I manufacture weapons in the Middle East and am wanted globally?

Chen Zheng dared not linger in the garbage street.

This place is a mixed bag. Two years ago, a Middle Eastern businessman bought a batch of used generators here. He paid the money, but before the goods were even loaded onto the truck, he was cornered in an alley with a knife to his neck. The money and goods were settled, and he was left with nothing.

He walked quickly, his footsteps treading on the sticky ground, the box of bullets tucked under his arm, the metal box digging painfully into his ribs.

When I got to the street corner, I saw several children squatting in the back of my Hilux, jumping up and down.

"Hey!" Chen Zheng shouted.

The children jumped out of the truck bed like frightened cats and ran away. The youngest one, who was slower, looked back at him with big, round eyes full of terror.

Chen Zheng tossed the box onto the passenger seat, started the engine, released the clutch, and the pickup truck chugged and sputtered as it turned onto the main road.

Less than two kilometers outside of the garbage street, the number of cars on the road increased.

One after another, pickup trucks arrived, with people sitting in the back. Some held banners, others held signs with something written in Arabic.

Chen slowed down and rolled down the car window halfway.

The heatwave and shouts rushed in together.

"The people want freedom!"

Down with corruption!

"Assad step down!"

The crowd walked along both sides of the road, including men, women, and children. Some people had flags painted on their faces, while others waved their phones as if taking photos or videos. A young man stood in the back of a pickup truck, holding a megaphone, his voice hoarse from shouting.

Chen Zheng rolled up the car window.

He stepped on the gas, and the pickup truck swerved around the edge of the crowd.

In the rearview mirror, the figures of those people grew smaller and smaller, but the slogans still buzzed in my ears.

He knew the situation was not good recently.

Since the events surrounding Mohammed Bouaziji in Tunisia last December, the so-called Arab Spring has swept across the entire Middle East!

Syria is no exception; protesters are everywhere.

It is now January 2011, and the situation in China is becoming increasingly difficult to control.

Hey…

Public opinion is always "the best weapon for killing!"

Chen Zheng gripped the steering wheel tighter.

Those four machine tools in the factory represent half a lifetime's worth of his father's hard work. If the situation really worsens, these things can't be taken away or hidden away.

"Syria is like a pressure cooker; the fire is always burning, and it's bound to explode sooner or later."

When I got back to the factory, the sun was already setting in the west, and the light shone in through the broken windows on the west side of the factory building, casting long shadows on the ground.

Chen Zheng took out his keys, opened the door, drove the pickup truck inside, got out, and closed the door.

The sound of machines running could be heard from inside the factory.

It's a regular buzzing sound.

He walked into the workshop and froze.

Gun barrels were neatly stacked on the ground.

One row, two rows, three rows...

Chen Zheng counted 48.

Two monster laborers trotted over, stopped in front of him, and looked up at him, waiting for him to speak.

As Chen Zheng looked at them, he suddenly remembered something—he hadn't named them yet.

"From now on, you'll be called Baldy." He pointed to the one with the rounder head.

Then, pointing to another one, he said, "Your name is Chiang Kai-shek."

"Goo?" The bald man tilted his head.

"Coo coo?" Chiang Kai-shek tilted his head as well.

"Yes, bald, Chiang Kai-shek," Chen Zheng repeated, "symbolizing the transportation captain's good wishes, hoping you'll work harder, produce more, and make more money for me."

The two laborers exchanged a glance, then nodded simultaneously: "Gurgle!"

Chen Zheng took out his phone, opened the app, and went to the drawing library.

He thought about it and realized he also needed to defend himself, so he needed to get a gun.

He typed "Stechkin APS" into the search bar.

He'd been eyeing this for a long time.

The Stechkin APS is a fully automatic pistol developed by the Soviet Union in the 50s. It is 9×18mm in caliber, can fire in single shot or burst mode, has a 20-round magazine, a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, and an effective range of 50 meters.

The most distinctive feature of this thing is its powerful firepower.

The submachine gun in the pistol.

The drawings loaded quickly.

The Stechkin APS has dozens of parts diagrams, covering everything from the slide, barrel, and receiver to the recoil spring, firing pin, and trigger assembly.

He handed the phone to Baldy and Chiang Kai-shek, explaining all the parameters, tolerances, and material requirements to them.

"The entire gun, all the parts," Chen Zheng said. "Can you make it?"

The two laborers huddled in front of the screen for a full five minutes.

The bald man flipped through the blueprints, his three short, stubby fingers swiping across the screen, occasionally making a "gurgling" sound, as if he were discussing something with Chiang Kai-shek.

Chiang Kai-shek responded with a "coo".

Finally, the bald man raised his head and nodded vigorously at Chen Zheng.

"Gurgle!"

Chiang Kai-shek has already begun to act.

It walked to the pile of steel and bent down to pick out the materials.

Stechkin APS sleeves require 40Cr steel, a high-strength alloy steel. The factory has a batch of them, which his father imported from Turkey last year. He originally planned to make a batch of high-strength agricultural machinery shafts, but he didn't get any work, so the material was left over.

The bald man walked to the tool cabinet, pulled out a bunch of cutting tools, milling cutters, drill bits, reamers, and broaches, and arranged them neatly on the table.

Two CNC lathes started simultaneously.

CAK5085 and SK40P, one precision-machined and the other rough-machined.

Kaishen clamped the selected material onto the chuck of the CAK5085 and quickly tapped the control panel a few times.

Chen Zheng had been working with CNC machines for many years and considered himself a skilled worker, but compared to these two, he was like a complete apprentice.

The spindle rotates, the cutting tool feeds, and metal chips fly everywhere.

The outer circumference of the slide, the main body of the gun, the shape of the trigger guard...

Each cut, steady and precise, is executed with textbook-perfect accuracy in terms of depth of cut, feed rate, and spindle speed.

Chen Zheng stood to the side and watched for a while, feeling like he was superfluous.

He suddenly had a strange feeling that these two things were not "laborers," but true craftsmen.

He was more skilled than any CNC operator he had ever met in the country.

The Haas VF-2 has started up.

The spindle rotates at high speed, the milling cutter cuts into the workpiece, the cutting fluid sprays out, and white smoke rises.

The bald man stood in front of the control panel, three fingers on the handwheel, his eyes fixed on the coordinate values ​​on the screen, adjusting them little by little.

The firing pin groove, shell extraction hook groove, and sight mounting groove inside the sleeve are milled out one cut at a time, with the positional accuracy controlled within 0.001 millimeters.

Chen Zheng picked up the micrometer and measured it; his fingers trembled slightly.

With this level of precision, it would be an inspection-free product for any mold factory in China.

He put down the micrometer and walked to the T2108 deep hole drilling machine.

This machine tool is now used specifically for making gun barrels, but the barrels of the Stechkin APS are different from those of the Makarov PM—the APS barrels are longer and the rifling twist rate is different.

Chiang Kai-shek walked over, removed the T2108's clamp, replaced it with another clamp, and the drill bit began to rotate, spraying out cutting fluid.

Deep hole drilling, drilling all the way to the bottom, all the way to... Sorry, I spoke too fast.

The phone rang.

Chen Zheng picked it up and saw it was his mother.

"mom."

There was static on the other end of the phone, the signal was bad, and his mother's voice carried a forced calm.

"Zheng, where are you?"

"At the factory, what's wrong?"

"Ah Zheng, I have something to tell you, don't be in a hurry."

Chen Zheng's heart skipped a beat.

He knows his mother too well; every time she says "Don't worry," it's because it's the most urgent matter.

"The doctor said your dad might have other problems as well."

"I had a CT scan this morning, and there's a shadow on my lung." His mother lowered her voice, as if she were outside the ward, afraid of being overheard. "The doctor said it might be lung cancer."

Chen Zheng dropped the cigarette in his hand.

The cigarette butt landed on his trousers, burning him slightly before he realized what had happened. He brushed the cigarette butt off and stood up.

"Has it been diagnosed?"

"The doctor said a biopsy was needed for a definitive diagnosis, but after looking at the scans, they said the shape of the shadow wasn't very good."

His mother's voice began to tremble, "Zheng, the doctor said that if it's in the early stages, it can still be treated, but it will cost a lot of money. He said to go to a big hospital in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, and prepare... prepare 100,000 US dollars."

One hundred thousand dollars.

Chen Zheng's mind went blank.

"Your dad told me not to tell you."

His mother continued, her voice growing softer, "He said the factory is having difficulties right now, and another worker had an accident. He can't add to your burden. He said he's too old for treatment, it doesn't matter whether he gets it or not..."

"Treat it, treat it no matter what!"

"But money—"

"I'll figure something out." Chen Zheng took a deep breath, picked up the cigarette pack, took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth without lighting it, and said, "I'll bring you the money tomorrow. Don't worry, take good care of my dad."

"Zheng, don't do anything foolish."

"Mom, I won't do anything foolish," Chen Zheng said. "Don't worry, I'm doing legitimate business. I have connections in Syria and know a lot of people. I just need to find some orders."

The signal was intermittent; I could hear his mother breathing, occasionally mixed with footsteps in the hospital corridor and Arabic broadcasts.

"Okay," his mother finally said, "Then be careful."

"Um."

The phone hangs up.

Chen Zheng threw his phone on the table, lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

The smoke choked his lungs, he coughed twice, and his eyes felt a little sore.

He cursed.

Hold.

That's life.

When things are going smoothly, everything is truly going well; when things are going badly, everything seems to pile up and crash down on you!

Some say life is like a rape, and if you can't resist, you just enjoy it. But damn it, life is gang rape!!!

The workers' compensation, the suppliers' outstanding payments, his father's medical expenses—

Every single transaction is money; every single transaction is a matter of life and death.

He took a deep breath, finished his cigarette, stood up, walked to the window, and looked down.

Inside the workshop, Baldy and Chiang Kai-shek were still working.

The Haas VF-2 was already shut down, and the bald man was assembling something on the workbench.

Chiang Kai-shek squatted in front of the DMG MORI DMU 60—that five-axis CNC machine from Germany, which had been covered by a plastic sheet and hadn't been used much. Now Chiang Kai-shek had lifted the plastic sheet and was powering on the machine.

He hurried downstairs.

Upon entering the workshop, one can immediately see the items displayed on the worktables.

A gun.

A complete gun.

Stechkin APS!

The slide, barrel, receiver, magazine, grip... all the parts are machined, but the surface has not yet been blued; it is the original silver-gray of the metal, which looks a bit rough. However, every angle and every line is as precise as a model exported from CAD.

The bald man stood in front of the worktable, holding the gun with three fingers, and handed it to Chen Zheng.

"Gurgle."

Chen Zheng took it.

It was heavy, heavier than he had expected.

He examined it over and over—the anti-slip texture on the slide, the curve of the trigger guard, the angle of the grip—every detail was exactly the same as the drawing.

He removed the magazine and glanced at it; it was empty.

Then he picked up the box of 9×18mm bullets he had gotten from Khalid from the table, opened it, took out a few bullets, and loaded them into the magazine one by one.

Click, click, click.

The magazine is full, 20 rounds.

He slammed the magazine into the grip, and with a click, the magazine snapped shut.

Then he pulled the sleeve.

The sound of metal rubbing together was crisp, smooth, and without any hesitation.

The slide returns to its original position, and the bullet is chambered.

Chen Zheng gripped the gun with both hands, pointing it at a wall in the corner of the factory, his index finger resting on the outside of the trigger guard.

He wanted to test the gun.

But I held back.

The gunshot was audible to everyone nearby. With the situation in Delaware so tense, the security forces were on high alert; within ten minutes of the gunshot, uniformed personnel would be knocking on doors.

Chen Zheng released the safety on the gun and then locked it again.

He ejected the magazine, removed the bullet from the chamber, and placed the gun and magazine separately on the table.

Then he checked the time.

One hour and sixteen minutes.

A Stechkin APS, a fully automatic pistol, consists of more than 20 parts, from raw material preparation to final assembly.

One hour and sixteen minutes!!

Chen Zheng recalled that when he was in China, he heard an old master craftsman from a military factory say that it took them one day to make a Type 54 pistol, from raw material to finished product.

If it still needs polishing and so on, and if the assembly line speeds up, it can take about two hours.

These two tools produced an APS in just over an hour.

There were no assembly lines, no specialized fixtures, and no heat treatment workshop—just a few machine tools and their claws.

Chen Zheng looked at the gun on the table, then at the bald man and Chiang Kai-shek squatting beside him, waiting for further instructions.

"You guys..." He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but didn't know what to say.

The bald man tilted his head and looked at him: "Goo?"

Chiang Kai-shek tilted his head and murmured, "Coo-coo?"

Chen Zheng took a deep breath, picked up the gun, and tucked it into his waistband.

"Make 10 more! Just follow this standard."

The bald man clucked and pointed to the materials area.

Chen Zheng was taken aback. "We're out of raw materials."

He frowned. "Then let's make the gun barrels first, all of them."

The bald man put his feet together and then gave a military salute.

……