Chapter 23: Rather than mending the past, let us forge the future together!

Li Weimin’s public concession earned He Yu and the fledgling Longhai University immense prestige, while simultaneously clearing every obstacle in the path of the "Phoenix Butterfly Symbiosis Project."

The construction plan was approved on the spot, and the entire project team was immersed in a near-manic joy.

However, this joy did not belong to Li Weimin.

That evening, he declined all invitations to join the celebrations. Alone, he trudged along the muddy dirt road and quietly sought out He Yu’s temporary office.

It was a shipping container converted into a metal box, standing solitary in a corner of the construction site. A sliver of dim, yellowish light leaked through the door crack, appearing as insignificant as a firefly in the deep darkness of the night.

Pushing open the cold, heavy iron door, a distinct scent—a mixture of metal, damp earth, and instant coffee—wafted out to meet him.

The room was furnished with extreme austerity: a cot, an old desk piled high with blueprints, and the only light source, a buzzing energy-saving lamp.

He Yu sat beneath the light, focused intently on the computer screen before him. Its glow illuminated his young, calm profile. Hearing the door open, he turned his head and showed not a hint of surprise upon seeing the figure standing there.

The old man before him looked even more forlorn in the dim light, his white hair appearing increasingly sparse. The authority and presence that had defined him as a leading expert during the day’s meeting had vanished entirely. Now, with his back slightly hunched, he stood in the doorway as awkwardly as a lost student. In his hand, he tightly clutched a small, brown notebook with worn edges, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.

"Student He..."

Li Weimin began, his voice dry. He quickly realized the impropriety of the address and corrected himself immediately.

"No, President He."

His gaze rested on He Yu, his eyes swirling with indescribable emotions—shock, admiration, confusion, and even a trace of bewilderment he had not yet realized himself.

"That dynamic simulation system of yours, and your design philosophy for ecological architecture... could you... explain them to me in more detail?"

He asked this question with difficulty, as if every word required a tremendous amount of effort. It meant that he was dismantling, with his own hands, the intellectual fortress he had spent his entire life building before this young man.

He Yu’s gaze swept over the notebook the old man gripped so tightly, and a gentle smile appeared on his face. He stood up, but instead of answering immediately, he drew a cup of hot water from the water dispenser in the corner and handed it personally to Li Weimin.

"Old Li, it’s cold outside. Sit down and have some hot water to warm up."

Steam rose, blurring the sight between them. Li Weimin took the simple paper cup; the warmth radiating from it to his fingertips allowed his tense body to relax slightly. He was invited by He Yu to sit on the only other chair available.

The space inside the container was so cramped that their knees nearly touched. He Yu sat down as well, not returning to his computer but turning his body to face Li Weimin, his gaze meeting the old man’s weathered, furrowed face.

"Old Li, my idea is actually very simple."

He Yu’s voice was clear and steady, carrying a strange power of penetration within the small space.

"Ecological protection should not be passive defense; it should be active creation."

This single sentence caused Li Weimin’s hand, holding the paper cup, to freeze in mid-air.

Active... creation?

The term was entirely alien to him.

What followed was a conversation held within the crude shipping container that completely overturned the past sixty years of Li Weimin’s life. They talked throughout the night.

He Yu used no technical jargon. Instead, he employed the most plain, straightforward language to slowly unfold a vision of the future so magnificent it felt unbelievable.

From the positive energy cycles of ecological architecture to the zero-waste grids of urban planning. From the protection of single species to the construction of cross-regional ecological corridors. From passive pollution filtration to the closed-loop utilization of renewable energy.

At first, Li Weimin could still use his pen to quickly jot down keywords in his notebook. But as they went on, his speed slowed, until finally, the hand holding the pen went completely rigid.

He realized that the experience he was so proud of, the data he had collected, and the governance solutions he had spent decades perfecting appeared so clumsy and... pale and powerless in the face of the blueprint He Yu was painting.

He Yu’s knowledge base was not that of a man in his early twenties. He discussed the conversion efficiency of geothermal energy with precision down to the fourth decimal point; he analyzed models of urban wind corridors as if he had personally designed hundreds of cities; he explained the logic of biological microbial purification of water bodies with a depth that surpassed any microbiology expert Li Weimin had ever known.

It was not merely extensive knowledge; it was cognition from a higher dimension. It was as if he were not deducing, but stating a fact that had already occurred.

Li Weimin felt as though he were not speaking with a contemporary university student, but was instead undergoing a dimensional strike against his era by a civilization from the future.

Outside the window, the night sky had begun to show a hint of white in the east, unaware of the passing time. Inside the container, the light of the energy-saving lamp looked exceptionally weary against the backdrop of the dawn.

"I have spent my entire life fighting pollution."

After a long silence, Li Weimin finally spoke again, his voice filled with an unconcealable huskiness. He lowered his eyelids, looking at his own hands, covered in age spots and thick calluses. These hands had signed countless governance documents, had scooped up polluted soil at survey sites, and had fallen weakly to his sides after countless failed experiments.

"Patching a leak here, repairing a hole there. Like a doctor treating an incurable patient, I was merely a mediocre physician who could barely help him draw a few more breaths."

He let out a long, heavy sigh, a breath that seemed to carry away the last of his strength.

"Running myself ragged, yet achieving so little."

The old man, who had dedicated his life to the nation’s environmental cause, revealed in that moment the weariness of a hero in his twilight years and a profound sense of helplessness.

He Yu watched him quietly. He saw how the light in the old man’s eyes dimmed bit by bit as he recalled his past struggles. He knew the time had come.

"Old Li."

He Yu’s voice pulled Li Weimin from his heavy memories. The old man looked up, meeting eyes that were incredibly sincere and even burned with a slight intensity.

"Instead of continuing to spend all your energy on mending those past wounds..."

He Yu leaned forward slightly, every word striking firmly at Li Weimin’s heart.

"Why not come to my Longhai University and serve as the founding dean of the School of Environment and Ecology?"

Li Weimin’s pupils contracted sharply. He even doubted if his ears were failing him.

He Yu’s voice continued, carrying an undeniable strength.

"Let us work together to abandon the patchwork, start from scratch, and build a truly green future for this country!"

These words, though not spoken with earth-shattering volume, ignited a violent roar in Li Weimin’s mind.

Build a... truly green future?

He went completely stiff, his mind a blank, his heart pounding wildly within his chest, hammering against his ribs.

Abandon the patchwork? Start from scratch?

These two concepts shattered the professional creed he had held onto for a lifetime. What audacity, what a grand vision!

He was deeply, thoroughly shaken. He stared blankly at the young man before him, looking at the absolute confidence and light shining in his eyes like stars.

Then he looked down at the career he had fought for all his life—those heavy reports, those complex charts, those endless meetings and arguments.

Should he continue to hammer, mend, and patch within that decaying, leaking old framework until the day he could no longer move?

Or...

Or should he follow this young man, who seemed to carry the spark of the future, to personally ignite and create an entirely new era he hadn't even dared to imagine in his dreams?

This question raised a tempest in his mind.

A long time passed—so long that the morning light had already begun to filter through the door gap, casting a bright strip of light on the floor—before he finally found his voice. Every word felt as if it were being squeezed from the depths of his throat, hoarse and strained.

"This matter... is too significant."

"I need to think about this carefully and seriously."