Chapter 20: Even When Driven to Desperation, One Cannot Learn to Repair a Fighter Jet

The setting sun dipped below the horizon, painting the entire sky in brilliant hues of twilight.

Wang Yang and Liang Yuzhu sat in their car, both faces etched with exhaustion. Over the past two days, they had visited countless banks to process multiple loans. By the end of it, Liang had grown so accustomed to the procedure that she knew exactly what to do without a word of guidance from the staff, performing the tasks with seasoned ease.

Their day of hard work had not been in vain; Liang had successfully secured a loan of 100 million in the company's name. These funds would arrive in installments within the week, with repayment scheduled to begin next month.

With the most significant hurdle cleared, Liang slumped into the passenger seat, a sense of relief washing over her. Her keen, beautiful eyes remained fixed on the road ahead.

"Is this... enough?" she asked without turning her head.

Wang Yang nodded firmly. "It should be enough for now. But restoring a fighter jet is unpredictable. If we fall short, we’ll just have to find another way."

"Right..." Liang nodded softly. She turned to look at the confidence on Wang Yang’s face and, after a moment of hesitation, said earnestly, "Wang Yang, if we can't achieve a profit of over five times the investment in the end, I can accept that. Even if we just break even... that’s fine. But please, do not lose money."

"Don't worry. You’ve told me that before, and I promise you now: we will absolutely not lose money. Of course, I won't take unnecessary risks just to chase higher profits. If the company goes under, I lose everything too. We’re in the same boat now," Wang Yang replied with a calm smile.

...

Night fell, and the vast, starlit sky draped over the earth.

In her cramped, dimly lit rental apartment, Liang sat before her computer, biting her finger in deep concentration. Her ballpoint pen was picked up and put down repeatedly. Her notebook was filled with dense scribbles, resembling the chaotic draft pages of an old professor in a research institute.

On the computer screen before her, over a dozen tabs were running simultaneously, filled with a dizzying array of text:

[How to restore an F-22?]
[What kind of paint should be used to patch damage to the F-22's outer casing?]
[What is the structural composition of an F-22 wing?]
[How does one restore a hollowed-out F-22 fighter jet into a brand-new aircraft?]

Clicking through page after page, staring at the complex data and overwhelming information, Liang felt as if her head were about to explode. It was just too difficult.

For someone with a background in the humanities, this knowledge was truly insurmountable. Some of the data was completely incomprehensible. For instance, the information displayed on one page regarding the F-22’s wing structure:

[The wing utilizes a triple-spar structure, made of composite skin panels, titanium alloy main spars, and composite auxiliary spars. The dimensions are approximately 4.88m (root), 5.49m (leading edge), with each weighing about 909.2kg. The material composition is 47% titanium alloy and 38% composite materials (33% bismaleimide, 5% resin transfer molding)...]

Just looking at the names of these materials and the various percentages felt like deciphering an ancient, arcane text. It was hard to imagine the sheer scale of the workload if Wang Yang were to attempt this restoration alone. And he had boasted to the netizens that he would finish the restoration in six months, intending to sell the jet immediately afterward.

It was... too hard.

She felt that even for her to simply understand these data points and the underlying principles within six months would be a miracle.

But... if she didn't do this, the entire burden would fall on Wang Yang. If he missed a single technical detail and took the wrong approach, it could trigger a chain reaction, leading to obstacles and stalling the entire project. If that happened, they wouldn't be able to finish the restoration in six months, which would delay their profit window. And if a mistake caused all their preliminary work to fail, the company would face bankruptcy.

And she would be left to carry the debt of 130 million for the rest of her life.

That was 130 million...

For the sake of the company, to avoid bankruptcy, and to escape the fate of living under a mountain of debt, she had to force herself to understand these cryptic figures and technical terms. Even if she could only help Wang Yang with the smallest of tasks, or offer a warning to pay extra attention to a specific step, she had to try to learn.

Thinking of this, Liang rubbed her messy hair, softened her distressed expression, picked up her pen again, and began meticulously recording the data from the webpages into her notebook.

She even constantly encouraged herself in her heart: *Liang Yuzhu, you can do this! If you learn how to restore an F-22, you can help Wang Yang, save the company from bankruptcy, and escape the fate of being buried in debt.*

...

A few days passed in a blur.

During this time, Wang Yang hadn't posted on social media, hadn't visited the warehouse, hadn't managed the company, and hadn't even gone into the office.

He was focused on one thing—the most critical task before the restoration could even begin. He was extracting the entire process of restoring the F-22 from his mind, from the very first step to the final completion, and documenting it all.

He didn't use paper drafts; that was far too slow. If he were to record the entire research process on paper, four 35-ton trucks wouldn't be enough to hold it all. The amount of information was simply staggering.

Take, for example, just a section of the F-22’s mid-fuselage: [The mid-fuselage is the most complex part of the F-22, approximately 5.18 meters long, 4.57 meters wide, 1.83 meters high, and weighing about 3,855.6kg. All systems, including hydraulic, electrical, environmental control, fuel, and auxiliary power systems, pass through here. The mid-fuselage section contains three fuel tanks, four internal weapons bays, one 20mm cannon, and an auxiliary power unit. The materials used are 35% aluminum alloy, 23.5% composite materials, and 35% titanium alloy.]

This short paragraph alone required hundreds of pages of documentation to detail. One had to realize that terms like "hydraulic," "electrical," "environmental control," and "fuel" each contained an entire set of research content—from conceptualization to study, to specific experimental procedures, and finally, to the production of the finished component. The complexity was immense.

And this was merely a concise record of the necessary components, equipment, and research processes.

Since he began consolidating this data, Wang Yang felt that even the most difficult math problems were trivial in comparison. A person pushed to the brink might solve a math problem, but they could never produce an entire, perfect, step-by-step process for restoring an F-22.

Wang Yang let out a long sigh and gave a wry smile.

Restoring an F-22 was truly no easy feat. But it was precisely because it was difficult that it held such immense profit potential. If anyone could do it, then anyone could make this money.

With that thought, Wang Yang smiled and prepared to dive back into his work, hoping to finish writing out the entire procedure as soon as possible so that he could begin the actual restoration without wasting a single moment.

*Ding-dong.*

Just then, his phone, lying to the side, lit up with a WeChat message.

Jiang Liangliang: [Brother Yang, the bank loans have all arrived. When are you coming to the office to verify them?]