Chen Hao placed the pen on the table, the metal barrel making a crisp sound. He stared at the line he had just drawn on the whiteboard, as if encouraging himself or convincing someone else.

"Let's get moving."

Susan looked up at him. "Move? You can't even climb a ladder properly."

“I don’t need to climb.” Chen Hao pointed to the projection diagram of the mezzanine in section C. “I just need to break through the wall. It’s not like I’m climbing to heaven.”

Nana stood in front of the terminal, the optical lens slightly tilted, already displaying the list of recyclable building materials. Her voice was as steady as a printer that never stops: "There are seventeen items of dismantled materials, with an estimated usability rate of 63%. Construction vibration control needs to be precise to below level 0.8, otherwise it may affect the resonant frequency of the ore."

"Then let's knock slowly," Chen Hao grinned. "Anyway, we're not in a hurry to be reincarnated."

Carl shifted his position in the assistive chair, gripping the armrests. His wound still throbbed with pain, but he didn't complain. He stared at the circuit diagram of the temperature control module, his fingers lightly tracing the wiring on his knee.

“Susan and I will try out the one in the cellar first,” he said. “Anyway, if it breaks, it won’t affect living in the house.”

“Okay.” Chen Hao nodded. “You guys take charge of the low-voltage side, and Nana and I will keep an eye on energy storage. Nobody can expect to get rich overnight.”

Susan got up and walked to another terminal, bringing up the raw parameters of the temperature control system. The moment the screen lit up, she frowned: "This thing was designed for stable DC power when it was manufactured, but we're giving it pulsed power now. It'll be lucky if it survives three startups."

“Then let it start less often.” Carl leaned over to look at the data stream. “Add a delay relay so it doesn’t restart every time the voltage drops.”

"It's just a temporary fix," Susan shook her head. "If it triggers the protection mechanism too frequently, the internal chip will burn out."

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

“Modify the firmware.” She tapped on the keyboard. “Write a dynamic compensation algorithm so that it can adapt to voltage fluctuations on its own.”

"Are you capable of doing this job?"

"You have to be able to, even if you can't." She glanced at him. "Can you walk now? There are many things you can't do."

Carl remained silent, lowering his head to organize the wiring diagram. Silence fell between them, broken only by the sound of keyboard clicks and occasional notification sounds.

Chen Hao walked around to the back of the main control panel and picked up the walkie-talkie: "The construction team will be on site in five minutes. Prepare the tools for breaking through the wall. Clear the west passage on B3 floor and shut off all equipment to prevent vibration."

Nana suddenly spoke up: "I suggest using a manual hydraulic chisel to avoid high-frequency vibration. At the same time, open the ore sample isolation cover to prevent energy field interference."

"Whatever you say." Chen Hao put down the walkie-talkie and turned to look at her. "Any new information in the database?"

"Searching." Nana's camera flickered. "Traditional energy storage models are all based on continuous current, which is incompatible with the current output mode. Existing solutions cannot be directly applied."

"Then let's find something unconventional."

“We have switched to deep indexing,” she said. “Related keywords: aperiodic input, intermittent charging, gradient absorption.”

The list of references began scrolling across the screen, faster and faster. A few minutes later, the screen suddenly stopped.

An old-era space energy report, numbered [E-7421], was highlighted.

“We discovered a potential adaptation theory,” Nana said. “A ‘multi-stage capacitor staggered charging system’ is used by deep space probes to collect scattered energy during solar flare intervals. The principle is to use capacitors of different capacities to absorb pulse energy in stages, avoiding instantaneous overload.”

"It sounds like a line up to go to the toilet," Chen Hao said, scratching his head. "One after another, they come in."

“The logic is similar.” Nana didn’t laugh, but her tone seemed to have softened a bit. “This architecture can improve intermittent charging efficiency by up to four times, and it has experimental verification records.”

“Then let’s copy the homework.” Chen Hao grabbed his notebook and started sketching. “Three capacitor banks, small, medium and large, to be connected to the power in turn. The large ones store more, the small ones react faster, and the middle one is for transition.”

“A custom interface is needed,” Nana reminded. “The existing sockets do not support hierarchical access.”

"Then let's weld a new one," Chen Hao grinned. "Anyway, our welding torch isn't broken yet."

He turned to look at Susan and Carl. The two were gesturing around a disassembled control panel; Susan held a soldering iron, and Carl held a flashlight to illuminate the solder joints.

"How's the progress?"

"The first version of the algorithm is finished." Susan said without looking up, "Let's burn it in and test it later."

"Don't burn yourself out." Chen Hao walked over and took a look. "Last time you soldered a resistor off, and the fan turned into a vacuum cleaner."

“That was an accident.” She glared at him. “This time I’m wearing goggles.”

“Then you can wear it,” Carl interjected. “If I can’t see your face, I can pretend you’re working hard.”

Susan threw the pen cap over with her other hand.

The test began forty minutes later.

The cellar temperature control module was reconnected to the power supply, the indicator light flashed twice and then turned on green.

“First startup.” Susan stared at the screen. “Voltage 0.58 millivolts, fluctuation range ±0.03.”

“Within the tolerance range,” Carl said, looking at the reception curve. “Keep it up.”

The indicator light went out after three seconds.

"It's restarted," Nana reported the result. "Reason: Voltage drop exceeded the threshold, triggering the protection mechanism."

“Again.” Susan gritted her teeth. “For the second load, increase the compensation coefficient by fifteen percent.”

The second restart lasted for ten seconds.

The third time, twenty seconds.

The fourth time, one minute and fourteen seconds, then it stopped.

“It still doesn’t work.” Carl leaned back in his chair. “The algorithm can’t keep up with the speed of change.”

“It’s not an algorithm problem.” Susan stared at the waveform. “We underestimated the randomness of the pulse intervals. It’s not like a clock, striking precisely on the hour. Sometimes it strikes twice in a row, and sometimes there’s a long gap.”

"It's like a seizure," Chen Hao said, standing behind. "The electricity is coming in bursts, and the machine can't handle it."

“Then let it get used to its erratic behavior.” Carl suddenly sat up straight. “Instead of stabilizing the voltage at the front end, we’ll switch to buffering at the back end. Add a miniature battery, and even if it only stores half a second of power, it can get through the downturn.”

“Good idea.” Susan’s eyes lit up. “Use supercapacitors for temporary energy storage to smooth the output voltage.”

“I have some scrapped backup power supplies here.” Chen Hao slapped his thigh. “Let’s take two apart and try them out.”

Within five minutes, they dragged three old power modules from the warehouse. They disassembled them, removed the cores, wired them, and repackaged them.

The fifth test begins.

The indicator light is on and flashing continuously, but it doesn't turn off.

Thirty seconds... one minute... two minutes...

The temperature curve began to rise steadily.

"It's running normally," Nana confirmed. "The system did not trigger a restart even after continuous power supply for over 120 seconds."

Susan breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back, and almost fell off her chair.

Carl smiled and raised his hand to give her a high five, but he missed and hit the armrest instead.

“It’s crooked,” he said.

“Your hands are shaking,” she replied.

Chen Hao stared at the stable curve on the screen, humming a tune that was out of tune. He took out a pen, crossed out "Device Adaptation" in his notebook, and wrote "Successfully Once".

"Looks like we're not completely useless after all."

The data stream on Nana's end was still scrolling. The aerospace report had been broken down into structural diagrams, with a list of material requirements next to it.

“The gradient absorption model has been completed,” she said. “Preliminary simulations show that if a three-stage capacitor bank is used, the theoretical energy storage efficiency can be increased to 4.2 times the original efficiency.”

"Can it be made?"

“Seven special components are needed.” She pulled up the inventory list. “Four are missing, two can be substituted, and two need to be made by hand.”

"Another troublesome matter," Chen Hao rubbed his neck. "But it's better than nothing."

He stood up and walked around to a corner of the laboratory. A space there had been cleared out, a folding bed had been set up, and a few bags of dry food and a bottle of coffee were placed there.

“I’m on the night shift,” he said. “You can take turns sleeping here. No one can stay here.”

"Are you really planning to endure this?" Susan asked.

“I’m not tired,” he said. “Besides, lying here, I can dream of getting rich.”

"You're the richest person in your dreams?"

"In my dream, I found a phone that doesn't need to be charged." He shrugged. "It's way more amazing than the richest man in China."

No one laughed.

But their shoulders were a little looser.

Time passed slowly. Susan and Carl continued to debug the second set of equipment, Nana kept optimizing the model parameters, and Chen Hao sat on the edge of the bed recording data, occasionally yawning.

At 3:17 a.m., the third round of testing began.

This time, the temperature control system ran for a full two hours, maintaining the temperature at around four degrees Celsius, with an error of less than 0.1 degrees Celsius.

“It’s done.” Susan looked at the log file. “Parameters locked, marked as reusable scheme.”

Carl leaned back in his chair, listened to the result with his eyes closed, and nodded.

"At least he did something decent."

Chen Hao picked up the walkie-talkie, his voice a little hoarse: "Construction team, prepare to enter the site. The mezzanine in Zone C must be opened up today."

He put down the walkie-talkie, walked to the main control panel, and stared at the schematic diagram of the energy storage module.

The red alert is still flashing.

He reached out and tapped the screen.

"Next."

The coffee bottle was lying on its side, and half of the liquid had spilled.