A heatwave of 43 degrees swept across the city, and suddenly everyone online was talking about “hugging a winter melon to beat the heat.”
Other people could only stay cool for ten minutes by hugging one.
Materials science grad student Su Yang hugged one all night, and a voice rang out in his mind:
[Natural biological cooling material detected.]
[Cooling value +1.]
At dawn the next day, the winter melon exploded.
His roommate thought he would have to pay for the bed, his advisor thought he had gone crazy from poverty, and campus celebrity Chen Qianqian declared in front of everyone, “One rotten melon can’t change materials science.”
That was before Su Yang dug a piece of ice-crystal-like “Cold Jade” out of the melon’s flesh.
A single Cold Jade patch could keep a delivery rider at 26 degrees under the blazing sun. A Cold Jade mattress could bring the power meters in an entire dormitory building almost to a standstill. A Cold Jade cold-storage facility could keep medicines intact even after three days without power.
When investors came waving checks, overseas conglomerates offered sky-high prices, and cooling giants joined forces to shut him out, Su Yang simply placed the very first piece of Cold Jade on the table.
“What you see is a material.”
“What I see is the next trillion-dollar market.”
But as his technology began to change the world, a message arrived from an account that had never shown its face:
“Congratulations. You finally hugged that winter melon until it exploded.”
“Now you owe this world the heat. Time to pay it back.”
