Love at Daya Bay: Building Dreams with Nuclear Power

[Second Prize, First Shenzhen Online Literature Competition on Realistic Themes] This novel focuses on the construction of the Ling'ao Phase II nuclear power project in Shenzhen. It vividly portrays such representative figures as rebar technicians Zhang Lei and Lu Feng, quality supervisor He Bin, concrete technicians Xiao Wai and Jin Zhu, and cost engineer Pei Lili, depicting their struggles in the nuclear power construction industry amid Shenzhen's great wave of reform and opening up. In 2006, Zhang Lei and the other university graduates left their homes across the country and headed south to Shenzhen with their dreams, joining the construction of the Ling'ao Phase II nuclear power project. They witnessed the entire process of the project, from nothing to something and from weakness to strength, while also experiencing their own growth and transformation. Facing harsh conditions and inner challenges, they used their wisdom and sweat to compose a magnificent chapter in the construction of nuclear power. Set against the construction of the Ling'ao Phase II nuclear power plant, the novel realistically recreates the entrepreneurial lives, struggles, and changing fates of a generation during the era of reform and opening up. Amid fierce market competition, China National Nuclear Corporation's dominant position in the nuclear island market is gradually broken, while the younger generation of nuclear construction workers shoulders the heavy responsibility of "defending the realm"… Keywords: nuclear power construction; Ling'ao Phase II; Shenzhen; reform and opening up; struggle and growth; professional fiction