Third floor, Research Building.
“So that’s the ‘expert’ Chief Engineer Liu specially approved to bring in?”
“You’ve got to be kidding—she’s not even as old as my daughter, right? Those skinny arms and legs—does she understand radar, or missiles?”
“Shh, keep it down. Look at the guy next to her—that’s Xiao ‘King of Hell.’ She’s probably some leader’s daughter sent here to pad her résumé.”
Along the corridor, office doors were half-open. Questioning, even faintly disdainful gazes pierced toward Su Yun like needles.
Su Yun kept her eyes forward, walking slowly.
Not to put on airs—she’d simply eaten too much vermicelli earlier. If she walked too fast, her stomach would hurt.
Xiao Zhan followed half a step behind her, his killing aura fully unleashed. With that cold expression alone, he forced all the ill-intentioned stares to retreat.
“We’re here.”
He stopped in front of a double wooden door marked “Top Secret Laboratory No. 1” and pushed it open.
The room was spacious. Two massive drafting tables were pushed together in the center, and all four walls were covered with blackboards.
Liu Jianguo stood inside with three bespectacled young technicians.
When they saw Su Yun enter, the three clearly froze. They exchanged glances, their disbelief practically spilling over.
Had Chief Engineer Liu really lost his mind? This was obviously just a young woman sent down to the countryside.
“Comrade Su Yun, you’re here!”
Liu Jianguo didn’t notice their expressions. He stepped forward warmly. “Everything’s ready. As you requested—top-grade drafting paper, and the things you asked for…”
Su Yun ignored his enthusiasm.
She walked straight to the drafting table and flicked a few Zhonghua-brand pencils with her finger.
Her brows instantly furrowed.
“They’re not sharpened?” she asked, turning to Liu Jianguo, disbelief clear in her tone.
He paused. “Ah? Well… I thought everyone has different preferences—some like thicker tips, some finer—so I didn’t have Xiao Zhang and the others touch them.”
One of the technicians, Xiao Zhang, couldn’t hold back. Pushing up his glasses, he said stiffly:
“Comrade Su, that’s part of the job. We always sharpen our own pencils. Self-reliance, you know.”
There was a barb in his words.
Su Yun didn’t even glance at him.
She tossed the green pencil back onto the table.
“Graphite dust gets under your nails. It’s hard to wash out.”
She raised her hands, her slender fingers pale pink at the tips. “And the wood is too hard. I can’t shave it.”
The three technicians’ jaws practically dropped.
Everyone working in a classified lab had ink-stained hands and calluses.
And here was someone complaining about dirty nails—and that the wood was too hard to cut?
Was she here to design missiles—or to be some pampered empress?
Xiao Zhang laughed in disbelief. “Comrade Su, if you can’t even handle this much hardship, then maybe you should—”
“Xiao Zhan.”
Su Yun suddenly spoke, cutting him off.
Without turning around, she extended her hand to the side, palm up—like she was ordering a personal attendant.
“Sharpen it.”
Xiao Zhan had been leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching the show.
Hearing those two words, his brow twitched violently.
He looked at her small back, then at the pencils on the table.
A surge of anger shot straight to his head.
He was a special forces captain. The top soldier in the entire military region. His hands were meant to hold guns, kill enemies, crush throats.
And now she wanted him to sharpen pencils?
“Su Yun, don’t push it—”
His voice squeezed out through clenched teeth.
“Hurry.”
Her tone was soft, still tinged with the laziness of being full. “I’ll lose my train of thought.”
A blatant threat.
Xiao Zhan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and silently repeated “double missile range” three times in his head.
“Shing—”
A flash of cold light.
A gleaming Type 56 triangular bayonet appeared in his hand.
The three technicians recoiled in unison, faces pale.
Xiao Zhan strode forward, face dark, grabbed a pencil.
The weapon that could pierce a bulletproof vest was now pitifully shaving soft pine wood.
“Smack!”
He slapped the sharpened pencil into Su Yun’s palm. “Done! Anything else? Want me to draw it for you too?!”
Su Yun turned the pencil, inspecting the tip.
“Acceptable.”
She nodded reluctantly. “A bit too much killing intent. Improve next time.”
Xiao Zhan: “…”
He felt that one day, he would die because of this woman.
Either from anger—or suffocation.
Holding the pencil, Su Yun finally stopped paying attention to others.
Standing before the blank drafting paper, her previous laziness and fragility vanished in an instant.
“Record.”
Her voice was cold, emotionless.
“What?” Xiao Zhang didn’t react in time.
“I said, record the data.”
She didn’t look up, marking a coordinate on the paper. “I won’t repeat myself.”
“The current gyroscope precision cannot support doubled range. It must be restructured.”
“Error compensation formula: …”
A stream of complex formulas and parameters poured from her mouth at astonishing speed.
The three technicians scrambled to open their notebooks. Pens flew across paper, yet they still couldn’t keep up.
“Wait! What’s that integral parameter? You’re too fast!”
Xiao Zhang shouted, sweating.
Su Yun paused.
She looked up. “Too slow.”
She tossed the freshly sharpened pencil aside.
Turning, she walked straight to the largest blackboard.
“Xiao Zhan, get me the highest eraser.”
Xiao Zhan had just sheathed his bayonet. Rolling his eyes, he reached up effortlessly and grabbed it.
“Anything else?” he asked irritably.
“Step back.”
Su Yun picked up a piece of chalk, turned her back to them, and raised her hand.
The chalk touched the board.
Her wrist moved with incredible agility, chalk dust falling softly.
Complex functions. Unfamiliar mechanical structures.
They spread wildly across the board.
No pauses.
No hesitation.
As if everything had already been engraved in her mind—she was just printing it out.
Liu Jianguo had been sitting.
After one minute, he stood.
After three minutes, he removed his glasses and moved closer.
After five minutes, the veteran expert—who had spent half his life studying radar—began trembling violently.
“This… this is…”
He stared at the central diagram—a brilliantly intricate gyroscope structure that completely overturned existing Soviet and American designs.
“A dual-degree-of-freedom liquid-floating gyroscope? No… this is an improved dynamic error-locking structure built on top of that!”
He suddenly turned, staring at Su Yun’s slender back as if witnessing a miracle.
“How is this possible… how can someone draw something this precise by hand?!”
The three young technicians had long stopped writing.
They stood frozen, mouths open, staring at the blackboard filled with incomprehensible formulas.
Was this the same delicate girl who complained about pencil dust?
This was a computer in human form.
Xiao Zhan stood in the corner, arms crossed.
He didn’t understand the formulas—but he understood people.
Right now, Su Yun was shining too brightly.
She stood there, everything else reduced to background.
The final stroke fell.
Her hand hovered in midair, trembling slightly.
The entire board was filled—no empty space.
It was a blueprint for a high-precision gyroscope that would shock this era.
Warning: Quantum lab overload. Energy remaining: 12%.
Blood sugar dropping rapidly. Immediate rest recommended.
A red alarm sounded in her mind.
Her vision went black. That familiar, marrow-draining weakness surged back.
She let go.
The broken chalk fell to the floor.
Su Yun wanted to turn around and say something cool like “Understand now?”—but her legs gave out, and she fell backward uncontrollably.
The expected hard floor never came.
A strong, burning hand caught her firmly at the waist.
Xiao Zhan’s face appeared above her, brows tightly furrowed.