Chapter 152: God’s Jigsaw Puzzle

The morning sun was a bit dazzling, spilling across the long table through the third-floor french windows of the mage tower.

The air was filled with the aroma of toasted bread and warm milk.

Lia sat across from Klein, her knife slicing through a pat of butter.

“Today’s schedule.” Klein put down his coffee cup, his gaze falling upon Lia.

“In the morning, I’ll sort through the documents sent by the Association. In the afternoon, I’ll go to the lab to test the conductivity of the new materials.” Lia passed the buttered bread over, not to Klein’s hand, but directly to his lips.

Klein paused for a moment.

He looked at Lia.

Lia’s expression was calm, her wrist perfectly steady, showing no intention of pulling back.

Klein opened his mouth and took a bite of the bread.

Lia withdrew her hand, smoothly picked up a napkin, and instead of wiping her own fingers, she leaned across the table and dabbed at the corner of Klein’s mouth.

“You got some on you,” she said.

Klein didn’t move, letting her wipe it.

“Ahem, ahem!”

Adèle, sitting at the far end of the long table, let out a series of violent coughs.

She buried her face behind a giant mug of milk, revealing only a pair of怨念-filled eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Lia turned her head, the napkin still in her hand.

Adèle put down the mug, a look of utter despair on her face. “It’s so early in the morning, I’ve barely had two bites of breakfast, and I’m already full just from watching you two.”

Before, though the two had chemistry, there was at least a paper-thin barrier between them. Now that barrier had been torn down. Though nothing was said explicitly, the atmosphere was simply unbearable.

Lia ignored Adèle’s strange behavior and turned back to continue her conversation with Klein.

“After the Seventh Circle certification went through, the Association sent over quite a few invitations.”

“If you don’t want to go, just decline them.” Klein picked up another piece of bread. “Aside from a few academic conferences you must attend, the rest are a waste of time.”

“There are a few I can’t turn down,” Lia said, troubled. “Like the Tower of Truth’s annual banquet, and also…”

Before she could finish, a gentle female voice rang out.

“It seems I’ve come at an inopportune time?”

Space fluctuated.

The teleportation array at the entrance to the dining room lit up with a blue light.

Eleonora walked out, dressed in a long, dark green dress, carrying an exquisite food box in her hand.

“Aunt Eleonora!” Adèle shot up from her chair as if she’d seen her savior. “You’re finally here! The air in this room is so stuffy I need to get some fresh air.”

Eleonora smiled at Adèle, then her gaze shifted to the two people at the dining table.

Lia was about to stand up.

But Klein’s hand pressed down on the back of hers.

“Stay seated,” Klein said.

Lia glanced at him, didn’t argue, and settled back down.

Eleonora raised an eyebrow, walked to the table, and set down the food box.

Lia felt her face heat up, but she didn’t let go of the hand Klein was holding. Instead, she curled her fingers around his.

The smile in Eleonora’s eyes deepened.

“Alright, I won’t tease you.” Eleonora opened the food box. “Some freshly baked fruit tarts and honey tea, and also…”

Her gaze turned to Klein. “…You haven’t eaten breakfast, have you?”

Klein was chewing on bread and said nothing.

Lia’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.

“You child, you usually treat Lia as a life assistant, don’t you? It’s one thing to have Lia cook for you, but you can’t let Lia steal your food!”

A sweet fragrance wafted out. “Freshly baked fruitcake, to celebrate my little Lia’s promotion to the Seventh Circle.”

“Thank you.” Lia looked at the cake, studded with various dried fruits.

“Besides the cake, there’s more good news.” Eleonora took a roll of parchment from her storage pouch and pushed it in front of Lia.

Lia let go of Klein’s hand and unrolled the parchment.

It was a periodic table, densely filled in.

The blank spaces Lia had left were now almost all filled.

Each square contained the name of a newly discovered element, its atomic weight, density, and the name of its discoverer.

“It’s all complete?” Lia was a little surprised.

“Almost.” Eleonora pointed at the table.

“Ever since your paper was published, mages all over the continent have gone mad. They’ve dug through everything, from deep-sea mineral veins to volcanic lava, even meteorites that have fallen from the sky.”

“Does the data match?” Klein asked.

“An astonishing match.” Eleonora marveled. “Lia’s predictions are like an oracle. The properties of those elements are exactly as she described in her paper, with even the margin of error after the decimal point being extremely small.”

Adèle leaned over for a look and clicked her tongue. “Everyone outside is calling this table ‘God’s Jigsaw Puzzle’ now, saying Lia must have seen the Creator’s blueprints.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lia carefully examined the data. “There are still a few empty spaces.”

“Those are extremely unstable radioactive elements,” Eleonora explained.

“We’ve detected the reactions, but it’s very difficult to capture a physical sample. However, this also confirms what your paper said, that there is indeed a periodic pattern to these elements.”

Lia rolled up the parchment.

She let out a sigh of relief in her heart.

The foundation was laid.

“However…” Eleonora’s tone shifted. She cut a slice of cake and placed it on a plate. “In the process of studying these elements, I discovered something interesting.”

She picked up a fork and pointed to the dried fruits in the cross-section of the cake.

“Lia, I’ve read some of the recent papers on electrons and conducted some experiments. I’ve found that the atom is divisible, and that electrons carry a negative charge.”

Lia nodded.

“But the atom as a whole is electrically neutral.”

Eleonora’s gaze sharpened. “Since there are negatively charged electrons, there must be a positively charged part within the atom to neutralize them.”

Lia’s heart stirred.

The wheels of history were rolling forward.

“So, I was thinking, what is the structure of an atom actually like?”

Eleonora poked the cake with her fork. “Electrons are very light, their mass is almost negligible. So the mass of the atom is mainly concentrated in that positively charged part.”

“I imagine it’s like this cake.”

Eleonora pointed to the soft cake base.

“This part is a positively charged fluid, or a kind of spherical substance, that occupies most of the atom’s volume and mass.”

Then she pointed to the raisins and dried cherries embedded in the cake.

“And the electrons are like these dried fruits, evenly embedded in this positive sphere.”

“The positive and negative charges cancel each other out, making the atom appear neutral.”

“If it’s excited by an external energy source, like heat or impact, these ‘dried fruit’ electrons on the surface will fall off, forming an electric current or rays.”

Eleonora said, looking at Lia with anticipation.

“What do you think of this model? I call it the ‘Plum Pudding Model’.”

Adèle, listening on the side, was stunned.

“That sounds… very reasonable.” Adèle looked at the cake. “The positive charge provides structural stability, and it also explains the emission of electrons.”

Klein didn’t speak, just tapped his fingers lightly on the tabletop, seemingly contemplating the model’s validity.

Lia looked at the model diagram Eleonora had drawn on a draft paper.

A sphere of positive charge, stuffed full of negative electrons.

The Thomson model.

In her original world, this model had dominated the world of physics for several years, until Rutherford blasted away its disguise with alpha particles.

‘But at this stage, this is the most logical deduction.’

“A brilliant concept,” Lia began.

She didn’t want to reject it outright.

Science requires a process of trial and error.

If she directly proposed the “planetary model” now—nucleus in the center, electrons flying around outside—this group of mages would definitely ask her:

“Why don’t the electrons radiate energy and crash into the nucleus as they orbit?”

Then she would have to explain the Bohr model, energy levels, and quantized orbitals.

‘Taking too large a step at once will cause problems.’

She had to let them first accept the premise that “the atom has an internal structure.”

“The distribution of positive charge can indeed explain many electrostatic phenomena.”

Lia picked up her fork and took a piece of cake. “However, Aunt Eleonora, have you considered the stability of such a structure?”

Eleonora asked.

“If the positive charge is a uniformly distributed fluid with electrons embedded in it, how do the repulsive and attractive forces between them achieve a perfect balance?”

Lia guided her thoughts. “If I were to hit this cake with a very high-energy particle, what would happen?”

Eleonora sank into thought.

“If it’s a fluid… the particle should pass right through, or be slightly deflected.”

“Exactly.” Lia nodded. “Like a bullet passing through a block of tofu.”

“Is there a problem with that?” Adèle asked.

“What if…” Lia put down her fork, her voice softening, “what if that bullet bounced back?”

The dining room fell silent for a few seconds.

Eleonora looked at Lia incredulously. “Bounced back? You mean, it hit something hard?”

“I’m just hypothesizing,” Lia smiled. “Your model is currently the most perfect explanation. But truth always needs to be verified by experiment.”

Eleonora stared at Lia for a while.

“You little rascal.” Eleonora shook her head. “I always feel like you know the answer, but you just won’t say it, insisting on watching us old folks guess blindly.”

“Conjecture is the romance of science,” Lia said.

“Fine.”

Eleonora stood up. “Since you don’t see any major problems with it, I’ll send this model to ‘On Magic.’

The particle camp has been worrying about not having an atomic model to support their theories. This ‘pudding’ will be enough for them to chew on for a while.”

“Oh, right.” Eleonora smoothed her dress, her gaze circling between Lia and Klein. “Next week’s Association banquet, are you two attending together?”

“Mmm,” Klein grunted in affirmation.

“That’s good.” Eleonora walked to the door, turned back, and said meaningfully, “Remember to dress nicely. Don’t waste those faces and those fine figures.”

With that, the portal lit up, and Eleonora disappeared into the light.

Only three people remained in the dining room.

Adèle silently finished the cake on her plate and stood up.

“I’m heading to the lab.”

“So early?” Lia asked.

“It’s not early,” Adèle said faintly. “If I stay any longer, I’m afraid I’ll suffer from magic imbalance due to excessive sugar intake.”

Adèle ran off, clutching her mug.

Lia watched Adèle’s fleeing back and couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Klein asked.

“Laughing at Adèle.” Lia turned her head and met Klein’s gaze.

The distance was very close.

Lia didn’t shy away.

She reached out, her fingertips tracing over Klein’s cuff, where there was an inconspicuous crease.

“The model Eleonora just mentioned, I feel like you think there’s a problem with it,” Klein said.

“A hunch,” Lia said, smoothing out the crease.

“Your hunches have always been very accurate.”

Klein caught her hand and held it in his palm. “Just like that day on the bridge, when your hunch told you to lean on me.”

Lia’s fingers curled slightly.

“I was tired then.”

“Mmm,” Klein acknowledged, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand.

“Are you tired now?”

“I just woke up, I’m not tired.”

“Then go get changed.”

“Where are we going?”

“To pick out a gown.”

Klein stood up, pulling Lia up with him. “Eleonora said we should dress nicely for next week’s banquet.”

“I have a dress.”

“That one won’t do.” Klein’s eyes darkened as he thought of the dress with its pitifully scarce fabric in the black box. “That one is for my eyes only.”

Lia froze for a second, then realized which one he was talking about.

The tips of her ears turned bright red.

“Pervert,” she cursed under her breath.

“I’m maintaining the decorum of a Seventh Circle Mage.” Klein said, his face impassive, as he led her out. “Let’s go, colleague.”

Lia followed behind him, looking at their joined hands.

Now, they walked side by side.

This feeling wasn’t bad at all.

“Klein.”

“Mmm?”

“That plum pudding model…”

“What about it?”

“If it gets overturned in the future, will Aunt Eleonora get mad at me?”

“She will.”

“Then you’ll block her for me.”

“Alright.”

The sunlight stretched their shadows long, overlapping them until they were indistinguishable.

Adèle stood by the railing on the second floor, watching the two of them walk out of the mage tower.

She held a half-eaten sour lemon in her hand and took a vicious bite.

“So sour.”

She didn’t know if she was talking about the lemon, or something else.