I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

"Engineer Wu, think about it, how were the pipes in our workshop number one made?"

Jiang Ming picked up the tube No. 3 from the white porcelain plate, held it in his palm, and let the light illuminate the smooth arc left by the seven-degree self-locking edge.

"With 15 grams of material, 30% is saved; it can operate at full capacity for 12 hours without dropping the line; Kovar alloy can withstand thermal shock."

He put the tube back on the white porcelain plate, his voice very low.

"As a result, when they packed the boxes, they stuffed them into piles of cotton wool. When they arrived in the Northwest and opened the boxes, the seals were covered with fibers. The vacuum seals leaked after only three days."

"What's the difference between this and smashing the pipe with your own hands?"

Old Sun pulled the tobacco pipe out of his waist, tapped it against the edge of the anvil, but couldn't light it.

"Then how do you suggest we install it?"

Jiang Ming walked to the blackboard, enlarged the sketch on the back of the transportation application form, and filled in the details with chalk.

"The pipe must be suspended in the middle of the enclosure, and none of its six sides can touch the walls."

He drew flexible connecting lines between the pipe and the box wall.

"The bottom is supported by cork blocks, the sides are cushioned with thin rubber strips, and the top is limited by spring plates."

"The entire pipe is suspended on the elastic system, so the vibration from the railway joint is absorbed by the box wall and does not reach the glass seal interface."

Wu Hanzhang put down his teacup and looked at the blackboard for a long time.

"I understand the logic, but where would we get cork and rubber strips from in the workshop?"

Jiang Ming put away the chalk and turned to look at Lao Sun.

"Master Sun, among that pile of sabotaged Soviet aircraft in the warehouse, are there any shock-absorbing pads made from dismantled equipment?"

Old Sun's lips twitched.

"Yes, there are some, but they're as hard as rocks; they've been sitting there for years."

"A hard one is fine too, bring it back so I can take a look."

Jiang Ming turned to Xiao Zhao.

"Go to carpenter Li and get three dry hardwood boards, two centimeters thick, and cut them to the width of the pipe's outer diameter plus six centimeters."

Xiao Zhao grabbed his notebook and ran outside, while Da Liu followed closely behind to move old shock-absorbing mats from the scrap warehouse.

Only Jiang Ming and Wu Hanzhang remained in the workshop for the time being, and the muffled roar of the vacuum pump filled the empty space.

Wu Hanzhang held his teacup, looked at the cross-sectional diagram of the tube wrapped in elastic lines on the blackboard, and shook his gray head.

"I've worked in this factory for almost twenty years, and I've always only worried about whether the products can be made."

He rubbed the bottom of his teacup against the rust on the edge of the worktable.

"I never imagined that once it was made, sending it out would result in someone's death."

Jiang Ming didn't reply. He threw his canvas bag on the control cabinet and sat cross-legged on the low wooden stool opposite the control panel.

He needs to communicate with spirits.

The five quotas for the scholar's examination paper must all be used today for transportation protection and risk assessment after arrival.

As consciousness descended, the bronze cover opened deep within my mind, its metallic glow twice as bright as it had been during my time as a novice.

During his first psychic encounter, he connected with a female pioneer of precision instruments.

"Senior, the impact frequency of railway joints is three to five hertz. If a cork and thin rubber layer are used as a buffer layer, what should the natural frequency of the suspension system be controlled at?"

The female pioneer's voice remained as cold and hard as ever.

"What you're doing is passive vibration isolation, not active damping. The natural frequency of the buffer layer must be lower than one-third of the external excitation frequency."

"For an impact of three to five hertz, your system's natural frequency cannot exceed one hertz. Cork is too hard to achieve this; a flexible element must be connected in series."

"Find thin steel sheets, bend them into U-shaped springs, and string them between the cork and the tube base."

Jiang Ming noted down one hertz and the U-shaped spring sheet.

During his second psychic communication, he connected with his fellow students in the Materials Interface Physics School.

"Senior, the paraffin sealant on the pin leads might melt and contaminate the connector if the temperature inside the container exceeds 40 degrees Celsius during transport?"

My fellow student speaks very quickly.

"The melting point of paraffin is fifty to sixty degrees Celsius, and the temperature in a stuffy freight car can reach forty-five degrees Celsius in the summer. You have to wrap a thin layer of cotton cloth around the paraffin for insulation, and put a small packet of desiccant inside the box."

"After arriving at the site and opening the box, let it stand for half an hour before turning on the power to allow the paraffin layer to harden again."

The third time, he approached the hot-tempered early vacuum tube pioneer.

"Senior, if the tube is placed vertically for an extended period during transport, with the tube legs pointing downwards, will gravity cause microscopic creep in the cathode coating?"

The pioneers of the hot trend were cursing and swearing.

"Do you think rare earth coatings are like tofu? The crystal lattice after sintering at 800 degrees Celsius simply doesn't have a creep problem at room temperature."

"What you should really be worried about is the tube being laid horizontally. When laid horizontally, the glass shell experiences uneven stress at both ends, which can cause bending moments at the sealing surface."

"Place it vertically with the legs facing down; this is the only correct way to transport it."

On the fourth occasion, he contacted the female pioneer again to inquire about her adaptation to the environment after arrival.

"After unpacking, check the vacuum retention status and scan the sealing interface with a leak detector. Then preheat at low pressure for twenty minutes to allow the cathode coating to be slowly activated."

"Going straight to full power is tantamount to suicide."

The fifth attempt was left to colleagues in the materials science department to confirm the impact of low-temperature environments on Kovar alloy support rings.

"Senior, will the nickel plating crack at temperatures below minus thirty degrees Celsius?"

"The nickel layer itself won't crack, but the interfacial stress between nickel and Kovar alloy will increase. If there are defects in the plating process, low temperature will act as a magnifying glass."

"We ensured that pickling and activation were performed before coating, and diffusion annealing was performed after coating."

After five attempts to communicate with spirits, more than an hour had passed when Jiang Ming opened his eyes.

Da Liu and Xiao Zhao have already moved the materials back to the workshop.

The Soviet equipment shock-absorbing pads unearthed from the scrap yard were indeed severely hardened, with the black rubber surface covered in cracks, and they crumbled at the slightest touch.

But what Jiang Ming wanted wasn't the whole mat, but the thin rubber interlayer inside.

He picked up a shock-absorbing pad and cut it open along the side with a utility knife, revealing a two-millimeter-thick layer of natural rubber in the middle. This thin layer of rubber was protected by the outer shell and had not been exposed to air, so it still retained its elasticity.

Old Sun came over for a look, tucked his pipe back into his waistband, and took out scissors and a ruler from the tool cabinet.

"How much should we cut?"

"Increase the outer diameter of the tube by four millimeters, and wrap the sides symmetrically with two strips."

The hardwood planks delivered by carpenter Lao Li were cut by Jiang Ming into a base and a top, with circular grooves carved out in the middle. Lao Sun bent four sets of U-shaped springs from scrap spring steel sheets and welded them between the wooden base and the outer box. Xiao Zhao cut thin rubber strips and lined the inner wall of the groove, and then placed a small piece of clean cotton cloth in the foot area.

The entire shockproof box is structured from the inside out as follows: the tube stands upright in the groove of the wooden base with rubber padding, the wooden base is suspended inside the hardwood outer box by U-shaped spring plates, and the six sides of the outer box do not make rigid contact with the wooden base.

Jiang Ming patted the side of the outer box with his palm, and the wooden base and the tube wobbled slightly before straightening itself.

"Could we borrow a vibrating table from the foundry to try it out?"

Wu Hanzhang shook his head.

"When those sand casting motors are turned on, the whole building shakes; there's no precision vibration table at all."

Jiang Ming thought for a moment, then walked to the workshop door and opened the metal door a crack.

"Da Liu, go to the gatehouse and borrow a handcart."

Ten minutes later, Da Liu pushed a wooden cart into the workshop.

Jiang Ming placed the shockproof box with the pipes installed on a cart and had Da Liu push it back and forth on the cement floor of the workshop twenty times, deliberately running over the threshold and ground protrusions. Each time they made a trip, Xiao Zhao would open the box lid to check the position of the pipes.

After twenty runs, the pipe remained completely still, and there were no signs of friction on the rubber gasket.

Wu Hanzhang stood by and watched the whole process, then put his teacup on the worktable.

"Alright, you've even managed to come up with some fancy tricks for delivering packages."

Jiang Ming didn't laugh. He numbered the three shockproof boxes one by one and marked the outer wall of the boxes with a vertical arrow and the words "Do Not Lay Horizontally" in red paint. Xiao Zhao added the transportation posture requirements and the operating procedures after opening the boxes to the ledger card for each box.

Just after 3 p.m., the sound of a car engine came from the direction of the factory office.

A military green jeep stopped in front of the administration building. The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a gray Zhongshan suit stepped out, carrying a briefcase under his arm and his leather shoes covered in yellow dust.

Factory Director Zhang quickly came out of the building to greet them. After shaking hands, the two went straight up to the second floor.

Half an hour later, the security officer ran to the entrance of Workshop No. 1.

"Engineer Jiang, the factory manager would like to see you in the conference room of the administration building."

Jiang Ming wiped the oil stains off his cuffs, tucked the draft design into his canvas satchel, and followed the clerk into the administration building.

The meeting room was filled with smoke. Director Zhang sat at one end of a long table, while a middle-aged man in a gray Zhongshan suit sat opposite him, his briefcase containing documents that covered half the table.

"Xiao Jiang, this is Comrade Zhao, the liaison officer sent by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense."

After finishing his introduction, Director Zhang stopped talking and handed the stage over to the newcomers.

Comrade Zhao raised his head, his eyes behind his glasses calm and focused, and pushed a document stamped with a red seal in front of Jiang Ming.

"Comrade Jiang Ming, the Science and Technology Commission means that when the sample tubes are sent for testing, a complete process specification document and a report on the handling of confidentiality incidents must be attached."

He paused, his gaze falling on a corner of the draft paper peeking out of Jiang Ming's bag.

"In addition, I need to see the original basis for your derivation of these parameters."

Jiang Ming placed his bag on the chair, took out a stack of process drafts filled with data, and handed it over.

Comrade Zhao flipped through three pages, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper. Finally, he put the draft on the table, looked up, and stared at Jiang Ming.

"Comrade Jiang Ming, how did you derive these parameters?"