Volume One, Chapter 11: Laboring

The temperature inside the furnace climbed back to the vital threshold of 850 degrees.

“Get to work.” Li Guodong’s voice was hoarse and dry, as if ground against a grinding wheel. He didn’t look at Du Yuze, nor did he utter a word about the black box, as if silently acknowledging its existence—just like the unaccounted-for quenching furnace in the workshop that shouldn’t have been making a sound.

Pang Qingquan’s excitement hadn’t faded. Upon hearing this, he immediately responded and briskly began preparing the tools. The workshop was filled only with the clinking of tools and the dull roar of the quenching furnace.

The atmosphere was suffocatingly eerie.

Assembling a jet engine is an extraordinarily precise and intricate task. Tens of thousands of parts, each with its own place and purpose. Li Guodong was the undisputed authority in this field; his hands were known in the factory as “ghost hands,” meaning that anything assembled by him was even more precise than the original factory standard.

With a stern expression, he began his work. His movements remained practiced—each tightening, each strike carried a rhythm honed over decades.

Pang Qingquan assisted, handing over tools and screws, working up a sweat.

Du Yuze didn’t lift a finger. He stood aside, like an overseer.

“Set the torque on this hydraulic pipe to 120 newtons,” Du Yuze suddenly said.

Li Guodong paused briefly, glanced at Du Yuze, said nothing, and continued tightening the bolt by feel. His hands could discern a difference of five newtons blindfolded.

“120 newtons,” Du Yuze repeated flatly, leaving no room for argument.

“You’re telling me how to do my job?” Li Guodong slammed the wrench down on the parts cart. “When I was working on engines, you didn’t even know where you were! There’s no damn 120 newtons—standard is 100 newtons for this pipe! Any more and you’ll damage the inner sealing ring!”

“This engine is different,” Du Yuze said. “Its design redundancy differs from any WJ-5 turbofan you’ve seen. It has to be 120 newtons, or else under high pressure it will vibrate, and within three minutes the pipeline will suffer fatigue fractures.”

“You…” Li Guodong felt a surge of anger clog his throat. Design redundancy? Fatigue fractures? For a young man barely in his twenties to say this, challenging decades of his expertise—that was sheer fantasy.

Pang Qingquan anxiously wrung his hands beside him. “Old Li, maybe… maybe we should listen to Du Yuze? His… his battery…”

He wanted to say the battery was so miraculous that perhaps Du Yuze was right, but before Li Guodong, he dared not finish.

Li Guodong’s chest heaved violently. He glared daggers at Du Yuze, as if trying to burn him to ashes with fury. But Du Yuze met his gaze calmly, his composure dousing Li Guodong’s rage, forcing it to suffocate into a bitter humiliation.

He picked up the wrench and strode to the torque calibrator, setting it sharply to 120.

“Click.”

The crisp sound signaled the torque was set.

Li Guodong’s face darkened like the bottom of a pot. He felt as if he was not assembling an engine but being publicly executed.

The work continued in this strange atmosphere. Du Yuze kept issuing baffling demands.

“Main bearing clearance, set to 0.03 millimeters.”

“0.05 is the standard! 0.03 will cause the rotor to wear directly when it spins!”

“The thermal expansion coefficient is different.”

Li Guodong gritted his teeth and complied.

“Move the number three fuel injector to position seven.”

“Do you know what you’re saying? The angle and flow of each injector are precisely calculated! Randomly swapping them will cause uneven combustion and local hotspots that will burn through the combustion chamber!”

“I recalculated its combustion model—this arrangement is the most efficient.”

“You… you’re full of crap!” Li Guodong finally lost his temper.

“Master Li, time is running out.” Du Yuze cut off all his outbursts once again with this phrase.

Every instruction shattered Li Guodong’s knowledge system. Every compliance felt like personally denying his decades-long career. He no longer felt like the “ghost hand” but a puppet, with Du Yuze as the puppeteer.

Finally, they reached the last step.

Installing the last blade on the final stage turbine.

This was the most delicate and fragile part of the entire engine. The blade had to fit into the slot of the wheel with absolute precision—not a hair’s breadth off. Only Li Guodong in the whole factory could perform this task. This was the origin of his “ghost hand” reputation and his ultimate pride as an eighth-level fitter.

He carefully lifted the blade, as thin as a cicada’s wing, from the temperature-controlled box using a chamois cloth.

“This job, none of you touch,” he croaked, as if guarding his territory.

He held his breath, bent over, and moved his hands. His hands were steady, not a tremor. Guided by touch, he slowly pushed the blade into the slot.

It went in.

But something was wrong.

Li Guodong frowned. He could feel the blade hadn’t fully seated—just a tiny fraction off. Not a hair’s breadth, but countless times finer. Even this slight distance at tens of thousands of revolutions per minute could fling the blade out, destroying the entire engine.

He withdrew and tried again.

Once.

Twice.

Five times.

Sweat beaded densely on his forehead. The workshop was deathly silent except for his labored breathing. Pang Qingquan dared not even breathe; he had never seen Li Guodong like this while working.

“Damn it!” Li Guodong growled, pounding his fist on the workbench. “This blade is defective! The tolerance is wrong!”

This was the only explanation he could conceive. It wasn’t his hands that had failed.

“Master Li, let me try,” Du Yuze’s voice sounded behind him.

Li Guodong spun around, eyes bloodshot. “Get lost! I said, this job…”

“It’s not defective,” Du Yuze interrupted. “It’s the installation method that’s wrong.”

“You…” Li Guodong felt a metallic taste rise in his throat.

Du Yuze stepped forward and took the blade from Li Guodong’s stiff fingers without using any tools, holding the root of the blade between his thumb and forefinger.

He aligned the blade with the slot, then performed an exceptionally strange motion. His thumb gently flicked a very specific point on the root of the blade with a subtle but extremely high-frequency twist.

“Click.”

A faint, nearly inaudible sound.

The blade slid perfectly, seamlessly into the bottom of the slot—perfect, tight, as if it had grown there from the start.

Li Guodong was stunned.

He stared at the blade, feeling as if his decades of pride, experience, and honor were crushed by an incomprehensible force.

This was not technique.

It was almost… magic.

Hoisting, connecting oil pipes, wiring.

In front of a simple test rig, the three stood in a line like prisoners awaiting judgment.

Du Yuze approached his makeshift control panel, which held only a few simple switches and a display screen. He turned back to look at Li Guodong’s ashen face and Pang Qingquan’s anxious one.

“Ready?”

No one answered.

Without waiting further, Du Yuze extended his finger and pressed the green start button.

“Hum…”

A low electric hum began as the starter inside the engine engaged, slowly turning the main shaft.

The sound sharpened from a hum into a roar.

Pang Qingquan instinctively covered his ears. Li Guodong remained still, his body tense like a steel rod.

“Boom!”

Fuel injected, ignition succeeded! A violent blast of hot gas surged from the exhaust nozzle, scorching and rattling oil barrels several meters away. The entire crude workshop trembled under the force.

The deep roar rapidly climbed, finally settling into a stable, powerful rumble—the sound of a steel beast awakened and roaring!

“It’s running! It’s running!” Pang Qingquan shouted excitedly, pointing at the gauges on the control panel. “Old Li! Look at the readings! The thrust! It’s off the charts!”

The pointer had long surpassed the redline of the WJ-5 turbofan, now firmly indicating an incredible figure.

This power far exceeded the old engine they were familiar with!

Li Guodong didn’t look at the gauges. He seemed bewitched, stepping toward the wildly roaring machine. The scorching airflow made his work clothes flutter.

He stretched out his hand, ignoring the searing heat that could cook flesh, and pressed his palm against the engine casing.

A violent vibration transmitted from his palm, through his arm, through his whole body.

What he felt was neither heat nor vibration.

It was vitality—a new, fierce vitality he had never seen before.

One hour.

The engine ran continuously and stably for an entire hour, its performance curve as smooth as a textbook.

When Du Yuze shut it down, the deafening roar faded, and the world fell silent once more.

Li Guodong still stood there, his hand pressed against the slowly cooling casing.

Two hot tears slid down his deeply lined cheeks.

“It’s done…”

He murmured, voice broken.

“Damn it… it’s really done!”

Pang Qingquan was so overwhelmed he could barely speak, just repeatedly patting Du Yuze’s shoulder.

But in Du Yuze’s mind, a completely different voice rang out:

[Mission: Complete WJ-7A (100%)]

[Reward: 200 points]

Ignoring the two nearly hysterical men, he turned and walked through the messy workshop toward the corner that had long been neglected.

There lay a huge canvas covering a vague, enormous shape.

The outline of a J-5 fighter.