Chapter 205: Discovery

Hongsawaddy.

Mandalay, the civilian aircraft manufacturing base of Qingye Aviation.

After spending more than half a year here, the man with the spiky haircut, Gao Changfeng, had used his adept social skills to become well-acquainted with many of his colleagues.

He was mainly responsible for designing aircraft landing gear, and his team leader, Robert, was a Boer from South Africa.

"Team Leader Robert, here’s the prototype test report for Plan 7." Gao Changfeng handed a report to Robert.

Robert took it, glanced over it, and set it aside. "Okay. Looks like there are no more issues with the mid-size passenger jet’s landing gear."

"Team Leader, what’s our next task?" Gao Changfeng asked.

Robert smiled and replied, "Don’t be in such a hurry. Don’t you Chinese have a saying? ’Balance work and rest.’ Gao, no need to push yourself so hard. The company doesn’t want to see us die from overwork."

Gao Changfeng, who was using an alias, simply smiled in response.

Watching Gao Changfeng walk away, Robert adjusted his glasses, a flicker of profound scrutiny in his eyes.

Back at his workstation, just as Gao Changfeng finished organizing some blueprints, a few colleagues called out to him.

"Changfeng, it’s almost quitting time! Want to go grab some skewers?" a tall, muscular man asked, clapping him on the shoulder.

Gao Changfeng didn’t refuse. ’I’m here to gather intelligence, after all. If I don’t build good relationships with the employees, how the hell am I supposed to do my job?’ He blurted out:

"Sure!"

The muscular guy turned his head and asked another colleague, a local employee, "Yumu, you want to come?"

Mao Youmu first saved the document on his computer before replying, "I can, but I’ll pass on the drinking."

"Got it, got it." The muscular guy waved his hand a little awkwardly.

He hadn’t known the rules before. During a work dinner, he had ordered a few bottles of beer and even poured some for his colleagues. Afterward, he was publicly reprimanded by the parent company’s consulting firm and had 500 deducted from his salary.

The incident taught him a profound lesson.

Within the Qingye Group, you must never casually pour drinks for colleagues, pressure them to drink, offer cigarettes, suggest chewing betel nuts, give red envelopes, or ask for gift money.

Unless you were certain the other person actually enjoyed smoking and drinking, you’d be on the consulting firm’s radar in minutes.

The muscular guy had clearly thought things here were the same as back home, which is why he’d suffered the loss.

After calling a few more friends, the muscular guy invited two more colleagues from the cabin pressure maintenance system design team. In total, a group of five headed out for skewers.

Next to the aircraft manufacturing base was the employee town.

This town was actually one of Mandalay’s satellite cities. Currently, there were seven satellite urban areas around Mandalay, all of which were considered part of the city.

Together, they were collectively known as the Mandalay District.

Because this town housed the aircraft manufacturing base and numerous supporting factories, plus their families, it had come to be known as Airplane Town.

Airplane Town was located 13.4 kilometers northwest of Mandalay’s main urban center, connected by a ring light rail and an expressway.

The light rail neatly bisected Airplane Town, with the industrial zone to the north and the commercial and residential areas to the south.

Gao Changfeng and his group used their employee cards to take a bus to the commercial area in the south.

It was a small town with a population of about 63,000. The vast majority of residents were company employees, and the rest were their families, so there were virtually no outsiders.

Sitting on the bus, Gao Changfeng gazed out the window.

Unlike a typical industrial city, Airplane Town had a very spread-out layout. The streets were exceptionally wide, and numerous small parks were situated between each factory.

The area between the light rail and the industrial zone, in particular, was a continuous stretch of parks, woodlands, and grassy fields.

It was as if every factory was enveloped in greenery.

To Gao Changfeng’s specially trained eye, this urban layout seemed designed for war.

In fact, he wasn’t wrong.

Such a large proportion of urban parkland was indeed a preparation for war.

The designs for many of the factory buildings had incorporated space for modifications from the very beginning.

For example, there were designated areas for the deployment of a "Green Umbrella System." The factories’ internal modular designs allowed for rapid disassembly, and the wide roads were also intended to facilitate the deployment of this system, as well as the quick transfer of equipment and products.

Only the New Humans of the Homo Sapiens Company knew the secrets of this reserved space for modification; it was impossible for regular employees to discern its true purpose.

Even with his professional reconnaissance skills, Gao Changfeng was only getting a fragmented view of the situation.

The low hum of the bus’s engine was very familiar to Gao Changfeng and the muscular guy. It sounded a bit like a turbofan engine.

But the sound was very quiet, even quieter than a typical gasoline or diesel engine.

This caught Gao Changfeng’s attention, as the bus’s engine sound was somewhat different from the usual diesel generators.

"Dabiao, did this bus get a new engine?"

Before the muscular guy, Dabiao, could answer, Mao Youmu, who was sitting in front of them, spoke up. "You guys don’t follow the company’s business news, do you? The auto plant the company invested in in Chiang Mai, Siam, has officially started production. This bus was made there. I hear it uses gas turbine technology."

"A gas turbine? You’ve got to be kidding me," Dabiao said, astonished.

Gao Changfeng listened carefully for a moment and found that the bus’s engine did indeed sound a lot like a turbofan engine.

"Why would the auto plant use a gas turbine? Gas turbines only achieve high thermal efficiency at large scales and high speeds. A small gas turbine running at low speed has very poor thermal efficiency. Right now, the best experimental vehicles only get 30-40% thermal efficiency from their gas turbines, and the equipment cost is very high."

Mao Youmu shrugged. "How would I know what the designers at the auto plant were thinking?"

Dabiao took out his phone and logged onto the official website of the Qingye Automobile Company.

He quickly found the relevant information.

Sure enough, the Qingye Automobile Company had recently launched a series of hybrid models, including buses, small trucks, vans, and coaches.

"Hybrid? Ah, I see. That’s probably to solve the low-speed, low-efficiency problem." Dabiao understood the reasoning behind the design at a glance.

Hearing this, Gao Changfeng had a sudden realization. "So it’s a hybrid system. Still, the thermal efficiency of a micro gas turbine must be pretty mediocre, right? And how did they solve the noise and high-temperature exhaust issues?"

"For the noise, they used sound-insulating materials and noise-reduction designs," Dabiao replied as he scrolled down. "Holy shit..."

"What is it?" Mao Youmu asked, turning his head.

Dabiao had a strange look on his face. "Aren’t they worried about the costs skyrocketing? They’re actually using the exhaust to re-synthesize methane for waste heat recovery."

"What? Synthesizing methane from exhaust?" Gao Changfeng took out his own phone and quickly found the information.

The technology utilized the characteristics of the gas turbine’s exhaust—high temperature, high pressure, and composed of water vapor and carbon dioxide—by channeling it into a special electro-synthetic reactor.

Inside the synthesis reactor, through electrolysis and special catalysts, the high-temperature, high-pressure water vapor and carbon dioxide could be rapidly synthesized into high-calorific methane gas.

Its energy conversion efficiency was about 38%.

Gao Changfeng looked up. "If I remember correctly, wasn’t this technology developed by Shuimu University back in ’18?"

Dabiao replied, "Yep. It says so later on. Qingye Automobile has purchased the usage rights for this technology in a one-time payment."

"With this whole setup—a micro gas turbine, a generator, batteries, an electronic control unit, an electric motor, sound insulation, and an exhaust waste heat recovery system—the cost must be astronomical. What is the auto plant thinking? The gains don’t seem to justify the costs!" Gao Changfeng complained.