Chapter 763

After taking advantage of Song Yao in the living room, Xu Qingzhou scampered upstairs, giddy with delight.

Outside the window, the rain showed no sign of stopping; instead, it grew heavier.

“Get to work.”

Xu Qingzhou pulled out several fresh sheets of manuscript from one side and quickly fell into focus, writing four characters on them—Liquid Metal.

“The traditional divertor always has drawbacks; let’s replace the conventional solid tungsten target plate inside the divertor with another material.”

This was what he suddenly thought of while listening to the rain.

“A flowing film of liquid metal forms on the target surface, carrying away high heat loads through continuous motion, preventing localized erosion. It can also automatically fill damaged areas, achieving self-repair functionality.”

“The engineering difficulty is quite high.”

“I only saw a similar technique once, in a paper on extreme-environment materials science—it was used as an anti-radiation composite coating.”

At this moment, Song Yao also came upstairs, slippers dragging, and walked silently behind Xu Qingzhou.

“I suspect you’re trying to murder your husband.”

“Crush his head!”

Xu Qingzhou: “.”

She messed up his hair until it stood on end, then returned to her seat satisfied, pulled out the law text she’d been half-reading, and began reading slowly.

Four days passed in a flash.

“Phew~”

“Finally finished.”

In the office, Xu Qingzhou gazed at the lab’s proposal and nodded in satisfaction.

The traditional divertor requires replacement after a hundred ignitions, but the liquid metal solution, if properly maintained, could theoretically serve indefinitely.

“Of course, the actual effectiveness still needs to be verified through localized simulation experiments.”

Implementing the full divertor upgrade according to this technical roadmap would require at least a six-person team.

Before assembling the team, Xu Qingzhou planned to first verify the technical feasibility; once tests met standards, he would connect it to the divertor test platform of Qiankun No. 1 for neutron irradiation environment validation.

“The problem is, everyone in the institute is already occupied—they can’t spare anyone for simulations.”

“Which means I’m apparently the only one with nothing to do.”

After considering it, Xu Qingzhou decided to handle it himself. Ren Nan and others each handled a section; the progress so far had been smooth, with little need for his direct intervention.

Still, he intended to find an assistant.

Though he had no fixed project, he still needed to support various initiatives, helping resolve issues—he couldn’t just stay glued to the lab forever.

After thinking it over, he reached out to Ren Xiaoling, his former collaborator from undergrad, his old partner on the quantum optical frequency comb experiment.

“Professor Xu, you called me?”

A short-haired girl appeared at the door soon after.

Six years had passed; Ren Xiaoling was now a doctoral student, having shed her former naivety and gained a sharper, more capable demeanor.

“Senior Ren, I’m planning a small simulation and need someone to help—do you have time?”

Xu Qingzhou said directly.

“Of course.” Ren Xiaoling nodded without hesitation.

Over the years, she’d joined many projects, but compared to them, she still preferred the feeling of learning alongside Xu Qingzhou—she genuinely absorbed far more knowledge this way.

“Good. Here’s the relevant material. We’ll start tomorrow—take a look first. You can hand off your current tasks to others.”

Saying this, Xu Qingzhou handed her a stack of documents.

Ren Xiaoling was still officially an intern at the institute, and her current workload was light.