Zhou Jia received the first call tonight, he guessed that Chris, the ghost guy, would give him a birthday surprise, but he didn't expect it to be such a generous gift.

"Doesn't it produce heat?"

"This test Specimen Kryptonite X, its biomagnetic field has disappeared, it is warm, you touch it. She spread her palms at Zhou Jia.

Zhou Jia trembled slightly with excitement, and just as he wanted to stretch out his hand, he heard a sharp voice behind him.

"Oh, what is this doing?"

Zhou Jia's face immediately became gloomy.