Chen Hao slammed his pen on the table; the sketch was only half finished. He stared at the crooked lines on the back of the scrap paper, then looked down at the two grayish, barrel-shaped objects beside him.
"It's done," he said.
His tone wasn't particularly excited; it sounded more like he was simply confirming that the rice was cooked.
He made these two buckets using the resin left over from yesterday. The mold was the inner wall of a discarded metal bucket, lined with a layer of shredded protective clothing fibers. He kneaded, pressed, and waited for four hours, and thankfully, they didn't crack. Although the surface is pitted and they wobble a bit when you lift them, at least they can hold water.
He picked one up and spun it around his head. It didn't leak.
"Iron Lady, watch closely, a new era of containers has been born." He slammed the bucket down on the control panel with a thud.
Nana stood beside her, her right shoulder joint still extended. The expression on the screen remained unchanged, and the voice was flat: "Structural integrity is less than 41% of the standard pressure vessel; it is recommended to avoid storing high-temperature liquids."
“I know it’s not sturdy,” Chen Hao plopped back into his chair, “but we don’t even have a plastic basin right now, how can you expect it to dance?”
After he finished speaking, he picked up another smaller finished product—a prototype of the flowerpot he had tried to make. Several drainage holes were drilled in the bottom, and the edges were uneven in thickness, like a flatbread that had been stepped on.
"Growing some scallions should be enough," he muttered, placing it between the two buckets.
The workshop fell silent. The welding torches had long been turned off, and the fans had stopped. Only Nana's internal cooling system was still running at a low frequency, emitting an almost inaudible hum.
Chen Hao reached out to touch the newly made resin board, but withdrew his hand as soon as his fingertips touched it.
"hot?"
He frowned and looked closer. He had just held the board over the welding torch for a minute; it should have softened or even started to smoke by now. But it was only blackened on the surface and felt warm to the touch, showing no signs of having just been exposed to an open flame.
"Do you have a thermometer over there?" he asked, turning his head.
Nana raised her left arm, the camera was slightly adjusted, and a beam of red light swept across the surface of the resin board.
"The outer layer temperature is 38 degrees Celsius, and the internal metal support is 107 degrees Celsius."
Chen Hao was taken aback. "It's almost red-hot inside, but it's only this warm outside?"
"The material forms a dense carbonized layer that blocks heat conduction," Nana said, "similar to a simple heat insulation structure."
Chen Hao didn't say anything, stared at the dark board for five seconds, and then suddenly grinned.
"Oh my, this thing can be used as insulation?"
He grabbed the charcoal pencil next to him and scribbled furiously next to the sketch: "Insulation wall - resin + fiber, starting from five centimeters thick."
As he wrote, his head drooped lower and lower until his shoulders were almost touching the table. He wrote with his right hand while unconsciously rubbing his temples with his left. He hadn't slept much last night, and had been thinking a lot all day; his head felt a little heavy.
"Hey, are you still holding on over there?" he suddenly looked up and asked Nana.
Nana made a slight clicking sound in her right shoulder joint. She tried to pull her arm back, but the movement faltered.
"The drive unit is still overheated, and the lubricant evaporation is causing the coefficient of friction to increase. It is recommended to stop the machine and let it cool for 30 minutes."
"Again?" Chen Hao stood up. "It's only been repaired for a few days, how come you're even more fragile than me?"
"Six hours of continuous operation exceeds the routine maintenance cycle."
"You should have said so earlier." He walked behind her, pulled back the shoulder guard and took a look. "It's all yellowed inside. If it keeps burning, the circuit board will be cooked."
He crouched down and rummaged through the parts box, muttering, "Glue, glue... is there any left?"
He pulled out half a bag of resin powder and a small piece of uncured residue, and weighed it in his hand.
"How about... we stick it on first?"
"Temporary reinforcement may affect the accuracy of subsequent maintenance," Nana cautioned.
"We can't worry about that now." Chen Hao had already taken apart the wooden handle of an old screwdriver. "If you lose your arm, who am I supposed to get to fix it?"
He heated the resin block with a welding torch on low setting until it was semi-molten, then used the wooden handle to apply it to the crack in Nana's shoulder joint. He moved slowly, afraid of dripping it into the wrong place.
"Bear with it, if it explodes, I'll have no one to talk to."
After filling the resin in, he used metal clips to fix it in place and let it cool naturally.
Ten minutes passed, and the outer shell hardened. Chen Hao released the clamps and gently pushed her robotic arm.
"Try moving it."
Nana started the fine-tuning program, and her arm slowly retracted, making the joint rotation smoother.
"Stability has recovered to 72%, and it can operate for a short period of time," she said. "Thank you for your assistance."
"No need for thanks," Chen Hao wiped his sweat. "Just cook me a bowl of noodles later—oh right, you can't cook either."
As he was speaking, his finger accidentally touched the newly solidified resin shell.
"Huh?"
He abruptly withdrew his hand.
"It's so hot inside, why isn't it hot outside at all?"
He grabbed the thermometer and scanned the temperature again. The data was the same as before: the inner layer was over 100 degrees Celsius, and the outer layer was less than 40 degrees Celsius.
“This isn’t ordinary glue.” He looked up at Nana. “It can even block heat?”
"Preliminary assessment indicates it possesses basic thermal insulation properties," Nana responded. "Silicate-like polymers form a stable structure at high temperatures, making them suitable for use in protective layers or insulating materials."
Chen Hao didn't speak. He turned around, took a small piece of discarded wire from the shelf, and found a thin sheet of iron to make a simple test stand. He placed a resin board underneath and put an electronic module on top—it was taken from a broken temperature controller.
Then ignite it.
The flames licked at the bottom of the resin panel, and black smoke slowly rose. Two minutes later, he turned off the flames and lifted the sheet metal to inspect it.
The circuit is intact, the chip is not burned, and the solder joints are still intact.
"It really held up?" He stared wide-eyed. "Can this piece of junk be used as bricks from now on?"
“The wall needs to be reinforced,” Nana said. “Pure resin is not impact resistant enough.”
"Then add hemp rope, wire, and rags!" Chen Hao slammed his hand on the table. "We don't need to dig soil and make bricks anymore, we can just pour a layer of 'resin concrete'! It won't freeze in winter, won't scorch in summer, and it's lightweight!"
He sat back down, put the charcoal pencil in his mouth, and unfolded the sketch again.
“We can also wrap the roof with a layer, which will keep it warm and waterproof.” He said as he drew, “Wrap the tool handles with it so they won’t get too hot to handle while working. We can even put some on your outer shell so you don’t have to worry about the overheating alarm every day.”
Nana stood still as the camera panned across his sketch, automatically archiving it to the building materials research category.
"It can also be used to wrap pipes to prevent them from freezing in winter," she added.
“Yeah!” Chen Hao suddenly looked up. “If we had known this thing could keep the water pipes warm when they froze last time, we wouldn’t have had to rush to repair them in the rain.”
As he spoke, he suddenly stopped writing.
"Wait a minute..." He looked at the resin bucket he had made, "If it can insulate against heat, can it also keep things cold?"
“It’s theoretically feasible,” Nana said, “by reducing the rate of temperature exchange between the inside and outside.”
Chen Hao's eyes lit up.
"Then we won't have to worry about the sun drying out the water. Vegetables will last longer too. Maybe we can even make a simple refrigerator—put ice at the bottom, cover it with a resin board, and cut a hole in the middle..."
He became more and more excited as he thought about it, and his charcoal pencil flew across the paper.
“You’ve solved the heat dissipation problem this month, so next month we’ll get the freezer installed.” He pointed at Nana. “You’ll be in charge of the design, and I’ll be in charge of wallpapering.”
"Current material reserves are insufficient to support large-scale application," Nana cautioned.
"Take it one step at a time," Chen Hao grinned. "We have plenty of time anyway."
He finished speaking, stood up, stretched, and his bones cracked. His clothes were covered in resin stains, and his cuffs were still stained with lint. He ignored it, walked to the corner, picked up the bucket he had just made, and poured half a bucket of water into it.
I carried it for a couple of steps, and the bucket started wobbling violently.
"It's still too soft." He frowned. "Next time, make it thicker and wrap it with a few more turns of wire."
He put the bucket back in its place and casually placed the pen on the rim of the bucket.
Suddenly, the pen slipped and fell into the bucket.
He froze, then looked down.
The pen floated on the water, and there were no signs of water seepage at the bottom of the bucket.
"Hey, it really didn't leak."
He bent down, retrieved the pen, shook off the water, and put it back on the table.
Then he plopped back down in his chair and looked at the three dusty things in front of him—two buckets and a flowerpot.
“So this thing isn’t just for mending pots,” he said in a low voice.
The resin reinforcement layer on Nana's right shoulder was still slowly dissipating heat. She stood still, the camera slightly rotating, scanning the sample on the worktable.
The setting sun slanted in through the cracks in the tin window, shining on the surface of the resin bucket and casting a dull light.
Chen Hao picked up the charcoal pencil and added another line of text to the sketch:
"Next step: Make a sample of the insulated roof."
He had just finished writing when Nana suddenly spoke up.
"A slight displacement of the right shoulder connecting shaft was detected; it is recommended to reinforce it again."
Chen Hao looked up and saw a thin crack in the resin shell at the joint of her robotic arm.
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