Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Chapter 100

Lin Yuan was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. When he saw Matt come out, he put down his phone and looked up.

"Finished?"

"I'm done talking." Matt sat down on the sofa, placed his phone on the coffee table, and briefly recounted his father's reaction on the phone. Essentially, his father asked several key questions—whether the evidence was complete, how the transfer records were written, the timeline of the chat logs, and whether he had acted cleanly in this matter. He answered truthfully to all of them.

"Then he said he'd fly over next week and I didn't need to worry about it," Matt said, leaning back on the sofa. "He also said that the skills I showed in my videos were worth the plane ticket."

"He said he wanted to fly over directly?" Lin Yuan asked.

"Yes. He didn't say exactly how to handle it, only that he would look at the evidence when he arrived."

"He asked about your age, the number of views on your videos, and how long you've had the channel." Matt turned to look at Lin Yuan. "He put all those numbers together and went through them. I think he was doing the math—calculating whether this brand was worth his investment."

Lin Yuan leaned back on the sofa and went over the sentence in his mind.

Someone was playing music in the hallway; it was a pop song, and the subwoofer was making the floor vibrate. After about five minutes, the music stopped, and the hallway became quiet.

"After he arrives," Lin Yuan asked, "what are your plans?"

"He didn't say." Matt stood up, walked to the window, and pulled the curtains open a crack. It was completely dark outside, and the streetlights shone through the glass, casting a small orange patch on the floor. "My dad never talks about details over the phone. If he says he'll handle it, he really will. We should just do what we need to do and wait for him to come over."

Lin Yuan nodded.

Matt straightened up from the windowsill, walked back to the sofa, and picked up his phone. "Oh right, he told me to email him the evidence first. I'll send it now, then I'll go to sleep."

He took his phone and went back to his room, this time leaving the door open. Lin Yuan heard him sit down, open his laptop, and...

The sound of typing on a keyboard.

After sending the email, Matt came out of his room and stood in the living room for a while.

"Have you finished sending them?" Lin Yuan asked.

"All done." Matt closed his laptop and tucked it under his arm. "My dad should see it tomorrow morning. He's an early riser; he's at the office by six."

"And now?"

"Go to sleep now." Matt yawned, but it was clearly not because he was really sleepy; he just wanted to relax. "Go to the workshop as usual tomorrow. Isn't Nelson's Bowie hunting knife just a little bit short? You finish it, and I'll shoot the footage. We'll talk about Catherine when my dad gets here."

Lin Yuan stood up from the sofa, walked to his bedroom door, and paused for a moment.

"When you were on the phone with your dad just now," he turned to look at Matt, "you said this wasn't just about you, that she was after Lin Yuan's skills." You really said that?

"I told you." Matt leaned against the wall in the hallway, one hand in his pocket. "This is the truth. I didn't handle things well before, giving her an opportunity. Now she's targeting you. If your brand gets damaged because of me, I'll never live with myself."

Lin Yuan looked at him for two seconds, then nodded. "Good night."

"Good night."

Lin Yuan closed the door, changed his clothes, and lay down on the bed. The curtains weren't drawn, and the streetlight's light shone through the glass, casting an irregular patch of light on the floor. Matt was still sitting in the living room in the hallway; the sound of him typing could be heard occasionally—he was probably dealing with unfinished emails.

He turned over and pulled the blanket up to his shoulders.

The next morning, when Lin Yuan arrived at the forge, Matt was already there. He was sitting in a folding chair in the office area, with a laptop in front of him and his phone next to him, screen facing up.

"Any news?" Lin Yuan put down his backpack.

"No." Matt looked up. "My dad sent me a message at 6:30 this morning saying he received the email and read it. That was all."

"Then there's no problem."

“That’s what I think too.” Matt closed his laptop. “If he felt the evidence was insufficient or had any loopholes, he would have said so directly. The fact that he said he had read it but didn’t ask any further questions means that he acknowledged the validity of the materials.”

Lin Yuan walked to the worktable, picked up the Bowie hunting knife, and checked the previous assembly. The brass guard had been polished, and the ebony veneer had been cut to the correct shape; only final gluing and securing were needed.

He put the blade guard on the blade, pushed it to the clean-root position, measured the gap between the mating surfaces with calipers, and started mixing the adhesive after confirming that there were no problems.

Epoxy resin needs to be mixed in the correct proportions. He took out agent A and agent B from a disposable cup, stirred them with a stirring stick for about a minute until the mixture turned a uniform milky white, and then used a toothpick to apply the glue evenly to the keel of the knife handle and the inside of the patch.

Two ebony veneers are clamped to the keel and secured with clamps. They are then set aside to allow the glue to cure.

Matt walked over with his coffee and glanced at the Bowie hunting knife caught in the clamp. "How long will it take for the glue to come in?"

"At least four hours. We can only put on the mosaic nails tomorrow morning." Lin Yuan took off his gloves and sat down at the worktable. "Today we'll work on the handle of the camping knife. The glue on that knife has dried, so we can put on the nails."

He took Jason's camping knife from under the worktable. The ebony veneer was firmly attached to the keel; he tapped the surface of the veneer with his finger, and the sound was dull and solid, without any hollowness.

He took three red copper mosaic nails from the toolbox, tried inserting them into the pre-drilled holes on the knife handle to confirm that the diameter and depth of each nail were appropriate, and then began to apply glue to the nail heads and hammer them in one by one.

After hammering in each nail, he used a flat file to smooth down the part of the nail head that protruded above the veneer, and then used fine sandpaper to smooth the entire nail surface and the surrounding wood. After finishing all three nails, he wiped the handle of the knife with a soft cloth and held it up to the light to examine it.

The red copper mosaic tiles are nailed to the dark background of the ebony wood, forming three delicate small dots, with the pattern of the nail heads clearly visible.

"The camping knife is finished." Lin Yuan placed the knife on the worktable and took a step back.

Matt walked over, picked up the camping knife, and flipped it over in his hand. "It's a bit smaller than the Bowie knife, but it feels very solid. Jason will like it."

"Take two photos and send them to him so he knows the progress."

Matt nodded, took out his phone and snapped a few pictures of the camping knife, then opened his email and started writing. Lin Yuan walked back to his workbench and began working on the handle patch for Nelson's Bowie hunting knife.

After removing the fixture, he ran his fingers along the seam between the patch and the keel. The epoxy resin had cured very well, and there were no gaps at the seam. The transition surface felt smooth to the touch.