1950s: After transmigrating into a capitalist, I relied on military industry to achieve a comeback.

Wang Geng lowered his head, his gaze lingering for two seconds on the dazzlingly white hand that clearly hadn't done much heavy labor in recent years. The frown lines between his brows deepened. He didn't reach out, but instead pointed at Lin Jiaoyue with his fingertip, then at the half-finished converter behind her.

"Little one, your mother wasn't even born when the furnaces at the Hanyang Ironworks were lit!"

Wang Geng's voice suddenly rang out in the empty workshop, filled with undisguised heartache.

"Do you know what's most important in steelmaking? It's the heat, it's the time! It's the skill honed by the veteran craftsmen in the workshop, who have poured their hearts and souls into it, watching the furnace fire intently without blinking!"

He slammed his cane on the ground again, shaking up the dust.

"That's not something you can just cobble together in your office by drawing a couple of lines with a pencil and using a big pot!"

Seeing that the tension was about to escalate, and fearing that Lin Jiaoyue, with her quick temper and strong sense of reason, might erupt on the spot, Director Zhang quickly cleared his throat and forced himself to interject:

"Mr. Wang, please calm down. Comrade Jiaoyue is young after all, and it's a good thing that young people dare to think and act. We're here today mainly to exchange ideas..."

"What are you talking about? I think she's trying to turn perfectly good iron ore into a pot of waste!"

Wang Geng showed no mercy, turning his head directly past Director Zhang, his finger nearly poking him in the face.

"Zhang Mingyuan!"

Wang Geng slammed his cane heavily on the ground and roared out his full name.

"If you hadn't threatened me with organizational discipline today, I, an old man, would never have stepped foot in this ridiculous place where they don't even understand basic chemistry! Industry is the lifeblood of the nation, not some playground for you kids!"

All the hammering and knocking in the workshop stopped.

The dozen or so workers froze on the spot. Lu Zheng held an extra-large pipe wrench in his hand, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He moved his heel, about to rush forward to argue, when the person in front of him suddenly raised his hand.

Lu Zheng abruptly stopped, his teeth grinding together in frustration.

"You're right, steelmaking requires respect for the heat."

Upon hearing this, Wang Geng and his apprentice were completely stunned. It felt like a heavy hammer, thrown with all its might, had landed on old cotton with a soft thud, leaving them feeling suffocated and with a tightness in their chest.

Lin Jiaoyue ignored their expressions, ran her fingertips along the hem of her dress twice, and her voice remained as calm as a machine reciting parameters:

"A slow, meticulous process in an open-hearth furnace yields fine results; it takes ten or twenty hours to cook a single batch, ensuring consistent quality. But you know better than I do that we're all waiting for rice to be cooked. Relying on human eyes to judge the fire's color and on time to cook it won't fill the huge hole in our nation's coffers."

"You think you can get fat in one bite if you can't fill a hole?" Wang Geng recovered his senses and let out a cold laugh. "Without a furnace, how are you going to melt that furnace of iron lumps?"

"Converter, high-pressure pure oxygen." Lin Jiaoyue held up three fingers. "No need for experienced masters to monitor the fire color, nor for more than ten hours. As long as the formula data is accurate and the oxygen supply pipes are leak-proof, a batch of qualified molten steel can be produced in thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes?"

Wang Geng seemed to have heard the most absurd joke of his life. His thin body shuddered violently, followed by several hoarse laughs. He laughed so hard that he coughed violently several times.

The eldest apprentice quickly stepped forward to pat his back, but was slapped away by the apprentice.

"Outrageous!" Wang Geng stared intently at Lin Jiaoyue. "Thirty minutes and you can't even melt a single edge of the scrap steel! Little girl, you're insulting my decades of craftsmanship, and you're wasting the country's resources!"

Looking at those pairs of eyes that seemed to be staring at a madwoman, Lin Jiaoyue slowly withdrew her hand.

"The blueprints are static, but the furnace is dynamic."

She stared intently at Wang Geng, her eyes revealing a chilling rationality.

"Three days later, this converter will be ignited and tested. Whether I'm just delusional or your experience is outdated, let's look at the facts."

She paused for two seconds, then increased her bet.

"If what comes out isn't special steel, but a pot of waste, I, Lin Jiaoyue, will offer you tea in front of the entire workshop to apologize, and I will never touch an industrial blueprint again in my life."

Lin Jiaoyue's gaze was fixed on Wang Geng's face like a nail. "But what if I manage to refine it?"

Wang Geng's facial muscles stiffened slightly.

"If it succeeds, I don't want anything else," Lin Jiaoyue said, emphasizing each word. "I want you to personally take charge and promote this converter oxygen blowing method to every steel plant across the country."

Only the whistling sound of the wind leaking in could be heard in the workshop.

Wang Geng stared at Lin Jiaoyue for a full half minute. He couldn't see any youthful bravado in this girl's eyes, only a cold, absolute confidence.

"good!"

Wang Geng forced out a single word from his back teeth, then slammed his cane heavily onto the cement floor.

"Three days it is! If we get a whole batch of scrap, you'll have to chew up that batch of slag yourself!"

Director Zhang, who was standing to the side, finally breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was thinking of sending the big Buddha back to rest, Wang Geng suddenly turned around, hung his cane on an empty wooden chair next to him, and sat down directly.

"Mr. Wang, what's wrong with you...?" Director Zhang was stunned.

"I'm not leaving!"

Wang Geng stood ramrod straight, his hands resting on the ends of his cane, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the workshop like a searchlight.

"Who knows if you guys will pull some tricks these next three days? What if you secretly haul in a truckload of good molten steel from an open-hearth furnace in the middle of the night to switch it out? From now on, I'll be stationed here for the next three days! I want to see with my own eyes how this pile of scrap iron is 'blown' into steel in thirty minutes!"

The old man was as stubborn as a rock, clearly determined to fight to the bitter end. Seeing this, Director Zhang could only shake his head helplessly, instruct the guard to take good care of the old man, and then he took a car back to headquarters to report.

For the next three days, Wang Geng indeed kept his word.

He sat at the workshop entrance every day at the same time, like an unfeeling gatekeeper. His apprentices were sent into the workshop by him, ostensibly to "help supervise," but in reality, they were there to keep watch and find fault.

Every day, they measured the brick joints with rulers and calculated chemical formulas by staring at the angle of the oxygen lance. In their eyes, this so-called "converter" was simply a collection of common-sense errors. Every day, they reported the "fatal problems" they had collected to Wang Geng, who would only sneer, his contempt growing stronger with each passing day.

The atmosphere in the entire workshop was extremely oppressive.

Lu Zheng and Song Siming were seething with anger, spending every day battling wits with this "atmosphere-creating group," explaining things until their throats were dry.

Lin Jiaoyue, however, acted as if nothing had happened.

She came to the workshop every day to check the data as usual, ignoring the sarcastic remarks of Wang Geng and his apprentice.

She even specifically instructed the canteen to prepare a special meal for Wang Geng and his apprentice every noon. In an era when even white flour steamed buns were considered a luxury, it was essential to ensure they had good food at every meal, and their tea had to be constantly replenished with a thermos.