Chapter 12: Chapter 4: The Invisible River and the Numbness of the Tongue
The image was beautiful.
But it was still just his imagination.
He still couldn’t feel the existence of "electricity."
To him, it was like a magic trick—the process in between was a black box.
’I have to feel it.’
Chen Zhuo put down the lightbulb.
His gaze fell on a rectangular battery to the side.
It was the battery from Chen Jianguo’s multimeter—a 9-volt transistor battery.
He hadn’t felt anything from 1.5 volts, so what about 9 volts?
Reason told him that anything under 36 volts was a safe voltage. 9 volts wouldn’t kill him; at most, it would feel a bit tingly.
But he was currently in the body of a seven-year-old, and his nervous system was far more sensitive than an adult’s.
Chen Zhuo took a deep breath.
Like an Alchemist preparing for some dark ritual, he picked up the 9-volt battery.
There were two circular contacts on top of the battery.
One positive, one negative.
He stuck out his tongue.
The most sensitive, moist, and conductive part of the human body.
If you were to ask a madman how to understand physics,
he would tell you: to collide with it using your own body.
Slowly, resolutely, Chen Zhuo brought the tip of his tongue closer.
The instant his moist tongue touched both metal contacts simultaneously—
ZZZT!
An indescribable sensation instantly exploded through him.
It wasn’t pain.
It was sour, numbing, and acrid, mixed with a metallic, coppery taste.
It was as if countless tiny needles had instantly pierced the nerve endings in the tip of his tongue.
In that moment, his tongue no longer felt like his own; it had become a live wire.
Chen Zhuo violently jerked his tongue back. His entire body jolted in the chair, and he clapped a hand over his mouth as tears instantly welled up.
"HSSS—"
’So numb!’
His entire mouth was going numb, and saliva was flooding it.
But this "electric shock" was like a bolt of lightning that split apart the fog in his mind.
He felt it.
That was voltage!
That was potential energy!
In that brief moment, he had clearly felt how that force was desperately trying to cross his tongue, flowing from the positive to the negative terminal.
That feeling of being pushed back, that unstoppable tendency—that was voltage!
And the obstruction, the heat, the numbness his tongue felt—that was resistance!
’So that’s how it is.’
’So those cold, lifeless formulas in the book... U is the push, R is the roadblock, and I is the result.’
These weren’t abstract numbers.
This was a tangible force.
Chen Zhuo wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, but a crazed smile spread across his face.
Although his tongue was still numb, he felt his mind was clearer than ever before. The abstract model that had been troubling him had suddenly become concrete.
He wasn’t done playing yet.
He picked up the thin copper wire again.
This time, he didn’t connect it to the lightbulb.
He directly pressed the two ends of the copper wire onto the positive and negative terminals of the large D-cell battery.
A short circuit.
It was a cardinal sin in physics experiments, but it was also the most direct way to experience the "heating effect of electric current."
One second.
Two seconds.
Chen Zhuo’s fingers pinched the copper wire tightly.
At first, he felt nothing. But soon, a faint warmth spread to his fingertips.
Immediately after, the warmth turned hot.
It was the heat generated by electrons frantically colliding with copper atoms.
A few seconds later, the wire began to get scalding hot, so hot that even his fingerprints ached.
"HSSS—"
Chen Zhuo let go, and the copper wire fell onto the desk.
He even saw a faint wisp of blue-green smoke rise from the battery’s terminals.
That was energy.
Chemical energy, instantly converted into thermal energy.
Chen Zhuo looked at his reddened fingertips, then licked his still-numb tongue.
Pain, touch, and taste.
The stimuli from these three senses completed a perfect physics model inside his seven-year-old brain.
He reopened the Junior High Physics textbook.
He looked again at the sentence, "Voltage is the cause of electric current."
He smiled.
It was no longer just dry text.
He could see the electrons dancing in his mind; he could feel the pressure of the voltage and the friction of the resistance.
"Ahem."
A cough suddenly came from behind him.
Chen Zhuo jumped in fright and whipped his head around.
At some point, his father, Chen Jianguo, had appeared at the balcony doorway, holding a glass of warm milk.
Chen Zhuo subconsciously tried to hide the battery and copper wire on the desk. After all, in a parent’s eyes, playing with fire and creating short circuits were both reasons for a beating.
But Chen Jianguo wasn’t angry.
He walked over and placed the milk on the desk.
His gaze swept over the smoking battery on the desk, then to Chen Zhuo’s red fingertips, and finally landed on the open physics book.
As an old technician from the machinery factory, he of course knew what had just happened.
’A short circuit.’
’This kid was playing with a short circuit.’
Any other parent would have probably smacked him by now. "You could play with anything, but you choose electricity? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
But Chen Jianguo didn’t.
He looked at his son’s eyes, which were frighteningly bright under the dim yellow light.
In those eyes, there was no fear of having caused trouble, only the excitement and fervor of someone who had just glimpsed the truth.
Chen Jianguo was very familiar with that look.
It was the same look he had back when he was in technical school and had personally lathed a perfect screw thread for the first time.
"Is it numb?"
Chen Jianguo asked suddenly, pointing to Chen Zhuo’s mouth.
Chen Zhuo froze for a second, then subconsciously licked his tongue. "Numb."
"Hot?" Chen Jianguo asked, now pointing to his hand.
"Hot."
"Do you get it now?"
"I get it."
The exchange between father and son was as simple as if they were trading a secret code.
Chen Jianguo smiled. He reached out and patted Chen Zhuo’s head, his palm rough and warm.
"As long as you get it."
He picked up the depleted battery from the desk and weighed it in his hand.
"This one’s dead. I’ll bring you a few new ones tomorrow. And next time you want to test something, don’t use your tongue. Use the multimeter. I’ll teach you how."
As he spoke, he took out his treasured Model 500 analog multimeter and placed it on Chen Zhuo’s desk.
"This is more accurate than your tongue."
Chen Zhuo stared at the heavy, black multimeter.
That was his father’s livelihood, something he wasn’t normally even allowed to touch.
"Dad..." Chen Zhuo’s throat felt a little tight.
"Alright, drink your milk and get to sleep."
Chen Jianguo turned to leave, but stopped at the door.
"Oh, right, that physics book... if you can’t understand it, it’s okay. You’re only seven. Some things you’ll naturally understand when you’re older. Don’t force yourself."
After saying his piece, Chen Jianguo closed the door.
Chen Zhuo sat in his chair, cradling the warm milk.
The warmth from the glass traveled through his palms and into his body, dispelling the lingering chill from gym class earlier.
He looked at the multimeter, then at the phrase "Ohm’s Law" in the book.
He knew his father had misunderstood.
His father thought he was just forcing himself, that he was trying to rush his own growth.
But only Chen Zhuo himself knew that tonight, he had truly broken through that wall.
It was with the stupidest method—licking with his tongue, touching with his hands, enduring the pain with his body.
But this was Chen Zhuo’s path.
Great skill appears clumsy.
Since he didn’t have the genius-level imagination of Einstein, who could "ride a beam of light" in his mind, he would just have to be a sapper, rolling around in the mud.
If he couldn’t see it, he would touch it.
If he couldn’t understand it, he would test it.
If he couldn’t calculate it, he would use brute force.
He would trade physical pain for intellectual epiphany.
Chen Zhuo took a sip of milk. It was sweet.
The numbness on the tip of his tongue had already faded quite a bit, replaced by a sense of groundedness.
He picked up a pen and drew a circuit diagram on a piece of scratch paper.
This time, the lines were no longer rigid symbols.
In his mind, the circuit had come to life.
The current was a golden river, surging and flowing across the paper.
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