An old man stood inside a laboratory with a dignified look on his face.

Standing next to him were other VIP figures such as Director Li, as well as the heads of several state departments.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the uniquely shaped cylindrical device, waiting for Lu Zhou to make his next move on the entangled photon pairs transmitter.

Lu Zhou looked at the time on his watch. He then looked at the researcher standing in front of the computer and nodded.

“We can begin.”

“Okay.”

The researcher standing in front of the computer pressed a button.

Just like what Academician Xue saw a few weeks ago, entangled photon pairs were emitted at an ultra-high frequency, forming a stream of information composed of single-photon pairs. The signal lights on the quantum repeater lit up as it began to amplify and send information to a receiver hundreds of meters away from the laboratory.

At the same time, the traditional communications channel running parallel to the quantum communications channel also sent a huge amount of data to the receiving end. Using the received quantum key, this data was decoded by a dedicated decoding device.

The whole process involved complex physics and information science technologies, and everything happened spontaneously.

Experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences were shocked. The other state department leaders standing around the president didn’t even realize the experiment was over.

It wasn’t until Lu Zhou told them that the experiment was successful, did they finally show looks of confusion and astonishment on their faces.

Director Li was the first to snap back to reality. He walked over to the group of experts and quickly asked, “The experiment was successful?”

Academician Gao Junwen from the Institute of Information Engineering blinked and made eye contact with his colleague next to him. He looked at Director Li and nodded.

“There’s no doubt about it… The transmitter sent the message ‘hello world’ through the traditional and quantum channels at the same time. Therefore, if the key transmission was not successful, even supercomputers would not have been able to decode the message.

“Even if a hacker has unlimited computing power, they won’t be able to decipher our message… There is no doubt that this is the uncrackable communication technology we need.”

Academician Gao Junwen looked like he was dreaming as he exclaimed, “I can’t believe I am able to witness such a perfect communication system in my lifetime.

“This is like a dream.”

Academician Gao spoke quite loudly.

Director Li wasn’t the only one that heard it.

The president, as well as the state higher-ups standing around him, looked shocked after hearing what the academician said.

After a while, the president asked, “So, this is quantum communications technology?”

“Yes, sir.” Lu Zhou nodded and tried to explain the technology in layman terms, “Just like Academician Gao had said, in theory, no one can intercept the information passing through this channel. This technology is totally reliable for communication over medium and long distances.”

The president nodded and quickly thought of something. He immediately said, “What if someone takes control of the repeater? Like… by deploying a nuclear submarine in the ocean.”

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “That’s no good. The only thing a nuclear submarine could do is to destroy the quantum repeater or cut the quantum fiber. Once the channel is destroyed, quantum key transmission ends. The data transmitted through traditional optical fiber becomes invalid. It will become garbage information that will never be decrypted.”

A complete quantum key wasn’t represented only by a single entangled photon pair. When one of the entangled photon pairs collapsed due to external observation, the subsequent signals also collapsed.

Therefore, this kind of communication technology was theoretically absolutely safe. The only exploit was if someone could observe the entangled photon pairs without causing it to collapse.

However, this was impossible from a physics standpoint.

At least from what humans knew about physics.

As the president looked at the uniquely-shaped device in front of him, he was quiet for a long time. He then suddenly spoke emotionally.

“This is like magic.”

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “If you only look at the end result, any scientific research looks like magic, especially when it is first discovered.”

The old man spoke solemnly to Lu Zhou.

“Information security has always been the difficulty we have encountered in the technology revolution age. Quantum computers, quantum communication technology… The impact of this on our society is akin to nuclear fusion.

“On behalf of the country, I’d like to say thank you.”

Lu Zhou nodded and spoke politely.

“You’re welcome, sir.

“It’s my honor to witness this moment with you.”

…

Beijing.

Xicheng district, financial street.

A man in a suit and leather shoes stood in front of a building. He reached out and adjusted his tie before walking confidently into the building.

His name was Tony Azov, and he was a SubCom manager from the United States.

SubCom was a giant in the global submarine optical cable industry. SubCom, NEC, and Alcatel-Lucent had a 90% monopoly market share of the global submarine optical cable market.

Why was he standing here?

Because he could smell money here…

Azov smiled confidently as he spoke fluent Chinese to the receptionist.

“Can you please contact CEO Wang for me? I have an appointment.”

“Yes, sir, please wait a moment.”

After waiting patiently for half a minute, a man who looked like an assistant walked over from the elevators.

“You must be Mr. Azov. CEO Wang is waiting for you in a conference room. Come with me.”

The assistant made an inviting gesture and took him into the elevators. They arrived at the conference room on the second floor.

When he arrived at the conference room, a well-dressed middle-aged man stood up from the conference table, smiled, and shook his hand.

“Welcome to China, Mr. Azov. You’re here for the No.3 Asia Pacific submarine cable project, right? You must have come a long way!”

“Thank you.” Azov sat down at the conference table and took out some documents from his briefcase. He looked at CEO Wang and said, “Looks like you’ve already done your homework, so let’s begin.”

Due to the increasing demand for trans-Pacific communications, the original Asia-Pacific submarine optical cable line had become inadequate. The construction of Asia Pacific Cable No.3 (APCN3) had become an urgent matter.

Before he came to China, he had reached a preliminary cooperation intention with communications companies from South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and other countries. They intended to establish a committee appointed by multiple countries to build APCN3.

The reason why he traveled to China was to convince the Chinese side to participate in this project. He wanted to do business with the big three Chinese submarine optical cable companies.

After all, China, the United States, and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region had an urgent need for submarine optical cable bandwidth. Azov couldn’t think of a reason why China might refuse to cooperate.

Right now, all he had to focus on was how to skillfully use the art of negotiation. He had to use cable termination stations and communication requirements as leverage. This was so that the Chinese customers would pay more for the usage of submarine optical cables.

The negotiations were going smoothly.

As far as communications companies were concerned, submarine optical cables were a required need. They did not have many choices. Azov was able to impress CEO Wang without much effort.

Suddenly, a phone began to ring.

CEO Wang looked at the caller ID on his screen and looked apologetic. He did not want to interrupt the meeting, but he had to pick up this call.

“My apologies, I have to take this,” CEO Wang said to the SubCom manager as he stood up from the conference table.

“It’s fine, I’ll wait.”

Azov wasn’t in a hurry. He watched the Chinese man leave the conference room as he took a sip of coffee and waited quietly.

Time slowly passed by.

Azov couldn’t help but feel a little impatient.

He thought the call would end soon, but ten minutes had gone by and nothing was happening.

He was wondering if he should go outside and see what was going on when CEO Wang finally walked into the conference room.

The CEO had a serious look on his face.

This look made Azov feel uneasy.

CEO Wang spoke in an apologetic tone.

“My apologies. Regarding the Asia Pacific Cable No.3 project… We’re not interested.”

Azov’s eyes were wide open, and he nearly jumped out of his chair.

“Wait a second, what do you mean you’re not interested?”

“We’re not interested.” CEO Wang said, “We have no plans to add submarine optical cables for the time being. How about you leave your business card? If we change our minds, we’ll contact you.”

Azov almost vomited.

What do you mean to change your mind?

I even brought the contract!

I came here today to make a deal or at least get a letter of intent!

“I sincerely suggest that you reconsider! Judging by the current growth rate of communication bandwidth demand, the Asia Pacific submarine optical cable No.2 line cannot meet the demands in the Asia-Pacific region!”

CEO Wang nodded toward Azov, but his expression didn’t change.

“Again, we’ll think about it.”

Just like that, the meeting had ended.

Later on, Azov went to talk with China Unicom and China Mobile, the two other communications giants in China, but the answers he got were almost the same.

The meetings were even worse than what happened with China Telecom. The other two companies had no intention of talking with him at all. The meeting ended within five minutes.

His intuition told him that this was all because of the phone call.

However, he had no idea what kind of phone call was so powerful that it could change the entire communications industry?

When Azov came out of the China Mobile headquarters building, he was muddled.

Did NEC or Alcatel-Lucent steal our business?

Doesn’t seem likely.

His only worry right now was how to report this matter to his superiors. He wanted to make the three failed negotiations seem less embarrassing…