54: Chapter 54 My mentality collapsed; this isn't even human!

The next morning.

In the garage of the Su Manor, a black Porsche pulled out smoothly.

The atmosphere in the back seat was somewhat strange.

Su Qingxue was dressed in a sharp office lady suit, her eyes and brows filled with undisguised excitement and anticipation. She glanced at her husband beside her from time to time, as if looking at a walking treasure.

In the passenger seat, the newly appointed CEO of "Su Precision Machinery," Chen Shuyu, clutched a folder. Her face was deathly pale, her posture stiff, and her eyes darted around, looking exactly like a prisoner about to be sent to the execution ground.

Her mind was still stuck on a loop of last night's nightmare: Lu Li holding a scraper and saying to her:

"Shuyu, if you don't meet the KPI for this quarter, I'll take you apart to see if the parts inside are rusted..."

It was exactly the same as when she saw Lu Li taking apart No. 18 that day, which had scared her so much she woke up instantly, her face drained of color.

"Lu Li, are you really not going to change your clothes?" Su Qingxue looked at Lu Li, who was still wearing casual clothes, feeling somewhat helpless.

"Work is too tiring," Lu Li yawned, leaning back in his seat, looking like he could fall asleep at any moment. "I'm going there to provide technical guidance, not to walk a runway. Besides, with our CEO Chen there, the aura is sufficient."

"I..." Chen Shuyu shuddered, nearly throwing the folder away. "I'm just a secretary! I only know how to make PPTs and order takeout!"

Lu Li didn't even lift his eyelids. "From now on, you'll be the person looking at PPTs and having others order takeout for you."

Chen Shuyu: "..."

She looked at Su Qingxue in despair, only to find that her best friend was looking at Lu Li with an expression that said "you've struck gold," and had no time to pay attention to her.

It's over; the world has finally become so crazy that I don't recognize it anymore.

...

Forty minutes later, at the Su Precision Machinery factory area.

The air was filled with the distinct smell of a mixture of machine oil and metal dust.

The massive steel-structured factory building was like a silent behemoth, with dull roars emanating from behind the thick walls—the heartbeat unique to heavy industry.

"President Su, President Chen."

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo, accompanied by several technical backbones wearing dark blue work uniforms, came up to greet them.

This old engineer, over fifty, had graying temples, rough palms, and fingernails forever stained with grime that wouldn't wash off. His gaze swept over the excessively young Lu Li, and his brows furrowed imperceptibly.

"The old man said an 'expert' was coming today to solve the guide rail precision problem."

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo's tone was stiff, carrying the unique arrogance and bluntness of a technician. "President Su, let's get the unpleasantries out of the way first. The guide rail wear on that Heidenhain five-axis linkage machine is a critical flaw. The current precision is stuck at 0.01 millimeters; to reach the aerospace-grade standard of 0.002 millimeters, we'd need a new machine tool."

He pointed to the behemoth in the center of the workshop behind him.

"The German system is locked, and the hardware is aging. We tried using a laser interferometer for compensation, but it was useless. The systematic error is too large."

Lu Li didn't respond and walked straight to the machine tool.

He reached out to stroke the cold cast-iron bed, feeling a subtle vibration through his fingertips.

"The 0.01-millimeter error isn't due to hardware wear," Lu Li said calmly. His voice wasn't loud, yet it cut through the noise of the workshop. "It's uneven stress release caused by thermal deformation. The machine's temperature control system is broken, causing the bed to twist at a microscopic level."

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo was stunned, a flash of surprise appearing in his eyes.

This young man knew the root cause just by touching it?

"Even if we know it's thermal deformation, it can't be fixed." Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo sighed and pointed to an old technician with gray hair beside him. "Old Zhao is our factory's only level-eight fitter. He has been scraping iron his whole life, and yesterday he tried all day, but the best result he could achieve was scraping the straightness to 0.005 millimeters. 0.002... that is the realm of gods, not something human hands can achieve."

The fitter named Old Zhao slammed the scraper in his hand onto the table and snorted. "Young man, anyone can recite theory. But this guide rail is three meters long; you think it's like molding clay to ensure a flatness of one-tenth of a hair's thickness over three meters?"

Lu Li turned his head and looked at No. 18, who had been standing quietly behind him.

"No. 18, go show them what human-machine integration is."

No. 18, who had been like an invisible person the whole time, stepped forward.

She was wearing a black professional suit today, and her high heels made crisp "click-clack" sounds on the oil-stained concrete floor.

This urban professional attire was completely out of place in the hardcore workshop.

"Her?"

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo and Old Zhao exchanged a look, both seeing the absurdity in the other's eyes.

"President Su, are you kidding?" Old Zhao couldn't help but say. "This young lady's hands are so delicate, she probably can't even hold the scraper steady. For this kind of precision work, if the wrist shakes even a little, this guide rail worth hundreds of thousands will be ruined!"

"Let her try." Lu Li's tone was unquestionable.

No. 18 walked to the operation console without wearing gloves.

She selected the most ordinary red-handled triangular scraper from the toolbox.

Under Old Zhao's mocking gaze, she moved.

No testing, no warm-up.

The moment the scraper touched down, it didn't make the harsh "zzzt" sound typical of traditional scraping.

"Hum—"

An extremely low-pitched, high-frequency humming sound, almost at the edge of hearing, began to resonate.

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo's pupils instantly contracted to pinpoints!

He stared fixedly at No. 18's wrist.

Fast.

Too fast.

No. 18's wrist was vibrating at a high frequency that the human eye could not capture!

The scraper seemed to have turned into a high-frequency ultrasonic cutter; the metal shavings weren't being "scraped" off, but rather, like snowflakes, turned into fine dust and drifted down amidst that terrifying vibration frequency.

"This is..." Old Zhao's mouth hung open, his chin nearly hitting his feet. "What the hell kind of technique is this?!"

This wasn't scraping at all!

This was using high-frequency vibration to directly smooth out lattice defects on the metal surface at a microscopic level!

Five minutes.

Only five minutes.

For a three-meter-long guide rail, this time was ridiculously short.

No. 18 stopped, retracted the scraper, and turned around.

On her hands, which were as fair as jade, not even a speck of dust had touched them; they remained as smooth and clean as before.

"Correction complete."

No. 18's voice was as cold as ice. "Straightness error, 0.0018 millimeters."

Deathly silence.

In the entire workshop, only the sound of the exhaust fan whirring remained.

"You... you're bluffing, right?" Old Zhao's voice was dry, and his Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty. "Less than three minutes, blind scraping? You said 0.0018?"

"Get the instruments!" Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo roared, his voice trembling.

Several technicians scrambled to set up the laser interferometer.

The red laser beam swept across the guide rail surface.

On the screen of the connected laptop, the data began to jump wildly.

Everyone held their breath, staring fixedly at the final number that settled on the screen.

[ 0.0018 mm ]

Clang!

The thermos in Old Zhao's hand dropped to the ground, shattering into pieces.

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo felt as if his spine had been pulled out. He stumbled back two steps and had to hold onto the machine tool to steady himself. He looked at the data, and his eyes instantly turned red.

This was the precision he had pursued his entire life.

This was a realm that a level-eight fitter wouldn't even dare to dream of.

It was actually produced by a seemingly delicate young girl, in three minutes, just by casually rubbing it?

"Impossible... this is impossible..."

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo rushed in front of No. 18, trembling as he reached out to grab No. 18's wrist.

"These hands of yours... how on earth were they trained? How could human neural reaction speed keep up with this frequency? Did you use some kind of exoskeleton assistance? Who trained you? Which research institute?"

He even wondered if this girl was a successor to the "Great Nation Craftsmen" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Because only the "Great Nation Craftsmen" could achieve a 1-micron level of error on metal mechanical parts.

There are many videos online mocking the "Great Nation Craftsmen," but only old fitters like him knew that it really wasn't acting.

There are plenty of people who break a hundred files in a year, and when they finally measure the part error, they certainly don't use the naked eye—the naked eye can at most see 0.1-millimeter errors; they use metallographic microscopes and laser interferometers.

Moreover, "Great Nation Craftsmen" don't just produce things; what's rare is that they treat difficult and complicated problems, such as errors in the guide rails of five-axis linkage machine tools.

Also, the online scoffing at manual grinding of 5-nanometer aerospace parts is definitely due to being misled by social media accounts, which deliberately confuse dimensional precision with surface roughness, i.e., mirror smoothness.

Metal thermal expansion and contraction caused by body temperature alone is more than 0.000005 mm, which is 5 nanometers.

His hand had just touched No. 18's arm, but the sensation struck him like a lightning bolt.

It was hard.

Cold, hard, not like flesh and blood.

Lu Li stepped forward and gently brushed Engineer Zhang's hand away.

"Engineer Zhang, since you are so curious, I'll show you the trump card."

Lu Li's mouth curled into a meaningful arc, and he reached out to grab the cuff of No. 18's left sleeve, pushing it up sharply.

"Rip—"

As the sleeve was pushed up, the layer of lifelike bionic skin, which had slightly curled due to the high heat generated by the high-frequency vibration earlier, was peeled back by Lu Li.

No blood vessels.

No muscles.

Beneath that damaged "skin," silver-white hydraulic connecting rods were slowly retracting, dense arrays of micro servo motors were still emitting residual heat, and ghostly blue energy indicator lights flickered amidst the complex metal skeleton.

It was a robotic arm filled with violent aesthetics.

"Hiss—!!!"

Chief Engineer Zhang Jianguo's legs went weak, and he collapsed directly onto the oil-stained floor.

The surrounding technicians were even more terrified, as if they had seen a ghost, letting out distorted screams:

"Ro... Robot?!"