Rejecting Tsinghua and Peking Universities: I Will Lead Harbin Institute of Technology to World Lead

Lin Feng carefully placed the red certificate into a hidden compartment of his suitcase, alongside the notes filled with core formulas. He didn't glance at it again, nor did he intend to linger.

The honors have been bestowed upon us, but the road ahead is even longer.

At this moment, he was clearer than ever: those four words were not the end, but a new starting line. The supreme recognition bestowed by the nation meant that the expectations on his shoulders were heavier, and the difficulties he needed to overcome were more numerous.

He took out his phone and dialed Zhao Weiguo's number: "Brother Zhao, I'm waiting for you at the main gate. We'll go back to Harbin Institute of Technology immediately."

"Yes, Mr. Lin," Zhao Weiguo replied crisply.

Fifteen minutes later, a black sedan drove out of the solemn courtyard and merged into the traffic of Beijing.

Airport, VIP lounge, flight taking off.

Three hours later, the plane landed at Harbin Taiping Airport.

Lin Feng didn't go back to his dormitory, but instead knocked on the door of Principal Tang Guohong's office.

"Principal, I need help." Lin Feng got straight to the point, his eyes flashing with a long-lost sharpness. "I need all the theoretical information I can find about aircraft carriers and various fighter jets—the more detailed and cutting-edge the better."

Tang Guohong was reviewing documents when he heard this. He looked up and adjusted his reading glasses. He didn't ask why; he had already received instructions from Old Chen to satisfy all of Lin Feng's reasonable requests as much as possible: "Okay."

One word is enough.

Over the next three days, Harbin Institute of Technology quietly began to operate. Documents marked as top secret or internal were collected, organized, and copied through special channels, and finally delivered to Lin Feng.

When Tang Guohong personally carried a stack of documents half his height and knocked on Lin Feng's apartment door, even this seasoned principal, who had seen it all, couldn't help but exclaim, "Xiao Feng, this is almost thirty years' worth of accumulated knowledge in this field in China. Some of it I don't even have permission to view."

Lin Feng took the heavy box, his fingertips brushing against the yellowed pages and the brand-new encrypted USB drive, and bowed solemnly: "Thank you, Principal."

The door closed behind me.

The world was isolated.

Lin Feng locked the door and drew the curtains. The desk was cleared, with documents neatly categorized and spread across the entire surface, even extending to the floor. He stood in the center of the documents, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

Then, I opened my eyes.

"Photographic memory" activated.

"Multitasking" is now activated.

"Learn by analogy" – let's begin.

The skills granted by the three systems operated simultaneously, his brain functioning like a high-performance supercomputer at full power. His gaze swept across the pages, text, formulas, and charts flooding his mind, instantly analyzed, stored, and connected. His left hand flipped through aircraft carrier structural diagrams, while his right hand sketched aerodynamic models; his left brain deduced the parameters of the nuclear power system, while his right brain calculated the proportions of stealth coating materials.

Time has lost its meaning.

The sky outside the window brightened and darkened again, then brightened again. Zhao Weiguo, the food deliveryman, would place the lunchboxes at the door, and the meals he took were often untouched, cold. Listening to the incessant rustling of papers and the clatter of keyboards from inside, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper.

On the thirteenth day, Zhao Weiguo could no longer sit still.

He knocked on the door three times, but only one "Come in" came from inside. The moment he pushed the door open, Zhao Weiguo was stunned by the scene before him—Lin Feng was sitting amidst a mountain of documents, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks sunken, but his gaze was frighteningly bright, like two burning flames.

"Mr. Lin, you must rest." Zhao Weiguo's voice was firm and resolute.

Lin Feng didn't even look up, his fingers flying across the keyboard: "The last part, I'll go to sleep after I finish reading it."

However, after the last part comes another last part.

On the seventeenth day, Zhao Weiguo dialed Tang Guohong's number.

That afternoon, Tang Guohong pushed open the apartment door. The old principal looked at Lin Feng, who was almost emaciated but still had bright eyes, feeling both heartache and anger. He strode forward and slammed the laptop in front of Lin Feng shut.

"Principal Tang?" Lin Feng looked up blankly, his eyes still somewhat unfocused.

"Look at yourself now!" Tang Guohong's voice was unusually stern. "Sleeping only two hours a day for seventeen days straight! Are you made of iron? Scientific research is a marathon, not a suicidal sprint!"

"I'm fine..."

"Nothing wrong?" Tang Guohong pointed at his face. "Look in the mirror! Zhao Weiguo, from now on, you keep an eye on his rest. He needs at least six hours of sleep every day and to eat on time. If he doesn't listen—" The old principal turned to Lin Feng, emphasizing each word, "I will take back all the data and suspend all your research privileges. I mean what I say."

Lin Feng opened his mouth, then finally gave a wry smile: "I promise you, Principal."

After Tang Guohong left, Zhao Weiguo strictly carried out his guardianship duties. At first, Lin Feng tried to bargain, but Zhao Weiguo remained unmoved, even moving a chair to sit at the study doorway. After several exchanges, Lin Feng gave in and was forced to adopt a regular schedule: six hours of sleep, three meals a day on time, and a short nap at noon.

Exhaustion washed over him like a tidal wave, and he slept soundly for the first time in three days.

After resting, Lin Feng was even more efficient. His clear mind allowed him to connect fragments of knowledge more quickly, and his ability to draw inferences extended to deeper dimensions. He saw shortcomings in existing materials, deduced potential failures from successful cases, and even began to construct frameworks that existing theories had not yet touched upon.

A whole month.

As the last page of information was closed and the last encrypted file was decoded and absorbed, Lin Feng slowly leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

In my mind, an ocean of knowledge has already taken shape.

Regarding aircraft carriers: from wooden decks during World War II, to steam catapults during the Cold War, and now to electromagnetic catapults, nuclear power, and all-electric propulsion... Seventy years of development, tens of thousands of technological milestones, and countless experiences of failure and success have all been accumulated.

Regarding fighter jets: from propellers to jet engines, from subsonic to supersonic speeds, from the mechanical transmission of third-generation fighters to the statically unstable design of fourth-generation fighters, and then to the stealth and beyond-visual-range attack capabilities of fifth-generation fighters... the aerodynamic mysteries, material breakthroughs, and avionics revolutions behind each leap forward are all thoroughly understood.

But that's not enough.

His ability to apply knowledge to new situations allowed him to continuously generate new ideas while absorbing new knowledge: What if plasma stealth coatings were used to replace composite materials? What if aircraft carriers adopted a twin-island design to improve operational efficiency? What if fighter jet engines incorporated a variable-cycle concept to achieve all-domain superiority?

Ideas grew wildly like weeds.

it's time.

Lin Feng opened his eyes, his gaze sparkling like a galaxy. With a slight thought, the system space unfolded deep within his consciousness.

This time, the space was divided in two.

On the left, above a vast blue virtual ocean, the keel of a colossal ship is slowly taking shape. Its hull lines are sleek and majestic, its deck as wide as land—this is the Kunpeng. On the right, in a high-speed wind tunnel, the silhouette of a sharply styled, dark-colored fighter jet is appearing and disappearing in the airflow—this is the Zhuque, the prototype of a sixth-generation fighter jet.

Multitasking, full power!

His consciousness was simultaneously projected into two spaces. On the left, he embodied the chief engineer, directing his virtual team to weld the keel, lay pipelines, and debug the reactor. Did the location of the carrier-based aircraft elevator need optimization? Seven improvement plans immediately surfaced in his mind, undergoing parallel simulation and verification.

On the right, he transformed into the chief designer, adjusting the sweep angle of the fighter jet's wings, calculating the energy consumption curve of the plasma stealth layer, and optimizing the opening and closing mechanism of the internal weapons bay. A conflict arose between aerodynamic layout and stealth requirements? He immediately invoked data from hundreds of historical test flights to construct a new multi-objective optimization algorithm.

failure.

failure.

Another failure.

In the simulation, the aircraft carrier's nuclear reactor overheats and melts during an extreme test, and a virtual alarm sounds piercingly; the fighter jet's fuselage disintegrates at an extreme speed exceeding Mach 17, with fragments scattering like fireworks.

In the real world, fine beads of sweat appeared on Lin Feng's forehead, but his eyes remained unchanged. He calmly erased the failed data, adjusted the parameters, and started over.

Time flew by in the frenzied simulation.

The seventy-third day.

To the left of the system space, the virtual ocean is calm and undisturbed. A steel behemoth floats silently, its streamlined hull gleaming with a cold metallic sheen. The full-length deck stretches as far as the eye can see, and the integrated island superstructure houses all the sensing and command systems. It is no longer just a frame, but a complete, sophisticated, and terrifying war fortress—the Kunpeng aircraft carrier, with a 100% simulation completion rate.

On the right, inside the high-speed wind tunnel, the shadowy fighter jet was conducting its final full envelope test. Acceleration from zero to Mach 5 was as smooth as breathing; the plasma stealth layer was perfectly dissolved by radar waves; and the AI-powered flight control system executed an unbelievable Herbst maneuver, instantly escaping the lock of twelve virtual missiles.

The sixth-generation Suzaku aerospace fighter jet has a simulation completion rate of 62%.

It's not perfect yet, but the core framework is already unbreakable.

Lin Feng slowly exited the system space and opened his eyes.

Three months.

The Kunpeng has already taken shape, and the Vermilion Bird is about to spread its wings.