Chapter 207

Tuesday morning at eight o'clock, inside the Number One Emergency Conference Room of the Longyin Research Institute.

The long table was spread with blueprints.

Three whiteboards stood to the side, already filled with formulas and sketches.

The air was filled with the scent of coffee, printer ink, and... instant noodles.

Wang Hao was squatting in the corner making his third bowl of Old Altar Pickled Cabbage noodles, muttering as he poured hot water:

"I'm saying, we're about to enter the fusion energy era, can't we raise the buffet standard in the conference room?"

"At least add a braised egg."

"Just eat your food." Chen Guang didn't even look up, his fingers sliding rapidly across his tablet.

"Torch Dragon has already run a thousand simulations of that high school student's aerodynamic model from last night, and the results are very interesting."

Li Yang stood before the whiteboard, staring blankly at the outline of the spaceship drawn on it.

He had maintained this posture for fifteen minutes.

"Old Li, are you stuck?" Zhao Kaiyuan walked over, holding his thermos.

"I'm thinking..." Li Yang drew a small circle on the side of the spaceship with a marker.

"Mechs are humanoid because they need to simulate human movement, adapt to complex terrain, and use hands for precise operations."

He drew a large circle on the main body of the spaceship: "But the spaceship is streamlined, to reduce drag, to optimize aerodynamics, to be able to fly."

The pen tip moved back and forth between the two circles.

"But Penglai needs to do both things at once." Li Yang frowned.

"It needs to be able to take off and land fighters like an aircraft carrier in the atmosphere, and also serve as a mobile base in space."

"These two requirements... are somewhat contradictory."

Feng Yan pushed the door open and entered, holding the printed forum post.

"That's why we need to change our thinking." He placed the copy of the post on the table.

"What that high school student said actually makes a lot of sense—why must we choose between a fixed wing and a humanoid form?"

Wang Hao leaned over with his noodles, glancing at the post: "Bionic flapping wings? Brother Feng, isn't this thing just a giant moth?"

"We're building an aerospace carrier, not an insect museum."

"Read it before you talk." Feng Yan pointed to the sketches in the post.

"He isn't studying flapping wings, but the vortex control mechanism generated by bird wings during takeoff."

"Simply put, birds can take off vertically and then quickly transition to level flight, not by brute force, but by exquisite aerodynamic design."

Chen Guang pulled up the simulation animation at the right moment: "Torch Dragon optimized it based on his model, and the conclusion is, if we design a variable-morphology wing..."

A wing cross-section appeared on the screen.

In a low-speed state, the wing surface expanded, and complex vortex patterns appeared on the surface;

After the speed increased, the wing surface automatically retracted, becoming streamlined.

"During different flight phases, the wing can change its shape and aerodynamic characteristics." Chen Guang pushed up his glasses.

"During vertical takeoff and landing, it generates a large amount of vortices to provide lift; during supersonic cruise, it becomes smooth to reduce drag."

Li Yang's eyes lit up.

He grabbed a blank sheet of paper and began to sketch rapidly.

The rustling sound of the pen tip across the paper became the only sound in the conference room.

Three minutes later, a brand-new design sketch appeared.

The main body was still a streamlined spaceship, but on both sides of the hull, four sets of giant foldable wing surfaces were added.

Each set was about forty meters long; when retracted, they fit against the hull, and when deployed, they looked like bird wings.

"Not just that." Li Yang drew faster and faster.

"Combined with the vector propulsion array, Haozi, your thrusters can fine-tune the nozzle angle, right?"

"That's a must!" Wang Hao put down his noodle bowl.

"Seventy-two engines, each can independently deflect plus or minus fifteen degrees! If you want to dance, I can even choreograph a set of moves for you!"

"That's enough." Li Yang drew lines between the wing surfaces and the thrusters.

"During takeoff, the wing surfaces deploy to generate vortex lift, and the thrusters point vertically downward;"

"When transitioning to level flight, the wing surfaces gradually retract, and the thrusters turn to spray backward;"

"In a space environment, the wing surfaces are fully retracted, and the thrusters provide orbital maneuvering thrust."

He looked up, and the light in his eyes was one Feng Yan was very familiar with; three years ago in the warehouse, when Li Yang first demonstrated the Iron Wolf prototype, he had that same look.

"This design... is somewhat interesting." Zhao Gong leaned over.

"But how complex must this joint structure be? After deploying and retracting thousands of times, how do we solve the fatigue problem?"

"Use our self-growing material." Feng Yan said.

"Zhao Gong, didn't you say last week that the new batch of self-healing coating can automatically repair itself the moment micro-cracks appear?"

"That's laboratory data!" Zhao Gong glared.

"But if we really want to use it on such a large scale, I have to do physical testing first!"

"Then test it." Feng Yan made the final decision.

"I'll give you three days to build a scaled-down variable-wing model and put it in the wind tunnel for a thousand hours. Whatever resources you need, just request them."

Zhao Gong muttered that young people only knew how to exploit old men, but his hand had already honestly started writing down the material list.

"The aerodynamic problem is solved." The technical consultant sent by the Navy, a ship designer named Zhang, spoke up.

"But what about the propulsion system? With such a large hull, to take off and land vertically, how much thrust would be needed?"

Wang Hao was waiting for these words.

He hopped to the whiteboard, grabbed a red marker, and drew an extremely crude schematic diagram; both sides of the hull were densely packed with small circles.

"Simple! Thirty-six on each side, a total of seventy-two fusion-modified versions of the Azure Cloud rocket engine!" Wang Hao waved his pen.

"Distributed layout, each with eight hundred tons of thrust, total thrust—" He wrote a number on the side: tons.

"Fifty-seven thousand six hundred tons." Designer Zhang gasped.

"That's enough to push Penglai into the stratosphere."

"And it's safe!" Wang Hao said triumphantly.

"If ten fail, it won't affect flight; if twenty fail, it can still maintain basic maneuvering; maintenance is also simple, just dismantle and replace whichever one is broken, modular design!"

Chen Guang calmly poured cold water: "Seventy-two engines under synchronous control, a millisecond-level deviation would cause the hull's torsional stress to exceed limits. Have you thought about how complex the control algorithm is?"

"That's why we need you, Guangzi!" Wang Hao put his arm around Chen Guang's shoulder.

"Let Torch Dragon-2 control it directly; the AI's response speed is a thousand times faster than a human's."

"You build a multi-layer redundant control system; if the main control fails, there's a backup; if the backup fails, there's an emergency..."

"I'm already doing it." Chen Guang pushed him away expressionlessly.

"The three-layer defense system also needs to be designed synchronously; the outer layer laser interception uses the Dingyue upgraded version, with power increased three times;"

"The middle layer electromagnetic shield is driven directly by Xuanwu energy, capable of hard-resisting tactical nuclear warheads;"

"The inner layer is an active decoy system, an AI-controlled micro-drone swarm that can simulate the hull's signal to interfere with incoming missiles."

He listed the data on the whiteboard: "Preliminary calculations show that at full power, the defense system's energy consumption accounts for 27% of the ship's total output."

"But considering the Xuanwu core's power supply capability, this ratio is acceptable."

Zhao Kaiyuan spoke up then; he had been burying his head in calculations:

"Four Xuanwu-fusion cores connected in parallel, the theoretical total output power is 6.4 times that of a single unit, because parallel connection has a synergistic effect."

He pulled up the calculation interface: "If we superimpose the energy consumption requirements of all the systems just mentioned... Penglai at full power operation, the endurance time is approximately—" He hit enter.

The numbers jumped: hours.

"Four hundred and fifty days." Zhao Kaiyuan said.

"And this is 'full power,' including propulsion, defense, carrier aircraft ejection, and life support systems all running at full load."

"If it's just in cruise state, the endurance can be extended to over ten years."

The conference room was quiet for a few seconds.

"Ten years..." Designer Zhang murmured.

"Then this ship, once it goes to sea, really doesn't have to come back; at least in terms of energy, it doesn't need to."

"But people need to." Zhao Gong suddenly said.

"Young men, you only calculate the machines, not the people?"

"With such a large structure, how does it get into the sky after being built on the ground? What size rocket do you plan to use to launch it? Or is it..."

He paused and spat out four words: "Space assembly."

This was the most realistic problem.

Penglai is three hundred and eighty meters long, eighty-five meters at its widest, and has an estimated empty weight of eighty-two thousand tons.

No existing rocket could carry it up, not even the Azure Cloud reusable rocket, because the payload capacity wasn't enough.

"It has to be modular." Li Yang had thought about this problem long ago.

"Build it in three major modules: bow, hull, and stern."

"Keep each module within a hundred meters, and the weight no more than thirty thousand tons."

"Launch in batches using the improved Azure Cloud heavy-duty version, and assemble it at the Tiangong Orbital Shipyard."

"What about docking precision?" Zhao Gong pressed.

"For something three hundred meters long, when docking in space, even a one-millimeter error is a big deal."

"Use the upgraded version of the Heavenly Clerk robotic arm." Chen Guang pulled up the design drawing.

"Twelve Giant Spirit God robotic arms, each one hundred and fifty meters long, with a terminal positioning precision of 0.1 millimeters."

"Combined with laser ranging and Torch Dragon real-time correction, it should be feasible."

"Should?" Zhao Gong shook his head.

"I've worked in assembly my whole life, and I know how far 'should' is from 'definitely'."

"For this, we must first do full-scale ground simulation, use real robotic arms, practice until proficient in a real gravity environment, and then go to space."

Feng Yan nodded: "Zhao Gong is right; simulation testing is included in the first phase plan. I'll give you two months."

"Two months?!" Wang Hao shouted, "Then when will we be able to see the real ship?"

"Haozi." Feng Yan looked at him, "Do you want to see the ship sooner, or do you want to see the ship fall apart in the sky?"

Wang Hao shut up.

The design meeting lasted until noon, and the preliminary plan was basically formed.

Li Yang drew the first version of the overall outline, Wang Hao finalized the propulsion array layout, Chen Guang listed the defense system inventory;

Zhao Kaiyuan calculated the energy budget, and Zhao Gong pointed out thirteen details where this structure would have problems in actual assembly.

Lunch was boxed meals sent from the cafeteria.

Everyone gathered around the long table, eating while continuing to argue—no, continue discussing.

Wang Hao was shoveling rice when his eyes suddenly shifted: "By the way, Brother Feng, I have an idea."

"Speak."

"How about we install a really cool feature on Penglai!" Wang Hao put down his chopsticks and grabbed a pen to draw a sketch.

"Look, here at the bow, design a giant mechanical fist that can pop out!"

"Usually it's hidden under the armor plate, and when needed, it suddenly pops out for a charged strike!"

He drew an exaggerated fist, the proportions ridiculously large: "Bang! One punch to smash an enemy ship! What do you call this? A physical persuasion module!"

Li Yang was drinking soup and almost choked.

He silently put down his bowl, picked up an eraser, walked to the whiteboard, and under Wang Hao's expectant gaze...

He expressionlessly erased that fist.

"Hey hey hey! Brother Li, what are you doing!" Wang Hao screamed, "What a cool design!"

"Ugly." Li Yang only said one word.

"And it wastes structural weight." Chen Guang added, "With that space, it's better to install two more sets of laser emitters."

"You guys don't understand violent aesthetics!" Wang Hao was heartbroken.

Feng Yan smiled: "Haozi, if you really like fists, once Penglai is built, you can put a punching bag on the bridge and practice every day."

Lunch ended in laughter.

In the afternoon, they continued to refine the design.

By six in the evening, the first version of the concept art was finally released.

On the projection screen, the three-hundred-and-eighty-meter-long silver-gray hull rotated slowly.

The streamlined main body, the retracted variable wings on both sides, and the neatly distributed propulsion arrays on the top and bottom of the hull.

The bow was a sharp wedge, and the stern had four main propulsion nozzles.

The deck was marked with the mech ejection area, fighter takeoff and landing area, and the positions of the laser defense towers.

At the very top was a line of text: "Aerospace Carrier Penglai—Concept Design V1.0."

"This is just the beginning." Feng Yan looked at the screen.

"Over the next three months, we have to turn this drawing into a hundred thousand engineering blueprints, into millions of parts, into a real ship."

Wang Hao raised his hand: "Brother Feng, can I ask a question?"

"Speak."

"Once Penglai is built... can I give it a nickname?"

"... What do you want to call it?"

"I want to call it 'Great Peng'!" Wang Hao's eyes lit up, "The Kunpeng spreads its wings, soaring ninety thousand miles! How domineering!"

Chen Guang pushed his glasses: "According to naming conventions, military ships can only use official names and codenames."

"But if you insist, you can use unofficial names in private settings."

"Then it's settled!" Wang Hao slapped his thigh, "From now on, in private, I'll call it the Great Peng!"

Li Yang looked at the concept art and suddenly said softly: "Three years ago, the first mech I built could only take three steps."

"Now we're going to build this... it feels like a dream."

"It's no longer a dream." Zhao Gong patted his shoulder.

"The blueprints are all here, the rest is just hard work. I can still work for at least another ten years, enough to see it fly."

Outside the window, the sky was gradually darkening.

The lights in the conference room stayed on until late at night.

And on the research institute's encrypted server, the first folder for the Penglai project had already been created.

Inside were only two files: the concept design drawing and the screenshot of that high school student's forum post.

The last reply to the post, from the email address of ID Bo Le, was currently lying quietly in the recruitment system's pending list.

But that was a matter for tomorrow.

Tonight, the design team still had to pull an all-nighter.

Because the road from blueprint to reality always starts on nights like this.