Chapter 213 I've already taken my pants off, and this is what you show me?

"Concerns?"

Li Jiajun raised an eyebrow, took a sip from his thermos to moisten his throat, and said, "Go ahead, brother. In our line of work, a customer's concerns are the driving force for our improvements."

Rajesh rubbed his hands together as if organizing his words, trying to package a highly professional aerospace materials science problem into a simple, easy-to-understand toy requirement.

"It's like this, Mr. Li."

He gestured as he spoke:

"I also have requirements for the durability of this toy."

"As you know, children can be quite rough when playing with things."

"I hope its outer shell can be a bit sturdier—the extremely sturdy kind! Ideally, it should be fireproof!"

At this point, Rajesh added emphasis to his tone, a subtle glint flashing in his eyes:

"That way, if it falls or accidentally flies into a fire, it won't smash into pieces or be burned to a crisp."

"After all, this is the high-end toy I want. High-end things are quite expensive; it would be heartbreaking if it broke."

"If it can stay intact, we could even keep it as a beautiful ornament for a souvenir, right?"

After finishing, even he felt that he had found a perfect excuse.

Even for a toy, requesting it to be drop-resistant and fireproof was perfectly reasonable.

'I considered this issue with my robot dog last time.'

'Pah, why am I thinking about that requisitioned piece of junk again?'

'Since it's a sky rocket that flies so high, the kinetic energy when it falls must be huge. If it smashes into dust on the ground, it really won't look good.'

'And it needs to be fireproof... This big brother is quite thorough.'

Li Jiajun felt this requirement was very reasonable.

However, how could he make it lightweight, strong, and capable of insulating against high temperatures?

Traditional metal shells are too heavy, and ordinary plastics aren't heat-resistant.

He would have to put effort into the structure and materials.

'Structure... materials...'

Li Jiajun habitually picked up his phone again.

"Since it's about sturdiness and heat resistance, I still need to find some inspiration." He had worked with similar materials before, but those materials were clearly not suitable for this sky rocket.

He muttered to himself, his finger sliding across the screen.

This time, he didn't search any tech channels; by some fluke, he swiped to a food channel.

After all, it was currently mealtime, and he was feeling a bit hungry.

On the screen, a well-produced food documentary was playing.

It was introducing a classic French dessert, mille-feuille, also known as a Napoleon cake.

The video quality was very high; one could even clearly see the flour on the pastry chef's hands.

The pastry chef, wearing a white uniform, was focused on handling a lump of dough on the counter.

He wrapped butter into the dough and then began a series of repetitive yet rhythmic folds.

Roll it flat, fold it, rotate ninety degrees.

Roll it flat again, fold it again, rotate again.

With every fold, the layers of the dough doubled.

Three layers, nine layers, twenty-seven layers...

Ultimately, within that seemingly thin layer of dough, hundreds of paper-thin layers of puff pastry were hidden.

Then, the camera cut to the inside of the oven.

Under the high temperature of several hundred degrees Celsius, a magical scene occurred.

Those layers of dough that were originally stuck tightly together began to rapidly separate and puff up due to thermal expansion.

However, they didn't fall apart.

Instead, these hundreds of tiny air gaps formed a perfect, mutually supporting honeycomb structure.

This structure not only gave the mille-feuille a melt-in-your-mouth crispy texture but also allowed it to maintain its complete shape under high temperatures, even insulating the heat so the cream filling inside wouldn't melt from the external heat.

...

As Li Jiajun watched this scene, his gaze instantly froze.

The thermos in his hand stopped mid-air; he forgot to drink.

In his pupils, the reflection of those stacked layers of pastry, breathing and expanding under high heat, was visible.

'Hundreds of layers of thin film... air insulation layers...'

'Mutually independent stress-dispersion structures...'

'High temperature didn't destroy it; instead, it made its structure more stable...'

'If I replace the flour with carbon fiber and the butter with a high-temperature resistant ceramic matrix...'

Ding!

[You observed the multi-layered structure of mille-feuille in heat conduction and stress dispersion during baking. Combining this with the layered design concepts of composite materials science, you have gained insight into the secrets of high-temperature ablation-resistant materials!]

[You have gained enlightenment on the integrated molding process for the Dragon Scale Laminated Composite Shell!]

...

Boom!

It was as if a golden bolt of lightning had flashed through his mind.

His originally dull understanding of materials science was completely overturned and reorganized at this moment.

Countless details about the layering angles of composite materials, the permeability of resin matrices, and the micromechanical model mimicking the mille-feuille structure flooded into his brain like a tide.

"Brilliant! This is true art!"

Li Jiajun suddenly slapped the table, giving the nearby Wang Dachui a fright, causing him to spill his sunflower seeds all over the floor.

But he didn't care at all.

He rushed to the whiteboard again, the fanaticism in his eyes even more intense than before.

"I've got it!"

Li Jiajun shouted as he grabbed a marker and pulled out another whiteboard.

He began to draw frantically.

This time, he wasn't drawing the internal structure, but the patterns on the surface.

Swish, swish, swish!

As the pen tip moved, a pattern of overlapping, extremely regular layers like dragon scales appeared on the surface of the rocket body.

This wasn't just a pattern; it was a structure.

A perfect mechanical and thermal structure that mimicked the dual characteristics of mille-feuille and dragon scales.

The Netizens in the livestream watched this scene; although they didn't understand it, they felt it was very impressive.

"Holy crap, is the Main Streamer drawing? This pattern looks so cool!"

"Dragon scales? Is he building a dragon?"

"First he was watching badminton, now he's watching cake making. Isn't the Main Streamer's source of inspiration a bit too broad?"

"I feel like I'm watching 'Cooking Master Boy,' not a tech stream..."

Meanwhile, on the other end of the call, Rajesh had his entire face pressed against the screen, his breathing stopped.

He stared intently at those patterns; although the image was a bit blurry, he could sense the extraordinary nature of this design.

Li Jiajun finished the last stroke, turned around, and pointed at the whiteboard with a proud face, saying:

"Big brother, look!"

"This is the Dragon Scale Laminated Composite Shell, tailor-made for you!"

"Ordinary shells, whether metal or plastic, break easily when encountering high temperatures or impacts."

"But mine is different!"

He pointed at the overlapping patterns and explained excitedly:

"It uses a multi-layered composite structure similar to mille-feuille!"

"Every dragon scale is pressed from hundreds of layers of materials with different properties."

"The outermost layer is responsible for anti-ablation, the middle layer for heat insulation, and the innermost layer for support!"

"This structure can perfectly isolate external high temperatures. Moreover, even if it takes an impact, the force will instantly disperse along these patterns throughout the entire shell; it simply won't break!"

Li Jiajun became more excited as he spoke, as if he could already see the toy he built taking a bath in a fire and dancing on rocks.

Rajesh listened with surging emotions, his mouth almost watering.

'Isn't this the high-temperature resistant fairing technology I've been dreaming of? And it comes with its own structural reinforcement!'

"Mr. Li! Excellent! Simply excellent!"

Rajesh was so excited his voice was shaking. "Then... what about the specific materials? What did you make it out of? Is it carbon fiber? Or titanium alloy?"

He finally asked the question he cared about most.

'As long as I know the material formula, combined with this structural diagram, I can replicate it when I get back!'

However, just as Rajesh was full of anticipation with his ears pricked up...

The smile on Li Jiajun's face suddenly became mysterious.

He looked at the camera, blinked, and said in a very punchable tone:

"As for the specific materials..."

He paused for a moment, then lightly spat out two words:

"Um, omitted."

Omitted.

This one word slammed hard into Rajesh's forehead.

Rajesh had been craneing his neck to hear the material formula, even having his pen and paper ready to record it.

As a result, upon hearing this "omitted," he felt his vision go dark and his chest tighten; he almost keeled over.

"Omitted?!"

Rajesh roared frantically in his heart.

'How can you omit it? You omitted the most critical part? This is like watching a movie and getting to the climax, having even taken off your pants, and you give me the end credits?'

That feeling of being left hanging was a hundred times more painful than not seeing the blueprints earlier.

...

The Netizens in the livestream burst out laughing the moment they saw this.

"Hahahaha! What the hell is 'omitted'!"

"Main Streamer, you really know how to leave a cliffhanger!"

"Look at that Curry person's expression; doesn't it look like he's been constipated for a month and then it suddenly got pushed back in!"

"I feel like the Main Streamer is being low-key wicked, but I love it!"

"Main Streamer: Want to know the formula? That's an extra charge!"

"This is called a trade secret, don't you get it, Curry bro!"

Rajesh took several deep breaths before he could barely suppress the urge to crawl through the network cable and strangle Li Jiajun.

He worked hard to reorganize his collapsed mindset.

'Although I didn't hear the specific formula, I heard those two keywords: Dragon Scale!'

He frantically searched his mind for information regarding those two words.

'In the legends of the Eastern Country, dragon scales are indestructible, fireproof, and waterproof—the hardest armor on a divine beast. Combining this concept with the mille-feuille structure Li Jiajun described just now...'

Rajesh's brain worked at high speed, instantly linking to a very high-end professional term.

'Lightweight high-temperature resistant ablation composite material! And it's an integrated molding process! This multi-layered composite structure perfectly solves the contradiction of a single material being unable to satisfy both heat insulation and strength!'

He felt his breathing quicken.

One should know that this technology is currently still in the experimental stage even in the Ugly Country across the ocean, which claims to be number one in technology, and the success rate is terrifyingly low.

'A genius! An absolute genius! This ridiculous source of inspiration is precisely proof of his talent!'

The fanaticism in Rajesh's eyes grew even thicker.

He was even more certain that he had truly struck gold this time.

'As long as I get the physical object, even without the formula, just reverse-engineering this dragon scale structure will be enough to significantly boost our ISRO technology!'

"Good! A fine 'omitted'!"

Rajesh gritted his teeth and forced out a smile that looked worse than crying. "Mr. Li is truly... humorous."

He waved his hand grandly, acting very magnanimous.

In his heart, however, he was secretly swearing: 'Once the item is in my hands, we'll see how you omit things then!'

"So, Mr. Li."

Rajesh spoke again, and this time, there was a trace of uncontrollable trembling in his voice.

'Power is sorted with the Pangu Engine. Stability is sorted with the eagle feather system. Strength and heat resistance are sorted with the dragon scale shell.'

'This sky rocket already possesses most of the elements of a top-tier launch vehicle.'

Now, only the final requirement remained—the one that would best reflect prestige and for which Rajesh had the most selfish motive.

That was the visual effect.

Or rather, a special requirement regarding the fuel and the exhaust flame.

"Look, it flies high, it flies steady, and it's drop-resistant."

Rajesh stared at the screen with burning eyes, his tone full of temptation as he said:

"But as a firework, shouldn't it be... a bit more good-looking? I hope its exhaust flame can be particularly spectacular—ideally the kind that... doesn't emit black smoke but can spray out a very long and bright flame! The kind that... makes one feel it's very dreamlike and high-end at a single glance! Do you understand?"