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

Chapter 177 Handling Unfinished Repairs at the End of the Year
The day after Yu Dawei returned to the repair shop, he only slept for three hours and repaired a total of seven or eight cars, big and small.

The problems weren't anything serious, but some of them were from passing cars on the highway. People were trying to get their cars inspected or fixed as quickly as possible before they could get back on their way.

There are still a month or two until the Chinese New Year. Work in the north has basically stopped, and the bosses in the south are naturally eager to go home. However, Yu Dawei is struggling to keep the repair shop afloat all by himself.

The very next day, just as Yu Dawei was about to go home and call his grandfather over, a familiar figure carrying a suitcase walked in through the front door.

"Why are you here!" Yu Dawei was wearing thick gloves, carrying a wrench in his right hand, and had a black oil stain on his right cheek.

"I... I don't want to live at home anymore." Yao Jinfu was initially surprised to see several cars being repaired in the yard, but when he looked at Yu Dawei, he grinned and said, "Brother, I'll come and help you fix your car."

Yu Dawei gave the axe a deep look, thinking it was probably still about the village. He kept this in mind, planning to help his brother deal with the interpersonal relationships in Xinglong Village when he had time.

Having witnessed so many gossip-mongering schemes in my past life, I can easily remove those unfounded accusations from Axe with a simple trick.

But not right now, he still has two or three cars waiting to be repaired today.

"Come on, there are repair clothes inside." After saying that, Yu Dawei continued to repair the car in his hands. The problem of the heater not working was easy to fix.

After Yao Jinfu came out, under Yu Dawei's command, the work efficiency improved a lot. Fortunately, very few things needed major repairs; they were mostly simple minor problems that only required removing a few screws.

"Brother, didn't you say when you went to Qingcheng that few people come to repair cars in winter?" Yao Jinfu asked curiously as he repaired his car, watching another car drive in from outside the gate.

"How would I know?" Yu Dawei glared at him, annoyed.

He rarely repaired cars in his previous life; he mostly repaired specialized machinery. So he wasn't really familiar with the car market in winter. He only knew that there were plenty of people changing engine oil and tires every year in Northeast China, almost all of them.

Perhaps the business is so successful because it truly fulfills the fortune the old man had predicted?

Who knows? Yu Dawei instinctively didn't want to delve into this matter, but he felt that if things continued like this, the repair shop would have to hire a few mechanics, otherwise they would really be exhausted.

The two worked for most of the day, but finally no more cars came in. There were a few cars waiting outside, some of which had been repaired and left, and others that couldn't be repaired and were being sold for scrap metal.

Northeasterners value face, and even if they drive a beat-up car, they can still gain a lot of vanity in front of relatives and friends.

However, if the car is too old and worn out, the risk will be very high. In addition, the Northeast is covered in ice and snow, so if you drive an old and broken car, the failure rate will be very high.

The two ate a meal around the stove. When no cars came by in the afternoon, Yu Dawei finally breathed a sigh of relief. After resting at home for several days, he was still a little unaccustomed to this high-intensity work.

“Since you don’t want to go home, you can stay here for the winter.” Yu Dawei sat on the bench in the small house, disassembling the parts that Boss Liang had brought over one by one.

"Mmm." Yao Jinfu helped disassemble the wooden box, then chopped it up with an axe and threw it into the stove to start a fire.

“Even between brothers, accounts should be kept clear. You have to get paid for your work. Your car repair skills aren’t good enough yet, so I’ll give you five hundred a month. If you still want to repair cars next winter, I’ll jump it to one thousand.” Yu Dawei neatly arranged the road roller parts on the cardboard box next to him.

"I don't want to! I just need a place to stay here." Yao Jinfu shook his head and strongly refused.

“Take it if it’s yours. It’s not like I haven’t made money. I’ve made almost three thousand in the last two days. Giving you that little bit of money is nothing.” Yu Dawei suddenly looked at him with a grin. “Keep it. Save it all up for when you get married.”

Yao Jinfu's face turned red at first, then he hung his head in disappointment: "Brother, do you think I'll ever be able to find a wife in this lifetime?"

“When I went home, my second sister-in-law insisted on arranging a marriage for me, but not many people were willing to come to our village or visit my home. When she came today, I directly rejected the last person she introduced.” Yao Jinfu looked down at the stove, which was full of wood, picked up the stove hook from the ground, and forcefully pushed it into the stove.

Yu Dawei mechanically unpacked the parts, thought for a moment and comforted him, "No one can predict matters of the heart. Maybe your destined one just hasn't appeared yet. Don't worry, brother, good things come to those who wait."

"Women might worry about not being able to have children when they get older, but what are you, a grown man, afraid of? You can still be vigorous in your fifties, so there's nothing to worry about." Yu Dawei's way of comforting people is simple, wild, and blunt, but very effective.

Yao Jinfu slowly raised his drooping head, and most of the gloom on his face dissipated. His brother was right; he was only twenty-three this year, and twenty-four next year. People his age in the village were all married, but he had a long life ahead of him. The two busied themselves with parts for a while, and then, taking advantage of the absence of others, cleared the snow from the yard. While repairing the car, they still lay prone on the slippery snow.

Even if the handbrake is engaged, it's useless. If there's a small slope and the car's center of gravity shifts slightly during repairs, the mechanic lying under the car could be crushed to death. This applies to repairing special machinery, but cars also have the same repair risks.

So in his past life, when Yu Dawei was repairing cars, he would sweep the snow in front of his repair shop every winter, and then use a fire to slightly heat up the remaining oil stains on the ground. He would burn off what could be burned and clean up what couldn't be burned, ensuring that the ground was dry enough and not slippery.

After cleaning the factory, before it got dark, Yu Dawei started leading Yao Jinfu to build a shed again, following the same routine as last year when repairing Hitachi excavators. However, this year the conditions were better than last year, as they used brand-new plastic sheeting and instead of just sticking up a piece of wood, they used thin iron pipes.

He had asked Boss Liang to help him prepare these things before he went to Qingcheng. The thin iron pipes were placed outside, while the plastic sheeting was folded and placed inside the small house.

The shed was placed in the southeast corner, next to the north window of the small house. It was raised more than two meters high, but not too high. In winter, when the wind is strong, if you are not careful, the plastic sheet and the iron pipes will be blown away.

Moreover, unlike Hitachi, this road roller is taller and can only hold onto part of the vehicle body.

But it doesn't matter. Yu Dawei can just put the plastic canopy up wherever he needs to repair it. This thing is very flexible to disassemble and install.

Now that he has some money in his hands, there are still many places where he can use it. When he has enough money to spare, he can clear out all the open space to the west of the hut and build a high-ceilinged prefabricated house for living and car repair.

After finishing, the two of them secured the plastic sheeting firmly to the corners of the car, then placed the large iron stove they had worked on last year inside before preparing to go back to the house to rest.

Tomorrow he plans to take his axe to the oil city equipment factory to have those two Ackerman excavators inspected; this is a rather important matter recently.

I reckon the big boss in the oil city must be complaining by now, since I promised him I'd get it inspected as soon as I got back, but it's been dragging on for several days.

The next morning, Yu Dawei prepared two sets of tools, then drove his little red car with Yao Jinfu to the Eighth Bureau Equipment Factory in the oil city.

When they arrived, it was almost noon. The yard was covered in snow. When the car pulled up to the gate, Yu Dawei honked twice inside.

Not long after, the door opened, and out came a familiar figure – the team leader who had worked with him to repair the Ackerman excavator.

After getting out of the car and greeting the other party, Yu Dawei drove the car inside.

According to the team leader, Xiao Bai was handling some matters at the branch office and would probably not be back until evening. Currently, many pieces of engineering equipment, all belonging to the Eighth Bureau, were parked in the factory.

Excavators, loaders, dump trucks, cement mixers, and a road roller.

Yu Dawei glanced around and found that apart from the two Ackerman excavators still parked in the distance, the others were being repaired, but there were very few people, each responsible for one machine, and some machines were still not being taken care of.

"Didn't this person add any more later?" Yu Dawei followed behind the squad leader, looking at him curiously. "How could they possibly repair all these people?"

"Sigh, who can argue with that? We recruited a few more people in the second half of this year, but it seems they all left after working for two days because they thought the salary was too low." The team leader muttered as he walked. "Master Yu, to be honest, our salary is indeed not high, only six hundred yuan a month. I can get fifty more than the others."

“We repairmen, while we might not be considered top-notch, still have some repair experience. These days, we can make a living anywhere, maybe even a thousand a month. So we’ve always had complaints about our wages.” The team leader seemed to remember something and sighed helplessly. “If the wages weren’t so low, I don’t think those guys would have bothered to secretly sell parts.”

Although the squad leader didn't specify who it was, Yu Dawei understood what he meant, but he didn't think so.

Does Master Lü make money? He still ends up reselling those used parts.

During his last trip to Qingcheng, he was truly well-behaved, obediently repairing cars without any other thoughts, thus maximizing his abilities.

Before returning, Yu Dawei took a special look at Master Lü. Not only had the man received his commission, but he had also become the vice president of the Qingcheng Repair Association.

Although Yu Dawei didn't know what it was, and he had never even heard of it in his previous life, he was still happy for the other party to become the vice president.

(End of this chapter)