Chapter 85 The Li Family Toy Factory in Baishui City Explodes

Simultaneously with the storm raging inside the secret guesthouse in the Beijing suburbs, another event was unfolding thousands of miles away in the southwestern hinterland.

Inside the core research laboratory of the Chengfei Group, codenamed "Heart of the Sharp Sword," the atmosphere was so oppressive it could practically be wrung out like a wet towel.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of scorched metal and the lingering scent of ozone, mingled with an overwhelming sense of disappointment that made everyone's breathing heavy.

On the test bench in the center of the lab, a palm-sized, charred metal sample was emitting wisps of blue smoke.

It was the 127th coating sample that had just been declared a failure.

The entire team had fought for seventy-two consecutive hours for its sake, but what they got in return was still that same line of red text on the test instrument's screen: "Structural collapse, thermal runaway."

"Failed again..."

A young Expert wearing black-rimmed glasses slumped powerlessly into his chair, staring blankly at the scrap with lifeless eyes, his voice filled with exhaustion and frustration.

His words pierced through the last shred of forced composure in the room.

Around him, a dozen of the country's top materials science and optics Experts, every single one of them, wore expressions of sorrow.

Among them, the oldest had hair that had turned completely white, and even the youngest had already entered middle age.

These people were the backbone of Eastern Country's aviation industry and the core strike force of the Sharp Sword project.

Yet, at this moment, this group of the proudest of heaven's favored children was being tortured to the brink of collective collapse by a thin layer of coating.

The team's chief engineer, a white-haired old Academician, was leaning down, carefully picking up a small fragment of the sample with tweezers.

His name was Academician Zhang Jingmin, a leading authority in the field of materials science in Eastern Country.

He placed the fragment under a microscope and looked at the molecular structure, which had been charred into a mess by the high heat; his wrinkled face was full of regret and sighing.

'Where... where exactly did the problem arise?'

He had asked himself this question thousands of times.

For this project, they had spent billions in national funds and tried every known technical path, yet the door to success remained tightly shut.

Just amidst this suffocating gloom, the red-cased telephone in the corner of the laboratory, which had the highest level of confidentiality, suddenly emitted a sharp ringing sound.

Ring-ring—!

This sound was jarring in the quiet laboratory, making everyone subconsciously knit their brows.

Academician Zhang Jingmin straightened up, a trace of impatience on his face.

He had been thinking about a key parameter problem, and just as his train of thought was beginning to take shape, it had been interrupted by this phone call.

He walked over with heavy steps and grabbed the receiver.

"Hello, this is Zhang Jingmin. Who is this?" His tone was sharp; clearly, he was in a terrible mood.

From the other end of the line, his direct superior's voice came through immediately.

The person in charge of Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, who was currently at a meeting in the Beijing suburbs, was so extremely excited that his voice became sharp and hoarse, accompanied by heavy panting.

"Old Zhang! Drop everything you're doing! Right now! I'm sending you an encrypted file, and I want you to call me back the moment you finish reading it!"

This abrupt command left Academician Zhang Jingmin stunned for a moment.

He was speechless, thinking that the leader was under too much pressure and had perhaps lost his mind.

He said patiently, "What file could be more important than the project we are currently working on? We just..."

"Don't talk nonsense!" The voice on the other end rudely interrupted him.

"I know the sample on your end failed again! Forget about that pile of scrap metal! Immediately! Receive the file right now! This is an order!"

Beep... beep... beep...

The phone was hung up rudely.

Academician Zhang Jingmin held the receiver, stunned, unable to recover for a long time.

The other Experts in the laboratory also looked at each other, not understanding what had happened that could make their usually composed leader lose his composure to such an extent.

One minute later, a pop-up window for receiving a file with the highest encryption level appeared on the laboratory's main control computer.

"Decrypt it and take a look. Let's see what on earth it is," Academician Zhang Jingmin said wearily, rubbing his temples.

The young Expert in charge of the operation clicked on the file.

When they saw the title at the beginning of the document, a strange expression—the kind one might see in the 'old man looking at phone on subway' meme—appeared on the faces of everyone in the laboratory.

The file title was startlingly: "Preliminary Technical Analysis Report on the dragon knight no. 1 High-Performance Children's Vehicle."

"Children's vehicle?" An Expert's mouth twitched. "Is the leader... asking us to change careers and make toys?"

"What kind of international joke is this..."

Everyone present felt this was absurd.

But military orders were like mountains; they still patiently scrolled the mouse and continued reading.

However, when their eyes moved past those irrelevant data points about the vehicle's appearance, dimensions, and top speed, and finally landed on the chapter about the vehicle body coating, seeing that line of technical parameters and the molecular structure model for the multi-layer nano-structure negative-refraction optical stealth coating...

The entire laboratory instantly fell into silence.

The young Expert who had been complaining a second ago was now staring at the screen, his mouth hanging open unconsciously.

Another senior researcher subconsciously took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard with his hands, as if he couldn't believe everything he was seeing.

And that white-haired Academician Zhang Jingmin stood up abruptly from his chair, rushed to the screen in two or three steps, and almost pressed his entire face against it.

His eyes widened further and further, and his cloudy eyeballs were bursting with bloodshot veins due to extreme excitement.

He reached out with a trembling hand, pointing at the molecular structure model on the screen, his lips quivering, unable to say a single word.

That model was incredibly clear and logically self-consistent, yet it completely overturned their existing theories.

He repeatedly looked at the set of data initially analyzed by the police technical department; every parameter, every node, was like a key, unlocking one technical bottleneck after another that had been locked in his mind.

So... that's how it is...

So... it can also be done like this...

So we...

'The direction was wrong...' This thought emerged in his mind.

Once this thought appeared, it was like a mountain torrent, instantly washing away all his pride.

His past persistence also collapsed along with it.

He slapped his thigh hard!

With a crisp "slap," it was exceptionally loud in the quiet laboratory.

Immediately after, this national treasure-level Expert suddenly widened his eyes.

He had dedicated his life to the Eastern Country's aviation industry and had always been one to shed blood but not tears; at this moment, however, two lines of hot tears surged out from his wrinkled eye corners without any warning.

He pointed at the screen, his voice completely out of control, sounding like he was crying and laughing at the same time, and shouted to all the Experts in the laboratory:

"The direction was wrong! We were completely wrong from the very beginning! So it really can be achieved this way! Which unit came up with this? Quick! Tell me which brother unit it is!"

His voice echoed in the laboratory, filled with the joy of surviving a disaster.

Beside him, the young Expert in charge of the operation also recovered from his shock.

He tremblingly scrolled the file to the last page and saw the "Manufacturer" column.

He looked at that line of text, his expression frozen, and then his voice, sounding like sleep-talking and carrying a sobbing tone, answered the old Academician's question:

"Report... report to Academician Zhang... it's not a brother unit..."

"It is... Baishui City, Li Family Toy Factory."

These few words landed heavily on Academician Zhang Jingmin's head.

The ecstasy on his face froze instantly, and he stood stunned on the spot.