In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 143 Imported Tools - Blade Series

Mr. Liang's breath hitched, as if a stone had been pressed on his chest. He turned his head and stared at the other person, wanting to curse him, but he still had to buy his things. He was so frustrated.

"What tools do you want to buy?" The man didn't look up. He spread out the playing cards in pairs, dividing them into four groups, each corresponding to one of the four directions: wine, celebration, wealth, and fortune.

The three people at the door immediately recognized what the other party had arranged; this arrangement was called the Eight Gates.

After shuffling the playing cards, each card corresponds to one of the eight directions. Then, arrange them in order. If you don't open a particular door, according to metaphysics, you should avoid going to that direction in the near future.

Then, use pairs of cards to display the auspicious symbolism of wine and wealth. If two pairs of two cards appear in the wine set, it means that you will have a chance to drink recently, and someone may invite you to drink.

Having 7% joy and 7% wealth is the best outcome; there will definitely be happy events and good fortune in the near future.

Yu Dawei glanced at the man and saw that he had six parts joy and eight parts wealth, but neither the wine nor the anger had blossomed.

"Do you have any car repair tools here?" Duan Dahai asked, his tone and demeanor different from Boss Liang's. He was just as simple and sincere as he was in his daily life.

The man wanted to retort again, but when he looked up and saw the other person's expression and tone, he changed his mind.

Lin Ling has always been someone who responds to gentle persuasion but not force. If the other two were like the fat guy, he wouldn't even glance at them and would simply drag the three of them out.

"Phew." Smoke billowed from his mouth. Lin Ling leaned to the side and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray made from a half-eaten soda can. "The whole room is full of it."

He looked up at the three of them and said, "This isn't a hardware store; it's a proper tool shop. If I didn't have tools for repairing cars, how would I make a living?"

Yu Dawei frowned. Indeed, as the other party said, not only now, but also in the future, people would generally go to hardware stores to buy any tools.

There are very few true tool shops. Unlike accessory shops, a pure tool shop cannot survive if its product range is too limited. In the future, many tool shops will also sell hardware.

Screws, square tubes, V-belts, angle irons, wall switches, etc., the storefront will say "XX Hardware Tools Store".

The room in front of me is mostly filled with tools for repairing agricultural machinery, cars, and construction machinery. There are also diesel generators and welding machines on the floor, and behind the north wall, there are oxygen and acetylene cylinders. For a tool shop, the variety of products is already quite limited.

Yu Dawei remembered a shop he had heard about in his previous life, which seemed to specialize in selling tools, and the owner's name was Lin Ling.

It is said that this person was very obsessed with all kinds of mechanical repair tools. Later, he may have received investment from a big shot and set up a factory in the north to produce all kinds of tools and equipment.

It caused quite a stir in the repair industry at the time. However, it is a great pity that there is still a big gap between dreams and reality. In the end, Yu Dawei never heard of the other party making any tools that were successfully launched on the market.

Anyway, the matter was left unresolved. Many years later, when Dawei returned to the oil city to visit friends, he heard that the once high-spirited Boss Lin had later ruined his reputation due to debt problems, and his factory had been completely wiped out.

After all, back then, most of the hardware tool shops, big and small, in the oil city got their supplies from him, and the repairmen also frequently came here to buy tools.

They still had a deep impression of Boss Lin, so when he left in such a dejected manner, even the repairmen couldn't help but feel a little sad.

Yu Dawei stared at the other person for a few more moments, a hint of doubt in his mind, wondering if it was really him.

"What kind of car do you need repaired?" Lin Ling got up and walked towards the shelf on the left, glancing back at the three of them as she asked.

Boss Liang and Duan Dahai remained silent, after all, Dawei was buying tools, and they were just accompanying him.

"Construction machinery, excavators, bulldozers, and the like," Yu Dawei began.

Lin Ling suddenly frowned, and carefully examined the three of them: "Are you all repairmen?"

Boss Liang keenly sensed the curiosity of the tool shop owner and quickly struck up a conversation, pointing to Dawei beside him: "Neither of us are, he is, and he specializes in imported car models, like Hitachi, Komatsu, Komatsu... what else, brother."

"Volvo." Yu Dawei smiled wryly; this old Liang was really childish.

“Yes, Volvo.” Boss Liang wanted to add two more to scare the other party, but turned to Yu Dawei and whispered, “Anything else?”

"Forget it, there's no point in saying so much. We're just here to buy tools." Yu Dawei saw through Boss Liang's thoughts and gave him a proper reminder.

Mr. Liang is a man who knows when to advance and when to retreat; he knows when to stop. Now, looking at this tool shop owner, a rare proud smile appears on his face.

After all, he had a good brother who could repair imported machinery. Boss Lin's gaze towards Yu Dawei was first filled with curiosity, then surprise, and finally suspicion.

There's no other reason than that even if someone knows how to repair things, they're not a seasoned expert; they're probably just a novice.

"Boss, where's your box wrench? I'd like to take a look." Yu Dawei decisively skipped the previous topic of car repair and asked about tools.

"This way." Lin Ling led Yu Dawei and the others to the last row, pointing to the tools on display on the wall. "There are forged steel tools and cast iron tools. Cast iron tools are relatively cheaper, ranging from 8 to 24 sizes. Anything larger will have to be bought separately. You're a truck repairman, you can't just buy a Phillips head tool, can you?"

Yu Dawei shook his head: "Give me a set of open-end wrenches and box wrenches, and a set of hexagonal socket wrenches. It would be best if they had ratchets, but it doesn't matter if they don't."

An open-end wrench is a type of notched wrench. It is also called a fixed wrench or a dead wrench, mainly because its opening is fixed and it is more difficult to turn.

But this open-end wrench is the ancestor of repair tools. The reason why Mr. Yu is used to using this wrench is because there were no other wrench options back then.

Open-end wrenches have two openings, one at the head and one at the tail, that are opened in opposite directions. They are generally available in sizes from 4 to 75, but it’s not easy to buy sets of the largest or smallest ones. A set of sizes 6-32 is the most complete.

The same applies to box wrenches, except that the two ends are round on the outside and 12-point on the inside, making them much easier to use for repairs compared to open-end wrenches.

This is one of the reasons why Yu Dawei likes to use box wrenches.

"Ratchet? What's a ratchet?" Boss Liang asked curiously, standing next to Yu Dawei.

Lin Ling sneered, then pulled a plastic box from the shelf. Inside were heads, each one as black as ink. In the center was a connecting rod, below which was a slightly rounded head with a black protrusion, and below that was an extended handle. The very end was wrapped in rubber.

"The ratchet works much better with the socket than a single bar." Yu Dawei squatted down and stroked the socket and ratchet, then took them out and put some padding on them; the quality was quite average.

In his past life, any ratchet he made could easily beat this.

Lin Ling narrowed his eyes slightly. He only needed two movements from the other person to tell that this young man definitely knew how to choose tools.

He couldn't help but wonder again how good this kid was at repairing imported cars.

"How many excavators have you repaired?" Lin Ling took out a pack of purple grape cigarettes from his pocket, pulled out a few, and handed them to Yu Dawei.

"No, thank you." Yu Dawei politely declined, then stood up and replied, "We definitely have three to five stations."

Yu Dawei was actually being conservative. Since returning, in addition to his own excavator, he has repaired several other machines outside the scrap metal recycling station. His second uncle had also found him two, and now he is maintaining these two. So, he has at least six or seven machines.

He was just there to buy tools, so there was no point in bragging to the owner, since the owner couldn't give him a discount anyway.

Lin Ling handed the cigarettes to Boss Liang and Duan Dahai, took out the matchbox, and lit the match along the sandpaper on the outside of the matchbox.

The three of them quickly lit their cigarettes using a single match. Before leaving the match, Lin Ling threw it on the ground, where it slowly turned to ashes.

The tool shop owner, Mr. Lin, leaned against the shelf, carefully examining Yu Dawei. Finally, as if he had made up his mind, he walked behind the shelf and took out a gray toolbox from the attic suspended by the wooden planks above. The toolbox was completely wrapped in plastic and had a line of strange writing on it that no one recognized.

Without any hesitation, Mr. Lin squatted down, tore open the outer packaging, and pressed open the buckles on both sides: "This set of repair tools can be said to be my store's treasure. I don't usually take it out for just anyone."

"It's an imported toolbox from Oude. I only had three sets in total. One set was ordered by a master repairman in the south, another set was sold to a friend who likes repair tools for a high price, and now this is the last set left." Lin Ling said, opening the toolbox while smoking a cigarette.

There were 26 wrenches neatly arranged inside. The wrenches were polished silver, with an open-end wrench shape on top and a box wrench shape on the bottom. There was a string of unreadable characters engraved in the middle, which was probably German.

"I asked what it said, and they said the translated name is 'Blade,' the 'blade' in 'knife blade.'" Lin Ling stood up and flicked some cigarette ash into the corner.

Yu Dawei fell in love with the tool set at first sight. Others might not know, but he was all too aware of the status of the Blade series tools back in the day at Oude.

It was like a stubborn holdout among tools. Not only did it use the top-grade alloy steel from Oude at the time, but it also employed the most laborious forging techniques in pursuit of the ultimate craftsmanship. It can be said that this set of tools was a complete loss-making tool back then, losing money no matter how many were sold.

Although it's called the Blade Series, this series of tools is only produced in this batch. Oude Wine has never produced them again since. Yu Dawei never expected that there would be such a unique piece here.

(End of this chapter)