First Collaboration

"Sure, I'll bring some people and be there in about two hours."

"No problem. I basically never go out at night."

"See you soon."

After hanging up, Mo Jingchun saved the strange phone number to his contacts and added the note "A." He then deftly slipped his phone into the pocket of his jeans.

Unfortunately, Mo Jingchun did not know that the phone numbers dialed by Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Aijun were randomly generated from a pool of numbers. Next time, it would not be this number.

When he returned to the apartment, Mo Jingchun gently placed his sleeping younger sister, Candy, on the bed, tucked her in, and closed the window he had opened at noon for ventilation.

Only then did Mo Jingchun take the Teething Stick that the little one had gnawed on all day and soak it in a basin filled with boiling water.

After cooking dinner, Mo Jingchun woke the little one again.

He added just a tiny bit of sugar to the Millet Porridge, giving it a faint sweetness.

Sitting in Mo Jingchun's arms, Candy supported the left arm holding the bowl with her tiny hands and ate, mouthful by mouthful, the Millet Porridge he fed her with a small spoon.

Her little pink tongue occasionally poked out to lick the corners of her mouth.

Only after feeding the little one until she was full did Mo Jingchun have time to eat and fill his own stomach. Every day at this time, the little one would stare at the food with eager, longing eyes. Although Mo Jingchun always fed Candy until she was full before eating, it still did nothing to lessen the temptation of the delicious food.

After eating, Mo Jingchun did not even clear away the bowls and chopsticks before giving Candy a bath.

The bathroom, with its heating lamp on, rang with the splashing of water and bursts of laughter.

Wrapped in a bath towel and soaking in the water, Candy was utterly content. Since the weather had turned cold, this was the happiest time the little one got to enjoy every other day.

Unless he stopped adding hot water, the little one refused to leave the comfortable little tub until the water had cooled down.

After dealing with everything for the day, it was already past eight at night. Mo Jingchun had been sitting in the living room with his younger sister Candy, waiting for Zhang Aijun, for more than half an hour.

They had agreed on two hours, but nearly three hours had passed.

Just as Mo Jingchun was wondering why Zhang Aijun had not arrived yet, there was a knock at the door.

Knock, knock, knock~

"Coming, coming."

When he reached the door and saw through the peephole that Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Aijun was indeed standing outside, Mo Jingchun opened it.

Only after opening the door did Mo Jingchun discover that Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Aijun had not come alone. There were three of them in total, and the other two soldiers were people Mo Jingchun had never seen before.

The thought merely flashed through Mo Jingchun's mind, and he did not speculate further.

"Come in."

Before Mo Jingchun could close the door, the last soldier stepped inside and casually shut it behind him.

Zhang Aijun placed the combination case he was carrying on the table. After entering the correct code, the case clicked open.

Inside lay sixteen sheets of A4 paper.

Zhang Aijun did not immediately pick up the documents and hand them to Mo Jingchun. Instead, he took a confidentiality agreement from the comrade behind him and placed it in front of Mo Jingchun.

"Since this involves classified materials, please sign a confidentiality agreement before reviewing them."

Mo Jingchun picked up the confidentiality agreement and looked it over. To sum it up in one sentence, as long as he did not leak the information, nothing would happen. If he leaked it, the light punishment was free food and lodging; the heavy punishment was... eating sunflower seeds.

After seeing Mo Jingchun sign the confidentiality agreement, Zhang Aijun took the documents from the combination case and handed them to him. He said at the same time, "Academician Chen asked me to give these to you. Academician Chen said that if there's anything you don't understand, you can contact him through the encrypted phone."

"Contact him by phone? Isn't Academician Chen at home?" Mo Jingchun raised an eyebrow. He indeed had not heard any movement from next door today.

Zhang Aijun's expression barely changed. He merely shook his head and said, "I don't know. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

Holding the child, Mo Jingchun shrugged without saying anything. He simply sat on the sofa, holding Candy on his thigh with one arm while reviewing the documents with his right hand.

More than twenty minutes later, Mo Jingchun muttered to himself, "A satellite?"

The three men standing straight did not answer Mo Jingchun's question.

After putting down the documents, Mo Jingchun closed his eyes and began thinking, organizing his ideas for optimization. Later, he simply started drawing diagrams on paper. Beside the diagrams, he also wrote down formulas that Zhang Aijun could not understand.

Not understanding them was one thing, but Zhang Aijun quietly memorized each of the complex, difficult-to-remember formulas. As for how many he would still remember after leaving, even Zhang Aijun could not say.

These formulas were not written words. If they had been words, Zhang Aijun really could have memorized every single one without missing a character.

"I need an hour and a half. Wait for me in the living room. I'll go to the bedroom and bring out my laptop."

Mo Jingchun had originally planned to modify the code in the bedroom, but after thinking it over, he was sure Zhang Aijun would not agree.

As for modifying the code in the living room and whether Zhang Aijun might memorize it, honestly, Mo Jingchun was not worried at all.

Even if he saw it, setting aside whether he could memorize it, it would be useless even if he did.

Without the functions from the custom library, all he would remember would be some English words that appeared to have a logical structure, along with some baffling variable names.

Mo Jingchun tucked the little one into a warm coat. Under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Aijun and the other two, he boldly began cutting out the redundant code that was not needed and made various parameter adjustments to the remaining code.

The living room filled with the clatter of keyboard keys. Inside Mo Jingchun's coat, Candy gripped his clothes with one hand and held the other to her mouth, sucking her thumb.

Her two tiny feet kept stepping back and forth on Mo Jingchun's thigh.

An hour and a half later, the little one was already asleep against Mo Jingchun's chest, still sucking on her finger. Mo Jingchun, meanwhile, had completed the optimization of the Attitude Balance Algorithm based on the parameter data spread across the table.

To be honest, Mo Jingchun had never expected the Attitude Balance Algorithm to be used on a rocket launching a satellite during their first collaboration.

Was the government not afraid that a tiny data error would cause the satellite launch to fail? Losing money was one thing; they would also lose a great deal of time.

After re-encrypting and packaging the optimized Attitude Balance Algorithm, Mo Jingchun rolled his neck and stretched.

"All done, Lieutenant Colonel Zhang Aijun. Did you bring a USB Drive? Surely you don't expect me to send it by email. If the email gets intercepted and leaked, I won't take any responsibility."

"Yes." Zhang Aijun somehow produced a deep-black USB Drive and handed it to Mo Jingchun.

"All done. You can use it as soon as you take it back. If there are any problems that require further adjustments, contact me and I can modify it again."

After Zhang Aijun and the others left, Mo Jingchun did not hurry to shut down the computer. Instead, he opened the security protection software he had developed himself.

P.S.: Thanks for the rewards from the great Emperor of Luck Zaomeng and Feixue Mantianxing. Also, I went to the hospital today, so I got back a little late and the update was slightly delayed.