Peggy Carter was ultimately recalled to London by a written order.
The Strategic Scientific Reserve's operations in Europe required a leader who was sufficiently tough and intelligent, and she was the perfect candidate.
For Lynn, this news was equivalent to removing the last searchlight hanging over his head.
He stood by the window, watching the back of Agent Carter as she boarded the vehicle and left.
It was fortunate that she left; otherwise, every step of his plan might have been sniffed out by her.
Without that female Agent's scrutiny, which was sharp enough to be near-instinctive, all of his actions would become much freer.
The Captain America national tour plan was in full swing.
As the "chief planner," Lynn frequently visited the temporary office area of Stark Industries, finalizing technical details such as stage effects and broadcasting equipment with Howard Stark.
"Seriously, Lynn, you are the best money-making reporter I have ever met."
In the private lounge of Stark Industries, Howard Stark pushed a glass of whiskey toward Lynn, his mustache curling slightly from his smile.
"I used to think reporters were just a bunch of writers and artists, but you're different. You don't have ink in your head; you have Alchemy."
"Packaging a Super Soldier into a national idol to sell war bonds—only a guy like you, with a head full of gold coins, could come up with such an idea."
"I am just fulfilling Dr.'s last wish."
Lynn picked up his glass, his face showing a hint of nostalgia.
"He wanted Steve to become a symbol, not just a weapon."
"Yes, yes, a symbol."
Howard shrugged noncommittally.
"A symbol that lays golden eggs."
The two clinked glasses, the amber liquid swaying under the light.
Lynn knew the timing was just about right.
After a few drinks, he began to appear "intoxicated," his tongue tying a bit when he spoke.
"Howard... tell me... isn't this World very strange?"
Lynn slumped over the bar counter, using his finger dipped in spilled alcohol to draw meaningless circles on the smooth surface.
"We... we write knowledge on paper, carve it into stone... but what if... what if information itself is a type of matter?"
Howard raised an eyebrow, listening with interest to this "drunkard's" ramblings.
He remembered the last time Lynn was also half-drunk, discussing with him the "paradox of applying energy conservation to superhuman individuals."
At the time, he thought it was crazy talk, but later he discovered that the line of reasoning was terrifyingly brilliant.
"Just like... just like Dr. Erskine... he liked fiddling with those flowers and plants so much..."
Lynn's voice became increasingly slurred, as if he were talking in his sleep.
He even hiccuped, nearly knocking over the glass in front of him.
"He said... he found a key... a key that could lock life... found in a very special orchid..."
"An orchid?"
Howard's movements paused for a moment.
"Yeah... he said... it could stabilize everything... what's recorded on the record isn't sound... it's the formula of life..."
Lynn's head lolled to one side, completely "passed out" on the bar, emitting faint snoring sounds.
The drunkenness on Howard Stark's face vanished without a trace in a few short seconds.
The glass in his hand stopped in mid-air.
An orchid? A key? Reading information recorded in matter itself?
This vaguely aligned with the "superhuman paradox" he had discussed with Lynn last time!
He recalled that Dr. Erskine was a fanatical botany enthusiast.
His office was piled high with botanical books and specimens.
Could it be... the secret of the Super Soldier Serum wasn't entirely chemical? Its core... was in biology?!
Howard set down his glass, looking at Lynn, who was "sleeping" on the table.
Was this guy a scientific genius delayed by the journalism industry, or a madman who could channel spirits after getting drunk?
The next day.
Howard Stark submitted an emergency application to the Military on the grounds of "collecting the most precise physical data for Captain America's national tour to ensure nothing goes wrong."
The content of the application was: to conduct an unprecedented deep spectral analysis on Steve Rogers's blood.
Colonel Davis scoffed at this "tech geek's" quirk, but considering Howard's status and the importance of the tour, he impatiently approved it.
In the laboratory.
Howard personally operated the "spectral analyzer" that would drive any university physics Professor crazy.
A small vial of Steve Rogers's blood was injected into a high-speed centrifuge.
At speeds exceeding limits, the blood was stripped away layer by layer.
Plasma, platelets, white blood cells... finally, only red blood cells remained.
Howard held his breath and placed these cell samples into the analyzer.
The light beam passed through the sample, projecting a dazzlingly complex spectrum band onto the photosensitive screen at the other end.
"Zoom in! Keep zooming in! Isolate spectral bands 113 to 117!"
He roared at his assistant, his eyes fixed intently on the screen.
After magnifying it tens of thousands of times, an extremely faint, negligible dark line appeared in a spectral position where it should absolutely never appear in a normal human body.
"That's it! Decode it for me!"
The massive computer began to calculate frantically, and countless data streams cascaded across the screen like a waterfall.
A few minutes later, a molecular structural formula was clearly constructed.
It was an extremely rare alkaloid structure.
Howard rushed to another computer, his hands typing so fast they left afterimages as he rapidly compared it against Stark Industries' massive database.
On the screen, next to that molecular formula, its source was labeled.
An extract from a rare orchid that only grows in specific high-altitude regions of Asia!
"My God..."
Howard muttered to himself, feeling his scalp tingling.
Lynn, that drunkard... what he said was true!
Thinking of this, he quickly rushed out of the laboratory to find Lynn, who was communicating with the tour staff.
"Come with me! Hurry!"
"What's wrong?"
Lynn was dragged away, looking bewildered.
It wasn't until they arrived at the laboratory that Howard excitedly explained his discovery.
Lynn watched his fanatical demeanor without any inner turbulence.
However, Howard gradually fell into a bottleneck.
He found the "key," but he didn't know which "lock" this key should be inserted into.
The serum's formula was a whole; one alkaloid catalyst could not possibly reverse-engineer the entire chemical reaction process.
He needed more clues.
And Lynn had long since prepared the next "signpost" for him.
A few days later.
Lynn, carrying a dusty cardboard box, found Howard, who was scratching his head in the laboratory.
"Howard, I was ordered to organize Dr.'s relics and found some things. I guess you might be interested?"
He placed the cardboard box on the table.
Inside were some old manuscripts and notes that seemed to have been forgotten for a long time.
"What are these?"
Howard skeptically picked one up.
"They are some of Dr.'s early research manuscripts. The content is very mixed, mostly about botany and... some conjectures on gene mutagenesis."
"I don't understand them, but I thought they might be helpful for your research."
Howard flipped through the manuscript, half-doubting.
On it were German notes handwritten by Dr. Erskine and some scattered chemical structural diagrams.
At first, he was confused.
But when he compared the content in these manuscripts with the data he analyzed from Steve's blood, the expression on his face became extremely exaggerated.
In the manuscript, a conjecture about "using specific plant alkaloids as a stabilizer to induce directed recombination of peptide chains in a γ-ray environment" was listed prominently!
Beside it, there were also a few crossed-out chemical structural formulas!
Those were exactly the other key substances that react with the orchid alkaloid, which Howard could never figure out!
"It makes sense... it all makes sense!"
Howard let out a weird scream of extreme excitement!
"I did it! I cracked it! I really am a genius!"
The entire logic of the serum's synthesis suddenly became clear!
He had no idea that these so-called "early manuscripts" were just the tip of the iceberg, copied by Lynn from the real notebook and deliberately aged using coffee stains and sun exposure.
He was even less aware that he, this great genius, was following the path paved by someone else, step by step translating that book of heavenly scripts into "vernacular" that Lynn could understand.
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