Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

Base 504, seven floors underground.

This is a place even deeper than the final assembly workshop.

At the end of a long corridor stood a lead door half a meter thick. A huge yellow skull and crossbones symbol was painted on the door, and a chilling red light shone beside it.

"Code name 'Deep Well'".

This is where nuclear materials are stored and "aged".

The freshly pressed lithium deuteride hemispheres may appear flawless, but they are actually filled with residual stress caused by high pressure. If these stresses are not released through prolonged constant-temperature aging, they could spontaneously shatter like a piece of tempered glass at any time.

To increase the explosive power, a certain proportion of tritium gas was also added to these hemispheres.

If it ruptures, highly toxic and radioactive tritium gas will leak out.

"Beep—beep—beep—"

A piercing alarm suddenly blared in the silent underground corridor.

"Alert! Radiation levels in Well No. 3 exceed safe limits!"

"Tritium concentration... has risen! It has reached a lethal dose!"

"Automatic lockdown activated! Countdown: 60 seconds!"

In the monitoring room, Old Zhao, who was on duty, turned pale instantly. The teacup in his hand fell to the ground and shattered.

"It's over... it's over..."

Old Zhao stared at the frantically flashing red dot on the screen, his voice trembling, "Well No. 3... that's the 'No. 1 siege tank' that was just put in! That's the culmination of our six months of hard work!"

If the automatic sealing procedure is activated, tons of cement and lead powder will be poured into the well, sealing everything inside.

That precious hydrogen bomb core will forever become a pile of scrap.

"It can't be shut down! It absolutely cannot be shut down!"

Old Zhao rushed to the control panel, wanting to press the cancel button.

"Engineer Zhao! This won't do!" The safety officer beside him clung tightly to him. "The radiation levels inside are off the charts! Going in now is suicide! If the gas leaks to the upper levels, the entire base will have to be evacuated!"

"We can't just watch it go to waste!" Old Zhao was so anxious that tears welled up in his eyes.

Just when things were in complete chaos...

"Click".

An emergency overdrive switch on the console was pressed down by a hand.

The countdown has stopped.

Old Zhao turned around and saw Su Zheng walking in at some point.

Su Zheng was wearing an ordinary white lab coat, his face as calm as a still lake.

"Dean Su! What...what are you doing?!"

"I'll go in."

Su Zheng said calmly.

"What?!"

Old Zhao and the safety officer screamed simultaneously, "Are you crazy?! It's full of tritium gas in there! Even wearing heavy protective suits can't stop that highly penetrating gas! And..."

"And what?"

"And we have no idea where the leak is!" Old Zhao pointed despairingly at the monitor screen, which showed only static. "Inside is a large tank ten meters in diameter, and the crack is probably only as thin as a hair. In this high-radiation environment, there's simply no time to look for it!"

"No need to look."

Su Zheng took off his white coat and walked towards the changing room.

"I know where it is."

……

Five minutes later.

Su Zheng put on a bulky, fully enclosed hazmat suit.

He modified the suit himself, adding a special boron-containing polyethylene material to the lining, which can effectively block neutron flux.

"Open the isolation door."

Su Zheng stood in front of the huge lead door and spoke into the walkie-talkie.

"Dean Su..." Old Zhao's voice trembled with tears, "Please reconsider..."

"Open the door."

Su Zheng's voice was unquestionable.

"Boom!"

The lead door slowly rose.

An invisible aura of death swept over us.

But in Su Zheng's "Eye of Truth," it is not invisible.

It was a dazzling yet eerie purple mist.

They seemed to be alive, tumbling and spreading in the air, trying to find every crack to squeeze out.

Su Zheng took a deep breath (of course, he was breathing in the air from the oxygen tank) and stepped inside.

The heavy lead door closed slowly behind him.

The world is quiet.

All that remained was his heavy breathing and the dense buzzing of the Geiger counter.

This is a corridor leading to hell.

On the wall, warning lights flashed a blood-red light.

Su Zheng walked very slowly and steadily.

His gaze pierced through the purple mist and locked onto the circular well at the end of the corridor.

That's Well No. 3.

That is, the source of the leak.

[WARNING: Ambient radiation level: 500 roentgens/hour.]

[Suggested stay: No more than 10 minutes.]

The system's red warning box is flashing on my retina.

Su Zheng ignored him.

He walked to the edge of the well and looked down into the well through the thick lead glass observation window.

That pristine white lithium deuteride hemisphere lay quietly on the temperature-controlled rack.

The surface still looks as smooth as a mirror.

But in Su Zheng's microscopic view, a crack as thin as a spider's thread, like a venomous snake, meandered upwards from the bottom of the hemisphere.

Purple tritium gas was continuously gushing out from this crack.

"Found it."

Su Zheng said in a low voice.

The crack was in a tricky location, near the bottom support point. If using conventional instruments for flaw detection, it would take at least half an hour to find it.

But for Su Zheng, all it took was one glance.

"The problem is... how do we create traffic jams?"

Su Zheng frowned.

This crack was caused by stress release. If you try to seal it with glue, the internal pressure will continue to increase, and it may eventually burst open.

The stress must be released before sealing.

"Old Zhao." Su Zheng pressed the intercom.

"Yes! I'm here!"

"Raise the temperature at the bottom of the well."

"Huh? Raise it?" Old Zhao thought he misheard. "Dean Su, we should lower the temperature now! A higher temperature will cause a more violent reaction!"

"Listen to me."

Su Zheng calmly ordered, "Set it to 80 degrees. Quickly!"

"……yes!"

Although he didn't understand, Lao Zhao blindly trusted Su Zheng and did as he was told.

The heating wire at the bottom of the well started working.

The thermometer reading began to rise.

Su Zheng stared intently at the crack.

As the temperature rises, the lithium deuteride material begins to expand slightly.

Due to thermal expansion and contraction, the hemisphere stretched like a person yawning, slowly loosening its muscles and bones.

"Click...click..."

The barely perceptible cracking sound stopped.

The crack did not continue to widen; instead, it closed slightly due to the expansion of the material.

"Now!"

A glint of light flashed in Su Zheng's eyes.

He suddenly opened the maintenance hatch at the wellhead and crawled inside.

Directly facing the radiation source!

[WARNING! WARNING! Radiation levels have surged to 2000 roentgens!]

The system alarms sounded almost in a continuous line.

Su Zheng felt a stinging sensation on his skin. It was high-energy particles penetrating his protective suit and bombarding his body.

But he did not back down.

He pulled something that looked like a glue gun from the tool bag at his waist.

What's inside is his specially made "liquid lead-boron polymer".

It can both block and shield radiation.

Su Zheng lay on the edge of the well, with most of his body submerged in it.

His hands were as steady as a mountain.

The nozzle of the glue gun was precisely aimed at the thin crack.

"Sizzle—"

A silvery-gray liquid gushed out and covered the surface of the crack.

This polymer solidifies rapidly upon contact with moisture in the air, forming a hard yet resilient film.

layer.

Two layers.

Su Zheng was like a surgeon stitching up a wound, applying layers of ointment and reinforcing it layer by layer.

The purple mist finally stopped gushing out.

The leak has been plugged.

"call……"

Su Zheng breathed a sigh of relief.

But he did not leave immediately.

He had one last step to take.

"Old Zhao, the temperature is starting to drop."

"Slowly lower it to room temperature at a rate of 0.5 degrees per minute."

This was an "on-site annealing".

By utilizing the heating just now and the slow cooling now, the residual stress inside the material is completely eliminated.

If this step is not taken, the crack will reopen after the sealant hardens.

Su Zheng lay there by the well, staring intently without moving.

ten minutes.

twenty minutes.

The radiation was eroding his body. Although the system was frantically repairing itself, the deep-seated fatigue still made him feel dizzy from time to time.

at last.

The temperature dropped to 25 degrees Celsius.

The crack completely disappeared. The hemisphere returned to its perfect shape once more.

"alright."

Su struggled to climb out of the maintenance bay and closed the door.

"Alarm over."

He spoke into the walkie-talkie.

"Turn on the ventilation system. Extract the dirty air from inside."

……

When Su Zheng walked out of the lead door, Old Zhao and several doctors were already waiting at the door.

"Quickly! A stretcher!"

Old Zhao rushed over to help him up.

"Don't touch me."

Su Zheng waved his hand, took off the heavily contaminated protective suit himself, and threw it into the special recycling bin.

"I'm fine."

Although Su Zheng's face was pale, his eyes were still bright. "Just go take a shower."

"Dean Su..." Old Zhao looked at Su Zheng's hair, soaked with sweat, and choked up, unable to speak. "You...you're risking your life for ammunition!"

"life?"

Su Zheng smiled.

"My life is my life, and that 'lump of coal' is also my life."

"It is the result of the hard work of tens of thousands of people, and it is the lifeblood of our nation."

"As long as it's okay, what does it matter if I lose a few strands of hair?"

……

Inside the decontamination room.

Hot water washed over Su Zheng's body.

He looked at himself in the mirror. There were some red spots on his skin, the marks left by radiation.

However, with the system's repair, these spots are fading at a visible rate.

"This time it's a bit risky."

Su Zheng thought to himself.

If it weren't for the system, that dose of 2000 roentgens would have severely injured him, if not killed him.

However, the trip was not in vain.

Through his observation using the "eye of truth," he discovered the root cause of the cracks in lithium deuteride.

It's not about uneven pressure.

It is "humidity".

During the pressing process, although it was carried out under protective gas, a trace amount of moisture still got mixed in. This moisture formed tiny bubbles inside, becoming a source of stress concentration.

"Looks like we need to get something even more powerful."

Su Zheng dried himself off and changed his clothes.

He walked out of the decontamination room and went straight to the design studio.

Ye Xinyi was waiting for him there, her eyes red-rimmed.

"You can say whatever you want to me when you get back."

Su Zheng quickly silenced her with a kiss, saying, "Let's get back to work."

He picked up a pen and drew a complex sketch of the equipment on the drawing board.

"What is this?" Ye Xinyi sniffed and asked curiously.

"Vacuum inert gas glove box".

Su Zheng explained, "All future fusion material processing must be carried out in this box. We need to control the ambient humidity to below one part per million."

"Also," Su Zheng pointed to a corner of the drawing, "the processing technology needs to be changed. It can't be pressed into shape all at once; it needs to be pressed in layers, like making a mille-feuille."

"This can completely eliminate internal stress."

Ye Xinyi looked at the blueprints, then at Su Zheng's slightly tired but radiant face.

She suddenly didn't want to scold him anymore.

All she wanted was to hug him.

"Su Zheng".

"Um?"

"You're a madman."

"I know."

Su Zheng smiled and reached out to ruffle her hair.

"No madness, no life."

"If you want to pluck that brightest star, how can you do it without putting in your best effort?"

……

With the implementation of the new process, the quality problems of the core components of the hydrogen bomb have finally been completely solved.

One by one, perfect "passive" parts were manufactured and sent to the final assembly workshop.

but.

Just when everyone thought the mission was accomplished.

A new crisis is quietly approaching.

This time, it wasn't from the equipment or the materials.

It comes from... people.

In the base's logistics department, a usually quiet and diligent cleaner has recently become somewhat "abnormal".

He often spent long periods of time alone late at night, pushing a garbage cart, at the garbage station near the core computer room.

And there seemed to be something hidden at the bottom of his garbage truck.

That was... a miniature radio transmitter.