213: Chapter 213 Initial Test of Anti-Gravity Vehicle

The research institute's cafeteria was much brighter than usual that evening.

There were no banners, nor any formal celebration; they simply added a few extra hearty dishes and brought out a crate of beer. A group of people who usually only dealt with data, blueprints, and curves finally sat down at the tables in the cafeteria like ordinary people that day.

Someone buried their head in two large bowls of rice, and halfway through eating, they were still staring blankly at the maintenance curve they had captured on their phone.

Someone whose alcohol tolerance was clearly poor still forced themselves to open a bottle, drinking and laughing, until their eyes turned red as they laughed.

An elderly expert with white hair held up his glass, looking at the young people across from him who hadn't yet recovered from the shock, his voice slightly raspy:

"Don't keep saying that you were born at the wrong time in the future."

"Today is a time that will be enough for you to remember for the rest of your lives."

The young researcher opposite him buried his head in his rice, his Adam's apple bobbing, before he finally forced out a sentence in a low voice:

"I finally understand now why some people are willing to spend their whole lives in the laboratory."

No one around them replied.

But the light in the eyes of several people was clearly brighter.

The Institute Director finally walked over with a drink, personally offering a toast to Lu Li.

Lu Li originally wanted to dodge it, but he was held down by the teasing of the table, so he ended up drinking it anyway.

The cafeteria was rowdy; laughter, the sound of clinking glasses, and muffled exclamations mixed together, as if the breath that had been suppressed in the laboratory for decades had been exhaled all at once.

Towards the end of the gathering, the Institute Director called Lu Li to the corridor and asked in a low voice:

"Should we suppress the situation online first?"

"We have already found some leads on the group from abroad that is throwing money to stir up trouble. If you give the nod, many of those voices will disappear tonight."

The night wind blew over, carrying the chill unique to the research area.

Lu Li stood under the light, his expression very calm.

"Don't suppress it."

The Institute Director glanced at him.

"Let them continue to make a scene."

"When the Nuclear Fusion is announced later, the contrast will be even better to watch."

He said it calmly, as if he were talking about the most ordinary thing.

But after hearing this, the Institute Director laughed immediately.

"Fine."

"Then let them jump around for now."

"Anyway, someone will eventually be unable to laugh later on."

Lu Li didn't say anything else and turned to get in the car.

The car hadn't gone far from the research institute when his phone vibrated.

It wasn't the national line, nor was it an encrypted call.

It was an internal report email from the Anti-gravity Vehicle Research Center.

Lu Li tapped it open, scanned the few experimental videos inside, and his gaze paused slightly.

The driver in the front row only heard a flat sentence from the back seat.

"I will go over there tomorrow."

...

The Anti-gravity Vehicle Research Center was not in the national research sequence.

It operated under the name of the Qiankun Company, which Lu Li had recently registered.

However, the technical team inside consisted entirely of top-tier talent from both domestic and abroad.

After the reward money arrived at that time, he had already begun to set all of this up.

This building was not particularly extravagant, but the location was chosen perfectly; it was both quiet and large enough. The outer security was strict, but the inside had a completely different vibe.

Unlike the suffocating solemnity of the Nuclear Fusion test site, this place was more like a startup monster ignited by the future in advance.

Young, restless, chaotic, yet surprisingly alive.

As soon as Lu Li's car entered the park, before it had even stopped, someone rushed out of the building.

"President Lu is here!"

With that shout, the entire No. 1 Experimental Building seemed to come alive instantly.

People holding tablets, carrying parts boxes, and with machine oil still on their hands swarmed out; the scene was as chaotic as winning a team fight during an all-night gaming session at an internet cafe.

But if you looked closely, you would find that everyone's eyes were shockingly bright.

The reason was simple.

The people gathered here were not the type to follow the rules in the first place.

Many of them came specifically for the three words "Anti-gravity".

Some were the top young geniuses from domestic universities, some were people who had returned from abroad, and others had simply had their minds opened by Lu Li's data and changed their research direction on the spot.

For others, this thing called Anti-gravity was just a paper title.

For Lu Li, it was a company project.

And it was something that would actually be sold in the future.

Lu Li got out of the car, looked up at the words on the outer wall of the experimental building, and casually closed the car door.

"Why are you all crowding around?"

"Go back to what you were doing."

Although he said that, once he went inside, everyone's spirits were even higher.

In the center of the experimental area, an entire curved screen was scrolling through the latest models and attitude simulation diagrams.

Several generations of test prototypes were placed to the side.

The large ones looked like ridiculously ugly black iron boxes, the small ones looked like unfinished flight frames, and a few were simply in a spliced state, with cables not even fully tucked away.

It was not "high-end" at all.

But precisely for that reason, this was the most touching part.

Because they weren't pretty, but they were real.

Not PPTs.

Not concept art.

But things that were actually pushed into the experimental area.

"President Lu, please look at this first."

A young researcher with messy hair rushed over holding a tablet, the dark circles under his eyes no different from someone who had stayed up for three days and three nights.

"In last night's short-hover test, the maximum height off the ground was 92 centimeters, lasting for 3.7 seconds, but the control response still had lag."

Lu Li scanned the real-time curve on the tablet, then looked up at the prototype in the center of the test area, hardly thinking about it.

"The control response curve is too conservative."

The young man was stunned, his eyes lighting up instantly.

"I felt that it was here! But I didn't dare to release it —"

"It's not that you didn't dare to release it," Lu Li raised his hand and pointed at the screen, "You were afraid of it flipping over."

The few people nearby went quiet.

Lu Li's tone was flat as he continued:

"The gravity cancellation coefficient compensation is too narrow, and the attitude stabilization module is too bulky. It's safe, but the price is that it flies like it's carrying a coffin on its back."

The researchers were stunned at first, then the "that's true" expressions immediately appeared on their faces.

Some lowered their heads to take notes on the spot.

Some turned and ran to the test bench.

There was also a doctor wearing glasses who directly deleted the correction plan he had just written halfway.

"Rewrite it!"

"Rewrite it according to what President Lu said!"

The director of the research center stood not far away, watching this scene, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Every time you come, it's like you're opening their third eye."

Lu Li didn't respond to that, walking straight to the main console and scanning their latest version of the structural logic.

"Expand this compensation block outward."

"Don't be greedy for redundancy in attitude correction; being stable doesn't mean it can fly."

"And this response curve —"

He paused, tapping his fingertip on the screen.

"Rewrite it."

"What you want to make is the first thing that can fly, not the first most stable ground ornament."

As soon as he finished speaking, the people around seemed to be tapped at the same time, falling into a collective silence.

But this silence only lasted for a few seconds.

A few seconds later, the entire experimental area became even crazier.

Because he was too accurate.

So accurate that the stifling feeling in everyone's heads of "clearly feeling something is wrong, but always missing that last layer" was torn open on the spot.

So for the next few hours, the entire research center was like it was on fire.

Models were recalculated.

Structures were rearranged.

Redundancies were redone.

Test prototypes were dragged up and down, and the experimental area was full of footsteps and low-voiced arguments.

Lu Li didn't need to lecture them from scratch.

He only needed to glance, point out the problem, and make a cut, and the people below would pounce on it like mad dogs to chew it over.

In the evening, a new round of short-term lift-off tests began.

The perimeter of the experimental area was full of people.

The prototype lifted up bit by bit amidst a low-frequency hum, first a few centimeters off the ground, then continuing to rise.

It wasn't stable.

It wasn't particularly pretty either.

But it actually flew.

And it was clearly more decent than its state last night.