Chapter 270 We're like freeloaders

"That's great! We'll send a car to pick you up!" Elder Qin, fearing that Jiang Jing might change his mind, immediately finalized the plan.

Half an hour later, there was another knock at the door of the suite.

Jiang Jing opened the door to find Zhou Wanqin and Lin Hong still standing outside. The blush on their faces seemed to have faded slightly compared to before, but their eyes were still flickering, avoiding direct contact with Jiang Jing.

"The... the car to pick you up is here," Zhou Wanqin said in a low voice. Her tone was less cold than before, with a hint of undetectable shyness.

"Mm, let's go," Jiang Jing nodded, his demeanor calm and composed, as if he weren't the same rogue who had just "extorted" a sweet kiss earlier.

He led the security team downstairs and got into the specially prepared vehicle that had come to pick him up.

Lei Zhen, "Tank," and the other team members keenly sensed that the atmosphere between the two captains and Jiang Jing... seemed different from when they had arrived.

They couldn't quite put their finger on exactly what was different.

They exchanged a knowing look and silently kept this discovery to themselves.

The motorcade sped all the way toward the northern suburbs of the Imperial Capital.

Along the way, they passed several overt guards and hidden checkpoints, with security being extremely tight.

However, with the special identification Zhou Wanqin presented to clear the way, all screening procedures were simplified, and they proceeded without obstruction.

Eventually, the motorcade drove into the courtyard of a Research Institute that looked unremarkable and even somewhat dilapidated from the outside.

But upon entering, they discovered a whole new world; the modern research building and rigorous security measures revealed the extraordinary nature of the place.

The moment the vehicle came to a stop, a group of people who had been waiting in front of the building quickly walked up to greet them.

The old man at the lead was none other than the white-haired but spirited Elder Qin.

As soon as Elder Qin saw Jiang Jing get out of the car, his face was instantly filled with a warm smile. He practically trotted over, grabbed Jiang Jing's hand, and shook it vigorously:

"Oh! Jiang Jing, we have finally been waiting for you!"

Watching Elder Qin, a highly respected titan in his field, lower his posture so much for a young junior like himself because of a technical problem, Jiang Jing felt both amused and somewhat apologetic.

He quickly supported Elder Qin's hand and said with a wry smile, "Elder Qin, you are really embarrassing me."

"You are an elder and a pillar of the nation. For you to lower your stance so much for a junior like me, I feel quite embarrassed; the pressure is immense."

Upon hearing this, Elder Qin laughed heartily, not caring at all. He patted the back of Jiang Jing's hand firmly and said with a sincere tone, "Hey, Jiang Jing, you are being too formal."

"In the academic and scientific research fields, it has always been that the capable are the teachers, and those who achieve are the ones who come first."

"Your ability is evident here. You have achieved accomplishments that we have exhausted our entire lives to attain but could barely reach, so you deserve the highest respect and admiration."

"This has nothing to do with age or seniority. We old folks admire you from the bottom of our hearts!"

He said this quite loudly, and the group of experts and professors behind him—whose average age could make them Jiang Jing's fathers or even grandfathers—wore complex expressions upon hearing this.

There was admiration, there was emotion, but more than anything, there was an indescribable sense of shame and awkwardness.

These people enjoyed the nation's best resources and support, had cultivated their respective fields for many years, and considered themselves elites.

Yet now, facing key technologies that the nation urgently needed to break through, they had combined the strength of their entire team and spent countless efforts and time, but they remained unable to move an inch before the core barriers.

It was like a tiger biting a hedgehog—there was nowhere to sink their teeth in.

Instead, this young civilian inventor before them brought out disruptive achievements time and time again, as if he carried a treasury of future technology in his mind.

This stark contrast made them feel like they were just a bunch of... free-loaders.

The nation had invested massive amounts of manpower, material resources, and capital, yet they had failed to deliver a satisfactory answer. This sense of powerlessness and guilt made them unable to hold their heads high in front of Jiang Jing.

Jiang Jing felt a bit flushed by Elder Qin's unabashed praise and waved his hands repeatedly: "Elder Qin, please don't flatter me like that."

"I'm not one to handle praise well. Besides, I don't even know what specific problems you've encountered yet. If you praise me like this and I end up unable to help at all later, wouldn't that be awkward? Wouldn't I be failing your trust?"

"Hahaha!" Elder Qin laughed heartily again, his eyes filled with absolute trust in Jiang Jing. "Don't worry, I have confidence in you. Your brain, kid, cannot be judged by conventional standards."

"Come, come, let's go inside and talk!"

The group passed through layers of security checks and entered the core area of the Research Institute.

The atmosphere here was isolated from the noise of the outside world, with only the faint hum of various instruments running and the focused whispers of the researchers.

In an office piled high with blueprints and drafts, looking somewhat cluttered, Jiang Jing met the person in charge of the project—an Academician named Chen.

Academician Chen had a head of hair that was even more disheveled from long-term scratching, showing signs of a "Mediterranean" receding hairline. He was wearing a wrinkled white lab coat, and his eyes were bloodshot.

He was hunched over a blueprint covered in complex formulas, writing furiously, not even noticing that someone had entered.

Seeing this, Elder Qin smiled helplessly and whispered to Jiang Jing in explanation: "Old Chen is just like this; once he dives into a project, he forgets everything. He's not intentionally slighting you."

Jiang Jing shook his head, not minding at all. Watching Academician Chen, who was completely immersed in the academic world, he felt genuine admiration.

He himself was not the type of person who cared about empty formalities or pageantry; on the contrary, he respected such pure scholars who were single-minded and dedicated their entire lives to scientific research from the bottom of his heart.

Elder Qin pulled Jiang Jing to sit on the sofa nearby and began to briefly introduce the key project the nation was currently working to overcome.

"Jiang Jing, the situation is like this."

"As you know, one of the huge challenges our country, and indeed the whole world, is facing right now is the energy problem."

"Traditional fossil fuels like oil and coal are not only limited in reserves, but they also cause too much environmental pollution and leave us too dependent on others."

"The nation is determined to vigorously develop new energy."

His expression became solemn: "One important direction we have currently chosen is hydrogen energy."

"Hydrogen energy is clean, efficient, and has a wide range of sources; it is considered one of the ultimate energy sources of the future."

"However, trying to produce, store, and utilize hydrogen on a large scale, at a low cost, and safely—especially converting it efficiently into power—presents too many difficulties!"

Elder Qin pointed to the complex structural diagrams and technical roadmaps drawn on the whiteboard nearby, his brows furrowed tightly: "Especially in terms of hydrogen fuel cells, or rather, more efficient and direct hydrogen power conversion devices, we have encountered an almost insurmountable bottleneck!"

"Efficiency, cost, safety, stability... each one is a tough nut to crack!"

"The nation is actually prepared for long-term investment and a protracted battle; we don't expect to solve it all at once, we just hope to achieve some breakthrough progress in one of the links."