Chapter 2: Sword Forging (Overhaul) The weapon factory forged swords without 996, wonderful...

Zhou Tinglan arrived at the arsenal to work on time, but she didn't know where her workstation was.

When she came to the arsenal to register yesterday, the manager almost stopped her from registering and even asked her if she had come to the wrong place.

She replied firmly, "No, I just came to the weapons factory to sign up."

The weapons factory has good benefits and working hours from 9 to 5. Isn’t this the ancient version of a civil service position? No 996, no wage arrears, and it is state-owned. How wonderful!

The manager of the weapons factory asked repeatedly, and she answered very patiently: "I am sure of the place where I registered."

Seeing this, the steward was helpless: "Then I'll assign you a simple job, sorting forging materials."

"Okay, thank you, Steward."

Zhou Tinglan was puzzled. Did she look like someone who would even go to the wrong place to register for a job? Did she look weak? Didn't she... look like a swordsmith?

Well, judging by her current body shape, she certainly doesn't look like a swordsmith who can forge iron. You know, she used to have muscles in modern times.

But we are here to work anyway, the work is easy and we get paid, so why not?

As for Xie Zechuan, they have a long way to go.

Zhou Tinglan casually pushed open the door, looked into the room, and unexpectedly found that there was a forging room behind the door.

A forging room? This was the first time she had seen one since she traveled through time.

There were only a few forging tables with people in front of them in the forging room. Zhou Tinglan looked at the forging tables of this era. Apart from being a little more ancient, they were basically no different from modern ones.

Just as Zhou Tinglan was about to pick up the object on the forging table to look at it carefully, she was grabbed forcefully from behind and pulled away from the forging table.

The burly man stood behind her and said in a bad tone, "Who are you and why are you at my workstation?"

Zhou Tinglan explained, "This is my first time working the T shift at the weapons factory today. I'm working the sorting station. I'm sorry, I didn't know this was your station."

The big man was unwilling to let Zhou Tinglan go: "A newbie can just run over to other people's workstations and touch them without restraint? If you steal something from the workstation, how am I going to explain it to the manager?"

"Look at you, a weak and delicate young lady. What are you doing in the weapons factory? You think you can forge anything? Why don't you just go home and take a shower and go to bed!"

"I bet you don't even recognize all the forging materials, yet you dare to come to the weapons factory to cheat people, spouting nonsense, saying you're here to find a job."

“…”

The harsh sound of humiliation entered Zhou Tinglan's ears. Being regarded as a thief again, Zhou Tinglan could no longer bear it.

Does she look like a thief? Are poor people supposed to be thieves? And how dare this person look down on her sword-forging skills?

How can there be such a person whose nose is higher than the sky?

"Are you suffering from some kind of paranoia? You see someone next to you and you accuse them of stealing your things. Don't you think about what you have that's worth stealing?"

"Do you have a bowling ball on your neck? You're big and that's all you can do. You eat more than I do, but you can't forge a knife as well as I do."

“…”

Zhou Tinglan responded to each sentence one by one, making the big man's face become more and more ugly with anger.

She didn't want to get entangled with him, so she turned around and left. It was impossible to reason with a shameless person.

After all, she is not a psychiatrist. Even if she is, how can she wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep?

Just as Zhou Tinglan was about to walk out of the forging room door, she was pulled back by someone.

Zhou Tinglan turned around and met the big man's angry eyes. The big man said angrily: "You still want to run away? I see you are not here to work at the weapons factory. Where is the manager! I will take you to see the manager!"

The noise between the two men attracted the attention of the rest of the people in the forging room. Some came forward to try to stop the fight, while others stood by and gloated over the situation.

"What's that girl doing in the forge? She doesn't look like someone who knows anything about forging."

"I don't know. Someone has already called the steward. Let's see. We'll know soon."

The manager was called to the forging room. When he walked into the crowd, Zhou Tinglan was dragged directly to the manager's door by the big man.

Zhou Tinglan felt unhappy. What on earth was this guy trying to do?

The big man pretended to be aggrieved: "Manager, you are finally here. This girl said she came to work in the weapons factory. She sneaked in front of my forging table and talked nonsense. You have to deal with it for me."

Zhou Tinglan calmly looked at the steward and said, "Steward, it was my fault for mistakenly entering the forging room. However, this man was full of nonsense, insulting my reputation and humiliating me in every way. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I confronted him."

The steward recognized Zhou Tinglan the moment he saw her.

The reason was simple: Zhou Tinglan had left a deep impression on him. In all the years he had worked in the arsenal, he had never seen any young girl who was desperate enough to go to the arsenal to find a job.

He said to the big man, "I personally recruited Miss Zhou into the weapons factory, and I personally arranged for her to sort the forging materials. Naturally, she's not an outsider."

"Even if you personally found her, that doesn't mean she didn't steal the items on my forging table. Besides, does she know what forging materials are?" The big man continued, unwilling to give up. "Besides, you know how valuable forging materials are nowadays. If..."

Hearing what the big man said, the manager's face became serious. He walked to the forging table to check, but did not find any missing forging materials.

"On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything missing on the forging table," the steward concluded.

"Impossible, Steward, please take a closer look. She doesn't know how to forge swords. She must have other intentions for coming to the forge for no reason."

Zhou Tinglan frowned. She looked thinner now. Didn't she look so much like a swordsmith?

She was unconvinced and said, "Who said I don't know how to forge a sword?"

The big man looked at Zhou Tinglan with contempt again: "You think you can forge swords? That's ridiculous. I thought you couldn't forge swords."

"If I forge the sword, how will you apologize to me?" Zhou Tinglan looked at the big man coldly with sarcasm in his eyes.

"As long as you can forge it successfully, I will call you my aunt."

The big man snorted in his heart, you girl, you don't know your own abilities, you dare to say that you can forge a sword just because you have hands, let's see how you end up if you can't forge one later!

Zhou Tinglan naturally saw the disdain in the big man's eyes. She laughed angrily and said, "Later, your aunt will show you what real sword-forging skills are, and you will come to apologize to me with your head held high."

She looked at the steward and asked, "Steward, since he said I can't forge a sword, can I borrow the forging table?"

The steward was astonished: "Miss Zhou, you want to..."

No way, no way, Miss Zhou is not really going to forge a sword!

"That's right." Zhou Tinglan nodded: "I just want to forge a sword."

It just so happened that she had never used the sword-forging equipment in the weapons factory, so she didn't know if she would be able to use it easily.

"Can you forge it? If you can't, don't embarrass yourself here..." Before he finished speaking, the big man saw Zhou Tinglan skillfully selecting forging materials and lighting the forging furnace.

He was panicking inside. Could it be that she really knew how to forge swords? That was impossible. He had never made a mistake in anyone over the years.

After selecting the forging materials needed for forging the knife, Zhou Tinglan put them into a high-temperature furnace and repeatedly burned them at high temperature. She kept a close eye on the subtle changes in the furnace, picked them up with tongs, placed them on the table, and hammered them skillfully.

She felt as if she had never traveled through time before, and was still in the small Zhou family knife workshop, watching the red-hot forging material on the forging table gradually taking shape under repeated hammering.

The people around were amazed at Zhou Tinglan's skillful movements, but they still refused to believe that Zhou Tinglan could forge something useful.

Repeated hammering gave the forging material gradually different properties. Zhou Tinglan clamped several pieces of forging material together and hammered them repeatedly, and the shape of the knife began to emerge.

She trimmed off the excess material from the edge of the knife and made the handle in one go.

The impurity content in the forging material gradually decreases during the hammering process, and the blade is no longer rough, but becomes smooth and shiny, flashing a dazzling cold light.

Zhou Tinglan is skilled in operating the spatula to grind the blade. This step of grinding is extremely challenging for the forging master's eyesight and hand feeling. Zhou Tinglan has been practicing his craft since he was a child, so naturally he is not bad at it.

The meticulously polished blade already showed its extraordinary outline. It was thrown into water for quenching, and a sizzling sound was made when the water hit the hot blade.

Water mist rises, and a precious sword is born.

After carefully examining the newly made knife, Zhou Tinglan placed it back on the forging table and carefully polished it until it was perfect.

Picking up the freshly forged knife, Zhou Tinglan said with satisfaction: Although my body is a little weaker now, my knife-forging skills are not inferior at all.

The steward was amazed and impressed when he saw the knife in Zhou Tinglan's hand. He stepped forward to examine it, praising it profusely: "What a fine knife! The blade is smooth and shiny, the edge is sharp and shows no sign of wear, which shows how durable it is."

When the people around heard the steward's words, they all echoed, "I didn't expect this girl to be able to forge such a fine sword. Today is truly an eye-opener!"

The big man was sweating profusely at this time. He wanted to escape, but was stopped by the Taoist woman's voice.

"My sword is now forged, where are you going?"

He turned back and looked Zhou Tinglan straight in the eye, his voice trembling as he said, "I need to go to the toilet."

"Really? But did you forget something?"

The big man swallowed his saliva and pretended to be dumb: "What...what's the matter?"

Zhou Tinglan sneered. She turned to the steward who was still examining the knife and said, "Steward, I've forged the knife. Shouldn't he fulfill his promise to me?"

"Indeed." The manager spoke, and the people around urged the big man to apologize to Zhou Tinglan as soon as possible.

The big man's face turned red, and he lowered his head and whispered to Zhou Tinglan, "I'm sorry, aunt."

After saying this, he left the forging room as if running for his life.

Zhou Tinglan looked at him and snorted in his heart, where did the energy to humiliate me go? It's so difficult to get him to apologize.

A coward who dares to do something but not to take responsibility!

She looked around and said, "No one should dare to question my swordsmithing skills."

The people around hurriedly shook their heads, muttering, "Don't dare, don't dare."

"That's good." Zhou Tinglan turned and looked at the manager: "Manager, can I come to work in the forging room in the future?"

She didn't know whether the manager would be willing to let her work in the forge, after all, she preferred forging swords.

"What happened? Why are you all gathered here?" A cold male voice suddenly sounded in the forging room.

Zhou Tinglan was shocked. Who is coming?

She looked along with the others and saw a handsome man appear at the door of the forging room. He was wearing a Tibetan black robe with dark silver patterns and a corset with the same pattern around his waist. His facial features were distinct, his eyebrows were picturesque, and his temperament was cold and aloof, which made him seem out of place with his surroundings.

Zhou Tinglan exclaimed, why is it such a coincidence today that Xie Zechuan also came to the weapons factory!

But it is not difficult to imagine that there are frequent wars in Beijiang City now, so it is not surprising that he came to inspect.

The man walked up to the steward and asked, "What happened?"

When he glanced at Zhou Tinglan standing next to the steward, he was slightly stunned. It was the girl he met on the street yesterday.

How could she be in the weapons factory?

The steward told Xie Zechuan what had happened before. Xie Zechuan looked at Zhou Tinglan who was holding a knife in astonishment.

"Are you serious about what you said?" Xie Zechuan asked again.

Are you lying to me, manager? That girl really doesn't look like someone who can forge swords.

"It couldn't be more true. Everyone around can testify for Miss Zhou."

Xie Zechuan asked, "Miss Zhou, can you show me the knife in your hand?"

Zhou Tinglan handed the knife to Xie Zechuan, secretly happy that the fish had taken the bait.

She was very confident in the knives she forged, and things would be much easier from then on.

Xie Zechuan waved the knife to try it out and couldn't help but sigh: "It's a rare and good knife."

"With my sword-forging skills, I'd like to discuss a cooperation with General Xie. What do you think, General Xie?"

Zhou Tinglan's words stunned everyone present. The heroine in front of them had only forged a good sword, but she dared to negotiate directly with General Xie.

What exactly is she going to do?

Xie Zechuan reacted quickly and asked what everyone was thinking: "What do you want?"

"There are so many people here, can you please lend me a hand to talk?"

It’s not a good idea to fish in public, Zhou Tinglan thought. If someone comes up to disturb him and spoil his fun, it won’t be good.

Everyone looked at Xie Zechuan, waiting for his answer.