The weight of ridicule, the burden of scorn—Xian Wei carried it all. His name, once spoken with reverence, had become a hushed whisper in the Hall of Celestial Inquiry. Yet, among the few who still listened, one student found himself consumed by a relentless curiosity.
His name was Li Feng.
Unlike others who feared association with the fallen scholar, Li Feng sought out his teachings, convinced that true understanding could only be forged in the crucible of questioning. He studied the records, examined the claims, and one question burned brighter than all: If the atom contained negative charges, and matter itself was neutral, how could the positive charge be distributed so evenly?
The existing model assumed stability, but cultivation was not based on assumptions—it was forged in the truth of the heavens. And truth could only be revealed through experiment.
Li Feng, a student of both alchemy and the enigmatic field of radioactivity, devised a bold test. He theorized that if the positive charge were truly spread evenly throughout an atom, then beams of positively charged energy—alpha particles—should pass through nearly undisturbed. But what if this was not the case? What if the positive charge was instead concentrated in a small core?
With meticulous preparation, he set up his experiment in the secluded chambers of the minor sect that had sheltered Xian Wei. A fine sheet of gold, thinner than a strand of silk, was placed at the heart of his apparatus. He directed a stream of alpha particles upon it, the finest concentrated energy beams his techniques could produce.
The expectation, based on Xian Wei’s model, was that the particles should pass through with little deviation. After all, if the positive charge was truly spread uniformly, there would be no strong repulsion. But when Li Feng observed the results, his heart pounded in disbelief.
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Most of the particles passed straight through, as expected. But some—only a few, yet enough to matter—scattered at extreme angles. And an even rarer few were deflected straight back.
Impossible, he thought at first. No mere scattered charge could have caused such an effect. The only explanation was that the positive charge in an atom must be concentrated in a tiny, dense core—a nucleus.
His hands trembled. The implications were staggering. If this were true, then the prevailing model, the one taught as an absolute truth, was utterly flawed.
More observations followed. He hypothesized that the negative electrons could not be stationary, for if they were, they would collapse into the nucleus. Instead, they must be in motion—perhaps revolving around the nucleus, held by the balance of opposing forces.
This idea shattered long-held assumptions. But truth, Li Feng knew, was not bound by assumption.
Li Feng sat alone in his chamber, the flickering candlelight casting uncertain shadows across the room. The results of his experiment lay before him, undeniable yet incomprehensible. He had expected the alpha particles to pass through unobstructed, a validation of his mentor’s model. Instead, a fraction of them had deflected, some even rebounding entirely. It was as if he had struck something dense, something small yet immensely powerful.
Doubt gnawed at him. Had he made a mistake? Had he miscalculated? He ran the experiment again, altering conditions slightly, but the outcome remained the same. The evidence defied the very foundation upon which Xian Wei’s model was built. If his findings were correct, then the assumption of a uniform distribution of positive charge was fundamentally flawed. But to suggest otherwise was to challenge not just his mentor, but the very Order that had rejected Xian Wei’s teachings.
For now, he could not bring himself to speak. He needed time. Time to understand. Time to accept. In silence, Li Feng grappled with the weight of his discovery, unaware that the world around him was about to be shaken once more.
