This hand-drawn blueprint is meticulously crafted and quite professional, showing considerate details for the maker.
Actually, Li Zhiyuan didn’t just learn how to draw plans; ever since he was little, such blueprints were all over his mother’s study, sprawled across the desk and the floor.
"I don’t know, it was given to me by Grandmaster, who said it was urgent and owed you a big favor."
Li Sanjiang’s favors carry quite a bit of weight in the village, especially with the elderly.
As people ultimately cannot escape their fate, any of them would eventually need to invite Li Sanjiang to arrange their funeral rites.
Li Zhiyuan didn’t feel he was misusing the Grandmaster’s favor; after all, those two had sought out the Grandmaster, and he was simply helping by rushing to produce these items.
"Okay, leave it to me, no problem, I’ll rush to get it done. There are materials at home, all ready. Just that, some parts on this blueprint need to be machined...
I’ll let my son take it to the factory and use the factory’s machine tools to help you with it."
"Thank you so much, how long do you think it will take?"
"Come fetch it tomorrow morning then; I’ll call over my two apprentices to help, so it’ll be done quickly."
"Thank you, I’ll come over tomorrow morning."
After thanking him, Li Zhiyuan ran back home and was about to go upstairs when Liu Yumei stopped him: "Xiao Yuan, call Alii down for breakfast, we can’t get through to her."
"It’s okay, we aren’t eating, we have snacks."
They worked while snacking, not delaying the progress.
Seeing Li Zhiyuan dash upstairs, Aunt Liu expressed her surprise: "Xiao Yuan has been so busy since early this morning, what’s going on?"
Sitting beside and eating porridge, Liu Yumei scoffed:
"Who knows, maybe he bumped into a ghost."
"Should we call Alii down?"
"That kid won’t speak, who can get Alii to come down to eat?"
"True." Aunt Liu had just tried calling her, but Alii didn’t respond, "I don’t know what Alii is up to in her room."
"What else? She’s working for that boy."
Back in the bedroom, Li Zhiyuan opened the snacks and placed them in front of himself and Alii, both continuing their task while eating.
Alii, who hardly speaks, and Li Zhiyuan, not minding conversations today, filled the room only with continuous pounding and tapping sounds.
Various materials, handled methodically by the boy and girl, were turned into precise small components.
They also skipped lunch, satiating any hunger with snacks.
By evening, all their tasks were nearly completed.
Li Zhiyuan slumped to the floor, while Alii looked over the results of their past two days’ work, seemingly not tired and somewhat reluctant to stop.
At that moment, Aunt Liu called from downstairs: "Xiao Yuan, it’s ready."
She didn’t call the Grandmaster for his medicine.
Li Zhiyuan walked out of the room, dizzy from a night without sleep, and had to lean on the wall while going downstairs.
Tomorrow morning, as long as he picked up the finished tools and combined them with the prepared materials for final assembly, the job would be completely done.
Today, just one last step, and then he could finally get a good sleep.
Downstairs, Li Sanjiang was watching TV with Run Sheng, and upon seeing Li Zhiyuan come down, Li Sanjiang asked:
"Little Yuanhou, what were you busying yourself with all day in the room, not even coming down for meals?"
"Grandmaster, last night at the dinner table..."
"Last night I drank too much and even had a dream where someone gave me a lot of money to do something illegal, but I refused.
Ah, I still feel pain over it, that dream was too real, almost made me think it wasn’t a dream, but good thing I asked Marquis Runsheng, who said when he came to pick me up last night, I was drinking alone."
At that moment, Li Zhiyuan suddenly felt empathy for Mr. Shan.
Li Zhiyuan went to fetch the medicine.
Li Sanjiang sniffed and asked: "Is this herbal medicine? What’s wrong, aren’t you feeling well?"
Li Zhiyuan took a sip from the edge of the bowl and said: "No, Aunt Liu made this brain-nourishing soup because she’s worried that I’m studying too hard."
"Oh, then drink more of it."
Li Zhiyuan carried the medicine back to his room, just set down the bowl when Xiao Hei, the little black dog, ran over and started "lapping" it up.
The taste of the medicine wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either; Li Zhiyuan originally planned to force it down.
Xiao Hei finished the medicine and then walked back to its cage unsteadily, seeming a bit overstuffed.
Li Zhiyuan took out a small syringe and approached the cage, beckoning with his hand.
Xiao Hei sat in the cage with its belly facing, one paw gripping the cage and the other paw reaching out through the bars to Li Zhiyuan.
This posture, Li Zhiyuan had seen before, it was like when he was a child and his parents took him to the zoo to see a panda undergoing a health check.
Li Zhiyuan took the dog’s paw, inserted the needle, drew a bit of blood.
Then he wiped it with a cotton ball.
Xiao Hei didn’t fuss at all, quietly waiting for Li Zhiyuan to finish, and once confirmed there was nothing else concerning itself, it lay back and started sleeping.
"How can you be so good..."
Li Zhiyuan felt that if Wei Zhengdao came back to life and saw such a sensible black dog, he would probably be envious to drool.
After adding the black dog blood proportionally into all the prepared components, the final step of the production process was quickly completed.
Just the final assembly left for the morning, that part is simple.
Alii walked up to Li Zhiyuan, reached out to pat his head, then pointed to the wooden bed in the room.
It used to be Li Zhiyuan who would coax her back to sleep .
Li Zhiyuan could no longer hold out, he’d wash up after waking – he lay on the bed, and although the mat was hard and cool, his whole body felt as comfortable as if sinking into cotton.
Before closing his eyes, Li Zhiyuan looked up at the ceiling and silently thought:
"The counterattack starts now..."