Chapter 23: Repairing the F-22, a Long and Arduous Road Ahead

Setting aside the question of how much of the information Liang Yuzhu gathered online is true or false, the simple fact that she is a liberal arts student with zero experience in the sciences means she cannot possibly participate in the restoration of the F-22 fighter jet.

Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

Having Liang Yuzhu involved would only waste his limited supply of materials and potentially risk damaging his precision instruments. While Wang Yang knows she genuinely wants to help, the current situation is such that he is more than enough to handle the restoration himself; no one else is needed.

"I’ve read through a lot of information; I can help you..." Liang Yuzhu’s voice grew louder and slightly hurried, though it softened almost immediately: "I mean, if there’s anything you don’t understand, I could help you figure it out..."

Seeing her expression, Wang Yang smiled and said, "No need. I can handle it myself. You just wait to collect the money."

"Want to grab a bite?" he asked, gesturing toward the untouched meal sitting in front of Jiang Liangliang.

Liang Yuzhu shook her head, looking a bit dejected. "I... I’ve already eaten. You two go ahead."

She truly could not understand why Wang Yang didn’t need her help. She had stayed up for several nights researching how to repair an F-22, even spending dozens of dollars to buy a subscription to an AI Q&A service. For questions she couldn't find online, she would ask the AI, and the results were quite good—it could quickly help her find answers she otherwise couldn't locate.

Yet, Wang Yang simply refused to trust her.

"I’m not keeping you from participating because I look down on you. I know you must have spent a lot of time looking up all this information, right?" Wang Yang’s face still held a smile. "But for this kind of work, I’m enough. Besides, when I’m working on the fighter jet, I don’t like being disturbed."

"Alright then..." Liang Yuzhu nodded, saying nothing more.

Wang Yang said nothing further. He had laid out the situation, and he believed that given her personality, she wouldn't press the matter of joining the project again.

With that settled, he could finally focus on repairing the fighter jet in peace, without any interruptions.

He turned around, walked to a small table nearby, and began to devour the food from the plastic bag. He was genuinely hungry; he hadn't eaten at home before coming over, having been too busy organizing the data. After spending the whole day at the warehouse directing work, both his mental and physical energy were depleted, and he had been famished for some time.

Even while eating, Wang Yang didn't forget his work. With a bowl of rice in one hand, he directed the forklift driver in the warehouse to carefully place the equipment.

"By the way, has the final payment been sent to the arms company?" Wang Yang asked, glancing at Jiang Liangliang while picking up some food.

Jiang Liangliang, her mouth stuffed with food like a little hamster, nodded and mumbled, "Don't worry, Brother Yang. I’ve already sent the final payment. They—*cough, cough*—they’ve received it and said they look forward to working with us again, *cough*."

"Eat slowly. No one is going to steal it from you," Wang Yang said with a wry smile. "Now we can finally get to work."

He finished his dinner quickly and continued directing the forklift driver until late into the night, by which time all the instruments had been placed in their designated spots.

Wang Yang looked at the warehouse filled with equipment and materials, along with the pile of F-22 wreckage that looked like little more than scrap metal, and nodded with satisfaction.

He then asked for the only key from Jiang Liangliang and told both of them that during the time he was working on the F-22, they should only call him if something came up—there was no need to come to the warehouse. As for the company’s affairs, he left the operations entirely to Jiang Liangliang.

He entrusted the operations to her because, as an assistant who had been with him since he first founded the company, she already had plenty of experience.

Liang Yuzhu, on the other hand, was a "hands-off" manager; if he were to dump all those trivial matters on her, she would likely get a headache just looking at them.

After giving his final instructions, Wang Yang drove them both home.

Back at his own place, Wang Yang didn't turn on the lights. He slumped onto the sofa, his mind racing through the overall process for the F-22 restoration starting tomorrow.

"Such a massive workload is truly difficult to handle, but the returns will be very substantial."

At the thought, a smile slowly spread across his face.

...

The next day, at 7:00 AM.

Wang Yang bought some breakfast on the way and arrived at the warehouse after a quick bite.

He unlocked the warehouse doors, surveyed the equipment and the mountains of materials, stretched his body, and wiped his face. He then placed his laptop on a shelf and pulled up the master plan for the F-22 restoration.

[Overall Process Plan for the Restoration of the F-22 Fighter Jet]

Looking at the title on the homepage, Wang Yang scrolled through the electronic touch panel.

He had broken the F-22 restoration into four major steps, with each step divided into twenty stages. Within these twenty stages were fifty sub-items, and these fifty sub-items encompassed hundreds of smaller experiments.

This was exactly why it had taken Wang Yang so many days to consolidate all the information.

If he had relied solely on what he remembered in his head, he would inevitably have missed something during the experimental process. But by planning the entire workflow, he could simply get to work, following the established steps one by one. Eventually, he would finish the entire process, and at that point, the F-22 would be fully restored.

[Step One, Stage One, Sub-item One... Attempting to restore the surface coating of the F-22 fighter jet. The specific implementation method is as follows...]

Looking at the starting steps recorded in the plan, Wang Yang didn't hesitate and immediately threw himself into the work.

The stealth coating on the surface of the F-22 was a critical step in the restoration. Back in the day, the United States had gone to extraordinary lengths to develop an F-22 capable of evading radar detection, mobilizing the top experts in materials science, aerodynamics, radar detection, electronic sensing and transmission, and polymer nanotechnology to work on the development together.

Ultimately, after two years, they had successfully developed the first generation of stealth coating, though the results were suboptimal.

It took another five years of various improvements before the current stealth coating was developed and successfully tested.

Wang Yang, however, did not need that much time, nor did he need to expend that much manpower, material resources, or mental energy.

The formula for the F-22 stealth coating and the entire experimental process were right there on his computer. All he had to do was follow the established steps one by one, and he would soon master this stealth coating, which was considered extremely difficult and time-consuming in the scientific community.

Without hesitation, Wang Yang turned, walked to the corner of the warehouse, picked up a piece of high-polymer, high-precision nano-aggregate material, and walked toward the incident electromagnetic wave angle precision instrument.