The domestic foundational textbook had been compiled in the late 1980s. Its coverage of fluid data for an emerging field like high-speed rail was very general. In many places, it only provided an extremely vague empirical formula, even omitting the derivation process.
Chen Zhuo was desperate to know how the world’s most advanced wind tunnel laboratories recorded the pressure spike curve at the very instant the air is violently compressed, as the head of a train traveling over 200 kilometers per hour slams into a tunnel.
He folded the piece of scratch paper in half, tucked it into his pocket, and followed the crowd downstairs.
After eating in the cafeteria, he stepped out into the punishingly bright sun.
Instead of heading back to his dorm, Chen Zhuo turned directly into the old library nearby.
He went up to the third floor and walked to the door of the independent data room at the east end of the hallway.
The door was ajar.
Chen Zhuo reached out and lightly knocked twice on the doorframe.
"Come in."
A clean, crisp voice came from inside.
Chen Zhuo pushed the door open.
A blast of ice-cold air, running at full power, hit him in the face, instantly sealing off the sweltering heat from outside.
The data room wasn’t large, but it was very tidy.
Su Wei was sitting behind the desk in front of the window. She wore a pair of thin, black-framed glasses and was staring at her computer monitor, her hands tapping rapidly on the keyboard.
A long string of financial code and probability models that Chen Zhuo couldn’t understand scrolled across the screen.
Hearing his footsteps, Su Wei stopped what she was doing and turned her head.
"Looking for materials?"
Su Wei asked directly.
"Yeah."
Chen Zhuo walked over, took the folded piece of scratch paper from his pocket, and placed it in an empty spot next to her computer.
Su Wei reached for the scratch paper, unfolded it, and glanced at it.
"Tunnel aerodynamic effects, micropressure waves."
Su Wei read the words aloud, her brow twitching slightly.
She looked up, peering at Chen Zhuo through her lenses.
"These terms are too broad. If I search for them directly in the IEEE or other core fluid dynamics databases, I’ll get two or three hundred papers, minimum."
Su Wei’s tone was professional, as if she were confirming requirements with a client.
Chen Zhuo stood by the desk and thought for a moment.
"Limit it to after ’95."
Chen Zhuo provided the constraint.
"Focus on data from early wind tunnel tests of East Japan’s Shinkansen, as well as models related to Germany’s ICE trains. As for journals, try to pick from the journal of the Country M aeronautics and astronautics society or a fluid mechanics journal."
Su Wei nodded, picked up a pencil, and quickly jotted down the additional conditions Chen Zhuo had mentioned on the scratch paper.
"Got it."
Su Wei placed the scratch paper next to her keyboard.
"Come back to pick it up after four p.m."
"Okay. Thanks for the trouble."
Chen Zhuo didn’t linger. He turned, left the data room, and pulled the door closed behind him.
The entire exchange took less than two minutes.
No pleasantries, no small talk—not even a single wasted word.
Su Wei watched the door close, then picked up the scratch paper and laid it flat in front of her keyboard.
She casually saved the financial model running on her screen and expertly navigated to the portals for several major foreign-language databases the university subscribed to.
She didn’t need to ask why a sophomore like Chen Zhuo wanted to read cutting-edge literature typically reserved for PhD students, nor did she need to ask what he planned to do with them.
Her only job was to search, filter, and package.
That was the service she was supposed to provide.
「4:30 p.m.」
「The key laboratory in the Physics Building.」
Zhang Yuan had just finished modifying a line of code for the boundary conditions on the main control computer. Just as he was about to hit "run," the screen unceremoniously stuttered.
He sighed in frustration, stood up, and stretched hard, his bones letting out a few sharp cracks.
He turned his head, intending to see if the new junior was dozing off again.
Instead, he saw a thick stack of A4 paper on Chen Zhuo’s workstation, sorted and stapled into separate categories.
The edges of the papers were neat, and they were covered in dense English text and complex diagrams of fluid flow.
Chen Zhuo was holding a red ballpoint pen, underlining a line on one of the pages. He had written a few lines of derived equations in the blank space beside it.
Curious, Zhang Yuan walked over.
"What are you reading, Junior? Where’d you get this stack of English papers? It’s as thick as a brick."
Zhang Yuan walked up behind Chen Zhuo and glanced down at the title of the topmost paper.
"Transient Aerodynamic Pressures in High-Speed Train Tunnels"
Zhang Yuan froze.
He blinked, thinking he must have misread it, and leaned in closer to check the journal’s source.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, last year’s autumn issue.
"You..."
Zhang Yuan’s mouth fell open as he pointed at the pile of papers in front of Chen Zhuo.
"Weren’t you reading *Fundamentals of Aerodynamics*? You finished it already?"
Without pausing his pen, Chen Zhuo circled a pressure peak on the paper.
"Finished it."
Chen Zhuo said in a calm tone.
"Finished it?!"
Zhang Yuan’s voice shot up an octave, drawing the attention of the few other people in the lab.
"That book is two volumes, over a thousand pages total. You finished it in a week?"
"I skimmed through it."
Chen Zhuo put down his pen and turned to look at Zhang Yuan, his attitude candid.
"The basic theoretical framework isn’t complicated. It’s mainly a matter of memorizing some empirical constants. However, the Chapters in that book on high-speed aerodynamic effects are too outdated, so I went to the data room to find some more recent foreign literature."
Staring at Chen Zhuo’s completely matter-of-fact expression, Zhang Yuan suddenly felt as if his own years of doctoral study had been a complete waste.
’Skimmed through it?’
’That book was the nightmare of countless fluid dynamics graduate students.’

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