Chapter 44 I'm Not Rushing You
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The moment Mo Xiaoxi went in, the door slammed shut behind her.
Cheng Shi was baffled. Why did he suddenly feel guilty?
It had been an entirely normal conversation, yet it made him look as though he had been having an affair.
From inside came Teacher Mo’s furious scolding. “I told you not to speak to that little hooligan. He’ll ruin your future.”
Mo Xiaoxi cried out in protest. “No! He isn’t that kind of person. You’re not allowed to talk about him like that!”
Teacher Mo snapped, “How shameless can you be? You’re throwing yourself away!”
By Cheng Shi’s principles, he should have calmly left. After all, the family was disciplining their own daughter, and it was none of his business.
But hearing how aggrieved Mo Xiaoxi sounded made him feel as though she had been dragged into this because of him. He could not bear it.
Besides, Teacher Mo’s words were far too vicious.
He drew a deep breath and stepped forward to knock on the door.
The room fell silent at once.
Teacher Mo asked, “Who is it?”
Cheng Shi replied coldly, “It’s me. Mo Xiaoxi is under my protection now. If you don’t want any more trouble, you’d better treat her a little more kindly.”
Teacher Mo did not dare respond.
Feeling that he had made his point, Cheng Shi turned and went downstairs. He dismantled the ball screw, then began cleaning it, taking measurements, and drawing diagrams.
It was a rather troublesome piece of work. The screw, nut, steel balls, preload spacers, return mechanism, and dustproof components were all precision parts.
Without the original technical drawings, measuring badly worn parts by hand resulted in far too much error.
He could only repeatedly cross-check the dimensions of each component against one another.
He handed all the work from the automobile factory over to Cheng Yongjin.
After all, Cheng Yongjin was a skilled worker from a machinery plant, and he was still in his prime, so he picked things up quickly.
He also learned to make connecting-rod journals in no time.
Now, he could not bear to let the machine tool stop for even a moment. It was as though failing to earn money was a sin.
He got up shortly after six every morning and hurried downstairs to work after wolfing down a few bites of lunch.
In truth, Cheng Shi had no use for the machine tool that evening. He was merely afraid Cheng Yongjin would work himself to exhaustion, so he went downstairs to call him up for dinner, then switched off the machine and locked the door.
That night, he heard the sounds of a fight downstairs. Everyone in the building was a retired employee, and there was hardly anything worth stealing. They had never had a thief before.
Cheng Shi realized that someone had come to steal the machine tool. He sprang up, grabbed a stick, and rushed downstairs. When he passed the sixth floor, he noticed that a door stood ajar, but he had no time to see who was behind it. He merely called out, “Keep the door shut. Don’t come out.”
Annoyed by how slowly the stairs were, he vaulted over the railing at the stairwell and landed on the fifth floor, then vaulted down several more times until he reached the first floor.
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A tall figure was grappling with several men beneath the moonlight.
Cheng Shi recognized him as Yu Dadong. The others had to be the thieves.
He charged over.
The moment the men saw him, they turned and ran.
Afraid Cheng Shi might misunderstand, Yu Dadong hurriedly called out, “It’s me! I came to help!”
“I know.” Cheng Shi ran closer and asked, “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
Yu Dadong said, “I noticed during the day that your machine tool was in the storage room. There’s no security here at all. I was worried someone might try to steal it...”
“You’ve been guarding it all night?”
“Yeah. Go back to sleep. I have nothing to do during the day anyway, so I can catch up on sleep.”
“You don’t need to keep watch. Even if they steal it, they won’t be able to use it.”
“You don’t understand. Some people steal things like this not because they want to use them, but simply because they want to make sure you can’t. Even if they took it apart and sold it as scrap metal, you wouldn’t be able to get it back, would you? You’d still be the one suffering the greatest loss.”
That was true enough...
Cheng Shi pursed his lips. “Then thank you for staying up all night. I’ll have an iron door made and installed tomorrow.”
It would not necessarily stop anyone, but if the thieves made enough noise dismantling the door, he would hear them and have time to come down and intervene.
He went upstairs, brought down a white canvas lounge chair, and handed it to Yu Dadong. “If you insist on keeping watch, lie down here and get some sleep.”
The passage to the storage room was narrow. With Yu Dadong’s build, no one could get past him without waking him, no matter where he lay.
Still, this was not a long-term solution.
Putting Yu Dadong through this every day would drain him.
Cheng Shi pondered the security problem as he walked back.
When he passed the sixth floor, Teacher Mo’s gloomy voice drifted through the door. “Comrade Cheng Shi, please move that machine tool out as soon as possible. Ever since you brought it back, we haven’t had a single peaceful day.”
Cheng Shi stopped.
He really had no way to argue with that.
After all, this was a residential building. He could not make an entire building live in fear for the sake of one person.
Especially a family like the Mos’, with only a widowed mother and her daughter and no man in the household. They were bound to be frightened by something like this.
Perhaps he should rent a shop outside and live there?
The house was rather cramped as it was.
With that thought, Cheng Shi continued upstairs.
Cheng Yongjin had also been awakened by the commotion. He stood at the doorway and asked, “Were there thieves?”
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Cheng Shi said, “It’s fine. Yu Dadong chased them off.”
“I’ll go downstairs and keep watch.”
Cheng Shi could not help laughing. “No need. He’s down there already.”
When Cheng Shi got up the next morning, he found Yu Dadong sleeping at the entrance to the storage room, snoring loudly.
He shook him awake and took him upstairs for breakfast.
With his hair sticking up like a bird’s nest and a bewildered look on his face, Yu Dadong followed Cheng Shi. When he reached the doorway and saw the steaming soy milk, fried dough sticks, white porridge, and pickles on the table, as well as Cheng Yongjin and his wife bustling in and out of the kitchen, he froze.
The day before, Cheng Yongjin and the others had still been somewhat wary and disdainful of Yu Dadong. That morning, however, they were much warmer toward him.
“Come, come, Comrade Yu Dadong, you’ve worked hard. Sit down and eat.”
“Right.” Yu Dadong answered, lowered his head, and came inside. He slurped down the porridge, then rose and bowed. “I’m full. Sorry to have troubled you. Thank you, Uncle and Auntie. I’ll be going.”
Then he turned and hurried away.
Cai Aiping pointed at his retreating back. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing,” Cheng Shi said. “He’s probably tired. Let him go home and get some rest.”
In truth, Cheng Shi had noticed the redness at the corners of Yu Dadong’s eyes, but he did not want to expose it.
Yu Dadong was an orphan.
The lively warmth of their family gathering may have reminded him of his own circumstances.
Everyone had their own hardships to overcome, and most of the time, they could only rely on themselves.
That day, Cheng Shi began processing the sealing component. After a busy day, he finally produced a part he was satisfied with.
Zhang Guohua had reached an agreement with Cheng Shi that until the numerical-control machine tool was repaired, Cheng Shi would supply him with a stable number and variety of parts every day.
So that day, Zhang Guohua came personally to collect the parts and paid him.
Cheng Shi rushed to the credit union before it closed, deposited the money, and returned home. By then, it was already after six.
From a distance, he saw Yu Dadong waiting downstairs.
“Hm? Why are you here again?”
Auntie Qian pretended to come outside to collect the laundry, though in truth she wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation.
Yu Dadong said, “I’m not here to rush you. I just wanted to ask whether there’s anything I can help with.”
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