Han Li's Actions Have Nothing to Do With Me, Fang Bai

At ten in the morning, Fang Bai arrived at Hengli Company by rickshaw once again and swaggered through the company gates.

On the way, he ran into an employee from the Human Resources Department, who greeted him politely: "Fang Bai, you're here."

"Yeah, I need to see Manager Wang. Is he in the office?"

"He is, probably in his office right now."

"Alright, thanks."

Fang Bai smiled and replied courteously.

When others treated him with respect, he returned it—even if that respect was only skin-deep.

If someone was rude to him, he wouldn't go out of his way to kiss up to them.

He reached the General Manager's office on the second floor. The door was open, and Fang Bai spotted Wang Hengli sitting on a solid wood sofa, drinking tea with a gloomy expression.

Wang Hengli's office was about thirty square meters, furnished entirely with solid wood. On the desk sat only a telephone—no computer, no printer. In the corner stood a wooden magazine rack stocked with various newspapers and periodicals.

In Fang Bai's eyes, the decor of this era was hardly stylish, but to most people, it counted as a luxurious office.

Hearing footsteps outside, Wang Hengli looked up. Seeing it was Fang Bai, he gave a bitter smile. "Brother Fang, you've really landed me in trouble."

"Not at all. You seem fine to me, Manager Wang."

Fang Bai stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Noticing a few red scratch marks on Wang Hengli's face, he furrowed his brow and asked knowingly, "Oh, Manager Wang, what happened to your face?"

"Took a fall, wasn't paying attention."

Wang Hengli was at a loss for words. He didn't believe this sly kid didn't know the truth—he was just messing with him.

Still, he appreciated a young man who spoke bluntly; they got along well.

Fang Bai first shook hands with Wang Hengli, activating the Ring Finger function of his Golden Finger to lock onto the man's information, then sat down on the sofa across from him.

The events of the past twenty-four hours for Wang Hengli flashed through Fang Bai's mind: giving his wife flowers, then, after the fun, confessing that his mistress had set him up; his wife furiously demanding every detail about Zhang Qian, including her address; her scratching his face in a heartbroken rage while Wang Hengli, not daring to fight back, just covered his head and begged for mercy...

Watching this, Fang Bai couldn't help but curl his lips into a smile, silently cheering: Serves him right!

Wang Hengli, thinking Fang Bai was just overly enthusiastic about handshakes, pulled out a Hongtashan cigarette and offered it to him.

When asking for a favor, cigarettes build bridges, alcohol paves the road, and tea clears the path—get the connections right, and everything falls into place.

Fang Bai declined, saying he couldn't smoke recently due to surgery, to avoid damaging his blood vessels.

"Oh, I see. I didn't know that."

"No worries, most people don't."

He rarely smoked and avoided it when possible, only lighting up for social obligations.

Even when pressured, he didn't inhale—just smoked for show, which reduced the harm.

"Brother Fang, how's the investigation going?" Wang Hengli shifted the topic, not wanting to dwell on his wife's outburst.

His wife had said she wouldn't pursue the mistress issue anymore, which was a satisfactory outcome for him.

Fang Bai shook his head and sighed. "Ah, unfortunately, Zhang Qian ran off that very night!

Damn it, looks like she sensed something was off. Maybe someone tipped her off. I couldn't find the pretty boy either. Now there's nowhere left to look.

When I checked again this morning, I saw a few thugs smashing doors with clubs, looking for someone—and they didn't find her either.

Manager Wang, you didn't send anyone to go after her, did you?

That might have scared her off and made her wise up."

The one who tipped off Zhang Qian wasn't Fang Bai, but Han Li—so it had nothing to do with him.

Hearing this, Wang Hengli became even more convinced that Zhang Qian had been keeping a pretty boy behind his back.

Why else would she flee that very night instead of defending herself?

At the same time, he silently cursed his own wife for stirring up trouble. If this wasn't handled well, revenge could be a real problem—and he hated getting involved with thugs.

"I didn't send anyone after her."

Wang Hengli didn't want to dwell on the topic—it was obvious his wife had sent the thugs. He changed the subject. "By the way, I have to thank you for the heads-up, Brother Fang. That bastard Luo Xiang really was a snake in the grass. Last night, in the dead of night, he tried to steal from the warehouse and sell the goods. Lucky I had people staking the place out.

I have to say, you're practically clairvoyant."

"Good to nip the problem in the bud. Did you send him to the police station?"

"I called the cops this morning and had him taken in. I've lost no small amount of property over the past two years. By sentencing standards, that Bastard's looking at at least ten years in prison." Wang Hengli slammed the tea table in anger, his tone bitter.

"Good. The longer he's locked up, the better—keeps him from biting back when he gets out." Fang Bai's tone hardened, clapping in approval, putting on a show of shared outrage.

For him, it was a good thing too—finally settling a score.

Luo Xiang getting caught wasn't really Fang Bai's fault. The man had dirty hands to begin with.

Just like Fang Bai disliked Wang Hengli, he wouldn't break the law—he'd use other means to profit.

For now, Wang Hengli was still very useful to Fang Bai. He wanted to fleece him for all he was worth.

Strip the wool, then eat the mutton—that was Fang Bai's real goal.

Fang Bai and Wang Hengli chatted casually, occasionally steering the conversation toward business matters to nudge Wang in that direction, probing for commercial intel and scouting for any profitable opportunities.

"Manager Wang, your company has quite a lot of orders for two-inch carbon steel globe valves. Business is good."

"Not bad, mostly OEM orders these past two months."

From the information Wang Hengli let slip, Fang Bai gathered that the orders were sizable—not something a couple of machines could handle on their own.

This intel included Hengli Company's retail prices and OEM costs, among other key details.

He had no use for it now, but that might change down the line.

After chatting a while longer, Fang Bai felt it was about time to wrap up and head out of Hengli Company.

Just then, a middle-aged man around forty knocked and entered, his face dark and brow furrowed, as if something urgent was on his mind.

It was Ma Jingsen, the factory manager of Hengli Company, who oversaw all production management.

Ma Jingsen noticed the boss chatting with a young man, took a look, and was surprised to see it was the apprentice Fang Bai.

But he had no time to dwell on that. Somewhat nervously, he said to the boss, "Boss, that radial drilling machine of ours—we swapped in a new spindle, but it's still not fixed. The spindle keeps wobbling. When we drill a 30-millimeter hole, it comes out at 32, and it's hard to turn now. It's completely unusable."

"Damn it, I only bought it new three or four years ago, and now this crap. Can't it be fixed?" Wang Hengli, a rough-and-tumble guy, scowled and cursed outright. A new Z3040 radial drilling machine cost twenty to thirty thousand, and he couldn't bear to buy another.

Buying a new one would also mean time for shipping and installation—at least a week or two—which would definitely hold up production.

"We really can't fix it. We've repaired it three times already, and the problem's still there. Right now, the company only has one radial drilling machine working, and it's seriously slowing down production," Ma Jingsen stressed again, hoping the boss would believe him.

They were frustrated and anxious about the broken machine too. Even buying a new spindle from the original manufacturer, Shencheng Machine Tool Company, hadn't helped.

Plus, the machine was past its one-year warranty, and the manufacturer refused to send someone for maintenance—mainly due to inconvenient transportation, communication hassles, and high service costs.

At least it wasn't an imported machine. If it were, and a critical part broke, sourcing a replacement import would be a nightmare.

On top of that, long shipping times by sea would drag out production delays even more.

So buying imported equipment was basically a one-shot deal.

That said, imported machines weren't prone to breaking down either—they could last ten or even twenty to thirty years without major repairs.

But imported gear was too expensive back then, a rare commodity. Most factories couldn't afford it, and Hengli Company had none.

"I'll go take a look."

Wang Hengli waved his hand in annoyance, not wanting this to get in the way of making money.

Fang Bai had nothing else to do, so he followed along.

A little while later, the three of them arrived at a bay in the machining workshop. A radial drilling machine had ground to a halt, surrounded by two to three hundred valve bodies waiting to be drilled—mostly two-inch globe valves, along with some four-inch and eight-inch gate valves.

Hengli Company also had two bench drills, but they weren't suited for these larger, deeper holes with varying spans.

The place was a bit of a mess. The equipment was coated in dust and oil, tools were scattered everywhere, and there was no sense of 5S management—not even basic floor markings.

Fang Bai had spent twenty or thirty years in this industry and knew a thing or two about equipment. He was curious what was wrong with this drill.

The design life of ordinary domestic machine tools was over ten years, and they could actually last fifteen to twenty without issue.

He touched the machine with his right middle finger and silently initiated a fault analysis.

Suddenly, the world before him vanished except for the drill—everything else was hidden, replaced by a slightly transparent three-dimensional mechanical structure diagram, much like a finite element analysis model.

Most of the structure was colored blue and green, with a few pale yellow spots and two red areas.

The pale yellow indicated heavy wear, while the red marked the faulty components: the bearings on the spindle and the column arm locking mechanism.

Fang Bai had already tested the Golden Finger function at the hospital. Using different colors to represent equipment status was very intuitive, and only he could see it.

He silently deactivated the Golden Finger, and the real world returned.

The Golden Finger didn't just pinpoint where the fault was—it could also analyze the cause, making it far more impressive than any equipment maintenance expert.

Of course, it had limits. It couldn't analyze non-mechanical or non-electronic items.

[Fault Analysis 1: Excessive clearance between the bearing and the Morse Taper No. 5 spindle, causing looseness.

The bearing is a substandard product, severely worn, with a concentricity error of 0.211mm relative to the spindle. When the rotation speed exceeds 100 rpm, the wobble becomes excessive.

Recommendation: Replace the set of five 6008 Deep Groove Ball Bearings used on the Morse Taper No. 5 spindle. Bearing specifications are as follows:

Inner Diameter (ID): 40mm

Outer Diameter (OD): 68mm

Width (W): 15mm

Maximum Speed Requirement: 8,000 rpm

Rated Dynamic Load: 16.8 kN

Rated Static Load: 11.5 kN...

Fault Analysis 2: Hydraulic oil has been in use too long, resulting in low pressure, so the locking mechanism won't release.

Recommendation: Replace the hydraulic oil.]

Fang Bai couldn't make sense of some of the technical parameters, nor did he understand what "6008" or "Morse Taper No. 5" meant.

So even though the Golden Finger had analyzed everything, his lack of specialized knowledge left him in the dark.

Still, he had a general idea of what parts were needed, their specifications, and the quantities—that was enough.

Fang Bai wouldn't tell Wang Hengli the cause of the malfunction, or he might charge a repair service fee.

What kind of money could that make?

He wanted to buy the machine!

Just replace the bearings and hydraulic oil, and the equipment would be good as new.

A Z3040 drill press like this, about 70–80% of its original condition, would be worth around 12,000 yuan on the secondhand market if fully functional.

A set of five 6008 Deep Groove Ball Bearings would cost a few dozen yuan; the hydraulic oil wouldn't cost much either.

Other costs included transportation, renting a place to store the equipment, and hiring someone to help him replace the parts.

Fang Bai estimated that, excluding the rental space, the total cost would be about a hundred yuan, and it would take a day or two.

If he could buy it cheap and then resell it, he could make a tidy profit.

In Yongjia County, where workshops lined every street and alley, offloading a reasonably priced machine tool wouldn't be a problem.

Or, for that matter, he could sell it back to Wang Hengli.

Even if he couldn't get rid of it, he could keep it for his own use.

There was some risk, but it was minimal—opportunities like this to snag a bargain didn't come often.

Now, it all came down to the price he could buy it for, and whether Wang Hengli was willing to sell.