Who would still be a social slave when they are so rich?

"It's almost 10 a.m., why haven't we seen Brother Chen? Is he still sleeping in his room?"

Su Chen was lounging on a recliner in the top-floor office when he saw Chen Fei bring in a plate of sliced ​​and washed fruit. He asked Chen Fei in a lazy manner.

After putting down the fruit plate he was holding at the tea table, Chen Fei smiled and replied, "Boss Xiao got up around 7 a.m., saying he was going to take a stroll around the park. We don't know where he is now. Should we have the guards look for him?"

Upon hearing this, Su Chen raised an eyebrow and a faint smile appeared on his lips.

He didn't believe Xiao Chen would be so free. Even if he were just wandering around, it wouldn't take him several hours.

It must have happened at the shipyard last night. Today, under the guise of taking a stroll, I thought I'd take a good look around the park and research base to see which projects have achieved technological breakthroughs.

If Su Chen wasn't mistaken, Xiao Chen might be at the Xinghai Shipyard right now. He remembered that when he left last night, he specifically instructed Luo Yufan to compile the technologies that the Bai Ze ship could use.

He tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest of the recliner and said softly, "Call the shipyard and ask if Brother Chen went there."

"Just make sure you know his whereabouts, don't worry about anything else or bother him!" Su Chen emphasized at the end.

Chen Fei nodded upon hearing this, took out his phone, walked to the side, found the phone number of the person in charge of the Xinghai Shipyard guard team, and dialed it.

After exchanging a few words in hushed tones, Chen Fei's face revealed a strange expression. After hanging up the phone, he reported to Su Chen, "Sir, how did you know that Boss Xiao would go to the shipyard? I just asked, and he said he would arrive at the shipyard around eight o'clock."

A look of "just as I expected" flashed across Su Chen's face as he casually picked up a glistening grape from the fruit plate: "With Brother Chen's strong sense of responsibility, do you think he could turn a blind eye to the good stuff at the shipyard?"

Leaving aside the power and detection systems on the Bai Ze, the coating alone, which is said to be able to shield all radar waves, was enough to keep Xiao Chen up all night.

Just think about it. If such a large ship can't be detected while sailing on the ocean, wouldn't it be even more undetectable if that coating were applied to an airplane?
Chen Fei nodded thoughtfully. Although he hadn't gone to the shipyard with Su Chen and the others last night, he knew that there were many secrets hidden there.

It's quite normal that Xiao Chen would take it so seriously.

"Dong Dong Dong~"

Just then, there was a knock on the door.

Chen Fei quickly opened the office door and saw Old Man Chen standing outside. He quickly stepped aside and gestured for him to enter, while calling out in Su Chen's direction, "Sir, Professor Chen is here!"

Upon hearing this, Su Chen's smile immediately vanished, replaced by a calm and expressionless demeanor.

Old Chen walked into the office with a smile. When he saw the plate of fresh fruit on the table, his eyes lit up. He plopped down on the sofa opposite Su Chen, picked up the fruit and started eating, muttering, "These grapes are so sweet!"

Seeing Old Man Chen's utterly impolite manner, Su Chen's eyes twitched almost imperceptibly, and he nearly lost his composure, his feigned expression faltering.

He slowly sat up straight, his tone slightly teasing: "Professor Chen, you really have no manners at all. You're a professor, can't you be a little more subtle? If Professor Wu or the others see this, they'll laugh at you."

As they were talking, nearly half of the already scarce grapes in the fruit plate disappeared.

Whether it was because Su Chen's words hit a nerve with Old Man Chen, or because he had gotten the point across, after swallowing the grapes in his mouth, he glared at Su Chen with annoyance: "You little brat, all you do is tease the old man. It's just a few grapes I ate, why are you being so stingy?"

He took a tissue and wiped his hands and mouth, his expression becoming more serious: "Speak, what's the matter that you called the old man over here?"

Seeing Old Chen's "let's get down to business after a good meal" attitude, Su Chen couldn't help but chuckle. Too lazy to beat around the bush, he went straight to the point: "Professor Chen, what is a micro-scale controlled nuclear fusion reactor?"

"If I hadn't passed by Xinghai Shipyard last night and gone in for a look, I wouldn't have known that you were hiding something so important from me."

"A miniature controlled nuclear fusion reactor?"

Old Chen was taken aback when he heard this. He hadn't expected Su Chen to come to him about this matter. He immediately retorted, "What do you mean by keeping it from you? This matter is still in its infancy. What's the use of telling you? Do you think telling you will lead to a rapid breakthrough?"

This made him angry. Ever since he had discussed this matter with Luo Yufan, he had led his team to set up this project because he believed it would be completed in a short time.

However, the actual progress was not as smooth as they had expected.

In particular, the most crucial superconducting tokamak device, which serves as a toroidal container for controlled nuclear fusion through magnetic confinement and vacuum insulation, is the first hurdle they face.

Only by reducing the size of the superconducting tokamak device can the miniaturization of controlled nuclear fusion reactors be achieved.

But they were also feeling their way across the river, even though they had all the technologies for controlled nuclear fusion, miniaturization was something they had to do from scratch.

"Uh~" Su Chen didn't expect Old Man Chen to be so emotional, and tentatively asked, "Do you mean that miniaturization is still stagnant?"

Old Chen craned his neck, wanting to refute, but the words wouldn't come out, because that was the truth.

"Sigh~" Old Chen sighed deeply, looking like he had lost a battle, and helplessly lowered his head: "That's right, just as you said, the miniaturization project is indeed still stuck in the same place. Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a new concept, we can only stay at the miniaturization stage."

To be honest, miniaturized controlled nuclear fusion reactors have been ahead of the world for many years. For now, miniaturized controlled nuclear fusion reactors are sufficient.

Even if the world's top research institutes were given ten or twenty years, they might not be able to achieve controlled nuclear fusion, let alone miniaturize it!

Looking at Old Man Chen's unusually dejected appearance, Su Chen tapped his fingertips lightly on the armrest twice, while making a difficult decision in his mind.

"Should I have obtained the data on the Cheng Ying combat mech beforehand?"

Previously, when Su Chen was looking at information about the Cheng Ying combat mech, he paid special attention to its power system, which was a miniature controlled nuclear fusion reactor.

Su Chen quickly dismissed the idea, knowing it wasn't the best time yet; sometimes taking too big a step can backfire. However, while Su Chen couldn't provide the data on the Cheng Ying combat mech, he could offer Old Man Chen a research direction based on the relevant information.

With this in mind, Su Chen's thoughts turned to the system, and he quickly pulled up the information about the Cheng Ying combat mech, browsing through it at a glance.

The room fell silent as Su Chen remained silent, and even Old Man Chen sat quietly on the sofa without making a move.

After about three to five minutes, Su Chen suddenly stopped tapping on the armrest, a faint smile appearing in his slightly closed eyes. He looked up at Old Man Chen and asked, "Professor Chen, has your team fallen into a fixed mindset of 'materials first'?"

Upon hearing this, Old Man Chen abruptly looked up at Su Chen, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes as if he had been caught out. He then frowned and said, "Young Su, what do you mean by that? To shrink a superconducting tokamak, the magnetic field strength and confinement precision must be increased exponentially. If we don't seek breakthroughs in new materials, is there any other way?"

"Paths are forged through walking!" Su Chen stood up, walked to the massive platform, and looked down at the rows of research bases in the distance. "Perhaps the future of micro-scale controlled nuclear fusion lies not in the materials themselves, but in their structure!"

“The technology we have now is like a perfect textbook, which has taught me the ‘standard answer’, but miniaturization is an application problem that goes beyond the textbook. Have you ever thought about abandoning the traditional ring structure?”

"Abandon the toroidal structure?" Old Chen's voice rose eight octaves instantly, as if he had heard something out of the blue. "If a tokamak device doesn't use a toroidal structure, then what does it use? Are we going to use a spherical, unstable structure?"

“Why can’t it be spherical?” Su Chen turned around and looked calmly at Old Man Chen. “Or perhaps, a structure we’ve never even imagined! What we need to do is think outside the box, instead of being confined to our original way of thinking. Even the tokamak structure was developed through research, wasn’t it?”

"Why can't we develop a new structure?"

Su Chen's words were like a flash of lightning in the darkness, instantly exciting Old Man Chen. He slapped his left palm hard with his right hand: "Su boy, you're right! We've all fallen into the trap of conventional thinking! We've been thinking about how to shrink the ring while maintaining its performance, but we've never considered that maybe we don't even need a ring at all!"

He stood up excitedly and paced back and forth in his office, muttering to himself, "Spherical. Or toroidal? Using the superposition of magnetic field effects to compensate for the loss of constraint force caused by structural changes requires recalculating the plasma pattern. Yes, yes! We might also need to introduce nonlinearity."

Seeing Old Man Chen lost in deep thought, Su Chen smiled almost imperceptibly, quietly sat back in his recliner, and leisurely began to eat grapes.

Soon, Old Chen snapped out of his thoughts and said to Su Chen on the recliner, "I have some ideas now. I'm going back to the research base first. If I succeed, I'll contact you as soon as possible!"

After saying that, without giving Su Chen a chance to speak, she opened the office door and ran away.

Watching the old man's hurried departure, Chen Fei couldn't help but laugh and say, "Sir, Professor Chen's personality is truly decisive and efficient."

Su Chen put the last grape in his mouth, slowly wiped his hands, and then replied, "Sometimes, scientific researchers need this kind of drive. A spark of inspiration can be the key to a breakthrough."

"By the way..." Su Chen changed the subject, looking at the half-empty fruit plate on the table and asking, "Did you specially buy those grapes we just ate?"

Chen Fei scratched his head sheepishly and laughed, "Hehe~ I was just thinking that you guys would be staying in the park for a few days, so I thought I'd get some fruit to eat."

"I originally planned to get some fruit from the cafeteria, but when I got there I found that the cafeteria only had apples and bananas. So I drove around the city and bought some fruit from the market."

Su Chen nodded thoughtfully. As for Chen Fei's claim that the fruit was just something he bought casually from the market, he didn't believe it at all. Just based on the grapes he ate, they weren't the cheap kind.

"The cafeteria can't just have apples and bananas!" Su Chen hadn't forgotten how Old Man Chen ate grapes earlier, and he was craving them after not having any for a while. "Later, tell Xiao Peng to have as many kinds of fruit as possible, especially seasonal fruits. We can buy them for everyone to try. It won't cost much in a month!"

"Understood, sir! I'll go tell Xiao Peng in a bit!" Chen Fei glanced at the time; it was already noon. He quickly asked, "Sir, it's lunchtime now. Would you like to go to the cafeteria or have it delivered to your office? Also, should we call Boss Xiao to ask about him?"

"Is it already twelve o'clock?" Su Chen picked up his phone from the table and glanced at it. Sure enough, it was already twelve o'clock. He hadn't expected to chat with Old Man Chen for two hours.

"Have the cafeteria deliver it to your office. As for Brother Chen... I'll call him and ask if he's coming back to the park for dinner!" With that, Su Chen found Xiao Chen's number and dialed it directly.

I thought the call would connect quickly, but the phone rang until it automatically disconnected, and Xiao Chen on the other end didn't answer.

Now it was Su Chen's turn to be confused. He wondered what Xiao Chen was doing and why he wasn't answering the phone.

Thinking that it might be too noisy at Dock One, Xiao Chen didn't hear the ringtone, so he pressed the button again and dialed.

The phone rang for about twenty seconds. Seeing that there was still no chance of answering, Su Chen was about to hang up when Xiao Chen's voice came from the other end: "Old Su, is there something you need?"

Hearing the excitement in Xiao Chen's voice on the phone, I subconsciously asked, "It's almost noon. I called you twice before you answered, asking if you were coming home for lunch. What are you busy with at the shipyard?"

Upon hearing this topic, Xiao Chen on the other end of the phone instantly became excited, his voice rising several octaves: "Hahaha~ I'm busy right now! Didn't you and Engineer Luo talk about how amazing that coating is last night? I tested it out here!"

Upon hearing this, Su Chen raised an eyebrow slightly, realizing that his previous guess had indeed come true. He smiled and asked, "So, how were your test results?"

"Great! Excellent!" Xiao Chen's excited voice trembled through the receiver. "This morning we conducted a simple experiment with a small speedboat. Using the park's most advanced radar system, the speedboat was traveling at full speed three kilometers away, and the radar screen was completely clean—not a single shadow! If this were applied to real combat..."

He paused, lowered his voice slightly, but couldn't hide his excitement: "Old Su, this technology is crucial. I'm discussing with Luo Gong to see if we can do a few more experiments this afternoon and try other aspects to get the most detailed data. I won't be back for lunch; I'll just stay here at the shipyard for a couple of meals!"

Seeing that Xiao Chen's mind was focused on the shipyard, Su Chen didn't say anything more.

"Okay, then you go ahead and get busy, I won't bother you anymore!" Su Chen casually gave a couple of instructions and hung up the phone.

He casually tossed his phone onto the table and looked at Chen Fei beside him: "You heard it too, Brother Chen is busy at the shipyard, so it's just the two of us for lunch!"

Chen Fei nodded and walked towards the door, saying, "I'll go and have the cafeteria send the food up."

After Chen Fei left, Su Chen leisurely lay on the recliner with his legs propped up on the table, murmuring softly, "I guess Brother Chen will be busy these few days, and I can finally relax for a few days."

"How about we go to the city center after lunch to relax and take a bath? This Zheng Island is in Northeast China, so its bathing culture should be authentic, right?" (End of Chapter)