Sold into a ghost marriage? Four-year-old and his thuggish father go on a killing spree.

Two weeks later, at Tianhai Industrial Street.

Gu Niannian pushed open the wooden door of the conference room and slammed a thick stack of trial receipts from Haifeng Repair Station onto the table.

Ten sheets of white paper, each stamped with the red official seal of Haifeng Station, with the words "48 hours of continuous operation without any abnormalities, wear amount 0.02 millimeters" written on them.

The results were impressive. But the people around the table didn't look relaxed at all.

Zhao Xiaoyun held an abacus in her hand, her fingers moving quickly across the beads, causing the abacus frame to vibrate slightly on the wooden table.

"I broke down the entire process from scratch."

Zhao Xiaoyun raised her head, pushed up her glasses, and pushed a form covered in pencil writing to the center of the table.

"This coastal version of the components for Haifeng may look like just a change in transmission gears and retaining rings, but it actually involves three extremely time-consuming and complex hurdles compared to the conventional bearings we originally made for the provincial capital."

Zhao Xiaoyun pointed to the first line with a red pencil.

"The first step is to trim the shallow arc at the root of the main drive gear. To ensure even force distribution and prevent tearing, Master Yan must meticulously trim each gear individually on a lathe using hand clamps. Trimming just the rounded corners of a set of gears takes two and a half man-hours."

She then pointed to the second line.

"The second step is the sand-proof ring on Shen Cuifen's side. There are only two sets of vulcanizing molds, and each batch needs to cool and be demolded after 40 minutes. At most, only six sets of qualified products can be pressed out per day."

"The third step is the tactile anti-mistake assembly of the red box. Every wooden box leaving the factory has anti-mistake grooves carved by hand, and also undergoes random checks using three-color cards."

Zhao Xiaoyun slammed the abacus onto the table with a crisp snap.

"The iron production capacity of the No. 2 furnace at the rear also needs to accommodate the regular bearing orders allocated from the provincial capital. If we devote all our workers and equipment to the thirty sets of orders in Haifeng, the delivery date in the provincial capital will be delayed by at least half a month. We can't afford the penalty for breach of contract, and our cash flow will be cut off on the spot."

The workshop fell silent.

Zhao Qiming sat on a bench, his old work clothes still stained with machine oil. He scratched his hair hard and ripped off his gray cloth hat, throwing it onto his knees.

"How about... we talk to Station Master Sun and postpone the delivery time of the last twenty sets of machines in Haifeng by a month?" Zhao Qiming asked tentatively. "Anyway, we've already weathered the first wave of busy autumn planting, and we can slowly modify the remaining machines."

"no."

Gu Niannian sat at the other end of the table, holding a red and blue pencil, and drew a straight line on the production schedule.

"Haifeng agreed to make it a model site for us, on the condition that we complete the conversion of thirty old machines before the autumn planting season is completely over." Gu Niannian looked up at Zhao Qiming. "If we delay for a month, the autumn planting season will be over. The machines will be sitting in the warehouse not working, and we won't be able to get data on continuous high-load operation. Then this model will not be convincing."

Old Zhou sat next to him, carefully examining a newly machined gear blank with a magnifying glass, and slowly added a comment.

"Moreover, Chen Jianhua isn't the only one eyeing Haifeng, this lucrative market. If we can't deliver the goods, other factories will immediately pounce."

Gu Niannian put down the pencil in her hand and glanced at the people in the room.

"Insufficient production capacity means we can't just drag things out; we have to dismantle it."

Gu Niannian pulled over a blank piece of kraft paper and drew three squares on it.

"Thirty sets of orders, to be processed in two parts."

"The first batch of ten sets will all be produced in the core workshop of the industrial park. Master Yan and two skilled workers are closely monitoring the shallow arc tooth root, Lao Zhou is in charge of ensuring the final assembly clearance, and Shen Cuifen is working overtime to press the gear rings. These ten sets are the benchmark; there can be no deviation in tolerance."

She put a big checkmark in the first box.

"The second section, the remaining twenty sets, will have their non-core processes dismantled."

Zhao Qiming was taken aback: "Take it apart? Give it to whom?"

"Give all the rough processing work to those few workshops at the south end of the industrial street," Gu Niannian pointed to the second box with a pencil. "Rough processing of cast iron shells, connecting flanges, standard fastening bolts, outer packaging wooden boxes—all the work that doesn't require extremely high precision should be assigned to them."

Zhao Qiming hesitated for a moment: "Their workmanship is very rough; what if they mess up the dimensions..."

"They only do the rough machining; we don't let them touch the core dimensions."

"The final finishing of the critical transmission gears, the vulcanization molding of the foolproof retaining rings, and the final assembly of the entire assembly must all be done back in this room."

Gu Niannian looked at Du Haisheng: "Du Haisheng is in charge of the initial caliper inspection. Any unqualified blanks will be returned directly without any processing fees. Old Zhou is in charge of the final blind assembly inspection. For each set that passes inspection, a red box will be packed and stamped with Tianhai's sealing wax seal."

Zhao Xiaoyun quickly scribbled in her notebook, and then moved the abacus beads a few more times.

"By dismantling it this way, the pressure on Furnace No. 2 can be reduced by 60%, and we can also maintain our regular orders from the provincial capital." Zhao Xiaoyun looked up, her eyes brightening. "Moreover, the labor cost for each component can be reduced by one yuan and twenty cents."

Zhao Qiming breathed a sigh of relief and reached out to put the hat back on his head.

"This method works! It won't delay delivery, and it also binds those small factories around here to our business. They'll have work and money to earn, and no one in the industrial park will blindly follow outsiders in stirring up trouble."

Just as Gu Niannian was about to speak, a sudden, sharp sound of bicycle brakes came from outside the door.

Lin Xiaobei, wearing a faded postal green uniform, strode into the house, clutching a large brown paper envelope, without even properly supporting the bicycle frame.

"Director Gu! Comrade Xu Yang from the provincial capital has sent an urgent registered letter!"

Lin Xiaobei wiped the sweat from his forehead and handed the envelope to Gu Niannian.

Two eight-cent stamps were affixed to the seal of the envelope, bearing the postmark of the provincial capital post office at six o'clock in the morning.

Gu Niannian opened the envelope, and two sheets of paper covered with dense writing slid out.

Everyone in the room fell silent, their eyes all fixed on the letter.

Gu Niannian quickly scanned the handwriting on the letter.

Xu Yang's handwriting was neat and powerful, but he wrote in a hurry, and in some places he even tore the paper.

The letter clearly stated that Chen Jianhua had suffered a major setback in Haifeng, but he did not give up after returning to the provincial capital. Huaxing Trading had used its connections in the Nancheng Industrial Bureau and had already joined forces with three long-established large factories, including Nancheng Agricultural Machinery Factory and Hongxing Gear Factory.

They are secretly conspiring to jointly drive down prices at the upcoming Nancheng Agricultural Machinery Parts Ordering Fair, offering prices 20% below cost, thus completely shutting out emerging small businesses like Tianhai from the county market.

At the very bottom of the letter, there was a line of small print:

"Huaxing declared that Tianhai is nothing more than a small, makeshift workshop that started by repairing and reusing old materials; it has no chance of even entering the southern part of the city."

Zhao Qiming craned his neck to take a look, his face instantly darkened, and he slammed his fist on the table.

"That mad dog Chen Jianhua! He's completely disgraced Haifeng, and now he's back in the provincial capital trying to launch a campaign to wipe us out!"

Gu Niannian folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, her face showing no sign of panic.

She placed the envelope under the Haifeng reply slip on the table.

Just then, Lin Xiaobei took out another piece of cardboard from his uniform pocket and handed it to the table.

"Director Gu, I was so busy getting the mail that I forgot to mention this was tucked under the package," Lin Xiaobei said, panting. "It's a registered mail item from the Nancheng Industrial Bureau."

Zhao Xiaoyun reached out and took it, then flipped it over to the right side.

At the very top of the cardboard was a line of black lead print: Invitation Letter for Review of Entry into the Nancheng Agricultural Machinery Industrial Supporting Street.