Volume One, Chapter 1: Refusing to Be a Deserter

The luggage roll thudded against the muddy ground with a dull sound. Du Yuze didn’t glance at the mud splattered on his trouser leg. He reached into the pocket of his military-green jacket and pulled out a pack of “Lotus” cigarettes, the box softened by sweat. He flicked one out and held it between his lips. Striking a match, the smoke curled upward.

His gaze settled on what lay before him: a massive iron gate stained with rust. The rust spread from the hinges to the keyhole, a reddish-brown hue resembling dried blood. On the gatepost hung a decayed, blackened wooden sign, the faded paint barely revealing the words: “207 Aviation Repair Workshop.”

Du Yuze extended his right hand and knocked thrice on the iron door, “Knock, knock, knock.” The sound was muffled, the echo brief. The steel plate was over twelve millimeters thick; the main structure remained sound. He moved to the hinge, plucked a flake of rust with his finger. The corrosion was flaky, not powdery. Though oxidized for over fifteen years, the core remained intact. Replace the hinge, blast the rust with a high-pressure water jet, then apply three coats of epoxy zinc-rich primer—this door could last another twenty years. The cost would be about three hundred yuan.

These thoughts flickered through his mind, a wry smile briefly crossing his lips. Two lifetimes, yet he could not shed this occupational habit. Who would have thought that this dilapidated place, even shunned by a beggar’s sect branch, was once the pride of the 303 Factory under the “Third Front” project?

The Republic’s first-generation jet fighter, the J-5, had been reborn in these fiery halls. In his previous life, he had been “banished” here from the overcrowded 303 Factory—an exile he had taken as a humiliating disgrace. Without looking back, armed with a transfer report, he plunged headlong into the southbound tide of commerce.

But the merciless seas of business left him betrayed and friendless, sick and bedridden. Only near death did he learn from old comrades that the transfer was not punishment—it was protection bought by a former leader risking his own future.

Fate had given him a second chance. When the identical transfer order reappeared, Du Yuze did not hesitate. He came—not to atone, but to reclaim all that was rightfully his.

A harsh creak sounded as the iron gate was pried open from inside, a gap forming. A head of graying hair peeked out.

“What do you want? We don’t take scrap metal here!”

The old man opening the door wore faded blue work clothes, his face lined with wrinkles but his eyes sharp as an eagle’s, brimming with guarded suspicion.

“Hello, sir. I’m Du Yuze, the newly assigned technician, reporting for duty today.” Du Yuze stubbed out his cigarette and slipped it into his pocket, his tone calm.

“Technician?” The old man’s cloudy eyes scanned him up and down, suspicion deepening into contempt and challenge. “Technician? Just a desk jockey?”

He snorted and lifted his chin. “Tell me, what model of ball bearing does the main spindle of the C620 lathe use?”

A show of force—a direct provocation from a seasoned veteran to an airborne soldier.

Du Yuze’s expression remained unmoved. “3182114K, double-row tapered roller bearing,” he answered mechanically, swiftly.

“But that’s the factory standard. Here, at over a thousand meters altitude, with fifteen percent lower humidity and fluctuating air pressure, the original grease emulsifies and fails under high-speed rotation, increasing wear by thirty percent. The best solution is to switch to high-temperature molybdenum disulfide lithium-based grease, or replace the bearing with the more complex needle roller type.”

The sneer froze on the old man’s face. He parted his lips, and for the first time, doubt and astonishment flickered in his keen eyes. This young man wasn’t like those gilded university grads he had seen before—this kid knew his trade.

“You are…”

“I’m Pang Qingquan, the gatekeeper here.” Pang pushed the gate wide open, his tone stiff but carrying an unspoken nuance.

“Come with me.” He grasped Du Yuze’s wrist with surprising strength; his palm was rough as sandpaper.

“Little Du, huh? Guess I misjudged you. But I must warn you, the 207 Workshop isn’t what you imagine.”

Pang led him through a courtyard where weeds towered higher than a man.

“The whole workshop? Including you, there are only three living souls.”

“Me, Old Li, and you.”

Du Yuze didn’t stop walking. He already knew this from his past life. What truly mattered was another matter.

“What about the equipment? Is the sealed machinery still here?”

“Equipment?” Pang’s steps slowed, his voice tinged with desolation.

“It’s all lying in the factory building, no different from heaps of scrap metal.”

He pushed open the heavy iron door of a vast workshop. The soaring dome, shattered glass windows, beams of slanting light drifting through swirling dust. The air was thick with the unique scent of aged machine oil and rusting metal.

In the center of the workshop, several massive machines lay covered under thick tarps, like dormant beasts.

“There, that’s all we have left.” Pang pointed to the machines. “Back then, the J-5 took flight from here. Those days, this place was blazing with light and the roar of machines never ceased for days on end!”

“What happened afterwards?” Du Yuze asked softly.

“Afterwards?” The old man sighed, pulling a traditional pipe from his pocket and stuffing it with tobacco. “The key technicians were all reassigned to the newly established institute above. No new projects came to this remote spot. Bit by bit, the people dwindled, the work dried up, and this place became what it is now.”

He lit his pipe and took two puffs, the murky smoke intertwining with the wrinkles on his face.

“Little Du, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Pang turned to look at him, his expression complex. “This place won’t last long. The factory’s already issued notice—by the end of the year, the 207 Workshop will be completely shut down.”

Boom—Du Yuze felt as if something exploded in his head, a buzzing roar filling his thoughts.

Shut down? By the end of the year?

He had struggled, resolved to risk everything to come back here—not for nostalgia, nor to bid farewell to a dying workshop!

He came to put down roots, to use his own hands to awaken this silent land with the thunderous roar of machines once more! He came to prove to that old leader, to all who had underestimated him, that Du Yuze was no failure who only thrived in easy times!

Yet reality slapped him hard.

A soon-to-be-erased unit, a hollow shell of three people, a sinking wreck struggling just to survive.

Redeeming himself? How? By standing guard here for six months, then waiting to be laid off?

A vast sense of absurdity and powerlessness seized him, surpassing even the despair of bankruptcy in his past life. The “Lotus” cigarettes in his pack seemed to mock him, reminding him of the joke about purity emerging unstained from the mud.

Pang saw his face turn pale and mistook it for fear, offering some comfort: “Don’t take it too hard. The factory will make arrangements—at worst, you’ll be transferred somewhere else. Anyway… it’s only six months. Just hang in there.”

“Hang in there?”

That phrase did not exist in Du Yuze’s life dictionary.

He slowly raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the broken, empty workshop again. His eyes finally rested on the largest machine buried deepest within, covered most thoroughly by the tarp. Even beneath the thick canvas, he could feel the grandeur and pride of the steel eagle concealed beneath.

It had once been the pride of the Republic.

And he, Du Yuze, had once been a prideful son of the skies.

Having escaped once, he would not flee a second time.

A fierce fire flared suddenly from the depths of his heart, racing through his limbs and bones.

Shut down?

I haven’t agreed to that. Who dares to shut it down!

Du Yuze’s eyes changed—a desperate wolf baring its fangs in the dark. He looked at Pang and asked deliberately, word by word:

“Uncle Pang, who holds the keys to the workshop now?”