I Built an Industrial Empire from a Junkyard

My name is Zhou Jianguo. I'm fifty-eight, chief engineer of a heavy industry group. On the day I retired, my daughter didn't come. I woke up as a temp worker at a scrap collection station in 1972—eighteen yuan a month, three cents per jin of scrap iron. The good thing is, every piece of junk I touch unfolds its whole life before my eyes— what year it was made, how it broke, how many jin of copper and how many liang of good iron can still be salvaged from it. The bad thing is, every time I read one, I forget a piece of my 2026 memories. First I forgot my daughter's age. Later I forgot her face. I wrote seventeen lines in a notebook. That was all I had left. Every time I build something, I cross out one line. They say I went from collecting scrap to becoming a chief engineer. Only I know—I traded my daughter for it. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: I Built an Industrial Empire from a Junkyard — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠