After dismantling one driveshaft after another, Lin Qiaozhi’s palms were warm. An indescribable mix of nervousness and excitement blended into a subtle sense of satisfaction that left her body faintly flushed.
She loved this feeling!
It was definite, structured, and orderly. It felt as though, as long as she became strong enough, she could take control of everything.
Instead of standing there anxiously, waiting for other people to judge her.
The feeling reminded her of Wanwan’s article.
They had all thought Wanwan’s article was well written. It voiced the injustice and repression experienced by so many girls, while also carrying the courage and strength to break through it. But after waiting the entire summer and submitting it to several newspapers and magazines, it still hadn’t been published by the time school started.
Only something you could hold in your own hands could truly put your mind at ease.
Still unsatisfied, Lin Qiaozhi turned excitedly to Wang Baiqiang and eagerly asked, “Engineer Wang, can you teach me to keep dismantling it?”
Meeting her shining black eyes, Wang Baiqiang coughed and withdrew his probing gaze from the driveshaft.
“What are you looking at me for? Like I’d stop someone from studying hard?”
As he taught Lin Qiaozhi how to dismantle the rest of the lathe, he also took the opportunity to whip the laziness out of the entire room of freshmen. One lively, flapping big fish had already slipped away, but the little fish couldn’t be allowed to escape.
“See that? Take a good look at what proper hammer work looks like. The driveshaft may look firmly secured, but it’s actually a delicate piece of equipment. Right now, you’ve still got the chance to practice and the chance to make mistakes. Once you’re on the job, if your fundamentals aren’t solid and you damage something while taking it apart, you’ll be serving tea and pouring water while begging your master to clean up your mess…”
Even as he talked, his eyes kept drifting toward what Lin Qiaozhi was doing with her hands. “Let’s see if you’ll still have the nerve!”
Lin Qiaozhi’s dismantling wasn’t especially smooth either. The two lathes were different models, and the differences in disassembly were considerable.
Even with Engineer Wang’s guidance, she inevitably stumbled here and there.
Fortunately, what Engineer Wang had said was true. Once you could dismantle this lathe, you could dismantle any tractor in the factory. All technical skills were transferable!
As soon as Engineer Wang explained something, she could more or less understand what to do, and her hands could barely keep up.
Only her ears were suffering, buzzing nonstop.
Lin Qiaozhi was under intense mental strain. Her mind felt tightly wound, and her ears seemed to stand on end, terrified of missing something or misunderstanding Engineer Wang’s instructions and then getting scolded.
“Who taught you to reach in at that angle? Do you still want that hand? Where’d you pick up that bad habit?”
“Put some strength into it! Rotate the whole thing over, then give it a tap to the right. What are you hesitating for? Don’t tell me you’re actually afraid you’ll twist a steel rod apart?”
One piece.
Another piece.
Then another.
Lin Qiaozhi felt as though her head was filled with Engineer Wang’s voice. In her mind, even his face seemed to have gotten darker, like a lump of black charcoal.
Finally, little by little, she actually managed to dismantle the entire lathe.
Lin Qiaozhi let out a long breath. It felt as though even her tightly stretched scalp had suddenly relaxed.
“Phew…”
Then she broke into a grin.
Realizing what she had just accomplished, her eyes lit up with excitement. She nearly jumped into the air before hurriedly striking while the iron was hot and asking, “Engineer Wang, did I make any other mistakes while dismantling it just now?”
If not, then she would practice this exact process!
“Weren’t all the things I just pointed out mistakes?” Wang Baiqiang replied.
Got it. There weren’t any other problems!
She chuckled. “I’ll definitely correct them!” Then she casually added, “You can inspect me next time.”
If, while inspecting her, he happened to teach her how to reassemble it ahead of schedule, that would be even better.
Wang Baiqiang: “…”
Had that nervous expression on this girl’s face just now been an act?
When class ended, after chasing all the students back, Engineer Wang and Engineer Qin, the two instructors, looked at each other and saw the same astonishment on the other’s face.
Looking again at the floor covered with dismantled parts, Wang Baiqiang still found it hard to believe. “She looked completely inexperienced. It doesn’t seem like she’s practiced dismantling lathes before.”
“Back in our day, I don’t think anyone picked it up this fast either.” Engineer Qin couldn’t figure it out either. He had heard that Lin Qiaozhi had been practicing over the summer, but it should all have been basic skills.
Even if she had talent with hands-on work, she shouldn’t have learned this quickly.
Wang Baiqiang was certain of one thing. “She’s familiar with the structure of a lathe. She understood everything I said. She must have read books about it.”
After thinking it over, the only explanation the two of them could barely come up with was one possibility. Could it simply be because she was exceptionally intelligent?
They had heard Lin Qiaozhi was an outstanding student, the kind any school in Jiangcheng would have wanted.
It seemed neither of them had ever taught a student with grades that good before.
That had to be it. After all, what else could explain it?
Surely she hadn’t secretly sneaked into the school or workshop to dismantle lathes while avoiding everyone’s notice in the entire factory?
Lin Qiaozhi: Heh, you guessed right!
…
Back in the classroom, Lin Qiaozhi was still replaying the dismantling process in her mind, along with the details and techniques Engineer Wang had mentioned.
She took a notebook out of her bag.
While the memory was still fresh, she uncapped her fountain pen and began writing everything down bit by bit.
The school only had this single teaching lathe, yet it had students from all three grades.
She had to treasure every opportunity to practice.
“Lin Qiaozhi… you’re actually serious about this?”
Lin Qiaozhi turned around and saw someone standing beside her, half-leaning over with his neck stretched out, standing on tiptoe to peek at what she was writing, his face full of misery.
He was an old acquaintance too, one of the students who had just been singled out earlier. He had been scolded pretty badly and had looked as wilted as a frostbitten eggplant when he left the workshop.
She said, “Don’t talk yet.”
What if she forgot something because of him? Who would be responsible then?
When Qian Ming saw what she was writing in the notebook, his eyes lit up. The bitter look on his face vanished instantly as he hurriedly put on a flattering grin and even mimed zipping his lips shut with his hand.
Lin Qiaozhi ignored him.
He’d been a little troublemaker ever since they were kids.
Since she’d already acknowledged him, Qian Ming stopped standing on tiptoe to sneak a look. Instead, he took two steps forward and stood slightly behind her desk.
From where he was standing, he could clearly see everything Lin Qiaozhi was writing.
Lin Qiaozhi liked things to be clear and straightforward. One was one, and two was two. Even when taking notes, she never used shortcuts or codes that only she herself could understand. She didn’t want to look back at them two years later and end up completely baffled.
Qian Ming saw that she was recording the process of dismantling the lathe, the techniques involved, and some of her own observations.
Especially when he suddenly saw the driveshaft that had stopped him earlier, Engineer Wang’s scolding seemed to ring in his ears again. His heartbeat nearly stopped for two beats from fright.
He took a deep breath, rubbed his ears vigorously, then shook his head. After that, he started waggling his eyebrows and making exaggerated gestures toward the few other “brothers in misery” behind him.
After finishing her notes, Lin Qiaozhi carefully read through everything from beginning to end, making sure she hadn’t left out a single step.
The moment she looked up, Qian Ming leaned over with a broad smile plastered across his face.
Before he could say anything,
Ring, ring, ring!
Class had started.
His smile vanished at once, and he darted back to his seat like a startled rabbit.
The school only had two major classes each morning: one practical class and one theory class, both of them fairly long.
Lin Qiaozhi really enjoyed Teacher Qin’s theory lessons.
They felt completely different from studying the textbook on her own.
An enormous number of details, practical techniques, and real-life examples were effortlessly woven by Teacher Qin into the knowledge presented in the textbook.
They were the accumulated experience from Teacher Qin’s years as a fitter.
Lin Qiaozhi had already gone through the textbook by herself. It was as though she had turned herself into a hollow sponge full of tiny pores, and now she greedily absorbed all that experience from Teacher Qin the way a sponge soaked up water.
Time passed quickly when she devoted herself wholeheartedly to the lesson.
“All right, that’s it for today. When you get back, try practicing what we covered in class. Next lesson, I’ll call on people at random to check your work.” Glancing at the time, Teacher Qin announced the end of class right on schedule.
“Goodbye, Teacher,” the students said in unison as they stood.
As soon as Teacher Qin left, the classroom grew lively. Some students discussed the practical class, some quietly marveled at Wang Baiqiang’s nickname, and others chatted about what to eat for lunch…
There were also people weaving through the crowd, pulling aside Zhou Shu and the others who had taken the make-up exam to ask them questions.
As Lin Qiaozhi was packing up her books, Qian Ming and several others she had only become acquainted with in the previous class came over, all smiles, speaking with exaggerated warmth.
“Sister Qiaozhi, want to go to the cafeteria together?”
Quite a few students in the classroom noticed the scene. They either slowed their pace or pretended to keep packing their bags.
Lin Qiaozhi distinctly remembered that when this guy had come over earlier, the first thing he’d called her was “Lin Qiaozhi.”
He’d changed his tune that quickly?
What a pity. She hadn’t been a gang leader for many years now. That was just a game kids played.
Ignoring him, Lin Qiaozhi finished packing her bag, slung the strap over her shoulder, and headed for the door, sounding faintly disdainful.
“We’re not that familiar.”