Volume One, Chapter 13: Assembly Details

Page 1/3

Assembly Details

Zhenhua Zhou’s office was nothing like the places Yuze Du had imagined.

He didn’t lead them to the administrative building, nor to a conference room. Instead, he guided the three of them along the main road before turning into a weed-choked side path. The further they walked, the more desolate the surroundings became, and the air grew thick with a mingling scent of rust and dust.

Eventually, they stopped before a heavy iron door, firmly locked. A faded sign hung on it: Workshop 207.

Guodong Li and Qingquan Pang’s faces visibly changed.

This place was a forbidden zone in Factory 303, a forgotten corner. It had once been responsible for the maintenance and modification of the J-5 fighter jets, but as the models grew outdated and tasks dwindled, it had long been sealed off. Everyone tacitly agreed it would be completely shuttered in the next round of cutbacks.

Zhenhua Zhou produced a key and unlocked the rusted padlock.

The iron door creaked loudly as it swung open, releasing a musty, stale air.

Inside, the workshop was vast and empty, with only a few rays of sunlight filtering through the high windows, illuminating specks of dust floating in the air. At the center, a large silhouette lay beneath a massive canvas tarp, faintly revealing the shape of an aircraft.

Zhou ignored the plane and turned to point at the TS-5 turbojet engine that Du and the others had laboriously pushed in.

“Move it to the center.”

His command was devoid of emotion.

Li and Pang didn’t hesitate. Together with Du, they pushed the heavy engine to the empty space in the middle of the workshop.

Zhou approached and squatted down, not asking about grand design concepts but inspecting every detail like the most exacting quality inspector.

“Who processed the blades?”

“I did,” Li Guodong stepped forward, his voice low but steady.

“Drilling precision?”

“Diameter 0.5 millimeters, positional tolerance plus or minus 0.01 millimeters. I used the factory’s Swiss coordinate boring machine, manually aligned,” Li answered quickly, the data etched deep in his bones.

Zhou extended his finger, his nails meticulously trimmed, and without hesitation probed the gap between the turbine disk and the blade roots. He felt carefully, assessing the assembly details.

“Very good,” he murmured, then rose and moved toward the combustion chamber.

“Who did the welding on the combustion chamber?”

“Me as well,” Li replied again.

“What welding method?”

“Pulse argon arc welding, with local vacuum electron beam welding.”

Zhou paused briefly. Electron beam welding was the factory’s prized tool, reserved for the most precise components. Obtaining permission to use it once was a bureaucratic nightmare.

He didn’t ask how Li had managed to use the machine but continued, “What about the weld inspection report?”

“No report,” Li’s answer made Pang’s heart leap into his throat, “but I guarantee with my skills every weld is uniformly penetrated, with no slag inclusion or porosity.”

He patted his chest—not boasting, but showing the confidence of a top-tier craftsman. In all of Factory 303, he claimed his workmanship was second only to one, though no one dared to claim first. Known as “Ghost Hand Li,” his work was so precise it seemed beyond human capability.

Zhou silently examined each screw’s torque and every pipeline’s routing with meticulous attention.

The workshop was deathly silent, broken only by the faint scraping of his shoes on the floor as he moved.

Page 2/3

Li Guodong and Qingquan Pang’s palms were sweaty with tension. It didn’t feel like an inspection; it felt like dissection. Every question from the factory director struck the most critical points of technique.

Yuze Du, in contrast, remained calm. He knew that for someone of Zhou’s stature, this was merely an appetizer. The real test was yet to come.

Sure enough, after inspecting the engine, Zhou stood upright without comment and slowly approached the massive form beneath the canvas tarp.

Grabbing a corner of the tarp, he yanked it off suddenly.

The tarp slid away with a rustle, revealing a silver-gray J-5 fighter jet beneath. The “August 1st” military emblem on its fuselage still shone brightly despite the dim light.

This plane was the last remnant of Workshop 207—a fighter grounded due to malfunction, awaiting repair assessment.

Zhou’s palm caressed the cold fuselage gently as he circled the aircraft, finally stopping beneath the left wing.

Suddenly, he turned to Du.

“I heard you said there’s an internal crack in the left wing spar?”

Pang’s mind buzzed. He recalled Du mentioning this before, but he had dismissed it as youthful nonsense. Such internal structural damage required large-scale non-destructive testing equipment to detect; who could see it plainly?

Li Guodong frowned too. He didn’t believe it either.

Zhou’s tone was flat but Du sensed the trap within. This was no mere question—it was a challenge.

“Where’s the evidence?” Zhou pressed. “No proof means nothing. In engineering, assertions without evidence are speculation—the most irresponsible thing.”

“There is evidence.”

Du’s reply stunned both Li and Pang.

He went to a corner of the workshop piled with discarded parts and tools. Bending down, he dragged out a heavy metal box and a matching stand from under a pile of oilcloth.

“That’s…” Pang recognized it, “a portable X-ray machine from the 1950s? Is it still usable?”

It was an antique, known for high radiation doses and blurred imaging, long since obsolete.

Du didn’t answer. He expertly connected the power and wheeled the machine beneath the J-5’s wing.

[System Assist: Crack coordinates (11.3, 45.7, 8.9). Recommended exposure settings: 75kV, 5mA, 120s.]

A line of data flashed through Du’s mind. He adjusted the dials with practiced precision, each movement like a hundred rehearsed repetitions.

“Brother Pang, help me place the film cassette on top of the wing, aligned to this spot,” Du pointed.

Though skeptical, Pang climbed the ladder and positioned the X-ray film cassette as instructed.

“Director, Brother Li, step back a bit,” Du warned.

He pressed the start button.

The old machine hummed with electrical current, reverberating through the empty workshop.

Two minutes later, the exposure ended.

Du removed the cassette and entered a small curtained alcove nearby—a makeshift darkroom once used for photo development.

The wait stretched endlessly.

Li and Pang stood frozen in place. Zhou paced behind them, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the J-5. No one knew what he was thinking.

Page 3/3

Minutes later, Du emerged from the darkroom, holding a dripping X-ray film.

Without a word, he went to a dusty lightbox mounted on the workshop wall.

He hung the wet film up.

With a click, the light switched on.

Li and Pang immediately leaned in.

The metallic lattice structure appeared on the film in varying shades of gray. At the center, where the main spar bore the greatest load, a fine yet unmistakably sharp black hairline streak stretched like a menacing scar, searing itself into everyone’s retinas.

It was a crack!

Pang gasped, feeling sweat soak his back. Such internal fatigue cracks were the deadliest killers in flight. Had it not been detected today, the plane would have disintegrated midair during some high-G maneuver sooner or later!

Zhou slowly approached.

He stood before the lightbox, silent.

The workshop was so quiet one could hear a pin drop.

Time seemed frozen.

He didn’t look at Du or the film. Instead, he stared at the crack—the one flaw no one should have found.

After a long moment, he finally spoke.

“The engine is good.”

His praise was light, as if commenting on an insignificant triviality.

But Li and Pang’s hearts sank heavily. That tone wasn’t approval.

Zhou turned to face the three of them again.

“However, the decision to dismantle Workshop 207 and mothball the J-5 production line was passed at the factory party committee meeting. The document has already been issued.”

Each word struck like a hammer, shattering the flickering hope in Li and Pang’s hearts. The party committee’s decision was final, immutable by anyone.

It was over.

Everything was over.

Pang’s face turned ashen.

Yet Zhou wasn’t finished.

He looked at Du and said deliberately, word by word:

“Unless you can make it fly.”

He pointed at the J-5, bearing that fatal crack.