Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 39 Previous Generations Cutting Down Trees
Conference room of a guesthouse in Shenzhen.

The state security personnel pushed the sealed kraft paper bag across the table, securing the seal with thread. On the other side, all the clues they had uncovered in the past two days were projected onto the screen.

Director Huang, wearing white gloves, opened the documents. The first photo showed a copy shop, followed by a computer screen displaying half a page of information about a patent formula for a gaseous ion boron nitride polymer. A watermark in the lower right corner read "Orange Technology Patent Application Documents".

When it comes to technology that involves national-level decisions, the sources of information must be verified from multiple sources.

It's impossible that Vice President Lin would submit a report and then the higher-ups would confirm it without proper verification.

Therefore, the electronic patent that Orange Technology applied for a few days ago was easily found in the internal monitoring network of the National Security Bureau.

After that, having clues made things much easier, and the National Security officers skillfully followed the leads.

Starting with the patent, they found Orange Technology, then through some surveillance footage near the agency, they found the copy shop, then the small workshop of Huabei Qiang Orange Technology, and finally found Chen Mo's whereabouts these past few days—Yuantu New Energy Technology Company.

This led to contact with the key middleman, Xu Mingyuan.

"The original documents held by Lin Junfeng of the patent company have been recovered!" The national security personnel circled the geographical location of Nanshan Patent Company on the projector with a laser pointer: "His office computer, external hard drive and copy shop backup have all been physically destroyed."

"But there's a key point."

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing beneath his tie.

"The top-secret information reported by Lin Heming, director of the Standardization Administration, originated from scanned copies of 'Chengxin Copy Shop' in North China. Surveillance footage from that shop five days prior showed that Chen Mo had printed two similar documents there."

Director Huang tapped his finger on the five-point photo of "Chen Mo" on the student registration form sent by the National Security Bureau.

"So both original documents originated from this Chen Mo?"

"Yes! We also retrieved Chen Mo's academic records from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau."

"It was discovered that he had published an SCI graduation thesis in 2008 entitled 'Stress Diffusion Model of Lithium Ion Grain Boundaries,' which was commended by the institute. Lin Heming wanted to make an exception and accept him as his last disciple."

It's important to know that Lin Heming was already the vice dean at the time and basically no longer supervised graduate students, yet he was still willing to make an exception and accept Chen Mo as his last disciple. This was because he valued Chen Mo's rare intuition in model building in the field of lithium batteries.

Now, in that rudimentary laboratory far away, Chen Mo has replicated the environmental control model for synthesizing gaseous electrolytes from gaseous lithium-ion batteries provided by the system in just one day. This is a unique display of his intuitive model-building skills.

How could an ordinary person possibly obtain 100 sets of valid data through 137 experiments?

Many researchers in basic science often use 1370 trial and error attempts as a base before finally selecting 10 sets of valid data.

Of course, this is also due to the readily available reference solutions provided by the system, which saved Chen Mo a lot of time and allowed him to more accurately control the validity of the data.

The national security personnel then pulled up a comparison chart. On the left was Chen Mo's undergraduate thesis, "Lithium-ion Grain Boundary Stress Diffusion Model," and on the right was Lin Heming's "Research on Interface Impedance of Lithium Polymer Batteries," published last year. The overlapping rate of the references highlighted in red reached 37%.

This is somewhat contrary to the natural order, as the supervisor's thesis references his own students.

Director Huang suddenly laughed. "You're a genius! That's good. I was afraid you were just an ordinary person who would come up with something out of nowhere."

If this were a smokescreen thrown from abroad, we wouldn't dare use it.

He tapped his knuckles on the table and pointed at the projector.

"Go on."

"According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's approval records, Lin Heming called his old classmate, Hong Jianjun, the current director of the Administrative Approval Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, three months ago."

"After that, the Shenzhen Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce granted Orange Technology special approval for the research, development, production and sales of smart terminal equipment, the research, development, manufacturing and sales of batteries, and the development and service of Internet of Things technology."

The national security personnel lowered their voices: "According to the normal procedure, the review period for these qualifications is 6-8 months, but Orange Technology only took 21 days from submitting the materials to receiving approval."

The ceiling fan overhead in the conference room emitted a soft hum.

Director Huang stood up to pour tea for the deputy technical leader of the expert group conducting the inspection, the celadon cup clinking against the tray with a clear, melodious sound.

"Old Qi! Do you think this is a case of teacher and student covering for each other, or is there something else going on?"

This is strange. If Lin Heming wants to overturn the existing molten salt power station construction plan, why is he using Xu Mingyuan's name as a scapegoat?
Old Qi, being a technologist, simply reaffirmed the feasibility from a technical perspective. "The technical route of boron nitride polymers—I and the experts on this project have discussed it three times, and it has extremely high feasibility."

"Okay! As long as it's technically feasible!"

Director Huang gazed out the window at the distant ginkgo trees, sunlight filtering through the veins of the leaves and casting a net-like shadow on the faces of the national security personnel.

This isn't because he's cautious, but rather because of the initial situation with Hanxin.
One generation plants the trees so that another can enjoy the shade, but if the previous generation cuts down the trees, then the next generation will naturally be exposed to the scorching sun.

Later generations of researchers always complained about the lack of freedom, saying that their voices carried less weight than those of Director Huang.
Hmm! Who caused this?

"It has been confirmed that the two top-secret documents submitted by Lin Heming are highly overlapping with the gaseous lithium-ion battery patent information that Chen Mo printed at the copy shop."

The National Security personnel switched the projector to display a comparison of two documents, with some key parameters highlighted in red.

"The key parameters in two of the documents have an error of no more than 3%. The expert group has verified that this should be a misleading patent used by the other party for technical protection."

The state security personnel then opened another video. The background sound included the rustling of a copy shop, followed by a male voice, which played until the video finished.

"This is a verbal statement from the copy shop owner, confirming that Chen Mo was the person who copied two original documents of different sizes that contained top-secret information that day."

Director Huang suddenly put down his teacup, the lid collided with the body of the cup, splashing out a few drops of tea.

"What about Lin Heming?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Have you found anything?"

"According to the call records, Lin Heming had not contacted Chen Mo for the past two months, but he did call Academician Jiang two days after printing the materials!"

The timeline of the top-secret documents retrieved by the national security personnel, starting with Chen Mo, was compiled and handed over to the national security authorities.

"But there is currently no evidence to show that he directly passed on information to Academician Jiang."

Director Huang got up and walked to the whiteboard by the back window. He drew a dotted line between "Chen Mo" and "Lin Heming" with a red pen, and then marked a question mark next to Xu Mingyuan on the dotted line.

How did the information end up in Xu Mingyuan's hands?

The whiteboard also has the words "Data" and "Academician Jiang" linked together with different lines, and the logical relationship is partially missing.

"Alright then!" Director Huang ripped off his gloves and tossed them into the drawer. "Tomorrow I'll first visit Academician Jiang, then go ask this Director Lin for a cup of tea!"

Director Huang wasn't conducting an investigation; it was just a simple visit.

"Send three teams to protect Chen Mo 24 hours a day!" Director Huang emphasized. "Remember! Protect him covertly, without him noticing."

If Chen Mo really invented a boron nitride polymer that can keep lithium ions in a gaseous state at room temperature, then it would naturally be a form of protection.

It depends on how you interpret it!
Things are different now than before; the country's laws and regulations have been improved this time.

It's important to understand that every day the molten salt power plant is shut down results in losses in the tens of millions.

Director Huang has no choice but to be cautious!

The nation will not let down any meritorious person, nor will it let go of any swindler who misleads the country and its people.

Just as the national security personnel were about to get up to arrange for someone to secretly protect Chen Mo, Director Huang suddenly stopped them.

"Wait! Give me a copy of the approval documents that Lin Heming helped Orange Technology obtain its qualifications—don't use express delivery, use the internal system."

He tapped his temple: "Some roads must be walked by moonlight, lest we chill the hearts of those who have rendered meritorious service!"

As the director of the New Energy Department, Director Huang naturally hopes that the technology that accelerates the country's new energy layout is real, because it would save so much manpower, material resources, time and money!
To put it mildly, this involves the construction of molten salt power plants worth tens of billions of yuan. To put it more seriously, this new energy five-year plan is not just five years, but the next one, and the one after that. This involves the country's energy strategy worth hundreds of billions of yuan.

Moreover, given Chen's disappointment with the Hanxin chip project, Director Huang naturally became more cautious about these major technological breakthroughs.

It seems that Chen Mo will have to hold up the banner of the Chen family again.

(End of this chapter)