Can I force WP_Query to return no results?

I’m working on a website with a search feature that allows users to search through a lot of post meta. There is a specific search pattern that I would like to forcibly return no results for. The WP_Query technically will find results in the database, but I’d like to override that somehow to force it to return no results to trigger the if( $example->have_posts() ) to fail.

Update jquery version

I run WordPress version 4.7.2. and it uses jQuery version 1.12. I need to update this version to a higher one. I replaced it with a new version before, but when I upgrade WordPress core it is replaced with 1.12 again.
How can I change the version of jQuery that WordPress uses permanently?