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

Outside the laboratory.

Lin Jiaoyue didn't go in to join the fun. She quietly leaned against the peeling iron railing of the control panel, her fingertips unconsciously turning a discarded nut she had just picked up.

Hearing the suppressed sobs coming from inside, she didn't feel any relief; instead, she felt a tightness in her chest. She knew that those tears were the final lament of an old craftsman being crushed by the wheels of the new era.

At this moment, an era came to an end.

A new era is arriving with unstoppable force.

"Lu Zheng." Lin Jiaoyue tossed the nut into her pocket, straightened up, and spoke in a cold voice.

"Yes, Master! What are your orders?" Lu Zheng was so excited that his face turned red and his voice became hoarse from shouting.

"Shoot the steel." Lin Jiaoyue raised her chin. "Strike while the iron is hot."

"yes!"

The massive converter slowly tilted, and golden molten steel, like a galloping dragon, roared out of the furnace mouth and poured into the ladle below.

The light, dazzling and brilliant, instantly filled the vast workshop, illuminating even the darkest corners with crystal clarity. It also illuminated the expressions on everyone's faces, a mixture of shock, fervor, and awe.

As the last drop of molten steel flowed out, the converter slowly returned to its position.

The only sound in the workshop was the whirring of the cooling fans.

Just then, the laboratory door was pushed open.

Wang Geng pushed away everyone who tried to help him. He didn't take a cane, and dragged himself along one leg, step by step, toward the control panel. He walked very slowly, each step as if he had used all his strength, the soles of his shoes making a soft, scraping sound on the concrete floor.

Like Moses parting the sea, the crowd instinctively made way for him.

Director Zhang was anxiously wringing his hands, wanting to shout but not daring to. If his father-in-law couldn't handle the stimulation and did something rash on the spot, he wouldn't be able to cover it up.

Wang Geng finally stopped three steps away from Lin Jiaoyue.

The old man and the young man just stared at each other.

Lin Jiaoyue didn't speak, she just looked at him calmly.

The next second, under the gaze of hundreds of eyes in the entire workshop, this titan, whom even the president of the Iron and Steel Research Institute had to show respect to, this stubborn old man who had been obstinate his whole life, suddenly took half a step back.

Then, he placed his rough hands on the seams of his trousers and slowly, laboriously, bent his waist towards the girl, who was even younger than his granddaughter.

The joints made a faint "crack" sound; it was a perfect, deep bow at a ninety-degree angle.

"Forest worker."

The old man was bent over and didn't get up. A few drops of murky water splashed onto the dust in front of Lin Jiaoyue's feet, creating a few muddy spots.

"I, Wang Geng..." His voice trembled violently, as if the words were being forced out of his leaky throat, the arrogant air of commanding the world that he had displayed three days ago completely gone.

"I apologize for my ignorance, arrogance, and taking advantage of my age these past few days!"

He straightened up, his eyes red-rimmed, and stared at the ladle of molten steel that was still radiating intense heat:

"We old folks...we were all so wrong before. Completely wrong!"

After saying that, he gritted his teeth, bent down again, and gave another ninety-degree bow.

His eldest apprentice, Technician Li, and the others following behind him only seemed to wake from a dream at this moment. Looking at their teacher's hunched back, their faces turned pale and then red, and the immense shame made them unable to even look Lin Jiaoyue in the eye.

Led by Technician Li, several experts who were usually arrogant stood in a row and bowed deeply to Lin Jiaoyue, following Wang Geng.

"Mr. Lin, I'm so sorry!"

The sound echoed in the empty workshop, drowning out the hissing of the cooling water.

Lin Jiaoyue stood still, not moving away. Because she knew that this bow was not for her, Lin Jiaoyue, at all.

What they worship is the industrial myth forged in those twenty-seven minutes; the thin piece of paper that overturned the common sense of the times; and even more so, what is rolling before them at this moment, a brand new future belonging to this country, a rolling torrent of steel.

……

Within two days, the news that the converter steelmaking method was far superior to the open-hearth furnace spread like wildfire throughout the entire military industry overnight.

Old man Wang Geng is a bit stubborn, but he can afford to lose and he's also willing to swallow his pride.

Since he had publicly admitted defeat, he was determined not to drag things out. The next morning, just as dawn broke, the old man didn't even enter the gates of the Steel Research Institute. Instead, he led a few apprentices, packed their bedding, and marched into Workshop No. 1 in a grand procession.

He not only personally led the establishment of the "Converter Steelmaking Technology Breakthrough Team," but also had a table specially set up in the corner. The blueprints that he had previously slammed on the table and scoffed at were now carefully wrapped in two layers of moisture-proof oil paper. He would wipe his hands clean on his clothes before turning the pages, for fear of getting oil and sweat on them.

Well, that's it. As long as Lin Jiaoyue is in the workshop, this old man is like a leech stuck to her. He keeps calling out "Engineer Lin" and "Engineer Lin, look at the angle of this vent." His little notebook is filled with notes, he's even more diligent than the new apprentices in the workshop.

Lin Jiaoyue didn't stop them, which actually made her feel more relaxed. She simply dumped all the subsequent process fine-tuning, furnace lining life testing, and operating procedure writing on these "professional laborers" who came to her door.

She then dusted herself off and plunged into Workshop No. 2 to tinker with her next "little invention".

Now that "miracle steel" is in place, those projects that were previously hampered by poor steel quality and could only be dreamed of on paper can finally be brought to the forefront.

The first thing to be concerned about is the "small centrifugal water pump" that Director Zhang has mentioned eight hundred times on the phone over the past two weeks.

This thing was sold by weight even in the village hardware store in later years. Its structure was extremely simple: an impeller, a pump body, and a drive shaft. In those days, there was no electricity in the countryside, so Lin Jiaoyue didn't even consider an electric motor. Instead, she specially left a pulley interface at the back of the pump body—as long as she found a small diesel engine, or even the track wheel of an old tractor, she could put a belt on it and make it turn.

Although it was small, it could save lives in the 1950s when people relied on the weather for their livelihood.

Agriculture in the 1950s was truly dependent on the weather. If it didn't rain for months, the ground would dry out and crack, enough to swallow a child's toes whole.

Apart from kneeling and kowtowing in front of the Dragon King Temple, the farmers could only watch helplessly as the wheat seedlings gradually turned into withered grass.

Lin Jiaoyue flipped through the national drought briefing on the table, her gaze lingering on the alarming figures of reduced yields, her fingertip tapping twice on the surface. Her goal was clear: to build pumps and "move" all the river water in the country to the fields.