Volume One, Chapter Two: Starting Off with a J-5 Fighter, the System Demands You to Modify It!
Pang Qingquan’s murky pupils reflected Du Yuze’s young face, unnervingly calm for one so young.
He was silent for a long moment, as if weighing some unseen threat.
“The keys...” he spat out the words through clenched teeth.
“They’re with me. Old Li has a set too.”
A newly arrived technician asking for workshop keys before even inquiring about the dormitory or cafeteria—it broke all protocol.
“Come with me.”
Pang Qingquan stubbed out his tobacco pipe, tapping it against his shoe before turning and disappearing into the dark depths of the factory.
His hunched figure seemed crushed beneath the vast emptiness of the workshop.
Du Yuze followed, his footsteps stirring dust on the concrete floor—a trail marking his claim.
They passed rows of dormant machine tools.
The C620 lathe.
The X62W universal milling machine.
The Z35 radial drilling machine.
These steel giants now stood as cold tombstones.
At last, Pang Qingquan halted at the deepest part of the factory.
There stood a massive form, shrouded beneath a huge canvas tarp.
“There. That’s it.”
Pang Qingquan’s calloused hand patted the tarp, sending dust swirling in the beam of light.
“Used to be a treasure. Now, just a pile of space-consuming scrap.”
His tone held no nostalgia, only numb mockery.
“They planned to convert it into a trainer. The project was halfway done, then the boss got transferred, funding cut off. Once the person leaves, the tea grows cold.”
He spat disdainfully.
“All that’s left is this iron lump, waiting for the scrapyard.”
Du Yuze’s gaze pierced through the filthy tarp.
The J-5.
The first generation guardian of the Republic’s skies.
Ignoring Pang Qingquan’s rambling, Du Yuze stepped forward.
His hand traced the cold fuselage—not as a curious visitor, but as a forensic examiner.
His fingertips glided from the pitot tube on the nose, along the air intake lip, then to the wing root.
In his previous life, it was precisely his doubts about this retrofit project’s data that branded him an outcast.
He knew this aircraft inside and out.
Constrained by its era, its high-altitude speed, avionics, and all-weather capabilities had long since fallen behind the rest of the world.
But it should not have been left to rot here.
His palm finally pressed against an unremarkable maintenance hatch beneath the left wing.
The moment his fingertips touched the cold, rough rivets—
A sudden, icy mechanical synthetic voice, utterly alien to this time, exploded in his mind without warning.
[Host detected contacting core industrial artifact: J-5 fighter aircraft.]
[Knowledge database and target module compatibility: 78%.]
[Activation conditions met...]
[Military Industrial Technology Assistance System initializing...]
Du Yuze’s body stiffened abruptly.
A torrent of data surged through his brain like a bursting dam—structural diagrams, material stress analyses, pipeline layouts, metal fatigue curves...
His vision darkened, and he staggered back half a step, steadying himself against a cold milling machine.
“What’s wrong, Young Du?”
Pang Qingquan smirked at his pale face.
“Cowed by the stench of this heap of scrap?”
Du Yuze lifted his head; everything before his eyes transformed into data—lines, angles, materials—rendered with crystal clarity.
He forced down the roaring in his mind and locked his gaze on Pang Qingquan.
“Old Man Pang, this project didn’t stop because of funding.”
His voice was low but sharp as a knife, slicing through the factory’s dead silence.
Pang Qingquan’s sneer froze.
“What did you say?”
“I ask you,” Du Yuze stepped closer, his presence rising like a storm, “wasn’t the heat treatment on the main wing spar done by a master named Wang Changxi?”
Pang Qingquan’s pupils constricted abruptly.
“How do you know that?!”
That name was a state secret back then.
“Because he botched the quenching temperature,” Du Yuze’s voice turned ice-cold steel, “causing fatal microscopic cracks inside the left main spar. If this plane ever flew, midair disintegration was its only fate.”
“The project didn’t die from lack of money. It died from a major technical disaster that can never be fixed.”
“That’s the real reason it’s been left here to rot all these years. Isn’t it?”
Each word struck Pang Qingquan’s heart like a sledgehammer.
His mouth hung open, a strangled sound escaping his throat. For the first time, his hawk-like eyes were filled with shock and terror.
The young man before him was no mere technician.
He was a devil.
Du Yuze no longer looked at him. He simply extended his hand.
“Keys.”
No honorifics, no courtesy.
A command.
Pang Qingquan seemed to have all strength drained from him, his body swaying.
He stared hard at Du Yuze for a full half minute before tremblingly undoing the keyring from his waist.
Without searching further, he shoved the entire bunch into Du Yuze’s palm.
Clang.
The metallic clatter rang out crisply, like a verdict.
Pang Qingquan turned away without a word, dragging his heavy footsteps toward the exit.
This time, his silhouette was one of defeat.
Only when the heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off the last light, did Du Yuze whirl around and rush back to the war eagle.
“System!” he roared inwardly.
“Scan target! Generate optimal retrofit scheme!”
[Command received.]
[Target: J-5 fighter aircraft (critical defect).]
[Airframe integrity: 91% (main spar with fatal damage).]
[Engine status: well preserved in storage.]
[Overall evaluation: an unflightworthy steel coffin.]
Du Yuze’s lips split into a wild grin at the phrase “steel coffin.”
“Generate ‘Airborne Li Kui’ radical modification plan!”
It was the scheme he had conceived in his previous life—a plan so mad even experts had condemned it as lunacy.
[Plan locked.]
[Warning: this scheme will break through current mainstream technology barriers of 1985. Extremely high risk.]
[Plan generation requires the following resources:]
A cold blue light screen unfurled before his eyes.
[Startup funds: 500,000 RMB.]
[Core personnel: one senior avionics engineer, one senior materials engineer, two level-eight fitters, two level-eight turners.]
[Core materials: three tons of 45-chromium-molybdenum-vanadium aerospace steel, 500 kilograms of high-temperature titanium alloy, carbon fiber prepregs...]
[Equipment requirements: one five-axis CNC machine, one ultra-high precision laser welding machine...]
A long list, each item sounding like a fairy tale in 1985.
The threat of shutdown had not vanished.
It had merely transformed from an empty notice into towering, invisible mountains capable of crushing any soul.
Du Yuze shut down the interface.
He reached out, once again caressing the cold airframe as if soothing a sleeping beast.
Very good.
He thought.
Now, we have a shopping list.