What Han Li Did Had Nothing to Do with Me, Fang Bai

At ten in the morning,

Fang Bai once again took a rickshaw to Hengli Company and strolled through the company gates.

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

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

"He is. He should be in the office right now."

"Alright, thank you."

Fang Bai smiled and replied politely.

If others treated him politely, he respected them in return, even if that politeness was merely superficial.

If they were rude to him, he would not go out of his way to ingratiate himself with them.

When he arrived at the General Manager's office on the second floor, the door was open. Fang Bai happened to see Wang Hengli sitting on a solid wood sofa, drinking tea with a gloomy expression.

Wang Hengli's office covered around thirty square meters. The furniture and flooring were all solid wood. There was no computer, printer, or other equipment on the desk, only a telephone. A wooden newspaper rack stood in the corner, filled with various newspapers and magazines.

To Fang Bai, the decorating style of this era was far from fashionable, but to most people, it already counted as a luxurious office.

Hearing footsteps outside, Wang Hengli looked up. When he saw Fang Bai, he gave a bitter smile. "Brother Fang, you've really made my life miserable."

"No way. Manager Wang, don't you seem perfectly fine right now?"

Fang Bai entered and casually shut the door. Seeing several red scratch marks on Wang Hengli's face, he frowned and knowingly asked, "Oh? Manager Wang, what happened to your face?"

"I wasn't watching where I was going and took a fall."

Wang Hengli was speechless. He did not believe this brat did not know. Fang Bai was deliberately teasing him.

Still, he rather appreciated straightforward young people like this. They were easy to talk to.

Fang Bai first shook Wang Hengli's hand, used the Golden Finger's Ring Finger function to lock onto him and obtain his information, then sat on the sofa opposite Wang Hengli.

Everything that had happened to Wang Hengli in the past twenty-four hours rapidly played through Fang Bai's mind: he had brought flowers to his wife, told her about being tricked by his mistress after they had sex, endured his wife angrily demanding every detail about Zhang Qian, including her address, then suffered several desperate scratches across his face. Wang Hengli had not dared to fight back and could only cover his head and beg for mercy...

Seeing this, the corners of Fang Bai's mouth rose into a smile. He applauded inwardly. Good! That was a fine beating!

Wang Hengli thought Fang Bai simply liked shaking hands and was being too enthusiastic, so he pulled out a Hongtashan cigarette and offered it to him.

When asking someone for help, cigarettes built bridges, alcohol paved roads, tea opened gates. Once the relationship was in place, everything naturally fell into place.

Fang Bai refused, saying he could not smoke for the time being after his surgery, lest it damage his blood vessels.

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

"It's fine. Most people don't."

He rarely smoked. If he could avoid it, he did. Only when socializing required it would he indulge a little.

Even when someone pressed him to smoke, he never inhaled into his lungs. He merely puffed for appearances, which caused less harm.

"Brother Fang, how did the investigation go?" Wang Hengli changed the subject, unwilling to discuss being beaten by his wife any further.

His wife had said she would not pursue the mistress matter anymore, which was already a satisfactory outcome for him.

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

"Damn it, it looks like she realized something was wrong. Maybe someone tipped her off. We couldn't find the pretty boy either. Now there's nowhere left to investigate.

"When I went to check again this morning, I saw several thugs smashing the door with clubs while looking for her. They didn't find her either.

"Manager Wang, you didn't send people after her, did you?

"Maybe that was what alerted her and let her find out in advance."

In any case, Fang Bai had not been the one to tip Zhang Qian off. It had been Han Li, and 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.

If that were not the case, why would she flee that same night instead of coming to explain herself?

At the same time, he cursed his wife for causing trouble. If this was not handled properly, retaliation would be a problem. Besides, he hated dealing with thugs.

"I didn't send anyone after her."

Wang Hengli did not want to dwell on the subject. Wasn't that basically saying his wife had sent people to beat someone up? He changed the subject. "By the way, I have to thank you for the reminder, Brother Fang. That Luo Xiang really was a damn traitor. He sneaked into the warehouse in the middle of the night yesterday to steal things and resell them. Luckily, I had people lying in wait.

"I have to say, Brother Fang, you really saw it coming."

"As long as you've eliminated the future trouble. You sent him to the police station, right?"

"We called the police and sent him there this morning. I've lost quite a bit of property over the past two years. Based on the sentencing standards, that bastard will get at least ten years in prison." Wang Hengli slammed the tea table, his voice filled with anger.

"Good. The longer he stays in there, the better. Otherwise, he might bite back at Manager Wang after getting out." Fang Bai stressed the point, clapping in satisfaction and acting as though they shared a common enemy.

It was a good thing for him as well. He had finally gotten revenge.

Luo Xiang being caught was not really Fang Bai's fault. Who told him to keep his hands dirty?

Just as Fang Bai disliked Wang Hengli, he would not do anything illegal. Instead, he would use other means to profit for himself.

For now, Wang Hengli was still very useful to him, and Fang Bai wanted to squeeze more value out of him.

Only after shearing the sheep and then eating the mutton would Fang Bai achieve his goal.

Fang Bai chatted casually with Wang Hengli, occasionally bringing up business matters and guiding Wang Hengli's thoughts in that direction. He then probed for his business information to see whether there was anything profitable.

"Manager Wang, your company has quite a lot of orders for two-inch carbon steel Globe Valves. Business must be good."

"Not bad. These past two months have mainly been contract manufacturing orders."

From Wang Hengli's information, Fang Bai found that the orders were fairly large. They were not something two or three machines could handle.

The information included key details such as Hengli Company's retail prices and contract manufacturing costs.

He had no use for that information now, but who could say what the future held?

After chatting for a while, Fang Bai felt it was about time and prepared to leave Hengli Company.

Just then, a middle-aged man around forty knocked and entered. His face was gloomy and his brows tightly furrowed, as though something urgent had happened.

He was Ma Jingsen, Hengli Company's factory director, responsible for all production management.

When Ma Jingsen saw the boss chatting with a young man, he looked him over and realized it was Fang Bai, the apprentice worker. He was somewhat surprised.

However, he had no mind to care about that right now. Somewhat nervously, he said to the boss, "Boss, we replaced the spindle on that Radial Drilling Machine with a new one, but we still can't fix it. The spindle keeps wobbling. When we drill a thirty-millimeter hole, it ends up thirty-two millimeters wide. It's also hard to turn. We simply can't use it for work."

"Damn it! We bought it new only three or four years ago, and it already has this problem. Can't it be repaired?" Wang Hengli, a rough man by nature, furrowed his brows and cursed outright. A new Z3040 Radial Drilling Machine cost twenty or thirty thousand yuan, and he was definitely reluctant to buy another one.

Even buying a new one would take time for transport and installation. At the very least, it would take one or two weeks and would definitely affect production progress.

"It really can't be fixed. We've repaired it three times already and still can't solve the problem. At present, the company only has one Radial Drilling Machine available, and it's seriously affecting production progress." Ma Jingsen emphasized again, hoping the boss would believe him.

They were frustrated and anxious as well that the machine could not be fixed. They had even bought a new spindle from the original manufacturer, Shencheng Machine Tool Company, and replaced it, but it had been useless.

Moreover, the equipment was already past its one-year warranty period. The manufacturer was unwilling to send anyone over for maintenance, mainly because transportation was inconvenient, communication was troublesome, and maintenance costs were high.

Fortunately, it was not an imported machine tool. If it had been imported, once an important component was damaged, it would have been difficult to buy imported replacement parts.

Furthermore, sea transport took too long and would have affected production progress even more severely.

Therefore, buying imported equipment was basically a one-shot deal.

Of course, imported machine tools were not so easily damaged. Using one for ten or even twenty or thirty years was not a problem, and they would not need major repairs during that time.

Imported equipment was too expensive in those days. It was a rare luxury, and ordinary factories were reluctant to buy it. Hengli Company, for example, did not own any imported equipment.

"I'll go down and take a look."

Wang Hengli waved his hand in annoyance. He could not let this matter delay him from making money.

Fang Bai had nothing to do, so he followed along to take a look.

A short while later, the three arrived at the first bay of the Machining Workshop. One Radial Drilling Machine had already shut down. Around it were piled two or three hundred valve bodies waiting to be drilled, mostly two-inch Globe Valves, along with four-inch and eight-inch standard-size Gate Valves.

Hengli Company also had two bench drilling machines, but they were unsuitable for workpieces with such large, deep, and widely spaced holes.

The site was somewhat messy. The equipment was covered in dust and oil stains, tools were scattered everywhere, and there was no awareness of 5S Management at all. There were not even basic boundary markings on the floor.

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

Ordinary domestic machine tools had a designed service life of more than ten years, and in reality, using them for ten or twenty years was not a problem.

He touched the machine in front of him with the middle finger of his right hand and silently thought, Fault analysis.

In an instant, the world before him contained nothing but the drilling machine. It was as if everything outside the machine had been hidden, leaving behind a slightly transparent three-dimensional mechanical structural diagram, very similar to a finite element analysis diagram.

Most of the structure was blue and green, with small sections in pale yellow and two areas in red.

The pale yellow sections indicated heavier wear, while the red sections were faulty components. The problems lay in the spindle bearing and the Column Arm Locking Mechanism.

Fang Bai had already tested the Golden Finger's functions at the hospital. It used different colors to indicate equipment conditions, making everything extremely intuitive, and only he could see it.

He silently thought, Disable Golden Finger function, and the world before him returned to reality.

The Golden Finger could not only identify where an equipment fault was, but also analyze its cause. It was far more capable than an equipment maintenance expert.

Of course, it had limits. It could not analyze non-mechanical or non-electronic items.

[Fault Analysis 1: The fit clearance between the bearing and the Morse Taper No. 5 Spindle is too large, resulting in looseness;

The bearing is defective and severely worn. The concentricity error with the spindle has reached 0.211 mm. When the rotation speed exceeds 100 rpm, the wobbling becomes excessive.

Recommendation: Replace one set of five 6008 Deep Groove Ball Bearings used for the Morse Taper No. 5 Spindle. The bearing specifications are as follows:

Inner Diameter (ID): 40 mm

Outer Diameter (OD): 68 mm

Width (W): 15 mm

Required maximum speed: 8,000 rpm

Rated dynamic load: 16.8 kN

Rated static load: 11.5 kN...

Fault Analysis 2: The hydraulic oil has been used for too long, resulting in low oil pressure, and the locking mechanism cannot release.

Recommendation: Replace the hydraulic oil.]

Fang Bai could not understand some of the technical parameters, nor did he know what 6008 or Morse Taper No. 5 meant.

So even though the Golden Finger had analyzed it, his professional knowledge still limited his understanding.

However, he roughly understood what replacement parts were needed, what specifications they required, and how many were necessary. That was enough.

Fang Bai would not tell Wang Hengli the cause of the fault, nor would he simply charge a repair service fee.

How much money could that make?

He wanted to buy the machine!

As long as the bearings and hydraulic oil were replaced, the machine's problem would be solved.

A Z3040 Drilling Machine like this, still seventy to eighty percent new, would be worth around twelve thousand yuan on the secondhand market if it were in good working condition.

A set of five 6008 Deep Groove Ball Bearings would cost only a few dozen yuan, and the hydraulic oil would not cost much either.

The other costs would be transport, renting a place to store the machine, and hiring someone to help replace its parts.

Fang Bai estimated that, excluding the rental cost, the total expense would be around one hundred yuan and would take roughly one or two days.

If he could buy it cheaply and resell it, he could make a huge profit.

In Yongjia County, where small workshops filled every street and alley, selling off a cheaply priced machine tool would not be a problem.

Or rather, he could sell it back to Wang Hengli later. That was possible too.

Even if he could not sell it, he could use it himself.

There was risk, but it was extremely low. Opportunities like this to pick up a bargain were rare.

Now it depended on how cheaply he could acquire it, and whether Wang Hengli wanted to sell it.