47: Chapter 47 The Fifth Beginning

It felt as if someone had crudely yanked a frame right out of the middle of the entire world.

The next instant, the cold wind carrying a dry and desolate aura from his memory rushed unbuffered against his face.

While making one instantly clear-headed, the familiar scent also brought a deep sense of relief.

Jiang Lin stood in the middle of that pile of material boxes, maintaining a slightly bent-knee posture, closing his eyes to wait for the implicit weightlessness brought by crossing worlds to slowly fade from his internal organs.

After about ten seconds, he opened his eyes and checked the material boxes one by one.

Eleven of them, they were all connected into a single entity during transmission, just like when he left, with no losses during the transmission process.

"A good start is half the battle."

Jiang Lin recited silently in his heart, raised his head, and looked around.

The world before his last departure had been frozen by time in that exact minute, and now it restarted from the same spot.

His two-hundred-square-meter farmland was still there.

Potato ridges, Soybean land, Pumpkin fields...

Surrounded by low windbreak stone walls.

No footprints, no new traces, no new sand dunes formed by the wind blowing.

Even the angle of inclination of a half-broken withered blade of grass in the corner of the wall was identical to when he left.

This world still waited only for him alone to boot it up.

There were no unknown variables secretly developing during the time he was away.

Jiang Lin reopened the door of the Stone House.

As for the things that followed, he had rehearsed them more than once in the Real World.

Which box to move into the Stone House first, and where to place each box, the order was fixed and did not require on-the-spot decision-making.

The moisture-proof box went in first; he grabbed a large black engineering plastic box with a yellow label on it.

Inside were measuring tools, vernier calipers, micrometers, dial indicators, and various electronic equipment.

Next was the energy box, containing the charging controller, inverter, cables, and connectors.

These items needed to complete preliminary installation today.

Without electricity, in the dark night of the Wasteland, one would be as blind as a bat, and even the most basic review and recording could not be done tonight.

The data boxes were stacked neatly against the wall, not in a rush to be opened.

Finally were the heaviest tool boxes and material boxes.

With so many boxes stuffed into the Stone House, the space that originally felt quite spacious suddenly became cramped.

He had to turn sideways to walk between the boxes.

This wouldn't do.

This was a long-term survival and study base. If the spatial layout was unreasonable, it would not only affect efficiency but also severely impact his psychological state.

He quickly replanned the spatial layout in his mind.

The bench vise needed a fixed working area, and that zone could not be occupied by other things.

Because the craft of filing relied entirely on body mechanics and stability.

When filing, a stable standing posture was required, with both feet planted one in front of the other, requiring complete footing space beneath the feet.

When pushing and pulling with both arms, sufficient arm-swing distance and force-exertion space were needed.

Adding all these conditions together, it was definitely not as simple as just placing a table; it required about two square meters of space.

The study area was the corner with the desk. There was his habitual camping light hook, reserved socket strip positions, and exclusive grooves for placing his notebook and mobile phone.

That corner had been used by him for many years, bearing countless sleepless nights of his previous trips to the Wasteland; it could not be moved.

For the remaining space, half was for materials and tools, half was for food and water, leaving a passageway in the middle.

...

Beneath the east wall of the Stone House, there was a low platform built out of concrete rubble.

That was something he casually piled up every time he picked up some construction waste during his previous trips to the Wasteland. The idea at the time was very simple—just to place some sundries, saving him the trouble of squatting on the ground to pick things up.

Now, this inconspicuous low platform could perhaps be used as the foundation for a temporary workbench.

He walked over, kicked the bottom of the low platform hard with the toe of his shoe, and it didn't budge at all.

It was quite sturdy.

So he took the bench vise out of the box and moved it onto the low platform.

Next, he rummaged through the toolbox for two thick steel strips and several heavy-duty C-clamps.

The Wasteland was not like a garage; there were no ready-made bolt holes, nor flat steel plate surfaces.

He could only use the most primitive physical clamping method.

He used the steel strip to cross over the base of the bench vise, tightly fastened both ends to the edge of the concrete low platform with C-clamps, and tightened the lead screw bit by bit.

Until it couldn't be turned even a fraction anymore.

Installation complete, Jiang Lin took a step back, gripped the jaws of the bench vise with both hands, took a deep breath, and then suddenly exerted force, shaking it back and forth and side to side vigorously.

The concrete low platform let out a muffled protest, and the bench vise shifted slightly along with it.

The shaking was smaller than that of the temporary workbench he had cobbled together from waste wooden boards in the Real World garage, but it still objectively existed.

This level of stability could only be described as barely satisfactory.

Jiang Lin picked up a notebook and a pen, and immediately recorded:

[First day of the fifth Wasteland trip, bench vise temporarily installed on the low platform of the east wall.]

[Status assessment: Stability score of about 60.]

[Operation permissibility: Sawing and light dressing filing are barely usable. Heavy stock removal filing and future precision drilling operations are unusable.]

[Follow-up plan: The construction of the formal workbench must be included in the core tasks of the first month. Without solving the foundation problem, precision is a joke.]

Closing the notebook, Jiang Lin sighed.

The workbench issue could not be rushed; he had to slowly look for materials, but there was one matter that had to be resolved immediately right now.

Electricity.

He opened the energy box and, according to the label sequence, took out the flexible solar panels, MPPT charging controller, large-capacity battery pack, and pure sine wave inverter one by one, arranging them neatly on the ground outside the Stone House.

The bracket for the solar panels he made last time was still there, and those two panels were mounted on the bracket. He checked the stability of the bracket; it was not loose, just like when he left.

He connected the two newly brought high-conversion-rate panels and wired them in series.

The output wires were led into the interior of the Stone House along the reserved holes in the wall.

The battery pack was a brand-new lithium iron phosphate battery, fully charged in the Real World and brought over.

Measured with a multimeter, the initial power was 95%, which was very healthy.

Connecting the battery pack to the controller.

With a soft beep, the green indicator light on the controller panel lit up, emitting a faint glow in the dim Stone House.

But Jiang Lin did not feel relieved immediately.

The green light only indicated that the circuit was connected, not that the system was safe.

He pressed the multimeter probes onto the terminals, first measuring the battery terminal voltage, then measuring the controller output, and finally recording the voltage of the inverter under no-load conditions.

As for power generation efficiency, he would have to wait until tomorrow daytime to plot a complete curve.

Then came the inverter.

He connected the inverter to the output end of the battery pack and turned on the switch.

The fan made an extremely faint spinning sound.

He plugged in a flame-retardant extension cord of excellent quality, the other end of which was connected to a multi-port industrial power strip with independent switches.

This was the power hub of all electronic equipment and the last umbilical cord connecting to modern civilization.

Next, he took out his mobile phone and power bank from the moisture-proof box, connected both to charging cables, and plugged them into the power strip.

The screen lit up, showing that they were charging.

Jiang Lin let out a long breath of foul air and opened his notebook once again.

[Power system installation completed on the first day.]

[Parameters: Four solar panels connected in parallel, controller running with green light. Currently, it can only be confirmed as usable, not stable; true stability depends on tomorrow daytime's power generation curve and load-bearing performance.]

[Equipment status: Laptop available, backup phone and power bank charging.]

[Tomorrow's to-do list: Must check the battery charging curve and confirm actual power generation efficiency.]

Unknowingly, time arrived at midday.

Jiang Lin sat on the edge of the bed, holding half a cold potato, biting and chewing slowly, bite by bite.

The potato was left over from the fourth trip.

During the world's freezing period, its molecular structure was similarly locked, and it did not spoil.

Of course, it couldn't be considered very delicious either.

However, he had eaten this kind of texture for decades and was used to it.

Taste buds did not need to be pleased in the Wasteland; providing calories to the body was enough.

It didn't matter whether it tasted good or not.

After finishing the last bite of the potato, he rested for a short while and temporarily stacked the remaining unorganized boxes against the wall.

Returning to the stone table, he took out a piece of blank paper, picked up a pen, and wrote a few lines on it.

After finishing writing, he found a piece of clear adhesive tape and neatly pasted this sheet of paper in the most conspicuous position on the inner wall of the Stone House.

[Rules for the first stage of the fifth Wasteland trip]

[One, do not enter new courses for the first month.]

[Two, prioritize completing farmland planting, in-depth placement of all materials, anti-risk stability of the power system, and infrastructure construction of the fitter tool area.]

[Three, fitter training is limited to sawing, filing, scribing, and center punching; no drilling and tapping will be performed.]

[Four, establish a strict tool ledger; after using all tools, wear and tear conditions and maintenance steps must be recorded.]

[Five, safety redundancy principle; all temporarily constructed structures must be clearly marked with risk levels and must not be defaulted as qualified.]

Among these five rules, the first one was the one he hesitated about the most.

A month's time was a bit too extravagant.

But he still kept it.

In the fourth Wasteland, he once thought that as long as there was a quiet place, he could sit down and study.

But this was already the fifth time.

In the Wasteland World, in a place where even basic Physics constants needed to be reconfirmed, learning was never an isolated matter, but rather the final product of a complete and complex engineering system.

It required stable logistical support, a reliable operating platform, and precise environmental control.

Without these foundations, the tower of knowledge built upon them could be blown down by a mere gust of wind.

Before dark, taking advantage of the last dim daylight, Jiang Lin went out to take another stroll around the fields outside.

In the final year of the fourth time, due to old age and physical decline, over one hundred square meters of land had been left desolate.

This time, taking advantage of the transition from winter to spring, he had to plow it and plant crops as soon as possible.

Food was the foundation of the body's strength.

When he returned to the Stone House, the sky outside was pitch black.

The low-voltage lamp lit up for the first time; its light was somewhat diffused and a bit dimmer than the incandescent lamp that had been used for who knows how many years in the garage, but in the dark night of the Wasteland, this was already an irreplaceable sun.

Jiang Lin fetched some water to simply wipe his face and hands, washing away the sand and dust covering his body, then sat on the edge of the bed, opened his notebook, and turned to today's summary page.

[First Day of the Fifth Time]

[Study: None.]

[Fitter Work: None.]

[Exploration: None.]

[Completed: All supplies brought in and preliminary inventory completed, data area temporarily established, tool area and material area preliminarily planned and put in place, solar power system temporarily connected and operating normally, bench vise brought in intact but lacking a qualified base.]

[Main Problem: The Stone House is just a refuge, and is still far from being a laboratory.]

[Tomorrow's Task: Suspend studying, and first make this place qualified to support studying.]

The night passed without incident.

The next day, he plowed the fields during the day, and when night fell, using his last bit of energy, he prepared to try some simple stock-removal filing as a warm-up.

But he quickly discovered the first problem.

The working area of the bench vise required good lighting.

However, the only existing light source in the Stone House was the camping lamp hanging in the center of the ceiling.

When he clamped a piece of steel plate to be processed onto the bench vise, picked up the file, and prepared to start cutting, he stopped.

The light shone straight down from above, and obstructed by his arms and tools, it formed a large area of shadow on the surface of the workpiece.

The process of filing relied heavily on visual feedback.

If sidelight was needed to judge the flatness of the metal surface and the direction of the file marks, this kind of direct diffuse light from the top was almost useless and could even cause visual deception.

Jiang Lin put down the file and stared at that shadowed area for a while.

He truthfully recorded this problem in his logbook.

Then he immediately stopped his current work and began to solve the problem.

He found a two-meter-long insulated wire and a simple clip-on lamp holder from the spare parts of the power box.

He connected the low-wattage small bulb brought as a spare.

Then, he rummaged through the scrap pile, clamped a thin piece of waste iron with pliers, bent it forcefully, and made a simple Z-shaped lamp stand out of it.

He clamped this homemade lamp stand into a crevice in the wall next to the working area of the bench vise with screws and connected the power.

Then he continuously adjusted the angle of the iron sheet, bent down, narrowed his eyes, and observed the direction of the light.

Until he adjusted the angle so that the light could hit the surface of the workpiece from the side at an extremely low angle, skimming flatly across it.

At this angle, the light source no longer provided overall illumination, but instead turned into a searchlight.

That dim yellowish sidelight swept across the metal surface, and any uneven protrusion, any subtle scratch from the file, would cast a long shadow on the shaded side, which could be seen at a glance.

Jiang Lin studied that beam of sidelight quietly for a while.

He determined it was feasible.

He recorded it in the logbook.

[Illumination is never for seeing clearly; illumination is a part of measurement.]

[All future surface inspections must record the light source direction.]

On the third day, he discovered a second, even more fundamental problem.

The floor of the Stone House was not flat.

Actually, he was not completely unaware of this matter.

He had known since the first time he came here and built this wall with his own hands.

At that time, in order to catch up with the schedule, the foundation treatment was not meticulous enough, and he just went ahead based on feeling.

The floor level of the entire Stone House had a slight tilt toward the southwest.

He roughly measured it once with a tape measure and a level; over a distance of three meters, the height difference was about twenty-seven millimeters.

Usually, if you placed a cup of water on the ground, the naked eye couldn't tell the tilt of the water surface at all.

In the past, he didn't care about this at all.

In the Wasteland, having a place to shelter from wind and rain to sleep, being able to draw lines and write on the ground, and stacking a few bags of potatoes in the corner—this slight tilt had no impact on these survival behaviors whatsoever.

Even if the bed was a bit crooked, turning over would make you get used to it.

But now he had brought the bench vise in.

Workpieces had to be clamped on the bench vise, and precise filing had to be performed on the workpieces.

What filing truly required was not looking level.

But rather a stable force-bearing path, a repeatable clamping posture, and a set of benchmarks that would not quietly drift during operation.

Levelness was simply one of the entry points that was easiest for him to observe and easiest to handle first.

When he took the level taken out from the moisture-proof box and placed it on that low concrete platform to measure, the small bubble in the glass tube of the level deviated from the central scale line.

But on the workbench about to undergo machining, for filing, this was a background error that would continuously contaminate the hand feel.

This suddenly gave him a strong sense of dislocation.

This was a problem he had never encountered, nor even thought of, during half a month of preparation work in that fully equipped garage in the Real World.

Why?

Because the concrete floors of modern buildings were flat by default.

Civilized society had already laid down these lowest-level Physics benchmarks for him.

And here, he had to define benchmarks from scratch himself.

This was the first true and essential difference between the Wasteland and the garage.

With different benchmarks, it was completely different right from the very bottom layer.

Jiang Lin wasn't annoyed either.

He rummaged through the material box and found a stack of thin aluminum sheets used for gasket processing.

These aluminum sheets ranged in thickness from 0.1 millimeters to 0.5 millimeters.

Kneeling on the ground, he placed the level on the flat guide rail of the bench vise, his eyes fixed on that bubble.

He tucked the thin aluminum sheets one by one under the two force-bearing points on the lower side.

Tucking in a 0.5-millimeter piece, he re-tightened the lead screw, glanced at the bubble, and it was still a bit off.

Loosening the lead screw, he added another 0.1-millimeter piece, re-tightened, and looked at the bubble again; it had slightly overcorrected.

Loosening it again, he changed it to a combination of 0.2 millimeters...

This process, which heavily tested one's patience, was repeated by him like a machine.

Over and over again, it took him several minutes back and forth.

When he tightened the fixing C-clamp for the last time, straightened his slightly aching waist, and looked down at the level, that tiny bubble finally came to a steady and motionless halt right in the middle of the two scale lines.

Looking at the bench vise base that had finally been physically leveled, Jiang Lin slumped onto the stone stool, let out a long breath, picked up his water cup, and gulped down a large mouthful of hot water.

In the garage of the Real World, how many operational problems had he discovered in total?

He counted on his fingers.

Saw blades broke due to uneven force, the middle of the filed surface bulged due to clumsy technique, gaps let light through when measuring perpendicularity with a square, and the temporary wooden workbench shook during heavy processing.

There were only these few in total.

Every time he discovered one of these problems, he would record it in his logbook like finding a treasure, look up information, summarize his experience, and then, brimming with confidence with these so-called precious experiences, he crossed worlds and came to the Wasteland.

But what about now?

It was only just the third day in the Wasteland.

Before he had even warmed up the handle of his file, he had already discovered two problems that might never be discovered in that cozy garage for a lifetime.

The visual deception caused by the illumination angle of the lighting, and the underlying systematic error brought by the tilt of the large-scale ground level.

This was just the beginning; who knew how many pitfalls were waiting for him ahead.

Jiang Lin smiled self-deprecatingly, patted the dust off his hands, picked up his pen again, and opened the logbook.

[The problems here are far more than those in the garage, much more. But fortunately, here there is also more time for me to fight them to the bitter end and solve them.]