35: Chapter 35 Don't look at me like that, I don't have that much influence!

Director He's words drew immediate responses from the others.

"Right! It's time to get to work!"

"If we keep sitting here talking, we'll miss our chance!"

Several directors and key personnel spoke up one after another, each voice louder than the last.

The conference room was filled with fervor.

It was a hunger, an urge to rush into the lab immediately and battle those formulas and blueprints for three hundred rounds.

Watching this scene, the usually composed face of Dean Chen finally revealed a heartfelt smile.

He understood.

This group of stubborn people, suppressed for too long, had the fire in their bones completely ignited!

He turned his head and glanced at the young man sitting calmly beside him from beginning to end.

A thought emerged in his mind.

Could this... could this be the effect this kid wanted?

By using just one military order, he had pushed everyone's fighting spirit to the peak, turning a technical discussion meeting into a pre-expedition oath-taking ceremony.

However, Dean Chen did not dwell on this thought for too long.

Things had reached this point; regardless of whether Lin Yuan intended it or not, the result was right there.

Everyone had entered the zone.

He couldn't dampen everyone's enthusiasm.

Dean Chen pressed his hands down, and the noise in the conference room ceased completely.

"Since everyone is eager to start working, I won't waste any more of your time here."

He picked up the folder from the table and stood up.

"Let's go, to the laboratory building."

"The relevant instruments and equipment are already mostly prepared."

Hearing this, everyone nodded and stood up with smiles, their impatience so palpable that it made the staff from the Dean's office secretly click their tongues in amazement.

Dean Chen walked over to Lin Yuan, patted his shoulder, his tone carrying a sense of solemnity and expectation.

"Chief Engineer Lin, from now on, I will have to trouble you for the technical guidance."

"You're too polite, Dean Chen. This is my duty."

Lin Yuan nodded in agreement, his smile remaining calm.

The group marched out of the conference room in a grand procession, and in less than five minutes, the silhouette of Research Building No. 7 appeared in their field of view.

The building had six floors, with a dark gray aluminum curtain wall facade, regular and square, without any flashy decorations.

The ventilation ducts and cooling towers on the roof were densely packed and exposed, clearly a professional building designed for heavy experimental equipment.

Security personnel were already waiting at the entrance; seeing Dean Chen leading the team over, they quickly swiped to open the access control.

"Beep—"

With a soft click from the electronic door lock, the heavy doors slid open to the sides.

Cool air, mixed with the distinct scent of the fresh air system, rushed toward them, intertwined with the smell of lubricant from new machinery.

The second He Yicheng, Yang Lin, and the others stepped into the lobby, their footsteps stopped in unison.

What met their eyes was not opulent decor, but the ultimate beauty of industry and order.

The entire first-floor lobby was completely opened up; the floor was a seamless epoxy resin finish, smooth as a mirror, reflecting the dense network of conduits and lighting arrays on the ceiling.

Rows of server cabinets emitting a cold metallic light stood along the walls, with blue-green indicator lights flickering like stars.

Deep in the lobby, several massive pieces of equipment were covered by dust covers, their silhouettes blurry.

But the sense of oppression unique to precision industrial creations still hit them.

"This... this is..."

Yang Lin looked at a piece of equipment isolated in a constant temperature and humidity area deep in the lobby, his pupils shrinking suddenly.

"A Zeiss... ultra-high precision coordinate measuring machine?"

Before he finished speaking, He Yicheng had already rushed over in a few strides, pressing himself against the glass of the isolation area, his eyes wide as copper bells.

"It's more than that!"

He Yicheng's voice trembled.

"That one next to it is a Zygo laser interferometer, and there's the ion beam polisher... My god!"

As soon as these names were mentioned, the breathing of everyone present who worked with instruments and optics skipped a beat.

Every single one of these devices, even if it were second-hand, would be astronomical in price if bought individually, and the procurement cycle was extremely long; some models were even strictly restricted from export by foreign countries.

But now, they were all neatly arranged right here!

Several younger researchers also gathered around, greedily eyeing the machines inside through the glass.

They looked like they wanted to rush in right now and hug them.

Dean Chen walked over slowly with his hands behind his back, a faint smile on his face.

"This is just the ground floor."

He pointed to the ceiling.

"This building was renovated overnight according to the task force's technical route."

"The ground floor is the heavy-load and ultra-stable computing layer, which has the highest requirements for floor load-bearing and anti-micro-vibration, so these big guys are all placed here."

"The second to fourth floors are the class 10,000 and class 1,000 cleanrooms, which are also the precision engineering and core R&D layers. Later, the coating of the Objective Lens, the spin-coating of photoresist, and the fabrication of photomasks will all be carried out up there."

"The fifth and sixth floors are the power and safety support layers; high-voltage electricity, ultra-pure water, special gases, and the cooling system are all on the top."

In a few words, Dean Chen clearly introduced the layout of the entire building.

The division of all areas was designed entirely around the R&D process of the three major components of the Photolithography Machine; the logic was rigorous, worthy of a textbook.

Everyone was stunned.

This plan could not have been thrown together on a whim.

"Incredible, absolutely incredible, Dean Chen."

He Yicheng straightened up, his face full of emotion.

"Just these few machines downstairs would be enough to make our Institute of Precision Instruments drool for years."

"With them, the processing and testing of the Objective Lens can be accelerated by at least half."

"That's true,"

Yang Lin also walked over, rubbing his hands as he looked at a Helmholtz coil array on the other side used for magnetic field calibration.

"The initial model verification for the workpiece stage can also start ahead of schedule."

The excitement and satisfaction on their faces were genuine.

What was before them was a luxury configuration they wouldn't have even dared to imagine in the past.

However, Dean Chen shook his head.

"It's not enough."

This sentence made everyone's discussion stop.

Not enough?

Dean Chen looked at their puzzled expressions and continued:

"These are all things that can be solved with money; it's just a matter of handling special cases specially and speeding up the procurement process."

He paused, then changed the subject.

"There are still a few key major items whose procurement processes are special, and they are currently on the way."

"But they should arrive next week."

Wei Jiancheng perked up when he heard this.

"Old Chen, what are the major items?"

Dean Chen glanced at him, his tone flat.

"It's nothing much."

"One of them is a set of Superconducting Acceleration Cavity that I managed to get for your Light Source Group."

Hearing this, Wei Jiancheng felt as if something had exploded in his brain, and he froze in place.

Superconducting... Acceleration Cavity?

The number of institutions worldwide that can build this thing can be counted on one hand, and the export controls against the Xia Kingdom are so strict that even academic exchanges are subject to review.

This... was actually managed to be obtained?

Dean Chen ignored his shock and continued speaking:

"Besides that, there is an electron beam Photolithography Machine, prepared for photomask fabrication."

"And a set of cold atom interferometers, prepared for absolute positioning."

With every name he mentioned, the conference room grew quieter.

When the last name was spoken, only the heavy breathing of the crowd remained in the large lobby.

These things, even if they were second-hand discarded goods, were national treasures that countless domestic research institutes dreamed of but could not obtain!

Was the higher-up... emptying out their bottom-of-the-box assets?

"Dean... Dean Chen..."

He Yicheng felt his worldview being repeatedly crushed and reshaped today; he spoke with a dry voice.

"Please give us the honest truth."

"What on earth... is going on?"

This question voiced the inner thoughts of everyone present.

They really couldn't understand what kind of power could leverage such terrifying resources in just a few days, accomplishing things that hadn't been done in the past decade.

However, facing the burning gazes of the crowd, Dean Chen slowly shook his head.

"Don't look at me."

"My old face doesn't have that much pull."

As he spoke, under the intense, astonished gaze of everyone, he slowly turned his head.

His gaze passed over one shocked, bewildered, and dazed face after another, landing on the edge of the crowd.

On the young man who, from beginning to end, was the only one without any surprise on his face, just quietly watching all of this, with a faint smile still playing on his lips.

"Swish—!"

Dozens of gazes followed Dean Chen's line of sight and turned abruptly.

Finally, they all focused squarely on Lin Yuan.