Chapter 32 (1/2)
Pressuring the Group with Skill
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was all it took for Xia Lei to finish his processing. Normally, 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?” smiled Ning Yuan-Shan. He was pleased by how smoothly Xia Lei had completed the processing – as ‘uncle’, it reflected positively on him.
An engineer also spoke, “Master Xia, right? Are you done? Hand it to me if you’re done. I’ll go have it measured.”
Xia Lei, however, shook his head. “You lowered the precision on this lathe. The accuracy on the processed shaft is only 0.0005mm so it cannot be considered complete.” He hesitated and added casually, “Plus, this imported bearing requirement is actually 0.00009mm. The difference is marginal but there is no way to make it work normally. I can guarantee that even if this imported machine hadn’t had its precision lowered, it cannot process accurate parts. I’m guessing that you have tried several times and not succeeded, am I right?”
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, “Chairman Ning, it was me. I was only trying to test Master Xia’s workmanship. He is not only skilled with his hands but sharp of eye. I am in admiration.”
Ning Yuan-Shan looked at the old engineer, unhappy but not too upset, “Engineer Liu, aren’t you making trouble for nothing? I finally got a Master to come but you engineers are giving me trouble.”
Chi Jing-Qiu quietly let out a breath and her bone-white face regained some colour.
Xia Lei had seen it all and knew what was going on. Chi Jing-Qiu had poked the hornets’ nest and this old man named Liu had covered for her. Chi Jing-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 me.”
No matter what relationship this Engineer Liu had with Chi Jing-Qiu, a white-haired old man apologising to him made Xia Lei’s dissatisfaction go up in smoke. He moved forward to help Engineer Liu up, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Engineer Liu, you must have done this considering everyone’s feelings. Don’t apologise to me, really.”
Engineer 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 jaws would hit the floor.
“Keeping it a secret, eh?” Engineer Liu smiled as he said, “Then again, 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 imported bearing parts and even if we tried, we had no way of making it work normally.” He looked at Ning Yuan-Shan again and said, “Chairman Ning, I’m not being a wet blanket or anything 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 problem.”
Ning 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 them who won’t sell. The parts and materials suspected of being 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 Chairman to you.”
His words had an edge to them and Engineer Liu may be hard-headed, but not that hard-headed. He held his tongue.
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 him strangely.
Engineer Liu spoke, “Young’un, you have skills, I admit, but you can’t boast like that. What you said is a joke. How can your manual work be better than a high precision lathe imported from Germany? Are you challenging 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 mocking and ridicule ensued.
Strangely, Chi Jing-Qiu smiled. ‘I don’t know when this Xia Lei punk learnt his skill but I know how he likes to show off. It’s been years and he still has this bad habit. My father-in-law is the best engineer craftsman in the country and he has never been wrong. That guy passed just now because of a fluke but he won’t be able to hide his lies this time’ she thought.
Ning Jing 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.
“He’s actually going to use that antique lathe to process a high precision part? Are you kidding me?” said someone.
“This punk keeps springing surprise after surprise but I won’t believe that he’d be successful,” said another.