Chapter 185: Inferior tools are a thing of the past; today's craftsmen forge the backbone!

The pier quieted down.

Hirata and Chen Guangwei stood side by side.

The heavy bait had been cast.

Two full baskets of "small sea fish + shrimp heads + cornmeal," a special groundbait for groupers.

Half an hour passed, and the water surface was as calm as a mirror.

Just as the onlookers began to whisper, the tip of the rod in Hirata's hand suddenly showed a strange, jerky bend.

The next second, the rod tip plunged violently into the water!

"Hooked!" Hirata roared, raising the rod to set the hook.

That expensive imported rod instantly bent into a full arc.

The fishing reel's drag system emitted a "zzzz" screeching sound, and the line spool spun wildly, releasing line.

"It's a big one!" Hirata's expression changed.

The power underwater was astonishing, like a wild bull charging about.

Hirata tried to arch the rod, using the rod's backbone strength to turn the fish.

"Put pressure on it! Hold it!" Nakamura shouted from the side, "Let the Chinese see what the resilience of Japanese materials is like!"

Hirata gritted his teeth, hugged the rod handle tightly with both hands, and exerted force upward.

However, the moment the rod bent to a limit angle— "Snap!"

A crisp, heart-wrenching explosion.

That beautiful, exquisitely lacquered imported fishing rod shattered without warning at the joint between the second and third sections.

The broken fiberglass edges looked like an exploded broom, sharp and jarring.

Hirata was flipped over by the reaction force, landing on his butt, his face blank.

The livestream chat exploded instantly, filled with "666" and mockery:

[Sounds good, right? If it sounds good, it's a good rod! That crisp snap is worth a hundred dollars!]

[I knew it would snap! This is Shimano's first-generation fiberglass rod. Although it has high hardness, its shear strength is low. Hard-pulling at this angle concentrates stress on the joint; it's no wonder it broke. This is the consequence of having no core toughening technology!]

[Is this the so-called craftsman spirit? It shattered before even using much force? That's it? That's it?]

[Don't blindly hate! This is protecting the angler from being pulled into the water by shattering; it's a humanized design! (Dog head for self-preservation)]

The whole scene was in an uproar.

"This... how is this possible?" Nakamura's smile froze, "This is a fiberglass rod representing Shimano's latest technology..."

"The material isn't good enough." Lin Xi stood on the side, coldly exhaling a smoke ring, "Too hard, too brittle."

"Without internal lubrication, once the stress point locks, it's guaranteed to explode."

Before the words fell, the rod in the hand of Chen Guangwei, who had been standing silently nearby, suddenly sank!

That power was absolutely no less than before!

Chen Guangwei had been a worker for decades, his arms full of muscles.

He let out a low roar, his feet nailed to the ground like spikes.

He hugged the rod with both hands and jerked it upward.

"Whoosh—" That was the whistling sound of wind cutting through the fishing line.

That gray, drab domestic rod was instantly pulled into a terrifying "U" shape.

The rod tip even passed the handle section, almost touching the water surface!

"It's going to break! It's going to break!" Old Zhang shouted in fear, "Release the line quickly!"

"You can't release it!" Lin Xi shouted, "This is the pier piling area; if you release the line, it will cut!"

"Old Chen! Hold it firm!"

Chen Guangwei gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging.

Instead of releasing the line, he stepped back another step, forcing the rod to its limit!

Everyone closed their eyes, waiting for that "snap" sound.

But, it didn't come.

That rod, which looked incredibly rough, was like a living black snake.

It bent, it trembled, it made a teeth-grinding "creaking" sound.

But it just wouldn't break!

If you looked with a microscope, you would find that inside the rod body, among the countless glass fibers, because of the existence of polytetrafluoroethylene micropowder, a microscopic sliding layer was formed.

The huge torque was evenly distributed to every inch of the tube wall.

This was the power of Lin Xi's variable-diameter hollow rolling combined with the internal lubrication system.

It wasn't hard, but it was tough to the extreme!

"Give me... up!!!"

Chen Guangwei let out an angry roar that shook the pier.

A huge splash exploded on the water surface.

A grouper with a ferocious mouth and a body length of nearly 1.2 meters was forcibly pulled up from the bottom of the water!

At that moment, the sunset shone on Chen Guangwei's sweat-covered face.

It shone on that domestic fishing rod that still maintained a perfect arc and remained unyielding.

This was the beauty of industry.

It was also the beauty of strength.

"Wow—" The whole scene was suffocated.

Immediately after, a deafening cheer erupted!

"It's up! It really came up!"

"My god! This rod is miraculous!"

"This is the stuff made by Haiwei!"

The cheers of the fishermen drowned out the waves.

"Eighty pounds!"

The man weighing the fish had shaking hands; it was out of excitement.

Lin Xi didn't look at the big fish.

He walked straight to Nakamura, who was ashen-faced and trembling all over.

"Mr. Nakamura, I concede."

Lin Xi's voice was light, but to Nakamura, it sounded as loud as a slap in the face.

"You... you all..."

Nakamura looked at the undamaged "trash rod," his worldview completely collapsed, "This is impossible... that kind of waste material..."

"Who told you that was waste material?"

Lin Xi smiled, a cold smile, "That was a blade that hadn't been lacquered yet."

He turned around and clapped his hands.

Xiao Zhou and a few workers grunted as they lifted something down from the back of the jeep.

It was a granite monument that had been prepared long ago.

With a "bang," the monument was heavily erected in the most conspicuous position on the pier.

It was directly facing Liugong Island across the strait.

Lin Xi took a calligraphy brush from his bosom and handed it to Chen Guangwei, who was still panting.

"Old Chen, you write the characters."

Chen Guangwei wiped the sweat from his face and took the pen.

His hand was shaking, but his stroke was extremely steady.

The ink dripped and seeped into the stone grain.

"In the spring of the Renxu year, Haiwei Fishing Gear Factory No. 1 stood here, fighting a hundred-pound giant with a domestic rod, defeating Japanese precision equipment."

"With this monument, we comfort the martyrs: Being inferior in tools is a thing of the past; today, craftsmen forge the backbone!"

As the last stroke fell, Chen Guangwei threw away the pen, squatted on the ground, and covered his face, sobbing loudly.

How many years had it been?

From being called the "Sick Man of East Asia" in the past, to now being mocked for not being able to make a screw.

This pent-up anger in his chest was finally released halfway today.

Director Li stood on the side, his eyes red.

He held Lin Xi's hand tightly, unable to say a word, just shaking it desperately.

The livestream chat fell into a brief silence, followed by a uniform scrolling:

[Everyone stand up! Being inferior in tools is a thing of the past; this sentence made me cry.]

[Salute! From poverty to the stars and the sea, the suffering their generation endured was worth it!]

[Streamer, hurry up and get it done, hurry up and get the carbon fiber out too!]

In the sunset, Nakamura took his people and slunk into the car.

Lin Xi stood by the monument and lit a cigarette.

His gaze crossed the sparkling sea and cast toward Liugong Island in the distance.

That had once been the burial place of the Beiyang Fleet.

"This is just the beginning."

Lin Xi whispered to the sea breeze, "Old Chen, this is just fiberglass. When we get the carbon fiber out, we will erect the monument to the sky!"