I Made a Nuclear Bomb with Saltpeter

Lin Wei’s last memory is the shrill alarm and blinding white light in the laboratory. She was carefully operating the newly purchased, enormously expensive supercritical fluid extraction apparatus, trying to extract active compounds from a plant. The next moment, a tremendous impact sent her flying, and the back of her head slammed into a metal cabinet. Through the pain, she seemed to hear her advisor shouting in alarm, but what she heard most clearly was a strange electronic static, as if it were coming from a distant time and place. [Strong will to save the nation detected… Binding requirements met…] [Anti-Japanese Technology System activated… Binding Host…] When she opened her eyes again, the familiar smell of chemical reagents had been replaced by the stench of blood and gunpowder. Lin Wei found herself sprawled across scorched earth, with a tearing pain in her abdomen. Looking down, she saw a vicious wound pumping blood, staining the tattered military uniform beneath her. It clearly wasn’t the jeans and T-shirt she had worn under her lab coat. Worse still, a pair of muddy leather boots, worn with yellow military trousers, stood right in front of her. The cold, bloodstained tip of a bayonet pressed against her chin, forcing her to look up. A vicious face, arrogant with the haughty cruelty of an invader, looked down at her. The man muttered in a language she couldn’t understand, though she could guess it was anything but friendly. He looked at her as if she were a bug he could crush at will. The chill of death was more piercing than the wound in her abdomen.