283: Chapter 283 The First Appearance of a Genius Design

Morning light slanted down from the high workshop windows, illuminating the closed sketchbook on the console.

Chen Qiaoshou sat motionless, his fingers still resting on the end of the pen, his knuckles white.

He stared at the drawing for a full three breaths, then took a sharp breath, as if wanting to expel all the stale air trapped in his chest all night.

He stood up, the chair legs scraping against the metal floor with a short, sharp sound.

As he stepped forward, his peripheral vision caught the shadow still lingering behind the pillar.

Chen Tiezhu hadn't left, nor was he hiding anymore; half his body was exposed, his hand resting on a support frame, his eyes fixed intently on this side.

Their gazes met, and Chen Qiaoshou paused for a moment.

He did not stop walking.

He scooped up the sketchbook with a backhand motion, tucked it under his arm, wiped his face with his other hand, and strode toward the center of the workshop.

Chen Wuwang leaned against the master console, his left hand in his combat suit pocket, his right eye covered by a Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, a layer of blue light flickering on its surface.

Hearing footsteps, he looked up and saw Chen Qiaoshou rushing over, clutching the drawings, his face wearing that expression of someone who had just pulled an all-nighter and won a battle.

"Did it work?" Chen Wuwang asked.

Chen Qiaoshou placed the sketchbook on the console and flipped it open with both hands.

"I checked it again last night. The energy hub, energy rail distribution, furnace power supply curve, and sensor array linkage—it's all closed-loop. The data flow is fully functional."

As the pages opened, pale blue Spiritual Qi data flowed slowly along the lines, crawling across the drawing as if it were alive.

A flash of blue light crossed Chen Wuwang's left eye as his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye automatically scanned the structure in the drawing. Energy flow, node load, feedback latency... strings of parameters flashed across his vision.

Before he had even finished reading the third line, the corners of his mouth began to lift.

"A Genius idea!" he blurted out. His voice wasn't loud, but it exploded like thunder in the empty workshop.

Chen Qiaoshou's shoulders relaxed, and he let out a breath.

But the next second, a dark shadow suddenly crashed in from the side.

Chen Tiezhu rushed to the console in a few steps, braced himself with his thick arms, leaned over the drawings, and stared intently.

His fingers slid along the lines of the energy rail, his pads rubbing repeatedly over several key nodes, his Adam's apple bobbing twice.

He didn't speak.

But his expression had changed.

It was no longer the disdain of "playing tricks" from last night, but genuine shock.

The drawing depicted a new energy hub linkage structure: four main lines running in parallel, connected by a set of self-adjusting rune circuits that could dynamically distribute Spiritual Qi based on real-time load.

Crucially, he had added a micro-detection array behind the diversion valve; once an abnormal pressure was detected, it would immediately trigger a bypass diversion to prevent overload.

This thing... he had never seen it before.

But he understood it.

He knew what it meant.

It meant no longer relying on master craftsmen to listen to the furnace to judge its state; it meant the furnace wouldn't shut down entirely because one link got stuck; it meant—humans were no longer the most fragile link.

His finger stopped at the "Intelligent Control Module" column. His lips moved; he wanted to curse, but he couldn't.

"Having just an idea isn't enough." He finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, his tone stiff, yet his feet didn't move, and his eyes remained glued to the paper.

Chen Wuwang glanced at him and didn't respond, instead reaching out to tap the bottom right corner of the drawing:

"This feedback latency design is brilliant. Did you use triple-level buffering?"

"Yes," Chen Qiaoshou nodded. "The first level is physical diversion, the second is rune prediction, and the third is an AI learning model. It needs manual calibration for the first three days, after which it can adjust itself."

"AI?" Chen Tiezhu looked up abruptly.

"You call this 'Artificial Intelligence'? Do you think Artifact Refining is like raising Gu? Can a machine understand Spiritual Qi fluctuations? Can it perceive the heat? Can it know when to retract the hammer or when to quench?"

"It doesn't need to understand," Chen Qiaoshou looked at him, his voice not loud but steady. "It only needs to remember data. Which time the temperature rose by 0.3 degrees before an overload, which time the pressure curve took a small turn before a furnace explosion—after recording enough, it will be able to predict."

Chen Tiezhu was stunned.

He wanted to refute it.

But suddenly, the image of that automatic inspection machine popped into his mind—that hunk of iron that could navigate around obstacles, sound alarms, and even detect the aging of cooling pipes in advance.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his gaze fell on the very end of the drawing: the entire System was linked by a thick line, with arrows crisscrossing, labeled "Living Production Line."

"Living?" He sneered. "The artifact has a soul, fire is its bone, and the craftsman is its heart. Are you digging out the craftsman's heart and stuffing it into a pile of iron?"

"I am not trying to replace anyone," Chen Qiaoshou looked him straight in the eye. "I just want fewer brothers to die. If the one that exploded during the test flight last month had this detection array, the pilot wouldn't have lost half his leg."

Chen Tiezhu's throat tightened.

He remembered that kid.

He was only seventeen. Before the test flight, he had smiled and greeted him, saying he would treat him to a drink after this battle was over.

Three breaths after takeoff, his right arm exploded.

He had personally dug him out of the mine pit. The boy was already unconscious, mecha fragments embedded in his chest, blood mixed with machine oil dripping down.

"That was a material issue!" he roared, his voice trembling. "It wasn't the process! It wasn't the System! It was that we weren't careful enough!"

"Carefulness can't save lives," Chen Qiaoshou shook his head. "Data can."

The air suddenly froze.

Chen Tiezhu crossed his arms, his brows knitted together. He was still stubborn. "No matter how beautiful the drawing is, if the machine doesn't recognize it, it's just a piece of waste paper. You say it can adjust itself? With what? Are you treating the words written by your lousy pen as an imperial decree?"

"With empirical data," Chen Wuwang suddenly spoke, tapping the tabletop. "We have plenty of mecha wreckage recovered from the battlefield and plenty of records from past accidents. Feed it to it and let it learn."

"Learn, my ass!" Chen Tiezhu slammed the table. "Thirty years ago, I forged the first battle mecha on this very table. Back then, there was no AI, no data, none of your fancy, flashy stuff, and we still kicked the Zerg's teeth in!"

"But back then, three out of every ten mechas didn't even make it out of the mining area," Chen Wuwang looked at him. "Do you know why over ninety percent return safely now? Because we changed three hundred and seventy-two details, and every single one was a lesson bought with human lives."

Chen Tiezhu was silenced.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, he just snorted through his nose and turned his head away.

But his feet didn't move.

His hand didn't let go either.

Chen Wuwang didn't press him further. He turned to Chen Qiaoshou: "How do you plan to implement this design?"

"Start with a prototype," Chen Qiaoshou pointed to the energy hub section. "We'll pull an old furnace for modification, connect the new energy rails and the detection array, and run a seven-day test. If the data is stable, we'll roll it out to the entire production line."

"And Materials?"

"I've already made a list. The Tier 3 Materials inventory is sufficient."

"Manpower?"

"I'll lead it."

Chen Tiezhu suddenly interjected: "Who agreed to let you touch the furnace? That's a furnace I've been watching for seven years, not something you can just dismantle because you drew a picture!"

"No one is dismantling it," Chen Qiaoshou looked at him. "I want to repair it and let it live longer."

Chen Tiezhu was taken aback.

He turned to stare at Chen Qiaoshou, as if seeing this young man's face clearly for the first time.

His dark circles were heavy, his hair was messy, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

It wasn't arrogance or pride; it was a kind of... relentless determination to make it happen.

It was exactly like he had been back in the day.

He didn't speak, just unconsciously tapped the tabletop twice, the rhythm exactly the same as when he was hiding behind the pillar last night.

Chen Wuwang watched the two, neither smiling nor rushing them.

Sunlight slowly crept up to the edge of the drawing, making those blue data streams glow faintly.

Chen Qiaoshou stood there, his hands hanging by his sides, his fingertips still trembling slightly.

He knew this drawing had passed the House Master's approval, but the real difficulty was the old craftsman before him.

Chen Tiezhu still had his arms crossed, his brows unfurrowed, but his gaze never left the drawing.

He suddenly reached out and pointed to the column for the detection array upgrade: "Here, what is the set frequency for deep scanning?"

"Initially one thousand Hertz, adjustable dynamically according to material density."

"What if you encounter composite cracks? For example, internal stress fractures while the outer layer is intact?"

"Three-frequency resonance scanning, combined with energy residue analysis—the recognition rate is 98.7%."

Chen Tiezhu narrowed his eyes: "Have you tested it?"

"I trained it using samples from the thirty-seven furnace explosions last year."

Chen Tiezhu fell silent.

He slowly raised his hand, his fingertips hovering above the drawing, as if afraid of breaking something.

Then, he tapped gently on the circular array.

"The structure is quite dense."

A single sentence, neither affirming nor denying.

But his tone had softened.

The corners of Chen Wuwang's mouth lifted slightly.

He knew the gears had turned another notch.

Chen Qiaoshou took a deep breath, just about to speak.

But Chen Tiezhu suddenly looked up, staring at him: "If you want to move my furnace, fine."

He paused.

"But if something goes wrong, you take the blame."

Chen Qiaoshou met his gaze and nodded: "I will."

"If someone dies, don't even think about walking out of this workshop alive."

"I understand."

Chen Tiezhu stared at him for three seconds, then abruptly turned and strode toward the tool area.

"Three o'clock this afternoon," he said, his back to them, his voice heavy. "I want to watch you connect the first energy rail with my own eyes."

After saying this, he disappeared behind the shelves.

The workshop fell quiet.

Sunlight bathed the entire drawing, and the blue data streams flowed silently.

Chen Qiaoshou stood there, his breathing still a bit heavy.

Chen Wuwang picked up the sketchbook and flipped to the last page, looking at the handwritten note: "A living production line that grows on its own."

He said softly: "It won't be long now."

In the distance, the sound of a metal toolbox being opened came, clattering for a moment.

Then came the dull thud of a wrench hitting the table.

Chen Qiaoshou looked down at his hands; his palms were covered in sweat.

He slowly clenched his hands into fists.