315: Chapter 315 The fish has taken the bait!

As it turned out, the Aerospace Center didn't conduct an in-depth investigation into the matter. They just collected phones in the morning for a check, and in the afternoon Officer Liu gave a brief lecture on stage before dismissing the meeting. No one was called for a private talk afterward.

The matter of the post was brushed aside just like that. Researcher Liu sat at his workstation, pretending to read the experimental report in front of him, as his tense heart gradually relaxed.

Regardless of the reason, it was a good thing for him that they weren't investigating further!

That morning, while he was flipping through the day's spectral analysis report at his desk, several colleagues two seats away were gathered and chatting. He hadn't intended to pay attention, but he vaguely overheard the words "Zhao Yangs Research Group" and "major breakthrough."

Researcher Liu's heart stirred slightly, and he leaned in to listen.

"Have you guys heard? It seems Dr. Zhao's four-thrust chamber proposal has come up with something incredible."

"Something incredible? Like what?"

"I didn't ask for too many details, but I heard they eliminated the pulsation coupling issue at its source. Instead of using baffles and dampers to suppress it, they directly disrupted the pulsation phases of the four thrust chambers. All the test run data points that were in the red have dropped below the safety line—even several low-frequency peaks that couldn't be suppressed during the previous YF-77 dual-engine parallel tests are gone."

"Really? Wasn't that the theoretical direction Chief Engineer Sun mentioned at the meeting the other day? It's only been how long, and they already have test run data?"

"I haven't seen the specific data, but someone from the neighboring group went to borrow their test bench during its idle time this morning and was turned away. They said the test bench is fully booked for the next few weeks, with no openings left."

"No openings? Does that mean Chief Engineer Sun is planning to shift resources toward Zhao Yang?"

The surrounding researchers discussed animatedly; some were excited, feeling that Zhao Yang was indeed impressive.

Others frowned, feeling things weren't that simple. Researcher Liu put down his pen cap, leaned back in his chair, and glanced toward the glass partition of the small meeting room used by Zhao Yangs Research Group. Several young researchers inside were gathered around blueprints, calculating some parameters.

He stood up and walked over casually, holding his water cup. As he passed the door of the small meeting room, Zhou Hao happened to push the door open and come out. As they brushed past each other, Liu reached out and lightly stopped him.

"Zhou Hao, I just heard them say you guys had a breakthrough. What's going on?"

Zhou Hao's face was flushed with excitement, his eyes crinkling into slits as he smiled. He lowered his voice and said, "Brother Liu, I can hardly believe it myself. Teacher Zhao adjusted a phase angle parameter between the combustion chamber and the turbopump a few days ago and redesigned the piping interface. The simulation results are beautiful. If the subsequent test runs are successful, I think the value of this proposal might be even greater than the original one." After speaking, he jerked his chin toward the room, indicating that Zhao Yang was still inside and he couldn't chat for long, then walked away quickly.

Researcher Liu muttered "Impressive, impressive" with a casual attitude and turned back to his workstation. But his fingertip pressed against the rim of the ceramic cup, and his body remained so still it barely moved. He retracted his gaze and lowered his eyelids, not letting anyone nearby see the change in his eyes.

That afternoon, Chief Engineer Sun convened a meeting for the entire department in the auditorium. After briefly commenting on recent work, he suddenly raised his voice, stating that after multiple rounds of evaluation and simulation verification, Dr. Zhao Yang's four-thrust chamber shared single-turbopump configuration had shown significant technical potential in pulsation control. Consequently, the research center's resources might be appropriately concentrated on Zhao Yangs Research Group to push for the official test run of this configuration. He spoke calmly, as if announcing a routine policy change, but the literal meaning was clear: future resources would be heavily skewed toward Zhao Yang.

When these words were spoken, the entire auditorium instantly erupted into an uproar.

A visiting researcher who had only been on the job for a little over a month was going to take away the primary resources of the entire Engine Department for his technology verification project. No matter what attitude they had toward Zhao Yang before, no one could ignore this now.

"No way! Does the higher-up really think that highly of his proposal? Hasn't Zhao Yang only been at the institute for a month? On what grounds? Even if he's a genius, this is too much!"

"Yeah! Exactly! This is too outrageous!"

"Are they really going to conduct an official test run for his proposal?"

"Isn't the higher-ups' trust in him a bit excessive? What if the subsequent test run fails? The main line YF-77 has already completed several rounds of verification. If resources are suddenly diverted now, what if both sides fail to stabilize..."

Another engineer stopped halfway through his sentence, as the team leader in front of him gestured for him to keep it down, so he didn't continue.

Chief Engineer Sun ignored the discussions among the crowd below.

Beside him, Zhou Hao and several other young researchers excitedly exchanged glances, but Zhao Yang, sitting on the rostrum, noticed the changes in everyone's expressions. He wasn't surprised. What truly caught his eye was Researcher Liu, who was sitting in the middle row.

After listening to the entire announcement, his expression didn't deviate from the normal range of reactions of those around him; he rubbed his temples, frowned, and sighed—he did it all. But as he stood up with everyone to leave, the rhythm of his steps was slightly out of phase with his neighbors. He left three or four seconds later than others, and during those few seconds, he kept his head down and fished a phone out of his inner jacket pocket. The movement was very slight, but the moment he stepped out the door, he pressed the screen to light it up.

Zhao Yang retracted his gaze. He didn't need to make any further judgments. Those few tiny actions were enough.

At 9:17 PM that evening, Researcher Liu returned to his apartment in a residential complex near the Aerospace Center. He didn't change into loungewear or even take off his jacket. He stood in the living room for about half a minute, then went to the bedroom and pulled out an old, camera-sized device from a hidden compartment behind the nightstand. The thing wasn't connected to the internet, had no camera, and didn't even have a brand logo on its casing—just a single interface port.

He plugged in an encrypted storage drive and typed a long string of letters and numbers using the physical keyboard on the screen. This string was a temporary dynamic password, different every time.

After typing, he sat on the edge of the bed and waited for almost the entire night. Before dawn the next day, he re-entered the command and saw a log notification that the ciphertext had been successfully sent. The confirmation signal from the receiving end came back half an hour later. He deleted the log, closed the device, and hid it back where it came from.

Shin-chan simultaneously captured all transmission records of this dark web link. At 2:15 AM, a set of compressed data packets was sent from Researcher Liu's external device to the dark web through an overseas proxy. Then, two different response ports popped up on the other side of the dark web: one from a server region somewhere in Europe, and the other from a Metropolitan Area Network access point in a coastal city in Southern China.

After Shin-chan presented the target coordinates, Zhao Yang typed a note next to the system log: One in Europe, one in Mainland Dragon Kingdom.

Interesting. A node in Mainland Dragon Kingdom?

The corners of Zhao Yang's mouth curled up slightly. There should be a lot of information on moles at this node!