Chapter 33: The Argument

The two performers on stage were undeniably talented, their voices resonating perfectly with the crowd. The arena was filled with screams and cheers of revelry. Wendy was no exception; although she wasn’t usually one to lose her composure, the music stirred a yearning in her heart for the stars and the vast unknown.

But when she glanced at her boyfriend, Leo, and saw his vacant, glazed-over expression, her excitement instantly curdled into annoyance.

Wendy and Leo were a couple, and right now, they were having a spat or rather, Wendy was having a spat. Leo was barely present.

“What is wrong with you?” Wendy scolded, her face twisting with displeasure. “You’ve had that sour look on your face all day, like you lost a million dollars… Do you think they sang badly? If you think you can do better, go up there and sing yourself!”

Leo rubbed his ear absently, completely lost in his own headspace. The noise of the concert was just background static to him. He was silently reciting a complex formula in his mind, muttering, “A million… yes, the simulation works… it will definitely succeed!”

“What are you mumbling about?!” Wendy was furious now. She smacked the back of Leo’s head. “Damn it, Leo! You’ve only been with me for half an hour. What is your problem? Is there someone else?”

They had been together for a long time. Wendy had been the one to pursue him initially. They said it was hard for a man to catch a woman, but easy for a woman to catch a man; Leo had folded quickly under her affection. Their relationship was generally strong. They had their minor arguments, but they always made up quickly.

Since the destruction of Earth, they had relied on each other even more, their bond deepening as they sought warmth and comfort in a cold universe. It felt as though they were ready to spend the rest of their lives together.

However, things had changed over the last two months. Ever since Leo received a new assignment, he had become secretive and mysterious. He was busy all day with god-knows-what, and they spent less and less time together. Eventually, he essentially moved into the laboratory, sometimes disappearing for ten days or two weeks at a time.

This made Wendy miserable. She rarely saw him, and when she did, they barely spoke. What kind of relationship was this? She was strong, but she still had moments of emotional fragility, and her partner was never there when she needed him.

Leo was a high-ranking Engineer. Wendy was a doctor, but she didn’t have the security clearance to access his special laboratory. She had no idea what he was doing, and dark thoughts inevitably crept in. Words like “cheating,” “affair,” and “secret lover” swirled in her mind.

“Ow! Hey, let go! What are you doing?” Leo yelped, finally snapping back to reality. He looked at Wendy, hesitating for a long moment before making a difficult decision. “Wendy, I’m sorry. I have to go to work. I… I can’t be with you right now.”

“What? You have to work *now*?” Wendy’s eyes went wide, her voice pitching up an octave. “You promised you’d spend tonight with me! Why do you have to work again?”

Leo gave a sheepish, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I really have to finish this task. If I don’t get it done today, I won’t be able to sleep. Please, just let me go…”

Wendy felt like she was going to explode. In two months, they hadn’t exchanged more than ten sentences, counting the ones they just said. She scowled. “Work, work… What kind of job keeps you so busy you don’t even have time to sleep?”

“…” Leo fell silent. He couldn’t explain. He stammered, “It’s… it has to be kept secret. You’ll understand when the time comes. Trust me, it’s legitimate work.”

“Hah…” Wendy scoffed, her disbelief written plainly on her face. *Go on then. If you have the guts to leave, then get out of here, you jerk!*

A flash of guilt crossed Leo’s eyes. He hesitated, torn, but finally hardened his heart. “Wendy, I’m sorry. I really can’t stay… I… I’m leaving.”

“Stop right there!” Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. Wendy shouted, “If you dare walk away, we are…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She just watched as Leo’s back receded into the shadows, disappearing into the crowd. Her nose stung, and the tears finally spilled over.

The people around her were celebrating life, singing and dancing, while she stood there crying.

She stood in the wind for a long time until she finally calmed down. A self-mocking smile touched her lips. “Sigh. I forgive you… If you want to be a hero, I can’t be the villain holding you back… You idiot! Even if I’m being unreasonable, you’re supposed to humor me.”

—

Leo, of course, wasn’t fooling around. He was engaged in serious business vital, critical business.

He was building a Helium-3 Nuclear Bomb.

As he walked through the doors of the laboratory, he was immediately greeted by his colleagues. “Haha, Leo, you’re back! I knew you wouldn’t stay away.”

“Leo, my man, you’ve walked past your own apartment three times today without going in. Are you trying to set a record for ’Worst Boyfriend’? Be careful, or she’s going to dump you. You don’t want to lose a girl like that.”

Leo smiled bitterly. He felt incredibly guilty, but he shook his head. “Why are you talking about me? Aren’t you all back here too? I’ll make it up to her later.”

“Sigh, you’re right. With everything at such a critical juncture, who can focus on a party?”

“Exactly. I couldn’t even eat dinner; I just had to rush back.”

While the team chatted, the innermost secure door swung open. Professor Hao Yu stepped out. Although he looked fatigued, his eyes were sharp, fueled by an intense inner fire.

“How does it look, Professor? Is it ready?” the group of young engineers asked eagerly.

“It’s basically done,” Professor Hao Yu said, a fanatical light in his eyes. “Just the final step: assembling the core components. Let’s pull an all-nighter and finish this. What do you say?”

“Let’s do it!” everyone shouted in unison.

Leo entered the main clean room. This was the largest nuclear energy laboratory on the Lunar Base, equipped with a hadron collider, compressors, centrifuges, and other high-end scientific instruments. Two heavily armed soldiers stood guard, escorting a black containment box.

Inside that box was a tactical atomic warhead.

Leo sat down at the workstation and took a deep breath. His heart was racing, but his mind was clear. All work had to be done under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. He understood the protocol; atomic weapons were no joke. A single act of sabotage or terrorism here could vaporize the entire base.

There were six researchers in this nuclear lab. Aside from Professor Hao Yu, the other five were engineers. But among them, the one chosen to perform the final, critical assembly was Leo.

The reason was simple: Leo had the steadiest hands on the base.

As a senior engineer, Leo had possessed an extraordinary quality since childhood, superhuman stability. Whether it was psychological fortitude or physical dexterity, he operated at a level ordinary people couldn’t reach.

If asked to measure the length of a table without tools, he could use his naked eye and hand to estimate it with an accuracy of four decimal places, down to a tenth of a millimeter.

If asked to estimate the weight of an object, he could determine its mass with milligram precision just by holding it.

Every step he took when walking measured exactly 0.744 meters.

He was also a master welder for structural steel, with a 100% pass rate on Level 1 inspections. There were countless geniuses on the Lunar Base, but Leo was the only one with this specific physical gift.

Now, he was about to challenge the highest difficulty task of his life: assembling a nuclear bomb.

Of course, this wasn’t manual welding; it involved sophisticated automated machinery. However, machines were still operated by humans. Professor Hao Yu and the team had unanimously agreed: when the margin for error is zero, trust Leo over the computer.

Leo felt the same. He had absolute confidence in his abilities. His precision requirement for himself was one nanometer, the width of eight iron atoms lined up in a row.

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