Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

The workshop was packed with people on the day the prototype was lifted onto the platform.

Ma Yuejin stood in front of the control panel, his palms sweaty. He wiped his hands on his pants, then wiped them again. Li Zhiming squatted beside the tank, the beam of his flashlight sliding from the tank wall to the bottom, shining it back and forth three times, afraid of missing any cracks.

He Yuzhu stood at the back of the crowd and did not move forward.

Old Lu squeezed in and lowered his voice: "Commander, will this thing even work?"

He Yuzhu remained silent.

Yang Xiaobing chimed in from the side: "Whether it succeeds or not, we have to try. We'll only know after we try."

Ma Yuejin glanced back and saw He Yuzhu standing behind him. He took a deep breath, turned around, and nodded to the operator.

"start."

The motor started up with a humming sound, and the entire platform began to vibrate. The flywheel spun faster and faster, and the belt slapped against the ground.

boom--

At the first ignition, everyone in the workshop shrank back.

The cylinder vibrated violently, and the pointers on the nearby instruments jumped wildly. Ma Yuejin stared at the pressure gauge, not daring to blink.

One hundred, two hundred, three hundred...

When the pointer reached 480, it jumped.

Ma Yuejin's heart skipped a beat.

Before he could speak, a muffled sound came from inside the cylinder—not the sound of normal operation, but the kind of muffled sound that was trapped inside and pushing outwards.

"No!" Li Zhiming had just stood up.

laugh--

A crack appeared in the cylinder block, and high-pressure gas, carrying a burnt smell, spewed out. The instruments rattled, some people jumped back, and others shouted, "Stop!"

Ma Yuejin slammed his hand on the stop button.

The motor stopped. The flywheel slowly came to a stop. The workshop suddenly fell silent, with only the lingering smell of burning flesh remaining.

Everyone stared at the cylinder.

A crack ran from the mouth of the vat all the way to the bottom, like a black centipede lying there.

Li Zhiming squatted down, reached out and touched the crack, then pulled back.

"It's ruined."

He squatted there, his hands on the ground, and didn't stand up for a long time.

Yang Xiaobing opened his mouth, as if to say something, but didn't say anything.

Old Lu sighed from behind. His voice wasn't loud, but the room was so quiet that everyone heard it.

Ma Yuejin stood there, motionless.

He Yuzhu stepped out from behind the crowd, walked to the tank, squatted down, and examined the crack. He touched the broken surface with his hand, then stood up.

"What are you all standing there for?" His voice wasn't loud, but everyone heard him. "Whether to cry or laugh, we'll talk about that after we find out what's wrong. Now, go do what you were doing."

The crowd slowly dispersed. Some people lowered their heads, some muttered to themselves, and some glanced back at the vat with complicated expressions.

Ma Yuejin was still standing there.

He Yuzhu looked at him.

"What are you thinking about?"

Ma Yuejin shook his head.

"I don't know what went wrong."

He Yuzhu didn't say anything and walked towards the office. After taking a few steps, he turned back.

"Have a debriefing meeting tonight. Call all your people."

At 7 p.m., the conference room was full of people.

Ma Yuejin, Li Zhiming, Sun Fulai, Zhou Guoqiang, Wang Erzhu, and a few other newcomers surrounded a long table. Several others stood behind, leaning against the wall with their arms crossed, their expressions unpleasant.

He Yuzhu sat in the main seat, with a stack of data in front of him.

"Tell me. What's the problem?"

Ma Yuejin spoke first: "The cylinder material. We used the same formula as the first version, and the heat treatment was also the same. But the first version didn't crack this badly."

Li Zhiming chimed in, "Could it be a design flaw? Are the cylinder walls too thin?"

Sun Fulai shook his head: "The design is based on the data, and it's exactly the same as what's in there."

Zhou Guoqiang, flipping through data beside him, said, "When the pressure reaches 500, the temperature rises particularly quickly. It's probably related to the cooling system."

Everyone was talking at once, saying all sorts of things.

He Yuzhu remained silent and went through the data.

He stood up.

That's all for today. Go back and review your respective sections. We'll resume the meeting at this time tomorrow.

The people dispersed.

He Yuzhu sat alone in the conference room and brought up the system interface.

Internal Combustion Engine Troubleshooting Kit (Advanced)

[Includes: Material failure analysis, thermodynamic simulation, stress calculation, and metallographic analysis of fracture surfaces]

[Redeemable Points: 800,000]

He stared at the line of text for a few seconds.

Five hundred thousand points. This was the first time he had ever redeemed something so expensive.

He nodded.

[Redeem successful. Points consumed: 500,000]

Current points: 45,380,000

He retrieved the stack of documents from the system space; it was quite thick. He flipped to the chapter on material failure analysis and found the section on cylinder block cracks.

"Cause of cracking: Improper heat treatment of the material. The cooling rate was too fast, leading to stress concentration. It is recommended to adjust the cooling curve and extend the holding time."

He read the line of text twice.

Improper heat treatment.

It's not the formula, it's not the design, it's the process.

He closed the document, stood up, and walked to the window.

It was pitch black outside the window; I couldn't see anything.

The next morning, He Yuzhu called Ma Yuejin to his office.

"The problem with the materials has been found."

Ma Yuejin was stunned for a moment.

"What's the problem?"

"Heat treatment. The cooling rate was too fast, causing internal stress concentration."

Ma Yuejin opened his mouth.

"Then... what should we do?"

He Yuzhu handed him a piece of paper.

"These are the adjusted process parameters I wrote. Take them and try them out."

Ma Yuejin took it, glanced at it, and saw the paper covered with dense numbers and curves.

"Dean, is this thing accurate?"

He Yuzhu looked at him.

"You'll only know once you try."

Ma Yuejin nodded and turned to leave. But as he reached the door, he turned back.

"Dean, there's something I need to tell you. Li Zhiming... he's been talking about it a lot these past few days, saying he wants to go to Harbin to learn something. They've been working on internal combustion engines there longer than we have, so they have experience. I know it's not the right time now, but with his personality, once he gets into something, he can't get out."

He Yuzhu paused for a moment.

"Not now."

Ma Yuejin was taken aback: "Why?"

He Yuzhu remained silent for a while.

"Zhiming is technically skilled, but he oversimplifies things. Harbin isn't a place you can go just because you have technical skills. Tell him to stay put and figure out this tank in front of him. Learning isn't about how far you travel, it's about whether your mind is calm."

Ma Yuejin listened without asking any more questions, then pushed open the door and left.

He Yuzhu sat there, looking out the window.

There are Soviet experts in Harbin.

But Zheng Huaiyuan and his group were also keeping an eye on it.

Go to study? Study what? Study with whom?

He stood up, walked to the wall, and looked at the power map. Zheng Huaiyuan was still there, but Old Man Tong had run away.

At this time, any contact with others outside the home carries a risk.

He turned around, picked up the phone, and dialed Lao Sun's number.

"Help me look up someone. Li Zhiming, from the lab."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone: "How far have you gotten in the investigation?"

He Yuzhu looked out the window.

"Get to the bottom of it."