Chapter 753 - 352: Feng Shui Master

Leo Wallace stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of City Hall, looking out at the bustling streets below.

He felt like a juggler tossing torches while walking a tightrope.

He had set all of Pennsylvania in motion. Energy, healthcare, infrastructure—all the gears were meshing at high speed.

And the driving force behind it all was a bet on that dormant reactor.

On the surface, he was still the master strategist: a calm, decisive Mayor whose every order was precise and flawless.

But only he knew this calm was a thin sheet of ice over boiling lava.

His fingers unconsciously traced the window frame, where he had already picked off a small patch of paint.

It was a habit he’d picked up over the last few days.

Whenever the nights grew quiet, or when he was alone like this, anxiety would creep over him like vines.

If the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant couldn’t be restarted, if he failed to provide the promised base load of electricity, then the grand vision he had painted would become a laughingstock.

The allies he had bound together with shared interests would instantly turn into starving wolves, ready to tear him apart.

That was the nature of alliances built on self-interest.

As long as there was meat on the table, everyone was a brother, a partner, a comrade-in-arms you could trust with your life.

But the moment the pot was empty, the carving knife would be turned without hesitation on the one who served the portions.

’In this country, there are too few idealists.’

’This is a nation deeply corroded by capitalism, where everyone’s thinking is too concrete, too quantifiable.’

’Everyone is running the numbers, calculating return on investment, weighing risks against rewards.’

’Everything has a price. Everything is for sale.’

’But idealism is an incalculable thing.’

’It has no clear stop-loss point. It might not even be achievable.’

’It’s a reckless impulse, an obsession with changing the world.’

’But every country has to have people like that, doesn’t it?’

Leo looked out at the bustling crowds hurrying by.

The competition in this country was insane. It was an open arena, a gladiatorial pit drawing top talent from all over the world.

Everyone was smart. Everyone knew how to act in their own best interest.

’But I don’t want to just be one of the smart ones.’

’I want to steer this country down a new path.’

’A path that’s less materialistic, less utilitarian—one where we can rediscover some form of common values.’

’I want to turn people who have been alienated by capitalism back into flesh-and-blood citizens.’

The path was long and arduous, but he was already stuck on the first step.

A full week had passed since he’d given the order in the strategy room for an actionable plan within two weeks.

In that week, neither Ethan nor Evelyn had given him any substantive updates.

Leo couldn’t wait any longer.

He had to check on the progress in person.

"Get the car. We’re going to Carnegie Mellon University," Leo said to his secretary outside the door.

Twenty minutes later, his black car pulled up in front of the main building at Carnegie Mellon University.

Inside this building, a structure humming with a modern, high-tech feel, were gathered some of the top nuclear engineers and material scientists from all of America—and indeed, the world.

Leo strode down the hallway and pushed open the doors to a massive, temporarily requisitioned conference hall.

The room inside was a chaotic mess, like a battlefield.

Blueprints were stacked in mountains, and whiteboards were covered in complex physics formulas and decay chain diagrams.

A dozen or so gray-haired experts were crowded around several large tables, arguing fiercely.

"I’ve been saying this from the start! The cooling system pipes in Unit One are severely degraded. They have to be completely replaced, and that will take at least three months!"

"Three months? Are you planning to retire on this project? We can use a new carbon-fiber composite to repair the lining. That would cut the time down to three weeks!"

Leo didn’t interrupt.

His eyes swept over the group, searching for the key person.

Leo knew that most of the geniuses gathered here were stereotypical tech nerds.

They could spend an entire afternoon deriving complex formulas for neutron cross-sections but might not be able to string together a single sentence an ordinary person could understand.

It was just like the Manhattan Project. It had countless top nuclear physicists, but the only one who could truly stand on the political stage and clearly explain the project’s progress and the power of the atomic bomb to the generals and the President was Heisenberg.

Leo needed a translator.

Someone who understood the technology, spoke the language of bureaucracy, and could wrangle this group of nerds into a cohesive team.

His gaze finally settled on a corner of the conference hall.

He saw Alan Hughes.

The former senior nuclear physics researcher for the United States Department of Energy had years of experience battling his way through the Washington bureaucracy.

Right now, he was chewing on a pencil, his eyes glued to a 3D modeling video on his computer screen.

His hair was a bird’s nest, his shirt was buttoned wrong, and the bags under his eyes were red and swollen, but his gaze burned with an almost fanatical light.

Leo walked over and stood behind him, watching for a moment.

On the screen was a simulated pressure test of the reactor core for Three Mile Island’s Unit One.

"Alan," Leo began softly.

Alan jumped, and the pencil in his hand dropped onto the desk.

He turned, and upon recognizing Leo, showed little of the deference typically afforded a Mayor, merely rubbing his eyes in annoyance.

"Oh, it’s you, Mayor Wallace. What is it? We’re a little busy right now. If you’re looking for some PR report for the media, we don’t have time for that."