Chapter 208

"Zhao Gong, wouldn't you like to... take a break?" Assistant Xiao Liu asked cautiously, holding a cup of hot tea.

"You've been staring at this all night."

"Break? What break?" Zhao Gong didn't even look up.

"Look here, after the thirty-seventh thermal cycle, micro-cracks are starting to appear at the grain boundaries."

Xiao Liu leaned in to look.

Under the microscope, on the dark gray metal surface, a crack a thousand times thinner than a human hair was slowly extending.

The screen next to it displayed data: temperature 3180°C, pressure 42 MPa, duration 17 seconds.

It was simulating the most rigorous thermal shock environment during aerospace reentry.

"But our Dragon Scale-Heat Resistant type is already the top-tier material currently available." Xiao Liu sighed.

"It can withstand 1800 degrees long-term, and 2200 degrees short-term. But the Penglai design requirement is 3000 degrees for 1000 cycles without failure... that's still quite a distance away."

Zhao Gong didn't speak, just stared at that crack.

He remembered the design drawing Li Yang brought yesterday.

The joint parts of the variable wings had the highest thermal load;

The area around the thruster nozzles had the largest temperature gradient;

When the bow reentered the atmosphere, the surface temperature could reach 3500 degrees, which was already half the temperature of the sun's surface.

Existing materials simply couldn't hold up.

"Zhao Gong, your phone." Another assistant walked in holding a phone.

"It's your granddaughter calling, saying you haven't been home for two days."

Zhao Gong was stunned and took the phone. On the screen was the smiling face of a six-year-old girl with two little braids.

"Grandpa! When are you coming back? Mom said if you don't come home, the goldfish at home will starve to death!"

The wrinkles on Zhao Gong's face smoothed out: "Grandpa will come back when I'm done. Tell your mom to feed the fish first."

"Then what are you busy with?"

"Busy..." Zhao Gong glanced at the microscope, "Busy making an unbreakable shell for a big ship."

"How can a ship shell break? The paper boats I fold don't break!"

"Because Grandpa's ship is going to fly into the sky."

"Wow! A flying ship! Then Grandpa, go for it!"

The call ended.

Zhao Gong handed the phone back and continued staring at the crack.

But something suddenly flashed through his mind—paper boats?

No, it was something much older.

"Xiao Liu." He suddenly spoke.

"In the town where I grew up, there's a Song Dynasty stone bridge, you know that, right?"

"Huh? I... I know... but what does that have to do with materials?"

"That bridge is eight hundred years old; floods have hit it, earthquakes have shaken it, the stones have weathered, but it's still there." Zhao Gong stood up and extinguished his pipe.

"I just suddenly remembered this because the old master who repaired the bridge poured sticky rice mortar into the stone crevices."

Xiao Liu blinked: "Sticky rice... mortar?"

"Sticky rice boiled into a paste, mixed with lime and clay; after it dries, it's harder than stone. And the interesting thing is." Zhao Gong's eyes lit up.

"That stuff heals automatically. If the stone cracks, rainwater seeps in, the ingredients in the mortar react again, filling the crack."

He grabbed his coat: "Let's go, back to my hometown. Right now."

"Now? It's four in the morning!"

"Materials can't wait!"

Three hours later, Zhao Gong was already squatting under the ancient bridge outside his hometown town.

The bridge piers were covered in mottled moss, and grayish-white filler could indeed be seen in the stone crevices.

Several early-rising old people were doing Tai Chi at the bridgehead; seeing Zhao Gong, they were delighted.

"Holy crap! Isn't this Old Zhao? Why are you back? Didn't they say you were working on a big project in the capital?"

"Back to learn a thing or two." Zhao Gong pointed to the bridge pier.

"Uncle Wang, do you still know the recipe for the mortar on this bridge?"

Uncle Wang, who was doing Tai Chi, stopped and wiped his sweat: "Recipe? That's ancient history from who knows how many years ago."

"But my grandfather left a notebook when he repaired the bridge back then; it's still gathering dust in our attic. Do you want to see it?"

"Yes!"

Half an hour later, Zhao Gong was holding a yellowed thread-bound book, his hands trembling.

The notes were written with a brush; although the handwriting was a bit sloppy, the illustrations looked quite detailed.

Not only was there the recipe for sticky rice mortar, but also various repair techniques:

Adding egg white to increase toughness, adding pig blood to improve frost resistance, and adding some kind of grass juice to promote regeneration...

"This isn't just a simple recipe." Zhao Gong murmured, "This is a complete self-healing material system."

Xiao Liu leaned in to look: "But these are all ancient folk methods... can we use them?"

"Folk methods are the smartest." Zhao Gong carefully turned the page.

"The ancients didn't know about nanotechnology, but they knew how to make materials come alive."

"Look at this paragraph: 'New paste repairs old seams, can heal in three days, rain makes it stronger'."

He suddenly looked up: "Let's go, back to the lab! I already have an idea!"

Over the next forty-eight hours, the materials lab entered a state of frenzy.

Zhao Gong combined ancient recipes with modern nanotechnology and proposed a bold idea:

Why not embed repair seeds directly into the material?

"Just like when the human body is injured, platelets gather at the wound to form a clot and stop the bleeding." He drew a diagram on the whiteboard.

"We disperse nano-scale repair capsules in the material matrix. When the material cracks, the capsules rupture, releasing repair agents and catalysts."

"The repair agent fills the crack, the catalyst triggers a polymerization reaction... and the crack grows back together."

Theoretically, it was beautiful, but reality was harsh.

The first batch of samples was made, and the repair efficiency was only 12%.

The capsules were distributed unevenly; either they were too dense in some places, or there were none at all in others.

When Wang Hao came to visit and saw the failed samples piled up in the lab, he laughed:

"Zhao Gong, you're not making materials, you're making chocolate beans, right? The kind that isn't mixed well."

Zhao Gong glared at him: "Then you mix it?"

"I'll do it!" Wang Hao rolled up his sleeves.

"But you have to promise me, once the material is done, make me a heat-resistant liner for a fusion thruster first, one that can withstand five thousand degrees!"

"You solve the uneven mixing problem first!"

Unexpectedly, Wang Hao really had a way.

He ran to the mechanical group to borrow a retired Iron Wolf mech, dismantled its mixing arm, and modified it into a material mixer.

The mechanical arm had multiple branches and could simulate the most complex movement trajectories.

"Watch closely!" Wang Hao started the machine, and the mechanical arm rotated, shook, and tumbled at multiple angles.

"This is the three-dimensional chaotic mixing method I summarized when researching fireworks! I guarantee every nano-capsule can be evenly distributed!"

And it worked.

For the second batch of samples, the repair efficiency increased to 47%.

The third batch, 68%.

The seventh batch, 89%.

When the tenth batch of samples came out, Xiao Liu held the test report, his hands trembling:

"Zhao Gong... the repair efficiency has reached 95.2%. And... and the strength after repair is 3% higher than the original material."

Zhao Gong snatched the report and read it word for word.

Then, he slowly sat down and lit a cigarette.

Amidst the swirling smoke, he said softly: "It's done."

The extreme test was scheduled for Friday.

The sample was sent into the simulation chamber, with the program set: 3000-degree high temperature, 50 MPa pressure, one thermal shock cycle per minute.

Goal: 1000 cycles without failure.

The monitoring screen was surrounded by people.

Li Yang came, Chen Guang came, Wang Hao squatted in the corner with his boxed meal, and Zhao Kaiyuan held a notebook ready to record data.

"Start."

The temperature curve soared.

The sample surface quickly turned red and bright, like a piece of red-hot iron.

But the high temperature only lasted for three seconds, then plummeted to an extreme cold of minus two hundred degrees.

Simulating the instantaneous switch from atmospheric reentry to the freezing cold of space.

One cycle.

Ten cycles.

One hundred cycles.

Three hundred cycles.

Five hundred cycles.

Seven hundred cycles.

The screen displayed real-time microscopic images of the material surface.

Cracks would still appear, but the moment they appeared, tiny healing streams would seep out from both sides of the crack.

Just like new flesh growing on a wound, filling the crack, the whole process completed in milliseconds.

"Eight hundredth cycle." Chen Guang reported, "Remaining repair agent storage 67%, catalytic activity shows no decay."

"Nine hundredth..."

"One thousandth."

The experimental chamber stopped running.

The sample was removed by a robotic arm and placed on the testing table.

The appearance had hardly changed; it was still that dark gray metal plate.

But the test data made everyone hold their breath:

Strength retention rate: 95.3%.

Toughness retention rate: 94.8%.

Thermal conductivity retention rate: 96.1%.

"This thing..." Wang Hao swallowed his saliva, "Can it last until the solar system is destroyed?"

"It has its own lifespan." Zhao Gong finally smiled, "But at least, it's enough for Penglai to use for a lifetime."

He walked to the sample and took out the small carving knife he carried with him.

In the corner of the sample, he carefully carved three small characters: Zhao Xiaoyu.

This was his granddaughter's name.

"Zhao Gong, you are..." Xiao Liu asked.

"Leaving a memento." Zhao Gong put away the carving knife.

"When Penglai goes to the sky, when Xiaoyu grows up, I can tell her: Look, the thing Grandpa built can fly as far as the stars."

The lab was quiet for a few seconds.

Then Wang Hao suddenly shouted: "I'm going to post this on WeChat Moments! No, the internal network! Such an awesome material, it must have a domineering name!"

"How about calling it self-growing nano-composite material." Chen Guang pushed his glasses.

"Too boring!" Wang Hao objected.

"It should be called... Dragon Scale-Space Type! Dragons have reverse scales; touch them and they get angry. Our material, break it and it heals! How cool is that!"

Li Yang nodded: "Let's call it that."

Zhao Gong didn't object either, just lit another cigarette and looked at the sample with the name carved on it.

Three days later, a fifteen-second video circulated on the Longyin internal network.

The footage was the microscopic process of the material self-healing, with a simple caption: "Dragon Scale-Space Material Test Record, status after 1000 cycles."

Someone, not knowing better, leaked the video to the external network.

One hour later, #Longguo New Material Self-Healing# hit the global tech trending list.

Two hours later, the editor-in-chief of an international materials science journal tweeted:

"If the video is true, this will be one of the most significant breakthroughs in materials science this century. But... I'm more inclined to believe it's CG special effects."

The official account of the Longyin Research Institute replied with three words below:

"Welcome to see."

Attached was an address: Longyin Research Institute Materials Lab Open Day, next Monday at 2 PM.

This reply was forwarded seventy thousand times.

Wang Hao scrolled through his phone, overjoyed: "Zhao Gong, you're going to be a celebrity! On the open day next week, there will definitely be a bunch of foreigners running over, wanting to touch our samples!"

"Let them touch." Zhao Gong was drawing the processing blueprints for the Penglai main beam structural parts, "Anyway, if they break it, they can't afford to pay for it."

"That's true, this small piece is worth a building." Wang Hao leaned over.

"Zhao Gong, when can the first batch of production start?"

"The mold is already being made." Zhao Gong pointed toward the workshop direction.

"Fully automated production line, can produce enough material to build a football field in one day. However..."

He paused: "I will personally supervise the first main beam structural part of Penglai."

Friday evening, materials workshop.

In front of the giant smelting furnace, Zhao Gong wore a protective suit, staring at the control screen.

The furnace temperature display: 4800 degrees.

Raw materials with a special ratio were melting, mixing, and reacting inside.

"Component detection normal."

"Temperature gradient within control range."

"Casting preparation—three, two, one!"

The molten metal liquid flowed into the mold, which was a giant mold cavity thirty meters long, five meters wide, and two meters high.

The casting process lasted twenty minutes, and the workshop was filled with a special heat wave and a faint halo.

Cooling took six hours.

Saturday morning, the mold opened.

The silver-gray giant component slowly revealed its true face.

Thirty meters long, weighing five hundred tons, with delicate scale-like textures on the surface.

Under the workshop ceiling lights, it shimmered with a luster similar to a pearl.

"Hoisting."

The five-hundred-ton giant component was easily lifted by the crane.

Because it was 40% lighter than traditional materials of the same volume. As it rotated slowly in the air, it looked like the spine of a sleeping dragon.

Zhao Gong stood below, looking up.

He remembered the eight-hundred-year-old ancient bridge, the notebook his grandfather left behind, and the laughter in his granddaughter's phone call.

Then he lowered his head and, on the tablet in his hand, clicked to the next page of the Penglai structure diagram.

The main beam was done.

Next, it was time to build the ribs.

And outside the workshop, in the night, a reconnaissance device disguised as a civilian drone was quietly adjusting its focus, trying to film the scene inside the workshop.

But what it didn't know was that three hours ago, the Torch Dragon system had already locked onto it.

In the control center, Chen Guang looked at the monitoring screen and pushed up his glasses.

"Record the coordinates, trace the signal source in reverse." He said softly.

"Then... send a warm reminder to its control system."

The drone suddenly lost control, drew a circle in the air, and then plunged straight down toward a septic tank under construction on the ground.

Plop.

The splash was very small.

Chen Guang closed the monitoring window and continued optimizing the algorithm for the Penglai defense system.