Chapter 39: You Actually Knew All Along

  The person in front of him, Qin Hai from this life, was naturally unfamiliar, but the Qin Hai from his previous life was all too familiar. Of course, when Qin Hai knew him in his previous life, he was more than 20 years older and had already become a half-buried old man. Qin Hai had worked with this person together for nearly half a year and later met several times at academic conferences, belonging to the category of "forgetting age". This person was not an engineer from the Provincial Military Region's Repair Arsenal, but rather an Academician of the Academy of Sciences and the Chief Engineer of the Steel Institute, named Chen Heqian.

  Qin Hai now sees Chen Heqian, who is only in his 40s and not an academician. However, Qin Hai knows that Chen Heqian has made extraordinary achievements in the field of metal material performance research and is one of the leading figures in this field at home.

  "It's actually Mr. Chen, sorry for the disrespect."

  Qin Hai didn't know why Chen Heqian wanted to sit here incognito, and since Yue Guoyang wasn't revealing his true identity, Qin Hai naturally couldn't expose him on the spot. Since others wanted to put on an act with him, he would just play along. As for catching up and reminiscing, there would be other opportunities in the future. Besides, could this even be considered catching up?

  "Comrade Xiao Qin, I've studied the steel material of that iron shovel you made, and found its strength far exceeds that of common steel materials. Can you introduce how this steel material was smelted?" Chen Heqian pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and began to ask Qin Hai.

  Actually, the real protagonist of today's scene is not Yue Guoyang, but Chen Heqian. The camp they are in is a missile brigade base stationed in Anhui Province. Some time ago, the troops discovered that the tail wing material of a certain type of missile had defects during training, and invited local experts to come and diagnose it. Chen Heqian came here for this reason.

  Yesterday, Yue Guoyang received the dagger and engineer's shovel sent by Ge Dongyan, and he had been thinking about how to solve the problem of steel. He knew that the experts from the Steel Institute were in the Red Ze suburb missile troops, so he came over personally and gave these two products to Chen Hetian for appraisal.

  Chen Heqian was shocked when he saw these two things. He asked his assistants to test the steel with instruments, and the conclusion was that the strength of this steel exceeded the strength of the best alloy steel in the country, especially its high-temperature resistance performance was outstanding. Although this steel cannot be directly used to manufacture missile tail wings, by drawing on the idea of this steel, they can easily solve the current dilemma they are facing.

  As soon as this conclusion came out, Yue Guoyang was also stunned. Chen Heqian and others had been busy at the missile base for two or three months without solving the problem, but unexpectedly found the answer in a county-level agricultural machinery factory, which was too dramatic. Chen Heqian immediately asked to meet the inventor of this steel material, and at this time, the investigation result of the Political Department also came back, showing that Qin Hai had no political problems and belonged to personnel who could access certain level military secrets. Yue Guoyang immediately decided to send Zhu Chongwu to Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory to negotiate with Qin Hai to come to the Provincial Military Region to assist in the work.

  These circumstances, Qin Hai naturally did not know. However, when he recognized Chen Heqian, he knew that Yue Guoyang had called him over, and it was absolutely not just for a matter of a shovel, any project that could get Chen Heqian to show up would be absolutely not simple.

  Having understood this, Qin Hai didn't bother to play any more tricks. It was just a formula for ultra-high-strength steel, and even if it was given as a gift to an old friend, what's the harm? He smiled slightly and said: "Master Chen, actually, the steel I've refined isn't some new craft, I'm just imitating the smelting ideas of H11 and H13 heat-resistant die steels, using secondary hardening methods to increase the strength of alloy steel."

  "But your steel material's strength is obviously higher than H11 and H13." Chen Heqian asked.

  "This is because I adopted a special high-temperature tempering process, which makes the steel material precipitate out of special carbides such as M7C3, M2C and MC, increasing the secondary hardening effect." Qin Hai replied fluently.

  "How is the ductile-brittle transition temperature of steel lowered?"

  "By adding a suitable amount of nickel, it can also improve the hardenability of steel."

  "How is the heat treatment process designed?"

  "1010°C air cooling, 550°C tempering, can form high-density bainite plate martensite organization under air-cooling conditions..."

  "...You really graduated from an agricultural machinery technical school?" Chen Heqian looked at Qin Hai with a shocked gaze, his face a mixture of various expressions that could no longer be described.

  "Uh... did I say a bit too much?" Qin Hai said with a wry smile.

  Just now, Qin Hai had already forgotten his transmigrated identity and seemed to have returned to before he transmigrated. At that time, every time he was with Chen Heqian, it was like this Q&A session, thinking jumping so fast that the bystanders couldn't keep up. But at that time, Qin Hai was a postdoctoral researcher in materials science, having the ability to converse with Chen Heqian. Now, this Qin Hai was just a technical school student, and what he said made even the head of the Steel Institute feel unbelievable, this was simply a freak!

  "Did you guys understand?" Chen Heqian turned his head to ask a few people beside him.

  Next to him were several assistants brought by Chen Heqian on this trip, including graduate students and assistant engineers who had already worked. In the conversation between Chen Heqian and Qin Hai, they could grasp some concepts at first, but soon became completely confused. The questions asked by Chen Heqian were all important links in the technology, while Qin Hai's answers were also straightforward, only mentioning key concepts. This kind of dialogue between top experts would not review any principles, often just needing a word to make the other party understand their ideas, and the rest could be supplemented by each other's brains.

  "Teacher Chen, I didn't quite understand some parts." An assistant replied hesitantly, "However, what you and Teacher Qin said earlier, I've already taken note of it."

  Teacher Qin!

  Next to him was an engineer from the missile unit, who heard the assistant's words and had eyes wider than a copper bell. Chen Heqian was an expert who was easy to get along with, but among his assistants, there were those who looked down on others. The one who just spoke was such a person, and during this time in the troops, except for being a bit more honest in front of Chen Heqian, he didn't dare to be too arrogant in front of the engineers in the troops.

  But, it's just that this arrogant person actually calls this immature young worker "teacher", this world really is beyond comprehension.

  "Commander Yue, the technical school here is actually so advanced?" Chen Heqian turned his head to ask Yue Guoyang for confirmation. He wasn't someone who was good at pretending, and after being shocked by Qin Hai's knowledge, he even forgot about the fake identity that Yue Guoyang had created for him, revealing his true nature as soon as he spoke.

  Yue Guoyang winked at Chen Hegeng and said, "Old Chen, our agricultural machinery technical school is still quite good, haven't you been there?"

  "Amazing, amazing!" Chen Heqian muttered to himself, "A student from an agricultural machinery technical school actually has such a solid theoretical foundation, what talent, what talent!"

  "Teacher Chen is being too kind." Qin Hai quickly bowed his head in gratitude to Chen Heqian, knowing that what he had just said had impressed him. The reason for this was twofold: on the one hand, Qin Hai was an exceptionally talented individual; on the other hand, he possessed knowledge that was decades ahead of its time. Some of the content might not seem like much to professionals in later generations, but in this era, it belonged to extremely avant-garde theoretical innovations.

  "We've been chatting for a whole morning, aren't you all hungry? Come on, let's set the table and eat while we chat." Yu Guoyang stood up and invited everyone.

  Chen Heqian is a national-level expert, and Yue Guoyang has always been very respectful of him. Qin Hai was able to make Chen Heqian feel admired, so naturally Yue Guoyang also regarded Qin Hai as an expert, no longer treating him as just a young worker. As the conversation between the two came to an end, Yue Guoyang remembered his own role and began to arrange a banquet, mainly in order to entertain Chen Heqian, with Qin Hai just along for the ride.

  There were several tall trees with lush foliage by the lake, and according to Yue Guoyang's orders, the dinner table was set up under these big trees. This way, it was both shaded and spacious, which was in line with the military tradition.

  Several guard soldiers carried a large round table from the cafeteria, set it up under the tree, and began to distribute bowls and chopsticks. Zhu Chongwu led Qin Hai to the edge of the table, pointed to a seat for him, and said: "Little Qin, I think Teacher Chen appreciates you very much, why don't you sit next to Teacher Chen?"

  "No problem." Qin Hai nodded and walked forward, slightly moving the bowl and chopsticks next to his seat.

  "Teacher Chen, this way, please." Yue Guoyang accompanied Chen Heqian over and pointed to a seat, saying: "Please sit here, Teacher Chen."

  Chen Heqian walked over to the table and was about to sit down when his eyes inadvertently fell on the bowl and chopsticks in front of him, causing him to pause for a moment.

  "Who put chopsticks for me?" Chen Heqian asked.

  "It's Comrade Qin." The guard standing beside him said, looking at the position of the bowl and chopsticks, he couldn't help but mutter: "This Comrade Qin is really something, how did you put your chopsticks on the left side..."

  "Don't move!" Chen Heqian stopped the guard who was about to switch his chopsticks to his right hand, then turned to look at Qin Hai beside him, with a suspicious glint in his eyes.

  Qin Hai smiled and gestured, "Teacher Chen, please take a seat. If I'm not mistaken, you're used to holding chopsticks with your left hand."

  "You knew who I was all along?" Chen Heqian's shock at this moment was no less than the previous one.