In the 90s, you could acquire max-level skills every 14 days.

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

Just as Zhang Yong finished throwing away the trash and was about to go upstairs, a bicycle bell rang at the gate of the courtyard.

Ring ring— Ring ring—

A 26-inch bicycle turned into the iron gate of Jinsong Community. The rider was wearing a faded blue cloth shirt with his trousers tightly tucked in, and a bulging brown paper bag was hanging on the handlebars.

An enamel pot was also strapped to the back seat.

The pot lid wasn't on properly, and the aroma of fried sauce wafted over on the breeze.

Grandpa Chen in the gatehouse moved his nose first.

"Wow! Who made this sauce? It tastes amazing!"

The car came to a stop, and the person got out.

Tan Xingguo.

He carried an enamel pot in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other, walking briskly inside.

"Zhang Yong!"

Tan Xingguo called out from afar.

"You're hard to find, kid! I said I'd treat you to noodles with soybean paste, but you never showed up, so I had to bring the whole pot myself!"

Zhang Yong went up to them and took the enamel pot.

The pot was quite heavy. When I opened it, I found a pot full of fried sauce with yellow soybean paste as the base, and the diced meat was cut into neat squares and glistening with oil. A layer of bright green cucumber shreds was also sprinkled on the surface.

"Director Tan, what's wrong...?"

"Stop talking nonsense! Eat your noodles first, then we'll talk! Is your mom home? Ask her to cook a pot of noodles; I have enough sauce for six bowls!"

Li Guilan poked her head out from the balcony, and when she saw that guests had arrived, she put on an apron and went into the kitchen without saying a word.

Fifteen minutes later.

A large pot of noodles was topped with the fried sauce that Tan Xingguo had brought and placed on the dining table in the small house. Zhang Defa happened to be coming home from get off work just in time.

Tan Xingguo slurped up a big mouthful of noodles, wiped his mouth, and pushed the brown paper bag in front of Zhang Yong.

"Take a look at this first."

Zhang Yong wiped his hands and untied the sealing string on the brown paper bag.

Inside was a stack of documents. Typed and stamped with a red seal. The top page was the heading of a letter from the Department of Social Education of the Ministry of Education.

Zhang Yong scanned two lines, then his fingers stopped, a hint of surprise appearing on his face.

Tan Xingguo picked up a mouthful of noodles and mumbled something indistinctly:

"Last month, a section chief surnamed Tao from the Department of Social Education of the Ministry of Education worked as a lathe operator at Shougang for twelve years before being transferred to the ministry after passing the night school entrance exam."

He took another sip of noodles.

"This guy doesn't usually read literary magazines, he only reads our weekly. When your piece 'The Whisper of the Machine' came out in the last issue, he read it in his office and then went up to the editor-in-chief's office and slammed his fist on the table—"

Tan Xingguo put down his chopsticks and mimicked the man's tone:

"This is ten times better than our vocational training center's textbooks! Who wrote it? Find it for me!"

Zhang Defa almost choked on his noodles. He had read his son's magazine, which was quite good, but it shouldn't be enough to make a high-ranking leader slam his fist on the table and publish a book.

Li Guilan patted his back vigorously from the side.

Tan Xingguo continued, "I know Lao Tao; he carries weight in the ministry."

"What he meant was—you're on the right track. There are over 200 million industrial workers across the country, but there's a serious lack of basic technical training. Equipment maintenance in township enterprises relies entirely on word of mouth, and there are far more people who cheat and swindle than who teach real skills."

He tapped the stack of documents with his chopsticks.

"He had wanted to work on this topic for a long time, and had brought it up in meetings many times. The approval had already been issued, but all he was missing was a suitable manuscript. This time, he finally got his wish."

"This time, the Department of Social Education of the Ministry of Education coordinated the project, and the Workers' Publishing House was responsible for the specific implementation, to create a set of 'Practical Technology Popular Science Series for Workers and Peasants'."

"For the first book, we'll use your manuscript as a foundation, mainly to get the ball rolling."

Zhang Yong opened the document and glanced at the frame.

The initial plan is to create six books, covering agricultural machinery repair, car maintenance, electrical appliance inspection, construction knowledge, agricultural machinery, and daily necessities counterfeit identification.

"What about the royalties?" Zhang Yong asked.

Tan Xingguo was delighted.

"You really are a genuine person."

He held up one finger.

"Royalty system. The first print run is 10,000 copies, priced at 2.8 yuan, with a royalty rate of 8%. Subsequent print runs will be cumulative based on the print run."

Zhang Yong did the math in his head. Ten thousand copies, at two yuan and eighty cents each, eight percent—that's two thousand two hundred and forty yuan for the first print run.

1990 years.

Two thousand two hundred and forty yuan.

Zhang Defa was bad at math, so he could only look after his son.

"How much...?"

"Dad, swallow the noodles first, or I won't say anything."

Tan Xingguo laughed heartily and patted Zhang Defa on the shoulder.

"Old Zhang! Your son is promising! He should write more while he's still young; this is only his first book!"

After finishing his noodles, Tan Xingguo didn't leave. He and Zhang Yong discussed the publishing details for nearly an hour in the bedroom—format guidelines, illustration requirements, review process, and submission deadline.

As he was leaving, he stopped at the entrance of the apartment building.

"Zhang Yong, there's something I need to mention."

Zhang Yong looked at him.

"No one has been able to trace your pen name, Zhang Wengong, back to you yet. But once you're famous, you'll attract attention, and publishing a book will change things. We'll need to discuss a solution then."

Zhang Yong nodded.

"I know."

Tan Xingguo patted him on the shoulder, got on his bicycle, and wobbled away into the alleyway.

……

That evening.

Zhang Yong closed the bedroom door tightly and turned the desk lamp to its brightest setting.

He spread out a stack of brand-new manuscript paper, his pen dipped in ink.

There's always more to do, so he needs to prioritize. He plans to finish writing "The Great Nation II" quickly first, and then prepare for the book's publication.

He then thought of what Wei Shuyun had said in this room.

"What about the first car made entirely with domestically developed technology?"

Zhang Yong put down his pen and wrote five characters on the first line.

Kingdom on Wheels.

The title of the first chapter has also been decided—"Blueprints on Mud".

He wrote a scene from 1988.

A group of young engineers who had just been transferred from the Ministry of Machinery Industry to the new factory squatted in a simple prefabricated house with their colleagues. On the ground was a chassis structure diagram handwritten from a foreign journal.

If they couldn't afford imported blueprints, they would trace them themselves using kraft paper and pencils.

He drew it, then revised it, then drew it again.

When they reached the seventh draft, someone threw the pencil away.

"What's the point of drawing this diagram if we can't even get the steel grade specifications from them?"

A chief engineer in his early thirties walked over, looked down at the ground for a long, long time, then picked up the pencil, sharpened it, and continued drawing.

One silent night, he wrote a line of small characters in the blank space of the drawing—

"First, learn to draw. The more you draw, the more your hand will know where to go."

When Zhang Yong was writing this passage, his pen suddenly ran out of ink, so he shook it twice.

Ink dripped from the nib, splashing two black dots on the manuscript paper, spreading out like two drops of ink on snow.

He paused for a second, then picked up his pen again.

The handwriting bypassed the two ink dots, and the writing was more forceful than before.

"When the unfinished manuscripts were piled up all over the table, a letter arrived from Changchun—someone was willing to provide a scrapped Toyota Crown for them to dismantle."

"Finally, we have a physical object to compare the blueprints with."

"But after they took them apart, they discovered that the difference was much greater than they had imagined."

Zhang Yong wrote for three hours.

Three thousand eight hundred words.

He put down his pen, stretched his wrist, and glanced down at the two ink dots on the manuscript paper.

It wasn't wiped off. It's fine to leave it.

The path of domestically produced cars was forged through trials and tribulations.

……

Early the next morning.

Zhang Yong rode his Jialing 125 to the cotton mill.

A canvas tool bag hangs on the handlebars, containing the first draft I wrote last night, and a homemade socket wrench.

He made the socket himself from scrap steel pipes in Old Zhao's shed, and he took it to show Old Zhao.

As soon as I entered the iron shed, I saw Old Zhao squatting on the ground cursing.

"Fuck your mother! What a piece of junk!"

Upon closer inspection, Zhang Yong saw an imported gearbox lying in front of Old Zhao. The casing was already open, but one locking nut was impossible to unscrew.

The socket in Old Zhao's hand couldn't fit at all—the size was several millimeters off.

The old man's face was covered in black oil, and he was sweating profusely with anger.

"Yongzi, you're here just in time! Give me a hand!"

.......