Volume One, Chapter 10: Finish the Task

Li Guodong’s interrogation was like a nail driven into the deathly silence of the workshop.

He no longer looked at the perfect weldment, a masterpiece he could never hope to achieve even with a lifetime of skill. Instead, he stared fixedly at Du Yuze, like an old wolf guarding its kill, having scented an alien presence in his territory that did not belong to this world.

"Kid, I’m asking you one more time: where did this come from?" His voice was low, each word squeezed through gritted teeth with the grating texture of grinding metal.

Pang Qingquan was suffocated by the tension. He wanted to interject, to mediate, but no words would come out. He looked at his master’s livid face, then at Du Yuze’s unnervingly calm expression, feeling as though the very air in the workshop had frozen.

Du Yuze did not flinch. He retrieved the strange welding torch from Li Guodong’s hand, placed it back into the toolbox, and snapped the lid shut with a crisp click.

"Master Li, if you can’t trust the tool, you should at least trust your own craftsmanship," Du Yuze said. "You know better than I do whether the weld is good or not."

"Bullshit!" Li Guodong’s fury finally erupted, spittle flying as he shouted. "I’m asking you about the origin of this thing! Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes! I know every one of the hundreds of workers and thousands of tools in this factory; I could identify them blindfolded! This thing—this is not from this factory! It’s not even from this planet!"

His final words were shrieked, laced with an absurdity that bordered on a nervous breakdown.

For an old craftsman who had worked his whole life and believed in nothing but his own experience, his worldview was being smashed to pieces by a mysterious young man wielding a mysterious tool.

"Whether it’s from this planet doesn’t matter," Du Yuze said, kicking the toolbox into a corner with a dull thud. "What matters is that it will allow us to finish the job before dawn."

"Finish it?" Li Guodong laughed as if he had heard a preposterous joke, gesturing toward the pile of semi-finished parts on the workbench. "With this 'embroidery needle'? What do you think this is? Sewing clothes? The heat treatment, the precision machining—which of those steps can be cut short?"

"Then we’ll take it one step at a time." Du Yuze’s reply was as simple as stating a fact.

This sentence effectively silenced all of Li Guodong’s protests.

True, what was the use of arguing? What was the use of doubt? Time was slipping away, second by second, and the factory manager’s ultimatum hung over their heads. They could either beat Du Yuze to death right now and admit defeat, or they could shut their mouths and use this godforsaken "miracle" to create another one.

Li Guodong’s chest heaved violently, the sound of his heavy, labored breathing echoing through the workshop.

After a long silence, he spat out two words: "Get to work!"

He turned back to the workbench, asking no more questions. But his back was taut like a drawn bow, every movement radiating a repressed, violent agitation.

Pang Qingquan let out a long sigh of relief and hurried over to assist.

The next few hours saw a scene in the workshop that could only be described as miraculous.

In Du Yuze’s hands, the matte-black welding torch produced almost no sound. Fine, red beams of light traced the metal seams with lethal precision, leaving welds as smooth as mirrors.

Li Guodong handled the subsequent grinding and calibration. He pushed his speed to the limit, his tools seeming to become extensions of his own body. He no longer roared or questioned; he worked in silence.

But the more silent he became, the more alarmed Pang Qingquan grew.

He could feel that beneath his master’s silence lay an ocean gathering a storm. Every time he took a finished part from Du Yuze, he would inspect it repeatedly with a complex look, a mixture of awe and guarded hostility.

It was no longer an inspection of a weld, but an examination of an incomprehensible monster.

At three in the morning, the final blade assembly was welded.

"One last step," Li Guodong said, his voice raspy. He pointed toward a vertical piece of equipment half a man’s height in the corner. "The quenching furnace. All the blades must undergo overall heat treatment to eliminate welding stress and ensure structural integrity. The temperature and timing must be perfect. If we miss by a second, all the work we’ve done tonight will be for nothing."

A smile finally appeared on Pang Qingquan’s face. "Great! We finally caught up! Master, this is definitely the fastest we’ve ever worked since the factory was built!"

Du Yuze said nothing, merely wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Li Guodong carefully placed all the components onto the furnace rack and closed the heavy door. He walked to the control panel, his fingers pressing the oil-stained buttons in sequence.

*Hum—*

The furnace emitted a low roar. Red numbers on the control panel began to flicker, indicating that the temperature inside was rising.

"Now, all we can do is wait." Li Guodong leaned against the wall, fished a crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and offered one to Du Yuze.

Du Yuze waved it away. "I don’t smoke."

Li Guodong lit one for himself, took a deep drag, and exhaled, the smoke obscuring his weary face. "Kid, I don’t care who you are or what secrets you have. Once this job is done, take your things and disappear from my sight."

"Why?"

"No why," Li Guodong said. "My little temple isn’t big enough to house a Buddha like you. I just want to work in peace, retire, and grow old. I don’t want to live in fear every day, wondering if the person next to me is an alien."

His words carried a trace of self-mockery and unresolvable agitation.

Du Yuze watched the rising numbers on the furnace, his heart completely calm. He knew the real test was only just beginning.

*Tian Weijun, it’s time for you to make your move.*

Sure enough, just as the temperature display hit "850"—the most critical stage of the heat soak—

*Click!*

A sharp, heart-stopping sound of a power cut echoed through the room.

The entire workshop was instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness.

The roar of the quenching furnace ceased abruptly. All the lights and numbers on the control panel flickered out, leaving only the dark red glow of the high heat inside the furnace, which cast an ominous halo through the observation window into the gloom.

Dead silence.

A five-second stretch of absolute stillness.

"No—!" Pang Qingquan’s scream shattered the darkness, his voice trembling with tears. "The power tripped! How could it trip? Quick! Go check the main breaker!"

"It’s useless!" Li Guodong’s roar exploded in the dark, a sound of desperation and anger born of being pushed into a corner. "At this hour, the rest of the factory is shut down; we’re the only ones using power! How could it be an overload? Someone cut our power! Someone doesn’t want us to finish this!"

He kicked a nearby iron cabinet, the metal ringing out with a deafening crash.

"Bastards! Tian Weijun! I’ll curse your ancestors!" He shrieked, his voice filled with bitterness. "We were at the very last step... just this one step..."

Once heat treatment was interrupted, the temperature inside the furnace would plummet, causing uneven stress structures to form within the metal. These blades, which had cost them countless hours of toil, would be rendered useless, turning into a pile of expensive scrap.

Pang Qingquan was nearly in tears, spinning around in the darkness, incoherent. "What do we do... Master... what do we do..."

"So, they finally arrived."

A calm voice echoed in the darkness, sounding strangely abrupt.

It was Du Yuze.

Li Guodong’s curses stopped. He whipped his head toward the source of the voice, even though he could see nothing.

"What did you say?"

"I said, they finally arrived," Du Yuze repeated, not a hint of panic in his tone. "I knew they would try this."

Li Guodong’s heart sank.

He recalled Du Yuze’s earlier remark: "Then we’ll take it one step at a time." Could it be... had he calculated even this?

*System, redeem "Emergency High-Energy Battery Pack (12 hours)," 30 points!*

Du Yuze’s intent flashed through his mind.

Ignoring the shock of the other two, he walked straight to the deepest corner of the workshop, where a pile of discarded bed frames and tattered canvas lay.

He fumbled in the dark, then gave a forceful pull.

*Creeeak—*

A heavy metal object was dragged out.

"What are you doing?" Li Guodong demanded sharply.

Du Yuze didn't answer. He turned on his phone’s flashlight, a beam of light illuminating the object in front of him.

It was a metal box, half a meter square, pitch black and devoid of any markings, yet possessing the heavy, precise feel of industrial hardware. On one side were several ports of varying sizes and a row of indicator lights.

"What is this?" Pang Qingquan leaned in, asking with a stutter.

"I found it in the scrap pile under the dormitory building," Du Yuze lied smoothly, his face calm and unblushing. "I heard it was a spare battery stripped from some old equipment; it seemed a waste to throw it away, so I brought it back."

Li Guodong stared fixedly at the black box, then back at Du Yuze.

The same excuse.

The same "found it."

Once might be a coincidence, but twice?

"Nonsense!" Li Guodong’s anger was reignited, but this time, it was mixed with a deeper sense of horror and confusion. "Do you take me for a three-year-old? A spare battery? The oldest spare battery in this factory is for a flashlight! This thing... this thing can power a quenching furnace?"

"Whether it can or not, why don't we find out?" Du Yuze countered, his tone exactly the same as when he had produced the welding torch. "There isn't much time left, Master Li. The temperature in that furnace is dropping every second."

This statement struck Li Guodong’s Achilles' heel once again.

He looked at Du Yuze’s young but unnervingly calm face under the flashlight beam, and a chill crawled up from his heels, spreading through his entire body.

Who on earth was this young man?

The things he brought out were getting more and more absurd.

His composure didn't look like a mask; it looked like... everything was under his control.

"Hook it up," Li Guodong squeezed out the words. He felt like a gambler who had lost all his chips and was now forced to bet his life on a total stranger.

Du Yuze didn't waste another word. He skillfully pulled two thick cables from the box and walked to the furnace’s power distribution panel, tearing the cover off in one swift motion.

His movements were fast and precise, without a moment of hesitation, as if he had practiced them thousands of times.

Li Guodong and Pang Qingquan held their phones high to provide light, not daring to breathe.

The cables were connected.

Du Yuze pressed a red button on the black box.

*Beep—*

A soft chime sounded, and the indicator lights on the box instantly flared to life with a soft green glow.

Then, a low hum filled the room.

The quenching furnace’s control panel lit up again!

The numbers indicated that the temperature had dropped from 850 degrees to 790 degrees.

But it stopped falling and, before their eyes, began to climb slowly back up.

"It’s working... it’s working! It’s actually working!" Pang Qingquan was so excited he nearly jumped, grabbing Du Yuze’s arm. "My god! Du Yuze! You... you’re a god!"

Du Yuze inconspicuously pulled his arm away.

He looked at Li Guodong.

The old machinist said nothing, showing no signs of excitement.

He simply stood there, the light from the phone illuminating his face from below, casting deep, contrasting shadows. He stared deeply at Du Yuze—a look of scrutiny that defied description, piercing through the darkness, piercing through the lies, as if he meant to see all the way into Du Yuze’s bones.

After a long time, he slowly turned away, walked to the humming quenching furnace, and stared at the flickering red numbers in total silence.