78: Bringing his wife and children to Harbin Institute of Technology

On the day of departure, Liu Xiaojun was waiting at the factory gate early in the morning.

He was wearing a new blue work uniform, and the white handkerchief was still folded in his pocket.

He was wearing a new pair of cloth shoes, with white soles.

"Uncle Ye, I'm not late, am I?"

"No, the car won't arrive for another hour."

Liu Xiaojun breathed a sigh of relief and took out a piece of paper from his pocket, which was covered with dense writing.

Ye Bingwen glanced at it.

"What is this?"

"I wrote down all the questions so that I can just read them aloud if an expert asks them."

Ye Bingwen looked at Liu Xiaojun and joked.

"Can the experts ask the same questions you copied?"

"Pretty much, right? There are only a few things about machines."

Chen An walked out of the factory, carrying a backpack and a file folder in his hand.

"Director Ye, let's go."

The three of them rode their bicycles to the train station.

When they arrived at the station, Zheng Shuyun was already waiting there, carrying a bag in her hand.

"Inside are slides, materials, drafts, and a change of clothes. Oh, and An'an asked you to remember to bring back a gift."

"understood."

Ye Bingwen took the bag.

Zheng Shuyun looked at Liu Xiaojun.

"Don't be nervous, your manuscript is already very good."

"Sister-in-law, what if I mess up my speech..."

"If you mess up the presentation, come back and practice some more. Go again next time."

Rumble, the train started moving.

The three people sat on the hard seats.

Everyone was busy.

Chen An checked the documents and materials again.

Liu Xiaojun continued to familiarize himself with his manuscript.

Ye Bingwen closed his eyes to conserve his energy.

After an unknown amount of time, Liu Xiaojun put the manuscript away and hesitantly spoke:

"Uncle Ye, won't those experts and professors think we're too unsophisticated?"

"What's wrong with the soil?"

"I just feel like, since everyone else is from a prestigious university, won't we... be looked down upon?"

Ye Bingwen opened his eyes, looked at Liu Xiaojun, and said calmly:

"Isn't your blender a bit old-fashioned?"

"earth."

Is it easy to use?

"It works great!"

"That's settled then, why do you care what other people think?"

Before we knew it, more than ten hours had passed.

By this time, it was already completely dark in Beijing.

Ye Bingwen and his two companions had no choice but to take a taxi to the venue.

A banner hung at the entrance of the venue: National Conference on Composite Materials Technology and Application.

Upon entering the hall, Ye Bingwen and his two companions went straight to the registration desk, presented their identification documents, and began to speak:

"Hongqi Machinery Factory is here to participate in the event."

"What? Which unit are you from?"

"Hongqi Machinery Factory".

Ye Bingwen repeated it impatiently.

The staff searched the roster for a long time before finally handing them the delegate badges.

The three men pinned their badges to their chests and headed to their rooms.

There were quite a few people standing in the corridor, chatting in twos and threes.

The three people found their rooms.

Chen An opened the file folder and checked the materials again.

Liu Xiaojun stood by the window, looking outside.

The next morning, Ye Bingwen and his two companions arrived at the venue early.

Ye Bingwen found a seat in the back row and sat down.

Liu Xiaojun and Chen An sat next to him.

The meeting began.

First, the leader gave a speech, followed by speeches and keynote reports from several experts.

They were talking about cutting-edge technologies, such as nanoscale interface control and multi-scale simulation optimization.

Liu Xiaojun listened for a long time, but didn't understand a single word.

"Uncle Ye, what are they saying? I can't understand a word they're saying."

"You don't need to understand, just say what you mean."

The morning meeting has ended.

At lunchtime, the three of them found a corner in the restaurant and sat down.

A group of people were sitting at a table next to me, with representative badges from Tsinghua University, Beihang University, and Harbin Institute of Technology hanging around their necks.

One of the older men glanced at Ye Bingwen.

"Which organization are you from?"

"Hongqi Machinery Factory".

The man thought for a moment.

"Never heard of it. What area do you deal with?"

"Carbon fiber composite materials".

"For civilian use?"

"We also have military-grade ones."

The man glanced at them, smiled, and said nothing more.

"What's that person laughing at?"

"I don't know, let's eat."

The afternoon session consisted of group presentations.

Ye Bingwen and his team's report was in the third group, in a small conference room on the second floor.

The three people arrived ahead of time.

There were about twenty people in the conference room, some of whom were university professors and others were experts from research institutes.

Ye Bingwen sat in the back row with Liu Xiaojun and Chen An.

The young man who spoke first talked about interface optimization of carbon fiber reinforced composite materials.

He spoke very professionally.

After he finished speaking, someone asked a series of questions, which the young man answered fluently.

Looking at him, Liu Xiaojun felt increasingly uncertain, fearing that he had messed things up.

"Uncle Ye, that's really well said."

"Your explanation wasn't bad either."

When it was Liu Xiaojun's turn, the host read out his name.

"Next up is Liu Xiaojun from Hongqi Machinery Factory."

Liu Xiaojun stood up and glanced at Ye Bingwen.

Ye Bingwen nodded to him.

"Keep it up, you can do it!"

Liu Xiaojun walked to the front of the stage and placed the manuscript on the podium.

The slides were made with the help of Zheng Shuyun, and the title of the first slide is "Homemade Methods for Modifying a Mixer".

Some people below laughed.

Liu Xiaojun took a deep breath to compose himself and then spoke.

"Hello, teachers. I am Liu Xiaojun from Hongqi Machinery Factory."

"Today I'd like to report to you on the modification of our factory's mixer."

He flipped the slide to the second one, which showed a photograph.

"This is our factory's original mixer. The speed was unstable, and the material it produced was all lumps, making it unusable."

When he said it was all bumps, some people below laughed.

This time, the laughter wasn't mockery, but rather a feeling that what he said was somewhat interesting.

"When we conduct carbon fiber toughening experiments, we need to use nano-rubber particles. The particles are too small, and ordinary stirrers simply cannot break them up. They all clump together, and the impact strength of the resulting samples only increases by 10%, which is far from the target."

He pulled up a photo of the experimental data, which showed the first failed sample.

"This is it, it doesn't look right."

Ye Bingwen saw someone below nod.

"I wanted to make some modifications, so I found an old motor from Shenyang Motor Factory, which was about 70% new."

He posted a picture of the motor, which was piled up in a corner of the junkyard.

"After bringing it back, we removed the speed controller and reconnected the wires. When testing the machine, it started shaking violently at high speeds."

He placed his hand on the podium, mimicking the sound of shaking.

"I added four rubber pads, which I placed under the motor base to stop the shaking. It's very stable at 1,500 RPM."

He posted photos of the modified mixer; the machine was spotless, and the protective cover was new.

"The mixed material no longer has any lumps. Professor Cai's lab tested it and found that the impact strength has increased by 34 percent."

He displayed the charts of the test data, and the comparison curves were clearly visible.

Liu Xiaojun turned to the last page, which contained only one sentence: "I am not an engineer, but a worker. But I think that as long as it works well, whether it is imported or domestic, it is fine."

He said this in a loud voice.

After a few seconds of silence in the meeting room, someone started clapping.

Liu Xiaojun didn't expect anyone to applaud.