I painted an aircraft carrier on the courtyard house for Dongda University.

As soon as Zhou Weiguo entered the Intermediate People's Court, he saw Qin Huairu standing in front of He Yuzhu, looking pitiful: "Yuzhu, life is really hard these days. Our Banggeng has become so thin from hunger. He cries and begs me all day long, asking when he can have meat. He says he loves his Uncle He the most and is hoping that Uncle He will give him meat."

He Yuzhu's face turned red, and his eyes began to dart around, but thinking of the food he had brought for his sister, he stubbornly kept quiet.

Seeing that He Yuzhu didn't respond, Qin Huairu said directly, "Oh, Zhuzi, is this the lunchbox you brought for Sister Qin? Sister Qin is so grateful to you! If it weren't for you, our family would never have been able to eat such good food in our entire lives." As she spoke, she reached out to take it.

Seeing that Sha Zhuzi neither handed over the lunchbox nor resisted, Zhou Weiguo went up and slapped him on the back of the head. This sudden action startled both He Yuzhu and Qin Huairu.

Qin Huairu was terrified, her hands still gripping the net tightly.

Seeing this, Zhou Weiguo was so angry that he pinched her arm hard.

"Ah!" Qin Huairu cried out in pain, turning to look at Zhou Weiguo in disbelief. "Comrade Zhou, how could you do this?"

Zhou Weiguo looked at her expressionlessly: "Jia family daughter-in-law, you can't beg for food, so you're resorting to robbery? You're robbing me, and I can't even fight back? Zhuzi, go call the police. I want to see if anyone will do anything about these Jia family thieves!"

Upon hearing the words "call the police," Qin Huairu's face turned deathly pale, and she hurriedly said, "Comrade Zhou..."

"I'm Zhuzi's uncle. Who did you just say you were to Zhuzi?" Zhou Weiguo stared intently at Qin Huairu and asked coldly.

Qin Huairu panicked, looking at Zhou Weiguo with some fear in her eyes. She stammered for a long time before finally saying, "Uncle Zhou, Uncle Zhou! I was just discussing it with Zhuzi. We're all neighbors, we absolutely didn't mean to forcibly take anything from him."

Zhou Weiguo, too lazy to pay her any more attention, turned to He Yuzhu and said, "Zhuzi, remember this: there's no Sister Qin in our courtyard, only Jia's wife. She's married. Anyone who tells you to call her Sister Qin is up to no good and wants to ruin your reputation. If anyone tells you to call her that again, slap them across the face!" After saying that, he ignored Qin Huairu's ugly expression and went straight home.

As soon as she entered the house, Xiaoyushui excitedly rushed over: "Uncle, you're finally back! I'm so hungry!"

Thinking of his younger sister, He Yuzhu quickly took out the lunchbox and touched it, saying, "Quick, you're getting a lot of good food today thanks to your uncle." He Yushui happily took the lunchbox and ran off.

Zhou Weiguo took out two packs of cigarettes, lit one for himself, and tossed the rest to He Yuzhu. He Yuzhu looked at the cigarette pack with surprise: "Uncle, I've never seen these cigarettes before?"

Zhou Weiguo laughed and scolded, "It would be strange if you'd even seen them before! Take these two packs of cigarettes. You can keep the ones you've opened, but only give the rest to people at the division chief level or above. Otherwise, they won't appreciate their value. Especially that Li Huaide in your logistics department, you should cultivate a relationship with him; it can help you a lot. I'll establish a connection for you today. Tomorrow, take an unopened pack and chat with him for a bit, just leave the cigarettes. Maybe it'll get you promoted two ranks."

He Yuzhu looked troubled: "Uncle, Li Huaide is a man who deliberately flatters his superiors and extorts money from his subordinates. Why do you want me to deal with him?"

Zhou Weiguo nodded at him: "That's called deliberate flattery? That's called accurately grasping the leader's intentions and achieving efficient collaborative work! And what's this about extortion and bribery? If you don't take it, he won't take it, how can the higher-ups take it? You bring your own lunch every day, and you won't even let others take a little? You're just saying 'the common people are allowed to set fires, but the magistrate isn't allowed to light lamps'? To put it bluntly, this is called 'multi-dimensional value exchange,' otherwise why would you get two large lunchboxes for cooking a small meal? Just do what I tell you to do. You're a cook, working hard to improve your skills and get a higher salary is more important than anything else. Don't be a little cook trying to form cliques and take sides. Have you learned all the lessons your master taught you? Just focus on cooking well, who has time to mess with a cook?"

He Yuzhu was so confused by what he was being said that he only nodded blankly after a long while.

Silent all night.

Early in the morning, He Yuzhu took Zhou Weiguo by bicycle to the steel rolling mill. To Zhou Weiguo's surprise, before he could even speak, the security guards politely said, "You must be Engineer Zhou. Chief Engineer Song instructed that you can go directly to him when you arrive."

After thanking He Yuzhu, Zhou Weiguo followed him inside. They arrived at Uncle Song's office, where the door was wide open, and Uncle Song, Uncle Zhang, and Brother Ying were all there. Zhou Weiguo glanced at his watch; it was only a little past eight. He couldn't help but feel puzzled.

Uncle Zhang laughed and said, "You left early last night, so the three of us stayed at the guesthouse arranged by Director Li. Especially Xiao Ying, she was so drunk she was like a log, and the logistics staff had to take her there on a cart."

Zhou Weiguo laughed and said, "Brother Ying, you're really brave! You don't have the capacity to drink, but you still downed two ounces at a time. Zhu Zi was waiting for me at the door yesterday, but I left first after the party." Brother Ying blushed at his words.

Uncle Zhang clapped his hands and stood up: "Let's go, we've wasted a whole day. Didn't you want to work? Come on, let us see your skills, otherwise I really won't feel comfortable leaving you here."

Zhou Weiguo then realized that this was where they had been waiting for him.

The group entered the workshop, where a dozen or twenty machine tools of various kinds were displayed. A dozen workers and two or three people in Zhongshan suits were studying something in front of the machines. Zhou Weiguo spotted Yi Zhonghai and Jia Dongxu at a glance. The two of them also saw him coming in with the chief engineer and stared in surprise.

Several people in cadre uniforms saw Uncle Song and quickly ran over: "Hello, Chief Engineer Song."

Uncle Song waved his hand and asked the young man leading the group, "Xiao Wang, how did it go?"

Xiao Wang adjusted his glasses with a wry smile: "Engineer Song, this time the machine tools from Daegu are different from before. Although there are instruction manuals, no one in the factory is fluent in Russian. I can manage to communicate, but the manuals are mostly technical terms, making them really difficult to debug."

Engineer Song shook his head and sighed, "I studied in Germany back then, so I'm not an expert in this area. It's too difficult to find Goose experts in China now. Our factory only recently became a joint public-private enterprise, and we don't know when we'll get one. We can't just let these machine tools sit idle, can we?"

Yi Zhonghai and Jia Dongxu ignored what the chief engineer was saying and stared at Zhou Weiguo with grim expressions. They couldn't understand how a college student could be with the factory's absolute technical leader.

Zhou Weiguo ignored them and walked over to the machine tools to examine them closely. Most of these machine tools were mid-range products from Goose during this period, not particularly advanced. After studying them carefully, he realized that these machine tools were indeed post-World War II technology, and were significantly more advanced than the old machine tools produced in China. No wonder the technical department was having trouble with them.

He turned to Uncle Song and asked, "Uncle Song, what good steel billets or alloys does our steel rolling mill have right now?"