Courtyard House: Starting as a mediocre engineer

As she left in the early morning, Mi Cuicui jogged to retrieve Zhuang Zhongchen's briefcase. While tidying the stinky man's clothes, she grumbled, "Don't always eat breakfast outside; it's unhygienic and a waste of money! Oh, and there's a hard-boiled egg in your bag!"

"Huh? Weren't the eggs a gift for you, so you could eat them on the road?"

"Tch! So what if I give you some extra nutrition? It'll teach your naughty thing to disobey. Hmph."

"No, Cui Cui, I'll give you one more chance to back out. Do I need extra nutrition?"

Mi Cuicui rolled her eyes, a smile that was both mocking and reproachful: "You men just don't cherish your own bodies. Without us women, you'd be useless in a few years."

"Huh? Who are you calling trash? You've got some nerve, girl!"

Mi Cuicui covered her mouth and giggled, "I'm ignoring you. I'm going to go take a nap with Xiaoxue. Hehehe!"

Amidst her silvery laughter, Mi Cuicui darted away like a little white rabbit...

To be honest, Zhuang Zhongchen's nutrition is indeed not lacking. But after spending so lavishly, he doesn't have many shopping coupons and skill points left. He currently only has 34 shopping coupons and 27 skill points.

I bought a jianbing guozi on the way. Back then, there were no eggs, ham sausages, fried dough sticks, lettuce, beef scallions, or Mexican chicken... okay! The last two were just KFC. Jianbing guozi at that time only had fried dough sticks, a scallion, and a few smears of soybean paste. All the customers were angry but dared not complain; none of them dared to ask the waiter for more soybean paste.

As expected, Zhuang Zhongchen wasn't full at all. Luckily, there was still a hard-boiled egg in his briefcase. He peeled the egg and ate it in two bites. That was enough to make do with a meal.

There's no way around it. It seems like I've entered a second growth spurt, and my body is getting stronger and stronger. If this continues, will I grow into... Pancake Man? Ugh!

After arriving at work, Zhuang Zhongchen spent the whole morning completing all the work that had been piling up recently.

During lunch, he heard another amusing story from a colleague—a vocational school was preparing for a professional skills level exam. Before the exam, the teachers collected and kept all the students' exam admission tickets. However, while counting the tickets, one accidentally fell into a kerosene can! All the admission tickets were bundled up like wrappers for fried dough sticks. They almost got disqualified.

Fortunately, I had some prior knowledge of vocational skills, and I was able to continue the exam without any major problems...

Due to insufficient electricity supply during this period, kerosene lamps were often used during power outages. Therefore, kerosene was a readily available necessity. Later, aside from fancy kerosene lighters, kerosene was probably rarely seen in everyday life.

Besides kerosene lamps, kerosene stoves also existed during this period. These stoves weren't large, but they were much more convenient than coal briquettes or coal cakes. Therefore, the widespread use of kerosene did indeed bring considerable safety hazards.

Here's a little tidbit: When Anglo-Dutch Oil Company was first established, it aimed to break Rockefeller's global monopoly. Their first market wasn't Europe, nor was it Britain or the Netherlands. It was the domestic coastal region. And so, an oil behemoth rose to prominence.

This demonstrates just how vast the domestic kerosene market was back then, and how important Haidu (the city of Shanghai) was. It held a pivotal position globally.

Even in 5202, many ordinary people in China, and in other parts of the world, still greatly underestimated Haidu. It's no city in the world that you can easily fool. Note—you can't stage an accident in any city!

The location is just too good. God must be begging to feed him a little more.

That's why Haidu is so damn hateful!

After lunch, Zhuang Zhongchen went to the production workshop again and found that the research and development was progressing rapidly, and everything was being done according to the research and development process.

Here, a certain overpowered time traveler played a huge role.

Logically speaking, no matter what, a three-wheeled vehicle is still a motor vehicle, and certain tests must be completed. For example: seismic tests, fatigue tests, road condition tests, etc.

However, Zhuang Zhongchen didn't need that at all. Before his transmigration, tens of millions of three-wheeled vehicles had already been used for his experiments. Hundreds of three-wheeled vehicle factories had also competed fiercely for him. That's why he chose such a mature structure. Although he couldn't produce any experimental data, as long as he copied it, there wouldn't be any problems.

This saves a lot of work. For example, the steel grade for the vehicle body beam. You don't need to understand it at all, nor do you need to conduct comparative experiments with several types of steel; just use the same type of steel.

As for the engine and transmission, who doesn't know that domestically produced parts are subpar? But it's already quite good if they're usable. It's just that the engine's lifespan was originally 10 years, but now it's only 3 to 5 years.

These days, projects aren't run with the same level of rigor; there are plenty of makeshift teams. As long as they can successfully produce a prototype, the general public won't care about the details.

To put it bluntly, as long as we can produce three-wheeled vehicles, we can supplement these experimental data later.

……

It was still early. After leaving, Zhuang Zhongchen went home first, picked up two pairs of prepared leather shoes, and went to the market in the area.

During the period of joint public-private ownership, many small vendors were merged into state-owned enterprises, becoming full-time employees of state-owned units. It should be said that these people were the luckiest.

However, some people were unwilling to participate in the public-private partnership, and many continued to operate independently, going from street to street. In the end, a blanket approach was taken, concentrating them in one market to provide convenient services to nearby residents.

Of course, full-time employment is out of the question; most people are in large collectives and receive a fixed salary from the local street office.

However, this market is still filled with small stalls. There are all sorts of services, from sewing and washing to pen repair, pot mending, and shoe repair.

That's absolutely right. Zhuang Zhongchen's real intention wasn't the wine; he simply wanted to get close to the disabled shoe repairman.

Just a few days ago, Zhuang Zhongchen had already inquired about the bald, burly man. Unexpectedly, it was easier than he'd imagined; the bald, burly man was quite famous in the area. It turned out he was none other than the notorious troublemaker, Tie Bao.

Actually, when Tie Bao first started out, his nickname was Tie Bao, which meant he was always covered in bumps from being beaten up. But later, he dared to fight and struggle on the streets, eventually rising to prominence and becoming the local tough guy, and changed his name to Tie Bao (Iron Leopard).

I never expected that the two tasks would come together like this, and Sister Cheng has become a key figure in it?

Since that's the case, we definitely need to find out more about the shoemaker. At the very least, we need to know the true nature of his relationship with Sister Cheng.

But when Zhuang Zhongchen arrived at the shoe repair stall, he couldn't help but be stunned. It was completely empty; the shoemaker was nowhere to be seen...