Chapter 4: Legs Don't Hurt, Time to Draw!
That feeling was so intense.
Lin Jianguo couldn't help but groan and gripped the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) tightly.
"Dad! What's wrong?!"
Da Bao was so scared that he was about to cry again.
"Don't...don't move..."
Lin Jianguo gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, but his eyes shone with an unprecedented brilliance.
pain.
Excruciating pain.
But this pain is different from the usual cold, piercing pain.
This is the pain of flesh growing back! This is the pain of blood vessels opening up!
Ever since he returned from the Korean War, his leg has felt like it's being pricked with needles on cloudy or rainy days. Recently, it's become so rotten that it's oozing pus, and he can't even walk.
The village's barefoot doctor said that the leg was probably beyond saving and would have to be amputated.
But now.
After that intense heat subsided.
The excruciating pain that kept him up day and night miraculously disappeared!
Instead, it felt like a tingling, itchy sensation.
Lin Jianguo tried to move his toes.
It moved!
Those wooden toes actually obeyed commands!
"It's alive... my leg is alive..."
Lin Jianguo, a man who would rather bleed than shed tears, suddenly burst into tears at this moment.
He hugged Zhao Di tightly, his stubble sticking out of the little girl's face, and he cried like a child.
"My daughter... my good daughter..."
This is hardly medicine.
These are the elixirs from Laozi's alchemy furnace!
Zhao Di giggled as the beard tickled her.
"Don't cry, Daddy, Daddy will eat a steamed bun."
She picked up the half of the meat bun that was covered in dust, carefully blew off the dirt, and put it into Lin Jianguo's hand.
This time, Lin Jianguo did not refuse.
He took big bites of the steamed bun, swallowing it down along with his tears.
It smells so good!
In my thirty years of life, I have never tasted anything so delicious.
This is not just the taste of meat, it's the taste of hope for survival.
The system watched this scene in Zhao Di's mind. Although the core code remained aloof, the restless data flow calmed down slightly.
[Hmph, you country bumpkin.]
This is a nano-repair spray from 2050; it can reattach your bones as long as they haven't turned to ash.
[However, what's the use of just healing the leg? This dilapidated house doesn't even have a grain of rice; the host will still starve to death.]
The system brought up the task panel.
We must get the only able-bodied person in the family working.
It's not enough to just walk; it must be able to work, create value, and sustain its host!
[Ding! Side quest triggered: Restore the workforce.]
[Task Objective: To construct a simple exoskeleton support system.]
[Difficulty Rating: E (Beginner Level)]
[Note: The host's father suffers from severe leg muscle atrophy. Even with bone repair, he will be unable to perform heavy physical labor in the short term and will require external assistance.]
The system quickly generated a drawing.
It was an extremely ingenious mechanical drawing that made full use of the lever principle and mechanical structure.
Without electricity or hydraulic pressure, relying solely on springs and connecting rods, it can triple the human body's load-bearing capacity.
But to three-year-old Zhao Di, these were hardly blueprints.
This is a painting.
[Host, time to play the game!]
The system's voice was full of temptation, like a child trafficker trying to lure a child with a lollipop.
See the shadow on the ground? Draw it, and I'll give you some sweet juice when you're done!
When Zhao Di heard that there was sweet milk (she remembered that the white milk was especially delicious), she immediately perked up.
"Drawing! Zhaodi wants to draw!"
The little girl pulled a half-burnt black stick from the stove pit.
That's what we usually use for starting a fire.
She stuck out her little bottom and lay on the solid yellow earth of the cave dwelling.
The system projected a red dotted line onto her retina.
It's like a tracing book in kindergarten.
Zhao Di held the wooden stick and clumsily scratched it on the ground.
"These are circles..."
"This is a long strip..."
"This is... um, this is a hook that looks like a carrying pole..."
Lin Jianguo had just finished eating steamed buns and felt a bit stronger.
He was basking in the joy of his leg injury healing when he turned around and saw his daughter lying on the ground playing with a fire stick.
Normally, he would definitely scold him for getting his clothes dirty (even though they were already dirty).
But now, in his eyes, Zhao Di is a little lucky star, a fairy's attendant.
Forget painting, he'd probably have to be handing out matches even if the house were on fire.
"Dabao, keep an eye on your little sister, don't let her burn her hands."
Lin Jianguo gave a few instructions and then tried to walk a couple of steps.
Although he still limps, he can basically move around as long as he doesn't carry heavy loads.
He was thinking to himself that he had to go to the brigade headquarters tomorrow to see if he could borrow some food. Even if it meant losing face, he couldn't let his child go hungry anymore.
"Dad, look!"
Da Bao suddenly shouted, his voice carrying a strange tone.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Jianguo turned around.
Zhao Di had already finished painting a large area.
Black, charcoal-gray lines crisscross the yellow earth.
At first glance, it looks like a child's doodle.
But Lin Jianguo had also served as a reconnaissance soldier, drawn topographic maps, and knew a bit about surveying.
His gaze swept over there and then froze.
Those lines...something's not right.
Too straightforward.
That's incredibly accurate.
Those circles were so perfectly round, as if they had been drawn with a compass.
The connection points of those lines exude an indescribable...neatness.
It was just like... just like the blueprints he had seen in the hands of those Soviet revisionist experts in the army!
No, it's even more complex and intricate than that!
Just as Zhao Di finished the last stroke.
A system notification sounded:
[Ding! Mission complete! Although it looks like dog crawling, it's barely recognizable.]
[Reward Distributed: Basic Mechanical Mastery (1-hour trial card) - Automatically bound to target: Lin Jianguo.]
Buzz—
Lin Jianguo felt as if a bolt of lightning had been shoved into his head.
That feeling was so mysterious.
He was clearly just a veteran with only a junior high school education; apart from knowing how to fire a gun and plant mines, he knew nothing about machinery.
But now, when he looks at the "graffiti" on the ground again...
The lines that he couldn't understand before suddenly came to life in his mind.
That circle, it's not a circle, it's a joint bearing.
That long bar, no, it's a load-bearing connecting rod.
That hook is a clip!
Countless pieces of knowledge flooded into his mind like a tidal wave.
Mechanical transmission, lever fulcrum, material stress...
These words, which he had never heard of before, now seemed as clear as if they were engraved in his bones.
"This...this is a leg?"
Lin Jianguo muttered to himself unconsciously.
He understood!
This is an "iron leg"!
A "steel leg" that can make his crippled leg stronger than his good leg!
An irresistible urge welled up from the bottom of his heart.
That was the fervor of a craftsman upon seeing a masterpiece blueprint.
That's the kind of itch a soldier feels when he sees an exceptionally good gun.
"I can make it... I can make it!"
Lin Jianguo seemed to be bewitched.
He even forgot about the injury on his leg and suddenly rushed to the corner of the wall.
There was a pile of junk there.
There was a broken piece of iron from a hoe, a piece of scrap wire that Da Bao had picked up, and a few rusty bearings left over from repairing a handcart.
At this moment.
In Lin Jianguo's eyes, these were not junk.
These are parts!
This is a treasure!
He picked up the rusty sickle and found a whetstone.
If you don't have a hammer, use a stone to smash it.
If you don't have a ruler, measure by hand.
"Ta-da!"
In the still of the night, the sound of hammering metal came from the Lin family's dilapidated cave dwelling.
The sound wasn't noisy; instead, it had a strange rhythm.
Da Bao was stunned.
He had never seen his father like this before.
His eyes were frighteningly bright, and his hands moved so fast that they were almost invisible.
That hard, scrap metal, in Dad's hands, was hammered into strange shapes like dough.
Zhao Di sat on the ground, holding a bottle of sweet water (this time it was AD calcium milk) that the fairy uncle had rewarded her with, and slurped it down.
She watched her father hammering iron like a madman.
The little girl tilted her head and asked the system in a childish voice:
"Uncle, what is Dad doing?"
System: [He is evolving.]
The system paused, looking at the man under the dim oil lamp, who was passionately tapping away at the sparks of human industrial civilization.
He was preparing for something that could rip a hole in the sky.
[Host, drink your milk. The real show is just beginning.]
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