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

In the darkness, Qian Xuesen remained completely calm. He quickly pulled a brass flashlight from a drawer and pushed open the hatch.

The emergency lights in the corridor flickered on and off.

Qin Lu was soaked to the bone and stamped his feet in frustration.

"Let's go." Qian Xuesen said only one word and strode towards the stairwell.

Jiang Ming stood by the door, his legs feeling a little weak. He was a complete landlubber and usually didn't even dare to ride roller coasters. Now, faced with a Pacific storm, his instinctive reaction was to crawl back into his third-class cabin and cover his head with the blanket.

But the prompt panel of the Heavenly Record in my mind was still flashing.

Only one verification step remains before the post can be entered into the database.

Jiang Ming clenched his back teeth tightly.

The bold get rich, the timid starve. All the top-tier players are holding the line; if you chicken out now, you'll never recover!

"Sir, I'll go with you!" Jiang Ming shouted, wiping the cold sweat from his face, and stumbled after him.

The further down the ship went, the more violently it rocked.

Jiang Ming tripped and fell several times along the way, his palms throbbing painfully from hitting the metal stairs.

As soon as they pushed open the heavy iron door to the engine room on the ground floor, a wave of scorching heat, reaching as high as forty degrees Celsius, mixed with the pungent smell of engine oil, slammed into their faces like a wall.

The deafening roar almost pierced eardrums.

The entire engine room was like a giant steamer. Under a few dim explosion-proof lights, a dozen shirtless foreign crew members were running around like headless flies.

The huge high-pressure steam turbine at the very center was emitting a piercing creaking sound of metal friction.

Sparks were spraying wildly out through the gaps in the main bearing.

"Smith! How is it?" Qian Xuesen strode up to a burly white man with a face covered in soot and asked loudly in fluent English.

When Chief Engineer Smith saw Qian Xuesen, it was like seeing a lifeline, but his eyes were full of despair.

"Money! It's all gone!" Smith roared, his voice filled with terror. "The gears of the main lubricating oil pump are broken! The backup pump's lines are completely clogged with impurities!"

Smith pointed to the sparking main bearing.

"The temperature has exceeded the critical value! In at most ten minutes, the spindle will seize up and break!"

Qian Xuesen frowned deeply: "Stop the machine immediately for repairs!"

"We can't stop!" Smith pounded on the iron railing beside him in desperation. "There's a Category 12 storm outside! If we lose power, this ship won't last three waves before it capsizes and sinks! We'll all die at sea!"

The engine stopped, and the ship capsized.

Without stopping the machine, the main shaft breaks, the power source is completely ruined, and in the end, it's still a dead end.

This is an unsolvable deadlock! (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

Jiang Ming stood behind Qian Xuesen, listening to their conversation, his face turning ashen.

Although he was a poor student, he still had basic English listening skills.

Are we really going to be wiped out?!

I've only been here for a few days, and I haven't even warmed up my cheat system before I have to feed sharks?

Qian Xuesen's expression also turned serious. He stared at the machine that was spewing sparks, his brain engaged in frantic, extreme calculations, trying to find a solution that would preserve power.

However, no matter how you calculate it, conventional mechanical fluid dynamics cannot solve the problem of oil pump failure within ten minutes.

Just when Jiang Ming was so desperate he wanted to cry.

【clang!】

Deep in my mind, the ancient sound of a bell suddenly rang out.

The Tongtianlu panel emitted a blinding red light.

[Ding! Bai Ding Juan's hidden trait has been triggered: Ultimate Intuition.]

[System notification: Since the host currently lacks professional knowledge, only directional inspiration is provided.]

[Inspiration direction: Physics bypass, gravity and air pressure compensation.]

Jiang Ming was stunned.

Physical bypass? Pressure compensation?

These eight words were like a bolt of lightning, instantly cleaving through the chaos in his mind.

Although he was a mediocre college student in his past life, he particularly enjoyed watching videos of hardcore car repair bloggers on short video platforms.

He clearly remembered that a master mechanic encountered a truck with a broken oil pump in the middle of nowhere, and he used a wild, makeshift method to force the oil into the engine.

Jiang Ming's gaze swept frantically across the engine room.

High temperature, high pressure, bypass pipe.

His gaze instantly locked onto a steel pipe, about the thickness of a wrist, above the main bearing. That was the exhaust bypass pipe of the steam turbine.

It's full of high-pressure steam!

"I've got a solution!" Jiang Ming suddenly roared, his voice so loud that it couldn't be drowned out by the roar of the machines.

Smith and Qian Xuesen turned to look at him at the same time.

Jiang Ming was trembling all over, but he still forced himself to rush between the two.

"Mr. Smith!" Jiang Ming shouted in broken English, "Cut off that steam bypass pipe! Connect it to the oil sump below! Use high-pressure steam to force the oil into the main bearing!"

The voice just fell.

Smith stared wide-eyed at Jiang Ming as if he were a madman.

"Who do you think you are? Who gave you the right to speak here?!" Smith roared, furious. "Using steam at over 200 degrees Celsius to blow up the engine oil? You'll set the entire sump ablaze! Do you want to blow us all up into the sky?!"

"Add a condenser coil in the middle to cool it down!" Jiang Ming's eyes were red with anxiety as he grabbed Smith's arm. "As long as the temperature drops below the flash point, the remaining air pressure will be enough to push the oil up! That's the only way!"

"Get out of my way! I won't listen to the nonsense of a brat!" Smith roughly shook off Jiang Ming's hand. "Security! Throw this lunatic out!"

Jiang Ming was thrown off balance and stumbled, his back slamming heavily against the iron plate, causing him to gasp in pain.

Ruined.

People simply don't believe in him, this academically challenged student who was added to the queue at the last minute.

Just as several foreign crew members were preparing to come over and tow Jiang Ming away.

A hand firmly supported Jiang Ming's shoulder.

It was Qian Xuesen.

Qian Xuesen didn't look at Smith, but stared intently at the steam pipe and oil pan that Jiang Ming had just pointed to.

The big shot's brain was working at its peak at that moment.

Pipe diameter, pressure, condensation conversion rate, and oil viscosity.

Countless complex fluid mechanics formulas were frantically intertwined in Qian Xuesen's mind.

Three seconds later.

Qian Xuesen suddenly raised his head, his eyes shining with an alarming intensity.

"Smith." Qian Xuesen's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a terrifying sense of oppression, instantly silencing the entire room.

He stepped forward and stood in front of Jiang Ming.

"Do as he says."

Smith was completely dumbfounded: "Money! Are you crazy? He's not even an engineer! This is a completely unorthodox, mechanically inept method!"

"The underlying fluid dynamics logic of this scheme is completely sound." Qian Xuesen looked directly into Smith's eyes and said, word by word, "I, Qian Xuesen, guarantee this scheme with my academic reputation and my life."

"I'll take responsibility if anything goes wrong."

It was a resounding statement.

The entire engine room seemed to fall silent for half a second at that moment.

A max-level player directly attacks head-on, I vouch for that!

Standing behind Qian Xuesen, Jiang Ming's eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

Smith gritted his teeth. He glanced at the main bearing, which was about to explode, and then at Qian Xuesen, who looked completely confident.

"Get to work! Bring the cutting machine!" Smith finally roared in exasperation, "Connect the pipes in ten minutes!"

The entire engine room instantly erupted in excitement.

The crew rushed forward like madmen.

Jiang Ming wasn't idle either. He rushed to the toolbox, grabbed a large wrench, and ran over to help tighten the screws.

The scalding hot steam pipe burned his palms, causing blisters to form instantly, but he didn't even flinch.

That was the extreme excitement brought on by a surge of adrenaline.

"Condenser connection complete!"

"Valve in place!"

Smith gripped the main valve handle tightly and turned to look at Qian Xuesen and Jiang Ming.

"Open!" Jiang Ming shouted at the top of his lungs.

Smith forcefully pulled down the valve.

A stream of white, high-pressure steam suddenly shot into the condenser tube, emitting a deafening shriek.

The cooled, high-pressure gas slammed into the oil pan.

Forced by immense air pressure, the black engine oil, like a long black dragon, surged wildly into the nearly burnt-out main bearing along the makeshift hoses.

one second.

two seconds.

three seconds.

A miracle happened.

The chilling metallic scraping sound visibly diminished.

The gushing sparks gradually died down.

On the temperature indicator of the main bearing, the red pointer stopped climbing and then began to slowly but steadily decline.

The machine's operating sound became steady and powerful again.

The crisis has been averted.

"God..." Smith slumped onto the oil-stained deck, covering his face with his hands, laughing and crying at the same time.

The surrounding crew erupted in wild cheers of relief.

The wrench in Jiang Ming's hand clattered to the ground.

He slid down onto the floor, leaning against the scorching machine wall, looking at his dirty hands covered in blisters.

A feeling of fulfillment and ultimate pleasure I'd never experienced before coursed through my entire body like an electric current. (✧◡✧)

It's not just because they survived.

It was because he, a seemingly incompetent person who was always looked down upon, actually solved a life-or-death crisis with his own theories and actions.

The closed loop of turning theory into reality has finally been established.

Smith got up from the ground, rushed to Jiang Ming, pulled him up, and gave him a suffocating bear hug.

"You're a genius! Amazing Eastern boy!" Smith shouted incoherently.

Jiang Ming gave an awkward laugh, feeling like he was being squeezed so tightly he could barely breathe.

The storm seemed to be subsiding, and the ship's rocking became more gradual.

The explosion-proof light above my head flickered a few times before finally returning to brightness.

Smith went to direct the crew to carry out the subsequent reinforcement work.

Jiang Ming leaned against the railing, panting heavily.

At this moment, Qian Xuesen slowly walked up to him.

Qian Xuesen's white shirt was stained with black machine oil, and his glasses were covered in moisture.

He took out a fairly clean handkerchief and handed it to Jiang Ming.

Jiang Ming quickly took the money and wiped his hands: "Thank you, sir. I just got lucky. I was really nervous."

Qian Xuesen did not respond.

He looked at Jiang Ming quietly.

The scrutiny and the tolerance of an elder looking at a younger person were completely gone from those eyes.

Instead, there is an equal gaze, one filled with deep recognition.

It's like a top scientist looking at a true teammate who can fight alongside them.

"You are very brave." Qian Xuesen's voice was particularly clear amidst the roar of the machines.

Before Jiang Ming could react...

Qian Xuesen turned and walked out, but when he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped and looked back at Jiang Ming.

"Tomorrow morning, pack your luggage and move it to first class." Qian Xuesen pushed up his reflective glasses. "Room 108, it's right next to mine. From now on, come see me every night with your notebook."