I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

The night wind of the Gobi Desert seeped in through the cracks in the wooden walls, carrying fine sand that hit the glass shade of the kerosene lamp, smothering the flame to the size of a soybean, as if it might go out at any moment.

Chen Zhiyuan unfolded the confidential telegram drawing, fixed it to the wooden wall with four thumbtacks, and then stepped back half a step to make sure that no creases were obscuring the key dimensions.

The drawing was in Jiang Ming's handwriting, with strong lines and dense annotations. Each solder joint was numbered with a circle, and the corresponding component parameters were written next to it.

In the blank space at the bottom right, Jiang Ming copied down another set of conversion formulas: pulse width 0.3 seconds, coaxial cable propagation speed is 66% of the speed of light, corresponding delay length is equal to time multiplied by speed, and the difference in length between the main line and the secondary line is the amount of phase delay required to cancel it out.

The final figure is enclosed in double lines: the length difference is 2.74 meters.

Lu Qinghe stood behind him and looked at the formula without asking any questions.

She turned and walked to the corner of the wooden house, squatted down to examine the two rolls of Soviet-made coaxial cable that Lao Zhou had brought.

The military green rubber sheath gleamed with a dull luster under the kerosene lamp. These two rolls of spare cable had been stored in the base warehouse for more than two years. Some of the outer rubber had hardened, and when you pinched it with your fingernail, it no longer bounced back, leaving only a white mark.

She took a flashlight out of her toolbox, turned it on, and began to shine it inch by inch from the end of the cable, sliding her fingertips along the outer sheath while checking it with both touch and sight.

There are no problems with Volume 1.

When she checked the middle section of the second volume, her finger stopped on a dent.

When the flashlight beam shone on it, an irregular gap was seen in the rubber outer layer, revealing a copper woven shielding mesh through the tear. The uneven cross-section was a mark left by rat teeth.

"There's a two-centimeter gap in the insulation here." Lu Qinghe's voice was calm, as if he were reporting a technical parameter rather than a troublesome matter.

Chen Zhiyuan walked over and glanced at it, his brows twitched, and he squatted down to carefully shine a flashlight into the depths of the breach.

The copper braided mesh was intact, and the inner conductor was also intact. Only a section of the insulation layer was missing, and the exposed copper wires had turned slightly green.

"Should we switch sections?" Old Zhou asked from the doorway, a chill seeping in with his words.

Chen Zhiyuan shook his head: "There are only two rolls of spare cable in total. The first roll is for cutting the main cable, and the second roll is for cutting the auxiliary cable. There are no extras."

Lu Qinghe has already made her move.

She pulled out half a white candle from the corner of the wooden house; it was a spare candle used during power outages, and it was only three fingers long.

She shaved off the wax shavings with a blade and piled them in a tin ashtray. Then she struck a match and lit a piece of scrap paper at the bottom of the ashtray, waiting for the wax shavings to slowly melt into a transparent liquid.

Then she used the tip of her knife to pick up the melted wax and carefully filled the gap in the tear. When the wax had slightly solidified but was still warm, she tore off a piece of old cotton cloth and wrapped it around the wound, pinching it tightly.

"I can hold on." She spoke without looking up, her hands already finished.

Chen Zhiyuan did not evaluate the long-term reliability of this repair plan because they simply did not have a long-term option.

The enemy wouldn't wait for them to find a perfectly intact roll of cable.

Old Zhou brought back the scrapped Soviet-made Model 250 shortwave transceiver from the communications equipment warehouse. Most of the paint on the casing had peeled off, revealing the original aluminum alloy underneath.

Chen Zhiyuan used a Phillips screwdriver to remove the back cover. The internal components of the machine were neatly arranged. Although it was already scrapped, the Soviet military equipment was solidly made, and most of the solder joints were still shiny.

He needs four air-adjustable capacitors.

The drawings clearly indicate that two connectors are attached to the T-shaped connectors at the end of the main line, and two connectors are attached to the end of the secondary line for fine-tuning phase matching.

The first capacitor was removed from the base plate without any problems; the screws weren't rusted.

The second one took some effort; there was a layer of yellowed insulating paper sandwiched between the base fixing plate and the casing. Only after tearing it off could the screws be tightened.

When removing the third one, Chen Zhiyuan's flashlight swept across the inside of the casing and saw a palm-sized paper label stuck to the aluminum plate, with curled and yellowed edges.

The paper label was in Russian handwriting in blue ink. The handwriting was messy but still legible: Quality Inspection, followed by a line of smaller print: "Defective Product," and below that, "Anodized layer peeled off."

In other words, this machine was a defective product when it was inspected at the Soviet factory, and it is unknown how it ended up in the spare parts inventory.

Chen Zhiyuan glanced at it but didn't think much of it.

Even if it's substandard, as long as the moving and fixed contacts of the capacitor are not deformed and it can be adjusted, it's fine.

He took all four capacitors out and put them in a covered tin biscuit box to keep them from getting dusty, and placed a wad of scrap cotton yarn next to them to prevent them from being bumped or knocked.

Cutting the cables is the most crucial step in the entire assembly process that cannot afford to go wrong.

Chen Zhiyuan took out a steel ruler from the toolbox and measured it himself first.

The main line is 7.42 meters long, and the secondary line is 4.68 meters long.

He handed the ruler to Lao Zhou: "Measure it again."

Old Zhou took it, starting from the copper core cross-section at the cable head, and measured along the outer sheath to the marked position with a measuring tape, announcing the number: "Seven meters and forty-two, correct."

Chen Zhiyuan measured the second line a third time himself.

"Four meters and sixty-eight," he read aloud, his voice condensing into white mist in the cold air.

A white paint pen drew a circular line at the marked location. Old Zhou held the fixed end of the cable, and Chen Zhiyuan picked up the cable cutters borrowed from the communications equipment warehouse. They aligned the blades with the white paint line and pressed down together.

A snap.

The sound of the copper core breaking was particularly crisp in the wooden house.

After the main thread was cut, it was coiled into a circle with a diameter of about half a meter and tied with three thin iron wires.

The secondary wires are treated in the same way, with two coils placed side by side on the wooden frame, leaving a space for soldering in the middle.

Welding is the most grueling part.

The temperature of minus eighteen degrees Celsius made the solder wire as hard as iron wire. Old Zhou's soldering iron was not powerful enough, and when the soldering iron tip touched it, the solder simply wouldn't flow.

Chen Zhiyuan struck a match, heated the tip of the solder wire until it was slightly shiny, then attached it to the soldering iron tip while it was still hot, and quickly placed it at the junction of the copper core and the capacitor lead.

The action must be completed within three seconds, otherwise the solder will solidify and you'll have to start over.

Lu Qinghe squatted down beside him, holding a flashlight to illuminate the soldering point, while using his other hand to help hold the capacitor pin at the angle of the bend.

Her fingers were frozen purple and her knuckles were stiff, but the beam of light remained firmly on the welding position without any movement.

The four capacitors were soldered one by one. After each one was soldered, Lu Qinghe used a multimeter to test its continuity and insulation resistance. Only after confirming that the solder joint was qualified could he move on to the next one.

An accident occurred while soldering the third capacitor; solder beads from the soldering iron tip splattered onto the back of Chen Zhiyuan's hand. He hissed, but did not pull his hand away.

Because his other hand was pressing down on the end of the cable to prevent it from snapping open.

He shook his hand after the solder joint had cooled down.

A red dot appeared, but he ignored it.

At 2 a.m., the last joint was welded.

The physical form of the delay line is presented on the wooden table: two coiled coaxial cables are fixed to the wooden frame, four adjustable capacitors are distributed at the T-shaped connectors at both ends, and the output ends are connected to a modified mixer input port through a short jumper.

The mixer was salvaged from another piece of scrapped equipment, and Lao Zhou spent an hour cleaning the rust and dust inside.

Chen Zhiyuan checked each node against the drawings to confirm that the route topology was completely consistent with Jiang Ming's drawing.

Lu Qinghe straightened up, rubbed her frozen hands, and looked at the device on the table.

"We need to calibrate it again tomorrow during the day," she said. "The blueprints say to adjust the capacitor to minimize residual interference at the output. We have to adjust it in real time when the enemy station sends a message."

Chen Zhiyuan nodded, put the remaining cable scraps and tools back into the box, and wrote down the current progress, the list of consumed materials, and the tasks to be done in the logbook.

It was pitch black outside the window; even the starlight was obscured by the sand and dust, and there was no sign of dawn in the east.

He closed his notebook and prepared to lean back in his chair and doze off for twenty minutes.

Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the wooden house, and the sand creaked rapidly underfoot.

The door was pushed open, and the night wind, carrying sand, rushed in, causing the kerosene lamp flame to flicker violently.

The communications team's duty officer stood at the door, his face red from the cold, his breath swirling in the flashlight beam.

He was clutching a newly copied telegram in his hand, the corner of which still had pencil dust from the radio station's duty room.

"An intelligence report forwarded by the First Ministry of Machine Building in Beijing." The duty officer handed the paper to Chen Zhiyuan, his voice broken by the wind. "In the past six hours, the 'three short, one long, three short' message has appeared twelve times."

Chen Zhiyuan took the paper, glanced at it, and his fingers suddenly tightened.

Twelve times.

The total number of times in the previous 24 hours was only four.