Chapter 32 (1/2)
Pressuring the Group with Skill
Fifteen minutes FifteenNormally, he would be finished and hand his processed part to the engineer for inspection but he did not do so
“Master Xia, are you finished?” s Yuan-Shan He was pleased by how s - as ‘uncle’, it reflected positively on hiht? Are you done? Hand it to o have it measured”
Xia Lei, however, shook his head “You lowered the precision on this lathe The accuracy on the processed shaft is only 00005mm so it cannot be considered complete” He hesitated and added casually, “Plus, this i requireinal but there is no way to uarantee that even if this imported machine hadn’t had its precision lowered, it cannot process accurate parts I’ that you have tried several tiht?”
The entire workshop was silent when Xia Lei was done speaking
The first engineer to speak of his doubt of Xia Lei sneaked a look at Chi Jing-Qiu His look was strange and Chi Jing-Qiu avoided his eyes guiltily
“What’s going on here?” Ning Yuan-Shan was seeing red, “Did I let you lower the precision on the lathe? Who allowed this? Step forward”
The first engineer to speak of his doubt looked at Chi Jing-Qiu again and she turned bone-white
Just then, an elderly engineer spoke up, “Chair to test Master Xia’s workmanshi+p He is not only skilled with his hands but sharp of eye I a Yuan-Shan looked at the old engineer, unhappy but not too upset, “Engineer Liu, aren’t you ot a Master to co -Qiu quietly let out a breath and her bone-white face regained some colour
Xia Lei had seen it all and kneas going on Chi Jing-Qiu had poked the hornets’ nest and this old -Qiu’s husband’s surname was also Liu so it was obvious how they were related
Engineer Liu bowed to Xia Lei, “I apologise, Master Xia Please forgive ineer Liu had with Chi Jing-Qiu, a white-haired old o up in s, “It’s okay, it’s okay Engineer Liu, you s Don’t apologise to ineer Liu patted Xia Lei’s shoulder and chuckled, “Young’un, I rarely hold anyone in admiration but you are one Tell me, how could you tell that the precision of the lathe had been lowered? And how did you know that this machine cannot process the parts we need?”
“Experience, experience,” Xia Lei gave an answer that was not an answer He was definitely not going to say he used his eye - if he did, uncountable jaould hit the floor
“Keeping it a secret, eh?” Engineer Liu sain, there aren’t any trade secrets in our line of work All right, I won’t ask you how you did it I do want to say that we have not been able to process this type of i parts and even if we tried, we had no way of ain and said, “Chair but without better lathes and technology there is no way he can process the parts we need It may be better to research other ways to import it from other countries - this is the real solution to the proble Yuan-Shan frowned and said, “There’s the technology block that Europe and America imposed on us now It’s not us who don’t want to buy better lathes but the used in precision processing for supporting national defense is now being restricted in trade too If you can get your hands on these materials, I’ll concede my position of Chairineer Liu ue
Xia Lei spoke up, “Actually, higher grade lathes are not needed The axis needed on this bearing can be done manually I can make it to your requirements”
The workshop was silent at once and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop Everyone stared at Xia Lei, each and every pair of eyes looking at hi’un, you have skills, I admit, but you can’t boast like that What you said is a joke How can your h precision lathe i our IQ?”
Others agreed, “Yeah! Aren’t you being too unrealistic?”
Another said, “Young’un, you’ll be shamed if you can’t do what you claimed You’d better think before you speak”
A wave of -Qiu smiled ‘I don’t knohen this Xia Lei punk learnt his skill but I kno he likes to show off It’s been years and he still has this bad habit My father-in-law is the best engineer craftsuy passed just now because of a fluke but he won’t be able to hide his lies this ti stared at Xia Lei too but her gaze was full of worry
Xia Lei did not argue with anyone He removed the processed shaft and turned to a normal manual lathe in the corner of the workshop