Chapter 44 The Arrogance of the Old King

"Holding onto the old ways is not a mistake."

Lin Xi's gaze was like a knife, piercing straight into Xue Jianhua's eyes.

"The mistake is thinking the world will never change."

"Plasticization, lightweighting, and modularization—this is an irreversible industrial torrent."

"The all-steel fans you are so proud of will be nothing but expensive scrap metal in the future international market."

"As for you saying I can't buy screws in Shanghai..."

Lin Xi smiled, a brilliant smile.

"Factory Director Xue, Shanghai is huge. Huashang Factory isn't the only one that is 'state-owned'."

After saying this, Lin Xi turned and left without the slightest hesitation.

"Show them out!"

From behind him came the furious roar of Xue Jianhua,

"I'd like to see which factory dares to take on this plastic trash!"

...

Walking out of the Huashang Factory gates, the sunlight outside was blinding.

Wang Weidong had a miserable look on his face, so unsteady he could barely walk:

"Manager Lin, Brother Lin!"

"You were too impulsive!"

"This is Huashang Factory!"

"If we offend them, we really won't be able to survive in the Shanghai light industry circle!"

"Even just negotiating a joint venture would have been fine..."

"Joint venture?"

Lin Xi lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, letting the nicotine calm his mood.

"Entering a joint venture with a company like that is just waiting to climb into the coffin together."

In reality, he wasn't angry at all. He even felt like laughing.

Arrogance is good.

The more arrogant the opponent, the larger the market gap they leave for him.

"But... where are we going to find a factory now?"

Wang Weidong looked at the street in despair,

"If this order falls through, the Foreign Affairs Bureau will skin us alive."

Lin Xi exhaled a cloud of smoke and watched it dissipate in the air.

"Xiao Wang." Lin Xi turned to look at Wang Weidong,

"Over in Songjiang, isn't there a 'poor relative' in our system?"

Wang Weidong was stunned for a moment, then remembered something, and his expression turned strange.

"Are you talking about..."

"Hongfeng Machinery Factory?"

"Right, the one that makes rocket fairings." Lin Xi nodded.

"Oh my, Brother Lin!"

Wang Weidong slapped his thigh,

"That place is a fiery pit!"

"That factory was originally for military support, but now there are fewer military orders."

"They didn't transition well from military to civilian use, and ended up making bicycle chains."

"As a result, the quality was too high and the cost was too high, and they lost everything!"

"Now they can't even pay the workers' wages!"

"Then that's perfect."

Lin Xi threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it hard with the toe of his shoe.

His eyes flashed with light.

"Quality too high, cost too high?"

"That shows the technical foundation is still there; they just haven't shifted their mindset."

"Can't pay wages? That means the workers are starving."

"Only hungry wolves are easy to lead."

Lin Xi said calmly.

"Let's go, to Songjiang."

"Let's go see our poor relative."

...

On the outskirts of Songjiang, Hongfeng Machinery Factory.

Apart from the listless announcement on the loudspeaker, the entire factory area was so quiet that one could only hear the wind clattering against the iron doors.

Lin Xi stood under the paint-peeling "Hongfeng Machinery Factory" sign, while Wang Weidong behind him wiped sweat incessantly.

"Manager Lin, this... will this work?"

Wang Weidong looked at the sleepy old man sticking his head out of the gatehouse, his heart pounding,

"This place, let alone making fans, I think even a mouse would find it too poor."

Lin Xi didn't speak, just stared at the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building Industry emblem on the roof of the factory building, which, though faded, still stood proudly.

"As long as the skeleton remains, the soul is still there."

...

Ten minutes later, the factory director's office.

It was called an office, but it was actually just a larger warehouse partition.

The only electrical appliance in the room was a desk fan that didn't work.

On the enamel mug sitting on the table,

"Serve the People" had been stained yellow by smoke.

Factory Director Zhao Dagang was wearing a faded blue work uniform, the cuffs frayed.

He held a half-smoked cigarette in his hand, his fingernails filled with black machine oil.

"What? An export order?"

Zhao Dagang's hand shook, and the cigarette nearly burned his lip.

He stood up abruptly, knocking over the broken wooden chair behind him with a loud "clang."

"24,000 units? And earning US dollars?"

Zhao Dagang stared with wide, bull-like eyes, his eyeballs bloodshot.

He stared fixedly at Lin Xi, like someone dying of thirst in the desert who suddenly sees someone walking over with a bucket of ice-cold soda.

"As long as you can build them."

Lin Xi placed the dark cyan ABS mesh cover on the ash-covered table,

"Red Star Service Cooperative provides the technology."

"Hongfeng Factory is responsible for the labor and the venue."

"I take 10 dollars per fan, and the rest is yours."

"No, no, no!"

Zhao Dagang shook his head like a rattle-drum and eagerly grabbed Lin Xi's hand,

"Manager Lin, you can take all the profit!"

"As long as we can feed the brothers!"

"There are over eight hundred people in the factory now, and the boiler room doesn't even have money to buy coal briquettes."

"If we don't start production, I'll have to take the deputy factory director to the Huangpu River to beg for food!"

"What I want is quality."

Lin Xi calmly pulled his hand back. "Let's look at the workshop first."

When Zhao Dagang heard this, his back straightened up instantly.

"Look at the workshop? Sure!"

"I dare not brag about anything else, but when it comes to craftsmanship..."

"In all of Songjiang, if my Hongfeng Factory claims second place, no one dares to claim first!"

...

Workshop No. 1.

Under the dim lights, dozens of old-fashioned belt lathes were roaring.

The workers, mostly in their forties or fifties, worked with their heads down, no one speaking.

Lin Xi walked to a C618 lathe and stopped.

The operator was an old master with gray hair.

He was wearing reading glasses, carefully turning a steel rod as thick as a little finger.

The tool tip touched lightly, iron filings curled up like silk, his movements as steady as if he were carving jade.

Lin Xi leaned in to take a look, his brows raising slightly.

The tolerance of this steel rod was visually controlled within 0.1 millimeters.

"What are you machining?" Lin Xi asked.

"Bicycle chain pins."

Zhao Dagang rubbed his hands nearby, his face bitter,

"We are doing support work for the Phoenix Bicycle Factory; they complained that our prices were too high, so this was an order we begged for."

Lin Xi picked up the pin, weighed it in his hand, and suddenly smiled.

"Using the precision of making the tail fin actuators for the 'Red Arrow-2' missile to machine bicycle chain pins?"

Zhao Dagang was stunned, then a look of embarrassment and helplessness appeared on his face:

"Manager Lin has a sharp eye..."

"These old masters really did work on actuators before."

"They're used to it; they can't loosen their hands. Even when machining a pin, if it's off by a hair, it bothers them."

In the stream, the chat screen was instantly flooded.

"I'm crying! This is like using a Dragon-Slaying Saber to trim toenails!"

"Is this the tragedy of a great nation's craftsmen? With skills capable of slaying dragons, they can only make chains."

"Streamer! Take it! This factory is practically a gold mine buried in the dirt!"

Lin Xi put down the pin and turned to look at Zhao Dagang, his eyes showing warmth for the first time.

"Let everyone stop."

"Huh?" Zhao Dagang didn't react in time.

"Don't do this kind of work that wastes such craftsmanship anymore."

Lin Xi looked around, his voice not loud, but echoing in the empty workshop,

"That is the greatest insult to these hands of yours."