Chapter 109 Enduring Humiliation to Steal a Master's Skill

"In the 50s, our country was poor and blank."

Deputy Factory Director Ma's eyes were rimmed with red, his thoughts seemingly drifting back to those years of ice and snow.

"To build the first C620."

"We also put on forced smiles for the Soviet Union experts like this."

"They wouldn't give us the blueprints, so what could we do?"

"We waited until the experts got off work."

"That was winter in Shenyang, thirty degrees below zero!"

Deputy Factory Director Ma raised his hands, which were covered in calluses, and they trembled.

"We drilled into warehouses that were like ice cellars."

"With flashlights in hand, we disassembled part by part and measured data by data!"

"We relied on that drive to 'steal the craft.'"

"Relying on that shameless 'hard imitation,' we finally built the C620!"

"Only then did we prop up a portion of the country's industrial foundation for these past twenty-plus years!"

The entire room fell silent.

Cui Yushan, who had been glaring at Deputy Factory Director Ma earlier,

now let out a long sigh and turned his head away, his expression complex.

For those who lived through that era, who hadn't had such an experience?

"It's the same this time!"

Deputy Factory Director Ma stood up and walked over to Lin Xi, his tone almost pleading.

"Xiao Lin, I admit your M1 is a good thing, and you're a genius."

"But that's a 'folk remedy'!"

"That's for shifting gears on a tractor; it can't become a regular army!"

"Japan's is a true full-function CNC system, world-class!"

Deputy Factory Director Ma stared intently at Lin Xi.

"I have already organized eight technicians with the best memories in the entire plant."

"As soon as the production line is introduced, as soon as the stuff is in our hands..."

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"I can be like back then and thoroughly 'digest' their technology!"

"Imitate their system!"

"For this, I, Ma, am willing to be this comprador, willing to bear this infamy!"

Deputy Factory Director Ma leaned forward with his hands on the table in front of Lin Xi, his voice choking up:

"Xiao Lin, consider it your old brother begging you."

"So that the country can avoid fifteen years of detours, can you... take a step back?"

"Let our introduction plan pass; as long as the technology is in hand."

"The entire Fengtian No. 1 Machine Tool Plant will be willing to work for your Red Star Technology from now on!"

These words were like a cuckoo weeping blood.

This was the tragic heroism and helplessness of an industrialist from the old era.

He wanted to use a posture even as humble as dust to trade for an industrial future for the country.

In the livestream room, several bullet comments were frantically flooding the screen.

【Long Five Screw - Retired Version: Muddled! Simply muddled! Times have changed!】

【Embedded Old Dog: This is the logic of the mechanical age; it doesn't work at all in the electronic age! Those are chips, not gears!】

【Machine Tool Master: Quickly stop him! Once this is signed, it's twenty years of being locked down! This is a truly extinction-level scheme!】

In the meeting room, Vice Minister Liu's hand was trembling.

Reason told him this might be a trap;

but emotionally, the "shortcut" described by Deputy Factory Director Ma was too tempting.

"Lin Xi..." Vice Minister Liu was just about to speak.

*Splash.*

The sound of clear water rang out.

Lin Xi picked up the thermos in front of him.

With a calm expression, he refilled Deputy Factory Director Ma's tea mug with water.

"Director Ma, have some water."

Lin Xi set down the thermos.

Looking at the white-haired old man before him, his gaze was clear:

"Even if your back is bent, your heart is straight."

"I admire your willingness to endure humiliation for a heavy burden."

A glimmer of hope flashed in Deputy Factory Director Ma's eyes.

"However."

Lin Xi's tone suddenly shifted.

His voice instantly became cold as a knife, cutting off all warmth.

"Your path is a dead end."

Deputy Factory Director Ma was stunned: "What?"

"Times have changed."

Lin Xi reached into his pocket.

He pulled out a black chip the size of a fingernail—it was the Z80.

*Snap.*

He lightly slapped the chip onto the table.

"Director Ma, you just said that when you imitated the C620 back then, it was by disassembling parts and measuring data, right?"

"Because that was a mechanical structure."

"How many teeth a gear has, what the diameter of a bearing is."

"One could understand it at a glance; a measurement with a vernier caliper was the truth."

Lin Xi pointed at the chip on the table.

"But now is the electronic age."

"Inside this fingernail-sized thing, thousands or even tens of thousands of transistors are integrated."

"The Japanese only need to do one thing—"

"Grind off the model number on the surface of the chip, then pour on a layer of black epoxy resin."

"This is 'hardware encryption'."

Lin Xi looked around the room, educating the big shots present on a concept that filled them with despair.

"You want to disassemble it? Sure."

"Once this resin cures, its hardness is comparable to stone."

"If you try to pry it open by force, the wafer inside along with the gold wires will snap instantly."

"That is what we call—self-destruction."

"Even if you're lucky and use chemicals to dissolve the packaging,"

Lin Xi sneered,

"What would you be able to see?"

"A maze of circuits that can only be seen under a microscope!"

"No source code, no instruction set."

"Facing this pile of silicon wafers, what could you possibly imitate?"

"You want to rely on memory?"

"That's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lines of binary code!"

"That is an ocean composed of 0s and 1s!"

"Forget eight technicians; even if you brought in all the shorthand champions in the country,"

"staring at that black-screened machine, what could they possibly record?!"

Boom!

These words were like a bucket of cold water, dousing the tragic flame in Deputy Factory Director Ma's heart.

His mouth hung open as he stared blankly at that tiny chip.

In his decades of experience,

as long as something was visible and tangible, there was nothing Chinese workers couldn't build.

But now, Lin Xi was telling him that it was an invisible ghost.

"No... impossible..."

Deputy Factory Director Ma's face was pale, still making a final struggle,

"It's written in the contract!"

"They promised to transfer the technology."

"They'll give us the blueprints! Give us the code!"

"Contract?"

Lin Xi chuckled, his eyes full of pity.

"Deputy Factory Director Ma, it's been over a hundred years; haven't we Chinese people suffered enough losses?"

Lin Xi leaned forward with his hands on the table.

His voice was powerful and resonant:

"In the face of national interests,"

"a contract is nothing more than a scrap of paper that can be torn up at any time!"