Chapter 8: An Interesting Young Man

“Lin Xu! Run quickly!”
...
“Run!”
“Lin Xu! Run fast!”
...
“You only have 15 seconds left! Run!”
...

The next day was the weekend, so Lin Xu spent nearly the entire night shuttling between the wristband world and the real world.

He became the most devoted visitor in the Tianqiong Technology exhibition hall. Once inside the wristband world, he wasted no time and immediately did three things:

Scavenge equipment, enter the exhibition hall, and view the displays.

In the wristband world, he couldn’t bring anything out; his only reliable asset was his own memory.

Therefore, he had to seize every second to record what he saw before his memories faded.

The bad news was that the more he entered the wristband, the more energy it consumed, and the more his memory deteriorated.

The good news was that the exhibition’s presentation of the Star Voyage One project was designed with a certain “customer-facing” educational purpose. Anything he recorded could be directly transcribed and used.

After nearly eight hours and five repeated entries into the wristband world, Lin Xu finally managed to transcribe the Star Voyage One’s overall design plan almost completely.

By this time, his computer documents were already filled with notes.

Next, he had to organize all this information into a coherent and presentable document.

“Structural system... hull design...”
“Use carbon fiber composites for lightweight, high-rigidity components like the airframe to reduce weight and increase strength...”
“Aluminum alloy for fuel storage tanks, TC4 titanium alloy for high-temperature, high-pressure parts...”
“Propulsion system... main engine uses variable cycle engine or dual-mode staged combustion cycle engine; model... model details not necessary.”
“Solid rocket boosters... continuing the design of Experiment Three, adopting reusable booster rockets...”
“Thermal protection...”
“Navigation, guidance, and control system...”
“Avionics communication...”
“Life support...”
“Payload...”

Lin Xu meticulously combed through the Star Voyage One design plan he had copied from the Tianqiong Technology exhibition twenty years in the future.

He had to admit, this thing was incredibly complex.

Although he had learned some knowledge about overall framework design after entering this field, if it were solely up to himself, he doubted he could produce such a system.

After all, no one is omnipotent.

He was very familiar with flight control and could somewhat understand avionics and communications, but when it came to rockets and engines, he was utterly clueless.

Of course, these were completely different disciplines!

Even within the same university, these two majors were worlds apart.

Not to mention himself; as far as Lin Xu knew, no one in human history had mastered both rocket engines and flight control simultaneously.

To reach the level of “chief designer,” one had to rely on vast resources, knowledge bases, and think tanks to support project design decisions.

Lin Xu obviously lacked all that.

But the wristband was his knowledge base.

After spending another two hours, Lin Xu had organized the design plan into something that looked decent.

To be honest, it was still far from a true “initial draft of the master design plan,” but at least the framework was complete.

If he could find enough technical personnel to fill in the details, it might be possible to quickly produce a full plan.

Satisfied, Lin Xu looked at the document on his desktop, pressed the shortcut to save it, and casually sent it to Jiang Xingye through their internal chat software.

[File “Star Voyage One Design Plan Initial Draft” has been received]

The notification startled Lin Xu.

Still not asleep?

It was already almost 8 o’clock.

Were they both burning the midnight oil?

He was about to send a message to check on him when Jiang Xingye’s reply came through.

“???”
“Did you make this???”
“Yes.”

As soon as Lin Xu sent those two words, Jiang Xingye immediately called him.

“Lin Xu, are you serious? Where did you steal this thing from??”

“...Would you believe me if I said I stole it from NASA?”

Lin Xu rubbed his aching temples and asked, “So, how is it? Is it usable?”

“I don’t know.”

Jiang Xingye clicked his tongue in admiration.

“This is far from a real master design plan. First, there’s no feasibility analysis.”
“Second, the overall rocket layout is too rough, and there are gaps in the propulsion system design.”
“Dual-mode airspace engine? Even if that existed, we wouldn’t be able to buy it.”
“And the flight control and navigation technologies you listed aren’t so easy to implement either...”
“Overall, this is not a master design plan.”
“This is a ‘collection of fragmented ideas.’”

“So it’s useless?”

Lin Xu felt a bit disappointed.

But the next moment, Jiang Xingye said,

“On the contrary, it’s extremely useful!”
“Rocket and spacecraft design processes are mature by now, and for experienced engineers, making a master design plan is not difficult.”
“But what they lack is ideas and thinking!”
“And your work provides exactly that!”
“There are problems, yes, but they are solvable!”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve already sent it to Chen Yan. He’s currently meeting with the boss and the chief designer. Let’s see what they say!”

“...Alright.”

Lin Xu flopped back onto his bed.

“You send it. I’m going to sleep now.”
“I’ve been up all night, I really can’t hold on anymore.”

“Alright, I’ll sleep too.”

Jiang Xingye yawned.

“...Could you stop with the dramatic words? If I really come downstairs, you’d better behave.”

“No way!”

Jiang Xingye spat playfully.

“If you’re tired, drink some codonopsis and wolfberry tea. Isn’t my cup still at your place?”

“Alright, goodnight! Bye!”

The call ended. Lin Xu tossed his phone aside and closed his eyes.

Within seconds, he was sound asleep...

...

Meanwhile, in the chairman’s office at Tianqiong Technology.

Chairman Ren Jian sat opposite Chu Xu, chief designer of Experiment Three, while Chen Yan sat quietly in the corner, reporting on the results collected from the recent project kickoff briefing.

“...So, based on the feedback and suggestions from the staff below, we can preliminarily conclude that everyone is quite supportive of the ‘interstellar travel’ vision proposed by the boss and the chief designer.”
“People generally feel that this vision aligns with their original intention for choosing the civil space industry and has reignited their passion for work.”
“Although there are still many technical challenges and difficulties, we all believe that with Tianqiong Technology’s development speed, these problems will be resolved in the future.”
“The project resistance has basically been eliminated, and I believe the conditions for launching the project are now ripe.”

As he finished, both leaders opposite him nodded simultaneously.

“That’s really good. Young people still have energy,” Ren Jian said with a smile, turning to Chu Xu.
“Chu, back when we were young, who dared to mention such ideas?”
“Space travel... forget about doing it, we wouldn’t even dare to think about it!”
“Times have changed.”

Chu Xu shrugged.

“Nowadays, the difficulty of aerospace projects is about the same as when the first batch of entrepreneurs in our country tried to make domestic cars.”
“Someone has to pave the way; since we are the pioneers, we should take that extra step forward.”

“Indeed,” Ren Jian agreed.
“Unfortunately, these young people haven’t proposed many concrete ideas yet.”
“I had hoped this method would guide their thinking, making the project smoother later on.”

“But it seems that hope was somewhat misplaced.”

Chu Xu flicked his ash and added,

“Take it slow. Young people lack experience and have concerns. We...”

“Ding!”

Before he finished, Chen Yan’s computer suddenly beeped.

The three of them looked up immediately as Chen Yan awkwardly closed the popped-up window and explained,

“A team member sent me a file...”

“I see it.”

Ren Jian suddenly perked up.

“Star Voyage One? The file name is Star Voyage One, right?”
“What is it? Open it and have a look!”

Chen Yan waved his hands repeatedly,

“It was created by a young member of the lower project team. I’ll review and improve it before showing you.”

“Why wait? Look at it now!”

Ren Jian insisted, and Chen Yan hesitated.

“It’s still immature. I’m worried you might...”

In truth, he was secretly delighted.

He had seen the message Jiang Xingye sent earlier—this was Lin Xu’s so-called “plan.”

Goodness, just yesterday they had set the task, and today this guy already produced something?

What could be good in something made overnight?

He wanted nothing more than to open it for the boss immediately; the cruder it was, the better.

The rougher the document, the more it would prove this young man’s restlessness, giving him ample reason to remove him from the team later.

To be honest, he had no real prejudice against Lin Xu.

But he didn’t want a troublemaker in his project group.

So, he would have to be tough on him.

Seeing the boss’s brow furrow slightly, Chen Yan hurriedly opened the file Jiang Xingye had sent.

“I haven’t really looked at it myself yet, so I don’t know if it’s suitable to show you...”

“Let’s look at it together. It’s the weekend; what’s the harm?”

Ren Jian interrupted, and Chen Yan wisely fell silent.

The three of them quietly read through Lin Xu’s plan. At first, Ren Jian and Chu Xu joked lightly, but as they continued, Chen Yan noticed something was off.

Both leaders fell silent.

The spacious office echoed only with a monotonous voice:

“Next page.”
“Next page.”
“Next page.”

Chen Yan’s eyes widened.

He could tell these two senior leaders were genuinely engrossed.

What the heck?!

Could this really be worth reading??

Well, it was a plan drafted overnight with over a dozen pages. Even if it was garbage, it was worth a glance, right?

But it seemed... these two big shots didn’t think it was garbage??

Finally, the plan reached the last page.

Ren Jian exhaled deeply and looked at Chu Xu.

“What’s your opinion, Chu?”

Chu Xu’s eyes shone.

He said,

“It’s rough, rudimentary, even a bit naive.”
“But the ideas it embodies, the thinking, and the sensitivity to new technologies... are truly rare and precious!”
“What’s the name of this young man? The document ID says Lin Xu?”

“Mr. Ren, please arrange a time. We should... meet with him.”