833: Chapter 828 Who did this?

Chen Guangke stood by, watching with a pounding heart. He couldn't help but turn his head away, unable to look at the magnified, bloody scene on the screen.

Shen Yan, however, remained standing by the operating table, his gaze calm as he stared at every detail on the display.

He was confirming that the system's plan had not deviated in the slightest.

Time ticked by, minute by minute.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Zhao Yiming’s forehead also began to bead with fine sweat. The precision required for this surgery was extremely high; a slight mistake could sever the nerve completely.

"I see it!"

Zhao Yiming let out a low cry.

On the display, beneath a mass of grayish-white bone hyperplasia, a faint glint of cold metal was revealed.

It was a fragment smaller than a grain of rice, its edges as sharp as a knife, deeply embedded in the nerve sheath.

This was the thing that had tormented Feng Quji for fifteen long years.

It had turned him from a genius into a drunkard.

"Peel it away."

Shen Yan gave a brief command.

Zhao Yiming held his breath, manipulating the robotic arm as delicately as if embroidering, inching the fragment out.

*Ding.*

An extremely faint, crisp sound.

The blood-stained fragment dropped onto the metal tray.

Feng Quji’s eyes snapped wide open. A muffled roar escaped his throat, and his whole body went limp, as if he had just been pulled out of water.

That chronic aching and stinging sensation, which had been attached to his bone for years, vanished miraculously in that instant.

In its place was a long-lost, unobstructed coolness.

It was like a river channel blocked for years had finally been cleared, allowing boiling blood to rush over the parched riverbed once more.

"Done."

Zhao Yiming let out a long breath, removed his gloves, and looked at Shen Yan with eyes full of reverence.

If Shen Yan hadn't accurately pinpointed the location and the procedure, this surgery would have been impossible to succeed.

This wasn't just a boss; he was more expert than any expert.

The nurse deftly bandaged Feng Quji’s wound.

The old man, however, pushed the nurse away and shakily lifted his right hand.

He stared at that rough, large hand and tentatively moved his fingers.

The thumb and forefinger gently pinched together.

Steady.

As steady as Mount Tai.

There was no longer that uncontrollable tremor, no more weakness born of inability.

Feng Quji suddenly snatched a pair of surgical scissors from the table nearby.

They were extremely sharp, meant for cutting sutures.

He casually grabbed a tissue, flipped his wrist, and the scissors transformed into a silver blur between his fingers.

*Swish, swish, swish.*

Paper scraps flew everywhere.

When he stopped, a phoenix made of tissue paper lay on the table.

It was so lifelike that even the texture of the feathers was clearly visible.

Zhao Yiming watched, dumbfounded.

These hands were simply born for precision mechanics.

Feng Quji looked at the paper phoenix, and his eyes suddenly turned red.

His lips trembled; he wanted to say something but couldn't make a sound.

Fifteen years.

He thought he would spend the rest of his life holding a ladle, never expecting a day would come when he could once again control this micron-level tactile sense.

That was his life.

Shen Yan walked over, placed the bloody fragment into a small sealed bag, and set it in front of Feng Quji.

"Keep it as a memento."

Feng Quji took a deep breath and, with the hand that had just been reborn, tightly gripped the bag.

He looked up at Shen Yan.

This time, he didn't curse or put on his usual arrogant airs.

"Boss."

Those two words, spoken from his mouth, were heavier than gold.

"Get me something to eat, I’m hungry."

"After I eat my fill, I’m going to the workshop."

Shen Yan’s lips curved slightly upward, and he turned to instruct Chen Guangke.

"Go arrange it. Get the best steak, and a good bottle of wine too."

In the top-floor lounge, the smell of disinfectant had long been overpowered by the rich aroma of meat.

A five-minute-cooked, thick-cut T-bone steak, its surface still sizzling with fat, was hacked apart by Feng Quji as if it were his mortal enemy.

Blood mixed with black pepper sauce smeared around his mouth.

The old man ate sloppily, like a famished wolf pouncing on prey, but this ferocious energy finally made him look less like a decrepit man nearing the end of his days.

A glass of decanted Romanée-Conti was downed in one gulp like cheap Erguotou liquor.

"Refreshing!"

Feng Quji slammed the crystal goblet onto the table, which let out a brittle sound as if it couldn't bear the weight.

He wiped his mouth, his previously cloudy eyes now sparkling with sharp intelligence as he stared at Shen Yan.

"Meat eaten, wine drunk, hands are nimble again."

"Take me to the workshop, now."

"I have those blueprints memorized. Even if you needed to punch a hole in the sky, I could build you a ladder tonight."

This old man was impatient, or perhaps the pent-up frustration of the last fifteen years made him unable to wait a second longer.

Chen Guangke stood to the side, slightly stunned by the old man's imposing aura.

This wasn't a frail research expert; he looked more like a fierce bandit just released from prison.

Shen Yan, however, sat on the sofa opposite him, slowly sipping a glass of plain water.

"No rush."

Those two words, light as air, acted like a wall, forcefully blocking Feng Quji’s surge of momentum.

Feng Quji frowned; his wild energy threatened to flare up again.

"Speed is essential in warfare. What do you know about materials? If that stuff gets damp if left too long..."

"The blueprints are for the first generation version from Country D, but our equipment is domestically improved. If we copy it directly, the furnace explosion rate will be thirty percent."

Shen Yan interrupted him, his tone as flat as if he were commenting on the fine weather.

Feng Quji froze.

His mouth was open, ready to unleash a torrent of curses, but the foul language got stuck in his throat.

Because Shen Yan was right.

This was the core issue, the fundamental reason for the accident at Research Institute 33 back then—a mismatch between equipment precision and blueprint parameters.

But besides the chief designer back then and himself, no one knew about this.

How did Shen Yan know?

"Furthermore, your hand just had surgery. Nerve recovery requires at least 72 hours of rest."

Shen Yan put down his water glass, pulled out a tablet computer from his coat, and swiped across it.

"This is the heat treatment curve I had someone adjust based on our current equipment. You stay here for these two days and master this."

"Three days later, we fire up the furnace."

Feng Quji suspiciously picked up the tablet.

He had originally intended to mock Shen Yan a bit—in this day and age, did a software guy dare to teach a materials expert how to run a furnace?

But when his gaze fell upon the complex curve diagram, his cloudy old eyes instantly widened.

His pupils trembled.

This wasn't some heat treatment curve; this was practically the 'Book of Life and Death' for reforging the soul of that pile of scrap metal.

Every temperature node, every holding time, was precise to a pathological degree.

It even accounted for the influence of Jinghai's humidity over the next few days on the furnace temperature.

"This... Who did this?"

Feng Quji looked up sharply, his voice trembling.

"I did."

Shen Yan lied without batting an eyelid.

The system’s advanced intelligence report included a copy of the 'General Outline for Next-Generation Alloy Smelting'; he was merely copying the pattern.