At ten in the morning, First Branch Factory, R&D Workshop.
Wu Yan, Old Xie, and the others stood quietly beneath the test bench, silently watching an engine on the platform.
The engine had already been running for an hour and a half. The high-decibel roar had made everyone's ears buzz, yet Wu Yan and Old Xie were "reluctant" to move away. They stared fixedly at the engine as if it were a gracefully built ballet dancer.
Suddenly, Wu Yan shouted at Old Xie, "Did you hear that?"
Old Xie's brow furrowed tightly, then he suddenly yelled, "Stop, stop, stop! Shut it down, now!"
The moment he finished speaking, the engine on the test bench emitted a "squeak, squeak, squeak~," and then the sound abruptly grew louder, involuntarily bringing to mind the pain of something being torn apart.
The technicians of First Branch Factory were decisive enough. They swiftly cut off the engine's fuel and electrical systems, but as the engine coasted to a stop on inertia, everyone still heard a very distinct sound of metal scraping against metal.
At high revolutions, that sound was ear-piercing. At a moment like this, it filled people with despair.
"Ah~"
No one knew who let out that desolate sigh, but it made many of the people around them sink into dejection as well.
Wu Yan turned and swept his gaze over the crowd, saying displeasedly, "What are you sighing for? Failure is the mother of success. Do I need to hammer such a simple truth into your heads again and again?"
"But..."
The technician who had sighed just now hesitated, yet still stubbornly argued, "But even if this experiment succeeds, the engine's performance will not reach seventy percent of the imported engine's. What meaning is there in succeeding?"
"..."
"What did you say? Say