195: Chapter 195 Barbecue Dinner

"Phew, they're finally gone. I'm exhausted."

After the evaluation team left, Wang Zhe slumped into his chair and said to Chen Youhua and Li Wei.

"The last time I was this terrified was back in Professor Zhang's lab, when a huge crowd suddenly showed up. That was genuinely scary."

Seeing Wang Zhe in this state, Li Wei shook her head and sighed, seemingly mocking his lack of courage.

Wang Zhe saw this and immediately stood up, saying,

"Sister Wei, aren't you tired?"

"Just now, I was at 120% focus, terrified of saying a single word wrong."

Li Wei rolled her eyes, crossed her arms over her chest, and said,

"If you don't work hard normally, your mindset will be like this when it comes to a test. Who told you to slack off? As the saying goes, a half-full bucket makes the most noise, while a full bucket makes no sound."

Wang Zhe immediately refused to accept that, ready to argue his case.

Chen Youhua watched them—grown adults acting like children—and shook his head with a smile. He stepped in to mediate, saying,

"Alright, alright. Everyone performed well during the review today. The main thing was the verification of our results. If the prosthetic limb project didn't have tangible results, the military wouldn't buy it no matter how well we talked. Everyone is tired; let's go have a meal together today."

Seeing that Chen Youhua had spoken, the two stopped bickering.

"Yay! It's been so long since we all went out to eat together. We have to have a good meal today."

"I think that Hunan restaurant by the school gate is pretty good. I go there to eat every time."

"This is a group meal, why go to a small restaurant? I want to eat somewhere nice."

"What's wrong with the Hunan restaurant? It's cheap and the portions are generous." Wang Zhe rubbed his stomach. "I'm so hungry right now I could eat a horse; I just want something substantial."

Li Wei raised an eyebrow: "Senior Brother Wang, didn't your blood lipids just come back high in last month's physical exam? And you're still thinking about greasy, spicy food?"

"Just for one meal, just one meal!" Wang Zhe chuckled and turned to look at Chen Youhua. "Boss, where do you say we go?"

Chen Youhua was looking down, organizing the experimental records on the table. Hearing this, he looked up and adjusted his glasses.

"I'm fine with anything. But..."

He paused and glanced at the sky outside the window.

"The weather is nice today. Should we go to that new open-air barbecue place by the river? I heard you can grill it yourself, and they have stir-fried dishes too."

"Barbecue sounds great!"

"By the river! And we can see the night view!"

Several young team members immediately agreed.

Li Wei thought for a moment and nodded: "That works. At least the air is good; it's better than being cramped in a small restaurant."

The group trooped out of the laboratory building. It was nearly dusk, and the campus streetlights had just flickered on, casting warm yellow halos on the ground.

The graduate students discussed the military's questions from the review as they walked, chiming in one after another, reviewing it even more seriously than a team meeting.

"At that time, the officer with glasses asked about the fluctuation range of the mean signal delay. I almost blurted out that set of abnormal data from last year." Sun Qian's doctoral student said, still feeling lingering fear.

"What are you afraid of?" Wang Zhe waved his hand dismissively. "Our data is rock solid; the fluctuations are all within the allowable margin of error. Besides, if they really have questions, they can just go back and read the detailed report, right?"

"Senior Brother Wang, that's easy for you to say," another male student laughed and poked him. "Who was so nervous just now that their palms were sweaty and they were secretly wiping them on their pants?"

The group burst into laughter.

Wang Zhe's face flushed, and he made a move to hit him, but the boy laughed and hid behind Li Wei.

Chen Youhua walked a little ahead, listening to the laughter and banter behind him, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

They arrived at the school gate; the riverside barbecue restaurant wasn't far. Some suggested riding shared bikes, while others wanted to walk.

Eventually, they split into two groups. Chen Youhua, Li Wei, and several female students chose to walk, while Wang Zhe led a group of boys, whooping and hollering as they scanned bikes to ride, saying they would go ahead to grab seats and order food.

The river breeze blew in with a damp chill, dispersing the mugginess of the day.

Camphor trees were planted along the riverside walkway, their leaves rustling in the evening breeze.

The streetlights and the neon lights of distant buildings reflected in the dark river water, breaking into a patch of shimmering light spots.

Li Wei walked beside Chen Youhua and suddenly spoke: "During the review just now, I noticed you kept looking at that Major surnamed Qin. Do you know him?"

Chen Youhua paused slightly, then shook his head: "Not really. I met him once before at a meeting with Academician Zheng. He was the liaison for an information security project at the time."

"No wonder his questions were all on point; he didn't seem like a layman." Li Wei was thoughtful.

"It seems the military isn't just throwing money at our project; they actually want to use it."

"Hmm." Chen Youhua nodded.

"So that 8.3% failure rate must be reduced to as close to zero as possible. Otherwise, they won't dare to use it, and we won't dare to give it to them."

Li Wei was silent for a moment before saying: "Actually, regarding the analysis of the millimeter-level jitter in monkey M09 today, enlightenment later gave me a supplementary model."

"It simulated the current conduction of the neural interface in an extremely low-temperature environment and found that changes in temperature gradients could lead to sudden local impedance changes, which might be one of the causes of the jitter."

"Low temperature?" Chen Youhua slowed his pace.

"Our previous test environments all simulated room temperature or body temperature."

"Right. But the military's application scenarios might include frigid zones, high plateaus, or even... outer space." Li Wei looked at him.

"enlightenment deduced this based on the environmental adaptation standards of equipment the military has procured in the past."

Chen Youhua's eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses.

He remembered that Major Qin had indeed asked a question earlier.

"What is the performance degradation curve of the material under cyclic thermal shock from minus thirty to plus fifty degrees?"

At the time, he had provided the data for the normal temperature range and stated that tests for extreme temperature ranges would require an additional cycle.

"Go back and pull up enlightenment's model. We'll add a set of temperature gradient experiments next week," Chen Youhua said.

"Also, contact Professor Liu from the School of Materials Science. They seem to have a new type of phase-change temperature control material. See if it can be made into a thin film and integrated into the interface layer."

"Okay." Li Wei agreed and took out her phone to start taking notes.

When they reached the barbecue restaurant, Wang Zhe and the others had already grabbed a large table by the railing on the second-floor open-air terrace.

The table was already set with several plates of cold dishes and skewers, steaming hot.

The boys were busy around two barbecue grills, the charcoal glowing red, and the aroma of cumin and chili powder wafting up with the smoke.

"Boss! Sister Wei! Over here!" Wang Zhe waved a chicken wing that was sizzling with oil.

Everyone took their seats.

Chen Youhua was pushed to the main seat, with Li Wei on his left and Wang Zhe on his right.

A second-year graduate student volunteered to pour drinks for everyone—beer, juice, sour plum soup—whatever they wanted.

"Come on, let's all raise our glasses together," Wang Zhe stood up, holding a beer. "To celebrate passing another hurdle! And to compensate for all the hair we've lost these past few days!"

"The one losing hair is you, Senior Brother Wang!"

"My hairline is still doing just fine!"

Amidst the laughter, glasses clinked together with a crisp sound.

Chen Youhua took a sip of the sour plum soup—cool, sweet, and tart—it was just right for quenching his thirst.

He looked at the young, slightly tired faces around the table, glowing with a sense of relaxation under the warm yellow lights and the charcoal fire.

Some were eating meat in big mouthfuls, some were chattering about the experimental details they hadn't finished arguing about, and some were looking down at their phones, replying to WeChat messages with smiles on their faces.

A sense of life washed over him at this moment.

It wasn't the precision of the laboratory down to the micrometer, nor the pressure of carefully weighing every word during the review, but rather a vivid, noisy, and even slightly messy sense of ordinary life.

"Boss, try this," Li Wei handed him a skewer of grilled shiitake mushrooms.

"It's grilled just right. It's not dry, and the juices are all locked in."

Chen Youhua took it and took a bite.

The unique savory aroma of the shiitake mushroom, mixed with a slight charred crispness, melted in his mouth, full of that charcoal-grilled flavor.

"Not bad," he said.

"Right? I grilled it!"

A boy sitting opposite him, who usually didn't talk much, suddenly looked up and adjusted his glasses with a bit of pride.

"Not bad, Xiao Zhao! You're full of surprises!"

"Bring a few more skewers! Add extra spice!"