Chapter 36: A Wild Beauty Appears in the Livestream

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“Thanks for showing off on my behalf.”

Wei Xiu invited Qin Xi inside and got to know this highly educated young woman all over again.

No kidding.

Education really was useful.

Her emotional intelligence was clearly something else.

The moment she walked through the door and saw Xu Miao throwing a tantrum, she immediately understood what was going on.

Without so much as a pause, she began showing off for Wei Xiu.

She deliberately rattled off every one of Wei Xiu’s titles, nearly leaving Xu Miao and the other relatives with their mouths hanging open.

Those professorships and the like would have sounded rather flat coming from Wei Xiu himself.

They had to come from Qin Xi for the full effect.

Qin Xi said with complete seriousness, “I wasn’t showing off. I was merely stating the facts.”

“If you know how to talk, then keep talking.”

Wei Xiu could not resist giving her a thumbs-up.

Meanwhile, Qin Xi kept looking around at the state of Wei Xiu’s shop.

“So this is your workplace.”

“Sorry it’s a little shabby.” Wei Xiu brushed the dust off a stool and invited her to sit.

“Don’t mention it.” Qin Xi made no attempt to act like an outsider. “I’m curious. You taught yourself and became successful in an environment like this?”

“That’s right.”

“…”

Qin Xi suddenly fell silent, and then began to feel somewhat ashamed of herself.

To be fair, there was nothing wrong with having a high level of education.

But her academic achievements had been built on the resources provided by her parents and the country.

From childhood onward, she had enjoyed the finest educational opportunities.

When she entered university, she was directly selected by the National University of Defense Technology and went on to enjoy national scholarships and all kinds of preferential support.

Even conservatively estimated, it had cost tens of millions to train an equipment engineer like her.

And then there was Wei Xiu.

As a self-employed individual, he had supported himself without consuming the country’s resources. Instead, he was creating value for the country.

When Qin Xi imagined herself in Wei Xiu’s position…

Forget teaching herself, working hard, and making something of herself.

She felt that simply managing not to break down would have been an achievement.

At that thought, Qin Xi’s resentment eased somewhat.

Ever since their superiors had assigned them the task, Wei Xiu had shown no sign of taking action.

Qin Xi had assumed that he simply did not take the assignment seriously.

Now, however, it seemed that he had a life of his own to deal with.

She could afford not to worry about food and daily necessities, but Wei Xiu could not.

“So when will you have time? We can’t keep putting off the matter of the nanometer-precision radar-absorbing coating.”

Wei Xiu returned to his seat, his expression growing solemn.

“Right now works. Professor Qin, what ideas do you have?”

Qin Xi immediately took a folder from the briefcase she had brought with her.

This was the result of her work over the past few days.

“From the perspective of materials science, I’ve already conducted a reverse analysis of the fragment.”

“I can roughly determine the material’s physical properties.”

“But there are still several difficult points I can’t figure out.”

Wei Xiu took the documents and leafed through them casually.

Inside, he gave an appreciative thumbs-up.

People always said that beauty and intelligence could not coexist. Nonsense!

Qin Xi had both.

Her preliminary preparations were extremely thorough.

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She had come astonishingly close to the final key to the manufacturing process.

Without exaggeration, Qin Xi was absolutely a genius.

Unfortunately…

Genius was merely the threshold for entering Wei Xiu’s world.

He had already produced the nanometer-precision radar-absorbing coating himself.

So Qin Xi’s painstakingly prepared materials were of little use.

After skimming through them once, Wei Xiu casually tossed the documents aside.

“This approach is meaningless.”

“???”

Qin Xi was somewhat displeased.

What did he mean, meaningless?

She had stayed up several nights to put that paper together.

And he had only read a few lines before rushing to a conclusion?

What gave him the right?

“If we don’t work out these key steps,” she said, “we won’t be able to obtain the complete manufacturing process.”

“It’s like building a house. You need a foundation.”

Wei Xiu remained unmoved. “Even deriving those steps would be a waste of effort.”

“Why are you being so discouraging?”

Qin Xi finally understood the reason. This man had already lost heart before the battle had even begun.

Admittedly, the task assigned to them by their superiors was extremely difficult.

They were expected to reverse-engineer the nanomaterial attached to a single fragment that had survived an explosion.

It was like trying to find a needle in the ocean.

After all, following the plane crash, there was hardly any useful material left on that fragment.

Before taking on the assignment, many of the senior researchers at her institute had advised her that it would be a difficult job.

But Qin Xi’s resolve had never wavered.

Whether it was difficult or not, someone had to do it.

If they could determine the properties of the radar-absorbing material through reverse analysis of the fragment, then even if they could not reproduce it, obtaining merely the data on paper would still be of enormous significance.

“I know the work will be extremely difficult.”

Qin Xi served up a bowl of inspirational rhetoric.

“But if we succeed…”

“Then the F-35 will look naked to us.”

“So you need to pull yourself together. Even if a million stand against us, I will go forth alone.”

“???”

Wei Xiu’s head began to buzz.

Wait.

How had she gone from being persuaded to give up to delivering a patriotic speech?

Was it possible that he was urging her to abandon the project because he had already solved it?

He had produced several batches of the nanometer-precision radar-absorbing material.

Did she really need to keep agonizing over those few trivial, pointless problems?

But before Wei Xiu could continue explaining, a sudden shout came from outside the door.

Uncle Yang was calling for him, repeatedly addressing him with extraordinary familiarity.

Wei Xiu had no choice but to interrupt his conversation with Qin Xi.

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“I’m sorry. A customer has arrived. We’ll talk about this later.”

Qin Xi did not quite understand. “There has to be some order of priority, doesn’t there?”

Wei Xiu replied with absolute conviction, as though he were proclaiming a solemn truth: “The people’s emergencies come first.”

“???”

Qin Xi felt as though she had just been given a lesson.

Although she was wearing a military uniform, when it came to understanding one’s position, she was still like a novice compared with Wei Xiu.

As they spoke, Wei Xiu had already swiftly set up his livestreaming equipment.

There was no other reason.

Too many viewers had made pledges in the livestream chat two days earlier.

Eighteen had promised to wash their hair upside down.

Thirty-nine had promised to eat excrement.

Even more had promised to call him “Dad”—too many to count.

They had all sworn that if Wei Xiu could turn the old man’s car into something worthwhile, they would fulfill their promises immediately.

So Wei Xiu was determined to serve them their humiliation while it was still hot.

[Steel Egg LV33]: Going live early—woo-hoo!

[Lion LV13]: So what’s the verdict? Did the Land Rover narrowly win?

[Cloud Dragon of the Nine Heavens LV11]: The streamer’s at least trustworthy. He hasn’t grabbed a bucket and run away.

[Spicy Old Friend LV19]: The streamer was just putting on a show. You guys didn’t actually take him seriously, did you?

The moment the livestream began, the chat exploded.

After all, the previous episode had ended on a cliffhanger.

Everyone was eager to see what Wei Xiu would turn the old man’s little electric car into.

Quite a few people had even set reminders for the livestream.

So the moment he started broadcasting, the viewer count had already surpassed five thousand.

That was certainly a respectable audience, but for Wei Xiu it was merely business as usual.

Qin Xi, however, was dumbfounded.

She stared blankly at the camera.

“Five thousand people? Professor Wei, are you an internet celebrity?”

Good heavens!

Qin Xi occasionally watched livestreams herself, so she knew enough to understand what that meant.

Five thousand viewers already made him a major streamer.

[I must be seeing things. I woke up to find a fairy here.]

[Wait, wait! Why is there a beautiful woman with Brother Wei?]

[What kind of divine beauty is this?]

[Miss, please let me cling to you!]

[Clinging to everything will only bring you harm.]

Qin Xi was far too beautiful.

The viewers in the livestream chat immediately lost all composure.

Only a portion of them retained any semblance of reason.

[Two bars and two stars—holy crap! A lieutenant colonel?]

[What kind of level is it to become a lieutenant colonel at that age?]

[The kind of level that gets promoted by rocket.]

[Streamer, you beast! You won’t even spare a lieutenant colonel?]

[You shameless villain! So you’ve been hiding all these lovely ladies from us while living the high life, have you?]

[Streamer, end the broadcast. I have a friend who’s having a complete breakdown.]

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