Ball Lightning

When I informed Gao Bo of my decision to follow him to the Lightning Institute in Beijing, he said, “Before you make your final decision, I need to make one thing clear: I know that your head is filled with ball lightning, and even though our starting points are different, I’m optimistic about the project too. But you ought to be clear that at the beginning, I can’t put a ton of the Institute’s resources into your project. Do you know why Zhang Bin failed? He buried himself in theory and couldn’t dig out! Still, you can’t blame him, given the limitations of his situation. If the past two years have given you the impression that I ignore experimentation, you’re wrong—I didn’t consider experiments for your PhD because they would have had too high a cost and would have been impossible for us to do well. Inaccurate or false results would have dragged down the theory, and in the end neither theory nor experiment would have amounted to anything. I recruited you so you can do ball lightning research—there’s no question about that—but you must acquire all the necessary experimental fundamentals before you can start in earnest. The three things we need now are money, money, and more money. You’ve got to work with me to get money, understand?”

These words showed me a new side of him. I now saw that he was one of those rare people with a nimble academic mind who was also grounded in the real world—perhaps a characteristic of people who came out of MIT. I was thinking along the same lines: establishing a basic experimental facility was essential for studying ball lightning, since artificially generating it would signify success. These facilities ought to include large lightning simulators, complex magnetic field generators, and even more complex sensing and detection systems, which would require a truly frightening budget. I wasn’t entirely stuck in my books, and I knew that realizing this dream would have to start with small steps.

On the train, Gao Bo brought up Lin Yun. It had been two years since Mount Tai, but she had never left my mind, although my focus on ball lightning had kept my thoughts of her well under control. The time I spent with her on Mount Tai was the most treasured of my memories, and it often emerged when I was fatigued, soothing me like soft music. Gao Bo had said once that he envied me in this state, enjoying an emotional life with the detachment necessary to avoid getting pulled in.

He said, “She told you about a lightning weapons system. That interests me a lot.”

“You want to do defense projects?”

“Why not? There’s no way the military has perfected lightning research, so they’ll look to us sooner or later. Projects like that have a stable source of funding, and a very promising market.”

Since parting, Lin Yun and I had had no contact. She had given me a mobile number, so Gao Bo told me to get in touch as soon as we reached Beijing.

“You’ve got to figure out the state of the military’s lightning weapons research. Remember, don’t ask her for details outright. You could ask her to dinner or to a concert or something, and then when you’re on good terms…,” he said, looking like a wily old spymaster.

In Beijing, I called up Lin Yun even before settling down. When her familiar voice came on the phone, I felt an inexpressible warmth, and I could hear that she felt pleasantly surprised when she heard it was me. I ought to have suggested meeting up at her workplace, as Gao Bo had instructed, but before I could bring myself to ask, she unexpectedly invited me over.

“Come find me at New Concepts. I’ve got something to discuss with you!” She gave me an address on the outskirts of the city.

“New Concepts?” What sprung to mind was L. G. Alexander’s English-language textbook.

“Oh, that’s what we call the PLA National Defense University’s New Concept Weapons Development Center. I’ve worked here since graduating.”

* * *

Gao Bo pushed me to visit Lin Yun before I’d even reported to my new workplace.

Half an hour’s drive beyond the Fourth Ring Road, wheat fields had sprung up along the highway. Quite a few military research institutions were clustered in this area, most of them plain buildings behind high perimeter walls with no signs on the gates. But the New Concept Weapons Development Center was an eye-catching, modern-looking twenty-story building that resembled an office for some multinational corporation. Unlike the nearby agencies, it had no guards at the gate, so people could freely go in and out.