Chapter 81 Willing to kill the traitors, but powerless to reverse the situation.

In the small meeting room of the First Ministry of Machine Building Industry, the current atmosphere... how should I put it?

It was a literal case of "becoming one with each other" through physical combat.

The air was filled with the pungent scent of Safflower Oil.

The conference table had been pushed askew by half a foot, an enamel mug had rolled twice on the floor, and tea leaves were splattered everywhere.

Zhang Zhengguo sat on the left, two buttons of his collar popped off, and the collar of his thermal shirt underneath was pulled lopsided.

He held his head tilted, hissing through his teeth as he rubbed his wrist.

Vice Minister Liu of the First Ministry of Machine Building Industry sat on the right, his hair messy as a bird's nest.

"Old Zhang, do you have no shame at all?"

Vice Minister Liu cursed while inhaling sharply from the pain, "You said you came to talk about cooperation, but you're making lethal moves?"

"Pah!"

Zhang Zhengguo spat out some tea leaves, his eyes wide with indignation.

"Who told you to try and poach from my territory, you old brat?"

"Lin Xi belongs to our Seventh Ministry of Machine Building Industry, stop dreaming about him!"

Lin Xi, like a well-behaved little quail, kept his head down as he moved between the two men.

He nimbly straightened the overturned chairs and brewed two fresh cups of hot tea, handing them over respectfully, playing the role of a sensible and obedient junior.

"Leaders, please calm down, calm down," Lin Xi said with a smile plastered on his face.

Inwardly, however, he was complaining frantically:

This isn't a meeting of ministerial-level cadres; this is clearly two old men fighting over turf at the village entrance.

But this combat power...

It's basically a fifty-fifty split.

"Hmph!"

The two old men, whose combined ages exceeded a hundred, snorted simultaneously. They each grabbed their teacups and turned their heads away, refusing to look at one another.

Lin Xi cleared his throat, trying to pull the conversation back on track:

"Um... leaders, let's talk about the results of the Canton Fair."

At the mention of this, the expressions of both men finally softened a bit.

"The shavers were a huge success this time."

Lin Xi pulled out his small notebook, which was filled with dense notes.

"Besides the sixteen thousand units signed on-site, we've received many more orders of intent via telegram over the past two days."

"If production can keep up, it won't be a problem to get over a hundred thousand orders for shavers in a year."

Lin Xi paused and added:

"And this is different from the fans."

"Shavers can be sold all year round; there won't be seasonal tidal waves of orders, so it's more stable."

He thought the two leaders would be beaming with joy after hearing this.

To his surprise, after Vice Minister Liu finished listening, he slammed his teacup on the table and let out a long sigh.

That sigh made him look ten years older in an instant.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Zhengguo asked, glancing at his old comrade-in-arms.

Vice Minister Liu gave a bitter smile. "Old Zhang, you're in aerospace. You have a national system where you use the best materials regardless of cost."

"But what does our First Ministry of Machine Building Industry manage? It's the foundation of civilian industry."

Vice Minister Liu pulled a booklet from his jacket and slapped it onto the table with a 'thud'.

"You asked me to find factories to produce shavers. I've gone through almost every factory under the ministry's jurisdiction that has even a bit of precision machining capability."

"We need to build those... neodymium iron boron motors, and that nickel mesh that's as thin as paper."

Vice Minister Liu held up three fingers and shook them.

"In all of China, for factories that can meet this precision requirement, I can't even find ten, no matter how generously I count!"

"And most of those ten are already burdened with military industrial tasks."

"The remaining production capacity that can be spared..."

"At most, we can scrape together thirty thousand units a year for you."

"Thirty thousand units?"

Lin Xi was stunned. "This is after mobilizing our entire system's strength? We can't even handle fifty thousand units?"

"And that's a high estimate calculated by gritting our teeth!"

Vice Minister Liu said helplessly,

"Our machine tools were built with Soviet Union aid in the fifties; they've been in use for nearly thirty years!"

"A few high-precision parts can be hand-crafted by an Eighth-Grade Worker!"

"But mass production simply cannot keep up."

A dead silence fell over the meeting room.

The sense of oppression was suffocating.

Zhang Zhengguo stopped his mockery.

He silently pulled out a pack of cigarettes, handed one to Vice Minister Liu, and lit one for himself.

Amidst the swirling smoke, the silhouettes of the two old men appeared exceptionally hunched.

Standing to the side and watching this scene, Lin Xi felt as if his heart had been violently wrenched.

This was the pain of 1980.

Willing to slay the enemy, but powerless to change the tide.

In his field of vision, the bullet comments in the livestream had also shifted from joking to a heavy tone.

[Tears are falling, guys. This was the darkest hour of that era.]

[Many people think they could conquer everything if they traveled back in time, but the hurdle of basic industry can really stall someone to death. Without high-precision machine tools, blueprints are just waste paper.]

[Seeing these two old men so distressed makes me feel bad too. The money is right there but they can't eat it; this is more painful than losing money!]

[This is what they mean: You can doubt their determination, but you cannot ignore the gap of the era. Respect to the ancestors!]

Lin Xi took a deep breath, suppressing the feeling of frustration in his heart.

He knew this wasn't something that could be solved just by a few ideas from a transmigrator.

This was a long Long March.

...

In the Northwest Gobi in December, the cold wind was bone-chilling.

On his way back from the capital, Lin Xi's mind was filled with the bitter faces of Zhang Zhengguo and Vice Minister Liu.

The foundation was too thin.

You want to build a space shuttle, but reality tells you that even a qualified high-speed bearing has to be made by hand.

But Lin Xi refused to believe in such fate.

Lin Xi arrived at the entrance of the Fifth Workshop.

Before even entering, he heard a series of noisy shouts from inside, interspersed with the heavy sound of metal clashing.

"Erga, stack that batch of goods for export to France neatly!"

"That's foreign exchange; chipping even a bit of paint is like carving out the nation's flesh!"

Liu Guihua's crisp voice echoed in the yard.

"Sister Guihua, don't worry!" Sun Erga held a stack of packaging boxes, his smile so wide his eyes were nearly shut.

The current Service Center was no longer the drafty, dilapidated tile house it once was.

The open space that used to be piled with scrap material had been cleared into a neat assembly area.

Dozens of newly recruited young workers wore uniform blue work clothes; though they were green, there was light in their eyes.

Lin Xi didn't disturb the busy crowd, crouching low to slip into the "R&D Test Bench" in the corner.

"Manager? You're back!"

Wang Dapao suddenly looked up, his hair messy as a bird's nest and his eyes frighteningly bloodshot.

Beside him, Wang Yu also hurriedly put down the soldering iron in his hand and stood up a bit awkwardly. "Manager Lin."

"How is it going?" Lin Xi took off his scarf and exhaled into his palms to warm them.

"It's done! It's definitely done!"

Wang Dapao, as if presenting a treasure, pulled out something tightly wrapped in patent leather from under the workbench.

The outer shell was still the classic design of the "red star · gentle breeze," but in the center of the fan guard, there was an additional strange black box.

"This was developed by Wang Yu and me over the past month, following the ideas you left before you went away."

"It's a huge improvement over the original!"

Wang Dapao patted his chest, his face written all over with the pride of 'please praise me':

"We call this the 'Red Star · Strong Wind Generation 2'."

"Manager, take a look!"

Lin Xi raised an eyebrow slightly, standing in front of the fan. "Turn it on and let's see."

Wang Dapao confidently flipped the power switch.

Buzz—

The five-blade fan spun rapidly, and a powerful cold wind instantly swept across half the test bench.

Immediately following that, a thick, nauseating fishy smell, mixed with a faint scent of burning, filled the air.

"Turn it off!" Lin Xi barked.