I guess even people in Tianjin can hear what he is thinking.

Jiang Huashu first drove to the school he'd been to. The address was 15 North Third Ring Road East. Last time, he'd biked there, then cycled back to tell the textile factory after asking questions. He was exhausted. He'd been walking around with hip pain for over a week, and since the toilets at home were all squat toilets, he had to go into the space toilet and sit on the toilet before exiting. This time, he'd learned his lesson and driven straight there.

It was the same gatekeeper from last time. Because he had given Jiang Huashu a box of cigarettes last time, he treated Jiang Huashu with such enthusiasm that he treated him like a relative from his hometown. He let him in directly. Jiang Huashu went straight to the office of the director from last time as if he was familiar with the place.

Upon entering, the director was there, sipping tea from an enamel mug emblazoned with "Serve the People." Jiang Huashu didn't exchange pleasantries with the director, simply stating his purpose. The director practically leaped from his chair in delight. For years, they hadn't experienced such good fortune, and he hadn't expected to encounter it in his lifetime.

If the school wasn't such a sacred place, seeing how happy the director was, he would probably have performed a two-person opera to celebrate.

The two of them agreed to deliver the defective cloth tomorrow. Instead of going to the textile factory to find Lao Xia, they drove directly back to the unit.

After resting for a while at work, he leisurely called Lao Xia to tell him the delivery time for tomorrow and left the rest of the matter to himself. Jiang Huashu knew that Lao Xia was hoping he wouldn't go with him. This would give him the chance to get to know these teachers and "learn a thing or two."

Less than three days after this incident, Jiang Huashu, who was at work, received a call from Director Yu of the machine tool factory, inviting him to his home for a drink.

Director Yu was the same age as Jiang Huashu and was a very loyal and good brother. When Jiang Huashu was first transferred to the Foreign Trade Department, Director Yu was still a technician, considered the lowest-ranking worker in the factory. In his thirties, he was so lowly that his colleagues called him "Little Boy" and his job was to assist the older workers.

In the 1970s, wage levels were clearly defined. A laborer was essentially an apprentice, but a master craftsman was considered a technician and earned many times that. Those below him were apprentices, doing the most tiring work every day but receiving the lowest wages.

Xiaoyu's master is the only technical engineer in the factory who has been abroad, so the machine he is responsible for is not an ordinary machine. There is only one in the entire factory.

The master's only problem was social anxiety, a reluctance to interact with others. Many young people in the factory wanted to learn the craft from him through the backdoor. Since they were trying to get in through the backdoor, they would definitely try their best to sell themselves, but the master would get annoyed after just a few words. If they didn't like it, he would directly dissuade them, and if they continued to nag, he would start scolding them. Among the students, only Xiaoyu, a young idiot, was not very talkative. The master just liked his quiet nature. To everyone's envy and jealousy, Xiaoyu became the master's apprentice.

A few days ago, when the master was operating the foreign machine, for some unknown reason, it suddenly stopped working.

This machine broke down. If it were an ordinary machine, we could just ask the factory's technical workers to fix it. But it happened that this imported machine broke down.

This machine has been in the factory for over three years and has never had a problem. When we bought it, we even sent a technician from abroad to stay here permanently. He also taught me some maintenance techniques. Later, the machine never broke down. They couldn't just wait for it to break down. It worked fine after the technician left, but now it's suddenly broken down and no one can fix it.