HPDBC Chapter 15 The Crystallization of Emotions in the Laboratory
Chapter 15 The Crystallization of Emotions in the Laboratory
Jiang He's consciousness returned to reality.
The first thing she felt wasn't the softness of the pillow, nor the faint light of dawn, but rather that familiar feeling, as if her entire soul was mired in weariness and sluggishness, spreading from the very roots of her thoughts, giving her a headache.
She opened her eyes, her vision blurry at first, then focused. On her plain-colored pillow, close to her loose hair, lay a crystallization of her emotions.
Her breath hitched slightly.
She reached out her tired, trembling fingers and carefully picked up the crystallized emotion.
The sensation from her fingertips confirmed her visual perception: cool, smooth, and very hard. But when she actually applied pressure with her fingertips, trying to feel its weight, a strong sense of cognitive dissonance washed over her.
It's too light, so light that it's almost nonexistent.
This isn't the substantial lightness of a feather, nor the porous lightness of foam. It's an almost conceptual "weightlessness."
She even wondered if, if she couldn't clearly feel its smooth, hard physical boundaries with her fingertips, this thing might have broken free from the constraints of gravity and floated up.
Jiang He's mind instantly conjured up the lightest known solid material—aerogel. These nanoporous materials, often called "solidified smoke," have extremely low density and are almost weightless when held in the hand.
But at this moment, the crystal on her fingertip felt even more "empty" than the finest aerogel!
She increased the pressure, even trying to gently scratch the surface of the crystals with her fingernails.
It remained completely still. Not even the slightest scratch appeared on the surface. The hard texture created a sharp contradiction with her perception of "near weightlessness," challenging her existing understanding of materials science.
"Density close to zero... but hardness extremely high..." Jiang He murmured softly, her voice hoarse from her tired and dry throat. Her eyes sharpened, her drowsiness largely dispelled by a surge of astonishment and curiosity.
This is neither reasonable nor physical.
She had always thought that the world of mountains and seas was a dream, but how could things from a dream appear in reality?
Fortunately, there were security cameras in Jiang He's home. Jiang He forced herself to cheer up, went to her desk, turned on her computer, and began to check the camera recordings.
No matter what she did, her brows remained furrowed. The content recorded by the camera challenged her preconceived notions. The video should not have been tampered with by anyone else, but why did the emotional crystallization suddenly appear?
She hesitated for a few minutes, then picked up her phone and found the name "Professor Jiang" in her contacts.
The phone rang a few times before being answered. A gentle yet slightly serious male voice came through, accompanied by the faint sound of papers turning in the background: "Xiao He? So early, what's up? Your voice sounds a little hoarse, haven't you had enough rest?"
"Dad," Jiang He began, her voice dry from exhaustion and tension, but she tried her best to remain clear, "I might need your help to test something. Something... very special."
Professor Jiang Wenbo on the other end of the phone clearly sensed something was off about his daughter's tone. Jiang He wasn't the kind of child who would bother him in the early morning for trivial matters, much less use vague yet solemn words like "very special."
"Special? How so?" Professor Jiang's voice became serious, and the rustling of paper in the background stopped.
"It's hard for me to describe... This thing is very strange. It looks like some kind of irregular gemstone, about the size of an egg, but its weight... is unbelievably light. It feels even lighter than aerogel, yet it's extremely hard; you can't scratch it with your fingernail. Its hardness is at least 7 or higher." Jiang He tried to describe it objectively. "It... also appears in a very unusual way. I think it might be related to some... phenomena that I can't explain at the moment."
She concealed the "Mountain and Sea Realm" and the dream portion, focusing only on the objects themselves and their most striking characteristics.
She knew that her father, as a professor in the field of materials physics, had a keen interest in anomalous matter and was sufficiently cautious.
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone. Jiang Wenbai was processing his daughter's words. "Lighter than aerogel? An observable entity? Xiaohe, are you sure about your perception and measurement…?"
"I'm sure, Dad," Jiang He interrupted him, her tone certain. "The tactile and visual contrasts are very clear. Moreover, I have concrete environmental records of the time before and after its appearance." She did not mention the camera.
Another silence fell. Jiang Wenbo knew his daughter well; she was rational, meticulous, and almost never exaggerated.
For her to ask for help in such a tone, this thing must be truly unusual.
"How safe is it?" the professor asked the crucial question. "Is it radioactive? Does it have any unusual magnetic fields or generate heat?"
"It's uncertain at the moment, but there shouldn't be any known radiation, thermal effects, or magnetic field anomalies. At least that's how it is based on my simple observations and physical sensations," Jiang He replied, having indeed carefully examined the area.
"Okay." Jiang Wenbo seemed to have made a decision. "Would it be convenient for you to bring it over today? To my lab. Remember to properly isolate and package it, using the cleanest, best-sealed small container you have on hand. Better safe than sorry."
"I'll be leaving in a bit," Jiang He said immediately. Mental exhaustion still washed over her like a tidal wave, but this matter was the top priority.
"Okay, be careful on the road. I've been here all morning." Professor Jiang paused, his tone softening. "Xiao He, did you encounter anything strange? Do you need me...?"
"I'm fine, Dad." Jiang He took a deep breath. "It's just that this thing... I need to find out what it is. We'll talk about it when we meet."
Hanging up the phone, Jiang He didn't dare delay. She found a specially made transparent polyester film bag used for sterile samples, carefully padded it with a soft cloth, placed the emotional crystal inside, and sealed it. The pale golden crystal lay quietly in the bag, its radiance restrained, yet it seemed to contain a subversive secret.
She quickly washed up, changed her clothes, and put the plastic bag into the inner layer of her backpack. Before leaving, she glanced one last time at the frozen image of her empty pillow on the computer screen, and at the still image of the crystal that had appeared out of nowhere.
When Jiang He arrived at the laboratory, he pushed open the door and went in. His father, Professor Jiang Wenbo, was standing in front of a spectrometer calibrating parameters. He turned around when he heard the sound.
He was about fifty years old, with his hair neatly combed, wearing thin-rimmed glasses and a standard lab coat. His expression was as serious as ever, but his eyes revealed concern for his daughter and a hint of barely concealed curiosity.
"You're here? Why do you look so pale?" Jiang Wenbo frowned, his first concern being his daughter's condition.
"It's nothing, I've just been having a bit of insomnia these past few days," Jiang He mumbled, carefully taking the sealed plastic bag from her backpack and placing it on the clean lab bench beside her. "This is it."
Jiang Wenbo's attention was immediately drawn to it. He put on gloves, picked up the bag, and examined it carefully under the light.
"The appearance...it really doesn't resemble any known natural or synthetic crystal structure; the shape is a bit 'random' and lacks aesthetic appeal!"
"It's like a product formed by the sudden cooling of energy, rather than a geological process." He lightly weighed the bag in his hand, and even through the gloves and the thin film, his professional senses immediately caught the extreme "lightness," and his eyebrows shot up.
"This..." He glanced at Jiang He, his eyes becoming extremely serious. "Xiao He, the quality is indeed about as you described."
Jiang Wenbo said no more, his expression completely absorbed in research. "Let's do basic physical property tests first, safety first."
He led Jiang He into a higher-level protective laboratory inside. First, a portable radiation detector scan was used, and the readings were normal. Magnetic field detection showed no abnormalities. Thermal imaging showed that its temperature was completely consistent with the environment, with no signs of spontaneous heating or heat absorption.
"At least on the surface, it's inert," Jiang Wenbo mused, but his gaze grew increasingly serious.
Next came the preliminary hardness test. He carefully tried to scratch the crystal with a Mohs hardness tester provided in the lab, and as Jiang He had said, not a single mark was left on the crystal surface.
Professor Jiang tried several harder materials, and even used a diamond indenter, but under extremely slight pressure, he still could not leave any visible scratches.
"Incredible..." Jiang Wenbo muttered to himself, recording the data. "Its hardness far exceeds the conventional standard, which requires more precise instruments to quantify, but preliminary judgment... its structural stability is ridiculously strong."
Then came the crucial density assessment. He used the most precise microbalance. When he placed the sealed bag containing the crystals on the scale, the reading on the instrument stunned even this well-informed professor.
The reading fluctuated around zero. Considering the known weight of the film bag and the inner soft cloth, after deducting it, the mass of this egg-sized crystal was shown as... zero. Even within the instrument's error range, after corrections for factors such as air buoyancy, an inexplicable trend toward zero mass appeared.
"This is impossible!" Jiang Wenbo exclaimed. He checked the balance, recalibrated it, and measured it three times, but the result remained the same. "Zero mass... or some kind of 'negative mass' effect that we haven't yet understood? This violates the law of conservation of mass-energy!"
Jiang He's heart sank, filled with a sense of dread, as if she had just known it would happen.
"Microstructure," Jiang Wenbo took a deep breath, deciding to delve into the core.
First, a high-resolution optical microscope was used to examine the crystal surface. Under the lens, the expected crystal edges, cleavage planes, inclusions... were nowhere to be seen.
The screen displays a pure, uniform pale gold "field" without any microstructure features, as smooth as an ideal plane. However, this is impossible in reality, as any material will inevitably show its structure when magnified.
"Abnormal surface reflection and transmission characteristics... Unable to focus on the actual surface morphology?" Professor Jiang adjusted the parameters, even suspecting a problem with the lens or light source. He tried a different device, but the result was the same.
"Using a scanning electron microscope." His voice was a little strained. SEM uses electron beam imaging to reveal finer structures.
The sample is sent into the vacuum chamber and scanned by an electron beam. The image on the screen... is blank. It's not black, it's not noise, but the detector doesn't receive any secondary electrons or backscattered electron signals from the sample surface. It's as if the crystal is there, but to the electron beam, it's "non-existent," or it has perfectly "swallowed" or "deflected" all the electrons, without producing any detectable interaction.