It was the first time Lin Qiaozhi had taken a proper look at the factory’s technical school.
To be honest, it looked pretty ordinary.
A three-story classroom building stood inside a walled compound. The walls were whitewashed with lime, and there was a gatehouse by the entrance.
There was no cafeteria, no dormitory, and no sports field.
Because the factory already had all of those.
Plain as it looked, it was unquestionably one of the most influential schools in Jiangcheng.
It could determine a student’s job grade.
Students who graduated from this school would enter the factory directly as Second-Grade workers.
That was real authority.
Under the planned economy, workers’ wages were paid by the state, but how much they earned depended on their grade. This school could slam its hand on the table in front of Jiangcheng’s leaders and say, “The students our school produces are qualified for this level.”
After all, graduates from many vocational secondary schools still had to spend a year as apprentices before receiving an official assignment.
Lin Qiaozhi found a seat near the front, close to the center.
A boy sat down one desk away from her. “Lin Qiaozhi, how many strikes did it take you to snap the steel rod during the entrance assessment?”
“Three,” Lin Qiaozhi replied, glancing at him and recognizing him. “Zhao Song, why are you asking?”
“Really just three?” Zhao Song asked skeptically, his mouth turning down. “Then why was breaking mine in four strikes only rated Excellent, while yours got full marks for just one strike less?”
Lin Qiaozhi spread her hands. “I wasn’t the one handing out the scores. You’ll have to ask Engineer Wang, Engineer Qiao, and the others.”
Someone else came through the door. It was Zhou Shu, who took a breath.
“Morning, Sister Qiaozhi.”
“Morning.”
Lin Qiaozhi answered, taking her textbook out of her schoolbag. She already had an old set, so she hadn’t taken the new books. It saved a little money.
It should have been a wonderful first day of school, but before Lin Qiaozhi could even open her book, a voice suppressing its anger rang out from outside the window.
“You little brats! Did a few decent meals at home and a few compliments make your hands go soft? Or did they make you blind?”
An eerie silence instantly fell over the classroom.
Just moments before, while it hadn’t exactly been full of laughter, the room had been buzzing with chatter. The new students were turning their heads left and right looking for familiar faces, and some were excitedly dragging chairs around to chat with friends.
Now they all looked at one another.
The curious and bold ones crept over to the windows, pressing themselves against the frames to sneak a look outside.
Gradually, a whole row of freshmen lined up by the windows facing the corridor.
Then came a thunderous bang!
The sound made every teenager by the windows flinch.
In voices as soft as mosquitoes buzzing, someone whispered, “Was that… a hammer?”
Another widened his eyes, covering his mouth as he breathed, “Why does it sound like a piece of iron hitting the floor?”
Lin Qiaozhi quietly undid the window latch and pushed the window open just a crack, leaning her ear toward the gap.
“Just look at this workmanship. Crooked every which way. I don’t even need a ruler. One look, one touch, and I can already tell one corner is collapsed by half a millimeter! Some of the edge lengths don’t even match! Are you training to be fitters, or are you dogs chewing bones?”
Lin Qiaozhi licked her lips and turned to Zhao Song behind her. His father was a fitter. Nudging the toe of his shoe, she lowered her voice and asked, “What’s going on?”
Zhao Song had practically shrunk his neck into his shoulders, completely forgetting about acting tough. In a tiny voice, he said, “They had a practical assignment over the summer. I heard they had to hand-file a perfectly round steel ball into a regular dodecahedron, with every face being an identical pentagon.”
Lin Qiaozhi sucked in a breath. “What was the tolerance?” she whispered.
From her own practice and study over the summer, she had learned that the higher the precision requirement, the more grueling the work became. One tiny mistake ruined a pentagonal face, and the whole thing had to be started over from scratch.
“I’m not sure about the tolerance.” Zhao Song gave her a strange look before continuing, “But my father said that the mold you made with a tolerance of seven si, plus the semicircular arc, was much harder than this.”
At least every edge of this dodecahedron was a straight line. There were no curved arcs involved.
Lin Qiaozhi felt her scalp tingle as well. How was she supposed to know that Engineer Wang’s casual, “What are you grinning at?” had actually come with such demanding standards?
Still, she refused to lose face. She glared back at him and lowered her voice. “What do you mean, my mold? Those were Engineer Wang’s requirements. And how do you know I couldn’t do it?”
Outside the window, someone could vaguely be heard grumbling under their breath.
It sounded like they were saying the workpiece’s requirements were too demanding, beyond what they had learned in their second year.
“So your hands got rusty, and your brains rusted over too, huh?” Engineer Wang’s restrained anger exploded all at once. “What’s so difficult about it? Did I give you a time limit? You had an entire summer! If you couldn’t do it once, do it twice. If twice wasn’t enough, do it four times. If your skills aren’t good enough, then keep practicing.”
He slammed the iron workbench twice.
“But there’s no excuse for having no attitude!”
The classroom door was suddenly pushed open.
The row of students by the windows instinctively recoiled in shock before scattering with a collective rush, sprinting back to their seats.
“Hahaha…” The teacher was grinning so broadly that the wrinkles on his face had deepened, but he didn’t say a word about it. Instead, he went over and flung every door and window wide open, clearly delighted by the spectacle. “Listen. Go on, listen carefully.”
Engineer Wang really did save him a lot of trouble every year.
With the iron-framed windows standing wide open, the sounds became even clearer.
They could hear one harsh, exacting critique after another, followed by the nerve-racking verdict:
“Rejected. Redo it.”
Lin Qiaozhi: “…”
Sure enough, nicknames were never given without reason.
She could picture Engineer Wang in her mind. His furious face looked as though it had been rolled through a pile of coal, frighteningly fierce, even though she had never actually thought his skin was that dark before.
The teacher standing on the platform was smiling like a laughing Buddha.
“Let me introduce myself. My surname is Qin. You can call me Teacher Qin or Engineer Qin. I’ll mainly be responsible for teaching your theory classes. About eighty percent of the books you’re holding will be taught by me.”
He continued, “You’re all factory kids. You’ve known each other since you were little, and I know every one of you too, so we’ll skip the introductions.” He narrowed his eyes with a mischievous smile. “Read your books for a while. Engineer Wang will be coming over to teach your first lesson.”
After saying that, he deliberately glanced in Lin Qiaozhi’s direction.
When their eyes met, Lin Qiaozhi understood.
It was probably because of her.
Feeling guilty, she quickly looked away.
It had been so long that the family compound had already stopped talking about it, yet Engineer Wang still remembered. Apparently, being chased around by someone had been such a novel experience for him that he was still holding onto it.
The classroom grew even quieter.
What first lesson? And taught by Engineer Wang? I’ve never heard of that!!
They soon found out.
Teacher Qin led them to the workshop classroom at the end of the floor.
It wasn’t the assessment room. This one housed a spotless, gleaming lathe.
Engineer Wang walked in wearing his work uniform, his face stern.
He took the thermos Teacher Qin handed him, drank a couple of mouthfuls, exchanged a few words, then turned to the students with a restrained expression. “You all heard that.”
“I know people your age like to fool around, but you can’t fool your way into becoming a fitter. If you really want to make something of yourselves in this trade, then show me some backbone and master the craft properly!”
He set the metal thermos aside.
“See this lathe? This semester, besides learning the theory and practicing your fundamentals, your job is to learn how to take it apart. Once you can dismantle this, you can tear down any tractor in the factory.”
Wang Baiqiang called out a name directly. “Zhao Song. Come up here and dismantle the first few steps.”
Then he added, “There’s no special reason for today. I know some of you have been complaining in private that the entrance assessment was too demanding. Well, today you can see for yourselves whether it was or not.”
Zhao Song shuffled forward reluctantly.
Rubbing his pant leg, he muttered, “Engineer Wang… I don’t know how to take it apart.”
“Your father never taught you?” Wang Baiqiang glared at him. He’d been learning the trade for years, yet still didn’t dare get his hands on it.
Zhao Song instinctively shrank his neck under the glare and protested, “It’s not like I ever had many chances to practice.”
“As long as your fundamentals are solid, that’s enough.” Wang Baiqiang shoved the tools into his hands, then instructed him on how to dismantle it.
Zhao Song braced himself and got to work.
Lin Qiaozhi watched intently.
The lathe she had practiced on in her dreams wasn’t the same model as the one before her.
After four or five steps, Zhao Song ran into a problem.
The spindle inside the headstock.
Lin Qiaozhi had a pretty good idea why. She had been stumped by this obstacle herself.
It was secured incredibly, incredibly tightly!
Although the models differed, the transmission shafts inside the headstock were critical components of any lathe. The stability of their operation directly affected machining quality. Once rotational precision declined, the quality of the workpieces would drop dramatically.
That was why every single one of them was fastened exceptionally firmly and securely.
Wang Baiqiang wasn’t nearly as harsh with the freshmen. He explained, “These transmission shafts are installed very tightly. You can’t just pull them out. You need a specially made steel hammer to strike them, and you also need proper dismantling technique. If your hammering skills aren’t good enough, don’t even think about removing them. Watch my hands…”
After explaining the technique, he reached out and, with just a few swift motions, reinstalled the transmission shaft that Zhao Song had struggled so hard to remove.
Then he started calling on people.
The freshmen: “…”
Sweat immediately began pouring down their backs. Why was Jiangcheng still so oppressively hot in September?
Especially those who had spent the past two months playing around without touching a hammer even once, whose strength had even declined. Terrified of being called up, their eyes darted everywhere to avoid his gaze.
Even Zhao Song had struggled that much!
But it was useless.
That was the downside of attending your own factory’s technical school. Everyone lived in the same residential compound, so the teachers knew exactly what every student was like.
Wang Baiqiang called on them one after another without missing a single mark.
Since he was here, he was determined to drive this lesson home. He wanted to make it loud and clear so they understood just how important every bit of their daily fundamental training was. They were not to think that getting admitted meant they could simply rest easy and wait for a job assignment!
Several students in a row who were called up got stuck almost immediately and couldn’t continue.
Sweat drenched their foreheads while the transmission shaft remained completely unmoved.
Wang Baiqiang’s face grew darker and darker. “Enough. If I let you keep messing with it, I’ll have to repair it afterward. Starting today, before you go home after class, you’re doing fifty push-ups every day.”
He made another note in his notebook.
“Lin Qiaozhi, your turn.”
The call came so suddenly that Lin Qiaozhi’s heart gave a violent thump.
Then it began pounding faster and faster, her palms growing warm. The two lathes were different models, and the techniques for dismantling them were clearly different as well. It felt like nervousness, but she knew it was excitement.
After practicing for so long in her dreams, she was finally about to lay her hands on her first real lathe.
Taking a deep breath, Lin Qiaozhi walked over to the machine.
“Still want to graduate early?” Wang Baiqiang asked.
Lin Qiaozhi answered honestly, “Yes.”
Wang Baiqiang choked on his words for a moment. He looked her up and down for a while before pointing at the lathe. “Take the tools.”
Where had this fearless girl come from? She had just watched Zhao Song, who had learned from his father for years, struggle every step of the way, yet she still hadn’t given up on the idea.
Standing before the lathe and facing the transmission shafts, Lin Qiaozhi first observed them carefully, thought for a moment, then began dismantling them using the method Wang Baiqiang had just taught.
She loosened the fastening bolts with a combination wrench, then used the hammer to break the bond between the motor and the transmission shaft.
Lin Qiaozhi kept her eyes fixed on the task as her gloved hands pushed and pulled.
Click.
“Not bad. Your hammering skills haven’t gotten rusty.” Wang Baiqiang offered a few pointers. “You can try using a little less force on the next one. Keep going.”
This girl had definitely put in the effort, and she was willing to think as well. That was good.
Pointing at the boys he had just called up, he said with disappointment born of high expectations, “Watch carefully. Learn from her.”
The moment he turned back, Lin Qiaozhi had already removed another shaft.
Wang Baiqiang: “…”
He silently walked behind Lin Qiaozhi and realized that after he had just told her to use less force, she was indeed striking much more lightly than before, relying far more on finesse than brute strength.
One transmission shaft after another came out of the headstock under Lin Qiaozhi’s hands. With each one, she worked faster, and with each one, her movements became more practiced and skillful.
…
Translator’s Note:
For readers unfamiliar with the equipment mentioned in this chapter, here’s a reference image of a C620-1 ordinary lathe, a model widely used in Chinese factories during the 1960s.