"You... did you hear 'His' voice?"
Old Zhong's voice was like it was being squeezed out from between rusted gear teeth, every word trembling with fervent expectation.
Jin Wanzhao's mind went blank, buzzing with confusion.
Him? Which 'Him'?
He instinctively shook off Old Zhong's hand as if shocked, retreating two steps back, eyeing this suddenly strange old man with vigilance.
"Old Zhong, you're exhausted and talking nonsense, right?" Jin Wanzhao's voice was hoarse. He just wanted to leave this place of trouble.
Everything that had happened today was far beyond his understanding. He just wanted to find a place to hide, curl up, and pretend nothing had occurred.
But Old Zhong wouldn't give him that chance.
The old man's murky eyes were now frighteningly bright, like two coals ignited in the darkness. He lunged forward, once again grabbing Jin Wanzhao's arm with an iron grip, his withered fingers squeezing painfully tight.
"Stop pretending!" Old Zhong lowered his voice, almost hissing. "That pressure relief procedure isn't technology from this era! That's the 'Three-Stage Emergency Brake' that's been lost for over a hundred years! No one would know it except for the 'Chosen One' selected by the 'God of Craftsmen'! What you heard was the wail of machinery, the plea of steel!"
Old Zhong's outburst left Jin Wanzhao completely baffled.
God of Craftsmen? Chosen One? What was all this about?
He struggled to pull his arm back, but Old Zhong's strength was astonishing.
"You're crazy! Let go!" Jin Wanzhao exclaimed, panicked.
"Come with me!"
Without another word, Old Zhong dragged Jin Wanzhao towards the shadows. There was a堆放区 of discarded parts, long neglected, at the end of which stood a boiler room that had been decommissioned for years.
Darkness instantly swallowed them.
The boiler room was deathly silent, the air thick with dust and the cold smell of rust. Only the distant glow from the furnaces filtered through the broken windows, casting mottled light and shadow on the dust-covered massive boiler.
"What exactly do you want?" Jin Wanzhao finally shook off Old Zhong's hand, leaning against a cold pipe, gasping for air.
Old Zhong didn't answer. He just stared fixedly at Jin Wanzhao, his eyes a mixture of fanaticism and awe that made Jin Wanzhao's skin crawl.
"The legend is real..." Old Zhong murmured, as if speaking to Jin Wanzhao or to himself. "This world itself is a giant machine. The mountains are its skeleton, the rivers its blood vessels, and the furnace beneath our feet is its heart."
"At the dawn of the world, the 'God of Craftsmen' forged all things with fire and gears. Later, the deity fell into slumber, but His will never departed. His whispers always echo within every piece of metal, every drop of oil."
"Only a very few, the chosen ones, can resonate with the deity's will in a certain moment, hearing the soul's voice of the machinery. Such people, we call them... the Chosen Ones."
Old Zhong's voice echoed in the empty boiler room, carrying a strange magic.
Jin Wanzhao's scalp tingled. He thought the old man was either crazy or had joined some weird secret cult.
"I'm no Chosen One," he interrupted Old Zhong coldly. "That was just luck. I saw a similar structure in a tattered old manual once."
He made up a random excuse, just wanting to end this absurd conversation quickly.
"Luck?" Old Zhong laughed, a dry, bitter sound. "Under the rule of the Black Steel Council, us bugs at the bottom, what luck do we have?"
Just then, the sound of light footsteps came from the entrance of the boiler room.
Startled, Jin Wanzhao whipped his head around.
Two thin figures emerged from the darkness, looking at them timidly.
It was little A Xing, and another young worker he'd seen in the workshop, named A Huo, usually a quiet one.
They had clearly followed them.
Tears were still on A Xing's face. He looked at Jin Wanzhao, his eyes full of dependence and adoration. A Huo, meanwhile, looked excited and curious.
"W-Wan... Wanzhao Ge..." A Xing began timidly.
The next second, this child, barely ten years old, did something that caught Jin Wanzhao completely off guard.
He knelt straight down, his forehead thumping heavily onto the dusty ground.
"Wanzhao Ge! You saved my life! You're a god!"
This completely stunned Jin Wanzhao.
A Huo beside him got excited too. Although he didn't kneel, the way he looked at Jin Wanzhao was no different from looking at a deity.
"Wanzhao Ge! You're amazing! That stamping press, even the senior technicians couldn't handle it, and you fixed it with a few moves! You must have received divine revelation! Please, take us under your wing!"
Old Zhong watched the scene, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. He said nothing, just quietly observed Jin Wanzhao, waiting to see his choice.
Jin Wanzhao felt an immense pressure bearing down on him from all sides, making it hard to breathe.
A god? Divine revelation? A savior?
No.
He didn't want any of that.
He just wanted to survive, to get his sister, locked up in the "Nursery Factory," out, and then find a place where no one knew him, to live out this damn life in peace.
But looking at the kneeling, trembling A Xing, at A Huo's eyes burning with hope, and at the fanatical gaze of Old Zhong beside them...
He suddenly understood.
Relying on himself alone, forget saving his sister, he didn't even know if he'd survive tomorrow.
Foreman Butcher's face flashed through his mind.
He clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into the calluses on his palms.
Maybe... this crazy old man was right.
This inexplicable power wasn't a curse, but his only... chance.
After a long silence, Jin Wanzhao finally spoke.
His voice was no longer confused, but carried a calm with a note of undeniable authority.
He ignored the kneeling A Xing, didn't answer A Huo's plea, but fixed his gaze firmly on Old Zhong.
"Don't talk to me about any damn gods."
"Tell me, what is the 'Nursery Factory'? What do you know?"
Old Zhong trembled, the fanaticism in his eyes instantly replaced by a deeper, more profound light—the light of hope.
He knew he had bet correctly.
This young man before him wasn't a puppet to be manipulated by divine power. He had his own will, his own goals.
This was a true leader!
"The Nursery Factory..." Old Zhong's voice became incredibly solemn. "It's the Black Steel Council's most wicked invention, and their strongest cage. They gather all the workers' children there, calling it 'unified upbringing,' but in reality, they're hostages. As long as the children are in their hands, no one dares to resist."
"Its location is the Council's highest secret, but there's a legend... it's built deep underground, powered by the main geothermal vein beneath the Smelting Zone. To find it, you must first find that 'Warm Dragon's Vein'."
The Warm Dragon's Vein...
Jin Wanzhao silently committed the term to memory.
He helped A Xing up, glanced at A Huo and Old Zhong, and for the first time, in the dim boiler room, the four of them shared an unspoken understanding.
A secret group, with Jin Wanzhao at its core, was quietly born amidst this desolate wasteland.
...
Meanwhile, in the foreman's office above the Smelting Zone.
Butcher was hunched humbly before a flickering metal screen, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
On the screen was an expressionless face, as if carved from metal, belonging to a noble.
"Butcher, a Type-3 stamping press was destroyed on your shift. Do you know what this means? The production target for Smelting Zone No. 1 this month will be reduced by five percent. And your bonus? Zero."
The icy voice held no emotion.
"Yes... yes, my lord, I..." Butcher opened his mouth but couldn't get a word out.
The communication was cut off abruptly.
Butcher straightened up, his fat face twisted with anger and humiliation. He slammed his fist on the table, crushing a metal cup.
Damn it!
He ran through the day's events in his mind.
Jin Wanzhao's mistake, his own punishment, the central hub explosion, Jin Wanzhao's escape. Then the press malfunction, and Jin Wanzhao again, stopping the explosion in some bizarre way.
It was all too coincidental!
Coincidental like a pre-written script!
A terrifying thought arose in Butcher's mind.
"It's that bastard..." he growled through gritted teeth. "He must have deliberately sabotaged the machine, then put on an act of 'fixing' it to gain prestige!"
The more he thought, the more convinced he became.
"Want to be a hero? I'll make you a dead dog first!"
Butcher strode viciously to the console and pulled up the worker management system for the Smelting Zone. He found Jin Wanzhao's name, and jabbed his finger heavily on a hidden option next to it.
"Activate 'Inferior Product' monitoring protocol."
On the screen, a three-dimensional map of the Smelting Zone appeared. A tiny red dot materialized next to the ID number representing Jin Wanzhao, blinking ominously, radiating an ill omen.