Chapter 149 I'm just a screw tightener

The side hall of the Fifth Workshop had been converted into a temporary tiered classroom.

Dozens of young and middle-aged people sat there, upright and solemn.

Any one of them, if sent out, was a figure powerful enough to make a provincial industrial department tremble.

But at this moment, this group of people looked like a bunch of primary school students who had just started school.

They were taking notes incessantly, not even daring to breathe too loudly.

In front of the blackboard, Zhao Qiang patted the chalk dust off his hands.

"The core of the box-in-box structure lies in thermal symmetry."

Zhao Qiang pointed to the complex mechanical decomposition diagram on the blackboard:

"Traditional machine tools are just lumps of iron; they deform when heated."

"Since we can't change their physical properties, we'll make them deform 'uniformly.'"

"As long as the spindle centerline remains relatively stationary during thermal deformation, the precision can be locked in."

In the audience, Chief Engineer Wu of the Imperial City No. 1 Machine Tool Plant pushed up his glasses.

Looking at those smooth, flowing stress analysis formulas, he couldn't help but gasp.

Brilliant! Simply brilliant!

This design approach completely bypassed the pitfall of the traditional Soviet-style 'clunky, crude, and oversized' material-stacking method.

This was playing with mechanics down to the bone!

"This section is finished. Ten-minute break."

Zhao Qiang picked up his thermos and walked out of the classroom.

The moment he left, the classroom erupted into a frenzy.

"What a god!"

Chief Engineer Zhou closed his notebook and slapped his thigh with emotion.

"Where on earth did Red Star Technology dig up so many experts?"

"With this level of theory, he could more than easily be a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology!"

"You can say that again!"

The Chief Engineer of the Fengtian Second Machinery Plant next to him also nodded, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and handing them around.

"That thermal stress release algorithm just now had been troubling our plant for three years."

"He explained it thoroughly in just three sentences."

"Without two tons of ink in his belly, he definitely couldn't have said that!"

While everyone was marveling, a young technician in the back corner who had been silently smoking suddenly raised his hand weakly.

"Um... leaders, I actually know Teacher Zhao."

Swish!

Dozens of gazes shot toward him like searchlights.

"You know him?"

Chief Engineer Zhou asked urgently,

"Which research institute is he from?"

"Or is he a PhD who returned from the Soviet Union?"

The young technician shrank his neck, his expression looking quite remarkable:

"Neither..."

"He used to be from the Red Flag Plant next door to us, repairing tractors."

"An agricultural machinery plant?"

The big shots were stunned for a moment, then it dawned on them.

"Oh, so he's had grassroots experience. Was he the Chief Engineer?"

"No, not the Chief Engineer either. Just a Third-Grade Fitter."

The air suddenly went silent for three seconds.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

The Chief Engineer of the Fengtian Second Machinery Plant was choked by his smoke, tears streaming down.

"What did you say? What grade?"

"Third-grade."

The young technician smiled bitterly.

"His nickname at his original unit was 'Zhao Two Thousandths.'"

"Because he worked too slowly, and his precision was always off by two thousandths of a millimeter."

"He was looked down upon and ostracized in the workshop..."

Chief Engineer Zhou froze, as if he were listening to a fairy tale.

Repairing tractors? A third-grade worker?

"What a waste of talent! This is a total waste of talent!"

Chief Engineer Zhou pounded the table in distress.

"Is the director of that agricultural machinery plant blind?"

"This isn't scrap iron; this is gold-encrusted jade!"

A deep sense of helplessness and shame enveloped everyone.

They, from these large plants that controlled the country's core resources, shouted about a lack of talent every day.

Yet, it was Lin Xi, an outsider in the aerospace field, who had the keen eye to recognize genius.

He had picked up these dust-covered pearls one by one, polished them, and placed them on the altar.

...

The practical course on precision structures.

The location moved to the Fifth Workshop.

At the operating table sat a young man who looked even younger than Zhao Qiang.

Song Changyin.

In front of him lay a scattered set of spindle bearing components.

Hundreds of tiny washers, balls, and cages were scattered in the tray like a pile of garbled code.

"Let's begin."

Song Changyin didn't waste words; even his eyes didn't show much emotion.

He reached out his hands.

What kind of hands were those?

The fingers were slender, with distinct joints.

There wasn't a trace of extra flesh, and the nails were trimmed perfectly flat.

When these hands hovered over the parts, it was as if even the surrounding air had gone still.

Click.

The first snap ring snapped into place.

What followed was a visual feast.

There were no flashy movements, only speed, accuracy, and stability.

His fingers seemed to have a consciousness of their own.

He didn't even need his eyes to confirm; he could precisely grab various parts.

There was no trial and error, no adjustments; every step was perfect on the first try.

The crisp sounds of metal clashing formed a string of pleasant musical notes.

Ten minutes later.

An extremely complex hydrostatic spindle assembly stood on the operating table like a work of art.

"Done."

Song Changyin looked up and gave a simple, honest smile.

Master Zhang, the chief assembly technician of Fengtian No. 1 Machine Tool Plant, now had his mouth open wide enough to fit an egg.

He was an Eighth-Grade Worker and had spent his entire life in assembly.

But he knew that even at his best, he couldn't achieve this level of fluid mastery.

"This is the unity of man and machine..."

Master Zhang muttered to himself.

"Young master, which machine tool plant are you from?"

"Looking at your technique, you must have at least twenty years of practice from a young age, right?"

Song Changyin paused, scratching his head with some embarrassment.

"Um... I've never worked in a machine tool plant before."

"An instrument plant then?"

"Not that either."

Song Changyin told the truth.

"I used to help out in the kitchen of a state-run restaurant in my hometown."

"What?!"

This time, even the most refined Chief Engineer Zhou couldn't help but swear.

"The kitchen? A kitchen assistant?"

"Yes."

Song Changyin said as if it were only natural.

"I was a Prep Cook. Usually, when I had nothing to do, I liked to carve characters on grains of rice and such."

"Later, someone claiming to be from the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building Industry came to our restaurant and asked me directly if I was willing to come to the Northwest."

Speaking of this, Song Changyin's eyes lit up.

"That leader said the benefits here were good."

"Meat with every meal and new clothes to wear, so I followed him here."

"And after you arrived?" someone asked urgently.

"After I arrived, they brought me here to tighten screws."

Song Changyin pointed to the incredibly precise instrument in front of him, his tone completely relaxed.

"I was quite nervous at first."

"But once I tried it, I found this thing was much simpler than shredding potatoes."

"Simpler?!" The experts felt as if an arrow had pierced their hearts.

"Yeah."

Song Changyin picked up a washer and spun it in his hand.

"Shredding potatoes requires a certain flick of the wrist, and carving on rice requires holding your breath."

"These iron lumps all have fixed holes; you just snap them in."

"You don't need to use your brain, and there's not much technical skill involved."

"Just be a bit careful, it's actually quite simple."

Pfft—

It was as if the sound of collective blood-spitting could be heard on the scene.

Just be a bit careful?

Not much technical skill?

This was precision assembly!

Yet, in the mouth of this vegetable-chopping young man, it had actually become a 'no-brainer' manual task?

This kind of humblebragging was simply a massive blow to all the old experts present who had struggled for a lifetime!