Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

The back gate of the steel rolling mill connects to a waste disposal site.

This place is piled with scrap iron, coal ash, and waste paper and garbage cleaned up from various departments.

When the winter wind blows, dirty plastic bags and pieces of paper fly everywhere, and the air is filled with a strange smell of sourness and engine oil.

Normally, only old men who collect scraps come here.

But today, there were two more furtive figures here.

Liu Haizhong, wearing a thick cotton-padded coat and holding an iron hook, was bending over and rummaging through a pile of waste paper.

His chubby face was red from the cold wind, but his eyes were frighteningly bright, as if he were digging for gold.

Xu Damao stood guard to the side, stamping his foot and complaining, "Second Uncle, are you sure there's anything here? Su Zheng is a shrewd fellow; would he leave something important here?"

"You don't understand."

Without looking up, Liu Haizhong flipped his hair back and forth rapidly. "The more shrewd a person is, the easier it is for them to slip up in small ways. That's called... being blind to what's right under your nose!"

He wasn't actually sure either.

But he was too eager to become an official.

The promise of the "deputy director of the workshop" made by Deputy Factory Director Li was like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, filling him with boundless enthusiasm.

Let alone rummaging through garbage, even if he were asked to clean a latrine, he would dare to jump in as long as he could find evidence to bring down Su Zheng.

"What kind of junk is this...?"

Liu Haizhong pulled out a pile of newspapers and cafeteria wrappers, and tossed them aside in frustration.

Suddenly, his hook caught a crumpled ball of paper.

The crumpled paper wasn't large, but it was of good quality, like drawing paper.

Liu Haizhong hooked the crumpled paper over, picked it up, and unfolded it.

There were some strange lines and symbols drawn on it.

It looks like a circuit diagram, but it doesn't. The lines are extremely complex and dense, with some letters and numbers that are completely incomprehensible in the bangs next to it.

"Da Mao! Da Mao, come quick!"

"What is this?" Liu Haizhong shouted excitedly, his voice trembling.

Xu Damao leaned over for a look and was equally bewildered: "This...is this some kind of scribbling?"

"What kind of scribbling is this! It's a code!"

Liu Haizhong said confidently, "Look at these lines, it looks like... the wiring of a telegraph machine! And these foreign characters, it must be a code!"

Actually, this was a draft that Su Zheng had discarded.

That was a radar signal processing circuit he sketched casually when designing the "individual life detector." Because he miscalculated the parameters, he crumpled it up and threw it away.

The "foreign language" above refers to the codes for electronic components and some mathematical formulas.

But in the eyes of people like Liu Haizhong and Xu Damao, who are not well-educated but whose minds are full of "class struggle," this is irrefutable evidence.

Don't understand? That's perfectly fine!

If you can understand it, is it still a spy code?

"Second Uncle, you're truly amazing!"

Xu Damao slapped his thigh. "This must be Su Zheng's codebook for communicating with enemy agents! Or it's a sketchbook he used to steal state secrets! Think about it, why would a fitter draw something like this? Something's definitely fishy!"

"That's right!"

Liu Haizhong's hands were trembling as he stuffed the dirty piece of paper into his pocket as if it were a priceless treasure. "This is a bombshell! With this, let's see how arrogant he can be now!"

"The next day is the factory-wide meeting. We'll hand it over in front of all the employees! That will be the day Su Zheng dies!"

"right!"

......

The two were so excited that they didn't notice a pair of eyes staring coldly at them from a corner not far away.

It's Zhao Ming.

Zhao Ming is Su Zheng's apprentice and now also an unofficial informant for the security department. Su Zheng had already instructed him to keep an eye on Liu Haizhong and Xu Damao's movements.

Seeing this, Zhao Ming's heart tightened.

Although he didn't know what it was, he knew that his master was working on a classified project recently.

If those two scoundrels use this to make a mess of things, Master will definitely be in trouble.

Zhao Ming quietly slipped away and ran towards the laboratory.

In the laboratory.

Su Zheng was debugging a new piece of equipment when he saw Zhao Ming running in, panting. He calmly asked, "What's wrong? Why are you running so fast?"

"Master! Something terrible has happened!"

Zhao Ming, panting, said, "Liu Haizhong and Xu Damao... they picked up your discarded manuscripts from the garbage dump! They even said... that it was a password! They said they were going to take it to sue you!"

Su Zheng paused for a moment.

He turned around, looked at his anxious apprentice, and suddenly smiled.

There was not a trace of panic in that smile; instead, it conveyed a playful sense of "finally, it's here."

"A rejected draft?"

Su Zheng thought for a moment, "Is it the radar circuit diagram we threw away yesterday?"

"It must be! I think they hid it away like a treasure!"

Zhao Ming said urgently, "Master, let's hurry and go get it back! Or we can tell the security department..."

"No need to fight over it."

Su Zheng waved his hand and picked up a rag from the side to wipe his hands.

"Those were drafts of classified projects; although they were discarded, they still fell within the scope of confidentiality."

Su Zheng's voice was soft, yet cold. "According to the confidentiality regulations, what crime is committed by privately picking up, concealing, or disseminating classified documents?"

Zhao Ming was stunned for a moment, then his eyes widened: "Stealing state secrets?!"

"right."

Su Zheng walked to the window and looked at the gloomy sky outside.

"They thought those were shells aimed at me."

"Actually, that was the grave they dug for themselves."

Su Zheng turned to Zhao Ming and said, "Go to the security department and find Section Chief Wang. Tell him... someone is collecting my experimental waste, which may involve leaks of classified information. Tell him to be prepared, but not to take any action yet."

"Why aren't they arresting them?"

"If you arrest them too early, that would be criticism and education."

A cold glint flashed in Su Zheng's eyes. "We have to wait for them to jump out, wait for them to take this out in public and 'expose' me..."

"If we arrest them then, they will be considered enemy agents sabotaging us, or current counter-revolutionaries."

Zhao Ming shivered.

Looking at his master's young yet unfathomable face, he understood for the first time what it meant to "kill without shedding blood."

Liu Haizhong and Xu Damao thought they had found a treasure, but little did they know that they had found a death warrant.

"Go."

Su Zheng waved his hand, "Tell Section Chief Wang that there will be a good show at the conference the day after tomorrow."

"Yes!" Zhao Ming saluted, turned and ran.

Su Zheng sat back down at his worktable.

He picked up a pen and drew a line on a new sheet of paper.

The wind has picked up.

Since someone wants to take advantage of the wind to blow him down, he doesn't mind using this strong wind to sweep all the obstacles in his way into the dustbin of history.

"Liu Haizhong, Xu Damao."

Su Zheng murmured the two names.

"Since you want to rise to the top, then I'll provide you with a platform."

"It's just that this platform is a bit high; if you fall down... you could die."

At this moment.

In the courtyard house.

Liu Haizhong and Xu Damao were hiding inside the house, drawing circles on that piece of scrap paper with a red pen.

"Look here! Look here!" Liu Haizhong pointed to an integral symbol. "This must be the character for 'kill'!"

"Yes, yes, yes! And this too!" Xu Damao pointed to a resistor symbol. "Doesn't this look like a bomb?"

The more they looked at each other, the more alike they became, and the more excited they got.

They were already fantasizing about presenting this "ironclad evidence" at tomorrow's factory-wide meeting, trampling Su Zheng underfoot, and then receiving cheers from all the factory workers.

Yan Bugui eavesdropped outside the window for a while, then shook his head and left.

"What a mess..." Yan Bugui muttered to himself, "These two idiots are probably going to get themselves into trouble."

But he didn't dare to warn him.

In this courtyard house, watching others suffer misfortune can sometimes be a form of survival wisdom.

Late at night.

A trial targeting Su Zheng is brewing.

A counterattack against them has already been launched, and a large net has been cast.