Chapter Summaries

Song Ning learned that Chief Engineer Zhou had been murdered and worried that Lu Changqing and the research codes he carried were in danger. After spotting a report about an upcoming technology conference, she remembered a fatal traffic accident involving Chinese experts and called Wei Jinjun to reach Gu Zheng.

• Gu Zheng told Song Ning that investigators had confirmed Chief Engineer Zhou was murdered, were questioning factory workers, and had not yet identified the killer.
• Song Ning returned home, noticed an advertisement featuring Chen Yawen for Yongxing Appliances, and found a notice selling winemaking equipment that Song Wang had been reading.
• Song Ning recognized a newspaper report about an international technology exchange conference and recalled that a vehicle accident on October 5 would kill Chinese experts Wang Desheng and Xu Wenguo.
• Song Ning promised to take Song Wang to look at the winemaking equipment and decided to warn Gu Zheng about the conference accident.
• Song Ning called the Police Station and asked Wei Jinjun to get in touch with Gu Zheng.

Song Ning failed to reach Gu Zheng before his mission, while Wei Jinjun reassured Tan Qingru about her and talked her out of a secret meeting. Song Ning and Song Wang inspected equipment at a struggling winery, where Song Wang identified why its liquor tasted bitter, and Song Ning asked whether he could make good liquor there.

• Song Ning learned from Wei Jinjun that Gu Zheng was away on a mission and asked to be contacted when he returned.
• Wei Jinjun told Tan Qingru about Song Ning's accomplishments and persuaded her to wait for Gu Zheng rather than meet Song Ning secretly.
• Song Ning and Song Wang found the Xingfu Road Winery and met its director, Zheng Chunzhi, who showed them the equipment the factory hoped to sell.
• Song Wang judged the winery equipment too large for their courtyard and explained that excessive distillation heat gave the liquor a burnt, bitter taste.
• Zheng Chunzhi explained that the winery's sales had declined after its technicians left, and Song Ning asked Song Wang if he could make good liquor with the equipment.

Song Ning offered to lend Song Wang to Zheng Chunzhi’s struggling distillery for a month so he could prove his skill, then took him to a department store to buy watches. There, she recognized Zhou Yunzhi and Gu Zheng’s mother during a watch theft and caught the thief as he tried to escape.

• Song Ning proposed that Song Wang work at Zheng Chunzhi’s distillery for a month without pay, with permanent employment if sales rose by fifty percent, and Song Wang diagnosed flaws in the liquor.
• Song Ning told Song Wang she might buy the distillery if he proved he could make good liquor, and he agreed to use the month to test himself.
• Song Ning took Song Wang to the Capital City Department Store and searched for a ticket scalper who could sell them watch coupons.
• Song Ning recognized Zhou Yunzhi holding a man suspected of stealing Gu Zheng’s mother’s watch, then spotted another man slipping away from the crowd.
• Song Ning knocked down the escaping man, restrained him, and pulled the stolen watch from his pocket as he shouted that she was molesting him.

Song Ning reunited with Tan Qingru after helping recover her stolen watch, and Tan Qingru gave Song Ning a Longines watch and ration coupons on Gu Zheng’s behalf. Gu Zheng still had not returned from his mission, so Song Ning sought another contact for help ahead of the car accident she expected on October 5.

• Song Ning helped expose a thief who had stolen Tan Qingru’s watch, and public security officers arrested him.
• Tan Qingru recognized Song Ning, dismissed Zhou Yunzhi’s attempt to disparage her, and gave Song Ning the watch Gu Zheng had chosen for her along with ration coupons.
• Song Ning and Song Wang each got a new watch and a bicycle before heading home.
• On October 4, Song Ning attended Capital Military Medical University’s opening ceremony and prepared to join Qingbei University’s Huade Joint Laboratory project on October 6.
• Song Ning learned from Wei Jinjun that Gu Zheng was still away on a mission, then called Regiment Commander Lei’s office for help.

Song Ning met Lei Ming and Dong Yuan, demonstrated her uncanny knowledge of their preferences, and revealed that she could foresee events. She warned them that two Dawn Project experts would die in a traffic accident the next day, leaving Lei Ming to act on the warning despite his doubts.

• Song Ning met Lei Ming at a restaurant, where he brought Dong Yuan and questioned her claim that she was his relative.
• Song Ning gave Lei Ming his favorite cigarettes and Dong Yuan his preferred brand, then named dishes that matched both men's tastes.
• Song Ning said she could foresee events and reminded Dong Yuan that she had predicted and helped arrange Dong Cheng's rescue.
• Song Ning warned Lei Ming that Wang Desheng and Xu Wenguo would die in a traffic accident the next day and urged him to change their route or departure time.
• Lei Ming agreed to take the warning seriously, though he remained skeptical, and Song Ning left after revealing that she knew where he hid his secret spending money.

Song Ning paid her respects at Zhou Weide’s memorial service and learned that Zhou Yuanhang would join the Qingbei laboratory project. Lei Ming warned security about a possible threat to the conference guests’ transport, and his warning proved justified when the original route was targeted in a staged crash.

• Song Ning bought newspapers, learned of Zhou Weide’s memorial service, and went to the Guo'an Machinery Factory to pay her respects.
• Song Ning saw Zhou Yunzhi caring for Zhou Weide’s frail daughter and then met Zhou Yuanhang, who told her he had joined the Qingbei laboratory project.
• Lei Ming contacted Han and urged him to change and inspect the vehicles transporting the conference guests.
• Lei Ming checked his hidden money tin and wondered how Song Ning knew his private preferences, while Meng Yu praised Song Ning’s gifts and complained that their daughter had become the courtyard’s tyrant.
• Han told Lei Ming that the original vehicle and route had been caught in a near-fatal collision after two trucks ran red lights at Tongfeng Intersection.

Song Wang accepted a technician position at the factory, while Gu Zheng warned Song Ning that saboteurs had shifted their attacks to manufacturers supporting the Dawn Project. He also revealed that the first intercontinental missile launch might be delayed until 1981, leaving Song Ning wondering why history had changed.

• Lei Ming reported a suspected plot targeting experts after two truck drivers involved in a collision were found to have taken stimulants.
• Zheng Chunzhi and Wang Youliang offered Song Wang a technician job, and Song Ning secured his appointment as chief technician with the factory's trust in his expertise.
• Song Wang signed the agreement and agreed to start work the next day.
• Gu Zheng told Song Ning that the K organization had shifted its sabotage efforts from Blue Shield to manufacturers supplying components for the Dawn Project.
• Gu Zheng said the earliest launch date was now 1981 because experts had not solved crucial technical problems and research from Xiaolu Mountain Base had been destroyed.
• Song Ning questioned how the historical launch date could have changed.

Song Ning told Gu Zheng about recent and upcoming historical events so he could check whether history had changed, then warned him that Lu Changqing might have concealed information. Gu Zheng explained the investigation into Lu Changqing and the factory, and the chapter ended with Song Ning accepting Gu Zheng’s watch and the two embracing.

• Song Ning listed recent events and upcoming developments in Hua Country for Gu Zheng to verify against history.
• Song Ning questioned whether Lu Changqing had brought out more than the two strings of numbers, and Gu Zheng explained that the numbers covered all usable project codes from Xiaolu Mountain Base.
• Gu Zheng said Lu Changqing was still missing and that investigators were checking for leaks, while he continued looking into Lu Ming’s connection to the factory.
• Gu Zheng told Song Ning he would stay in Capital City and asked whether she liked the watch he had sent her.
• Song Ning said she liked the watch, and Gu Zheng embraced her happily.

Song Ning helped launch the Hua-De Laboratory and later witnessed Zhou Weide’s daughter being dragged off a bus under false pretenses. She got off at the last moment to follow them.

• Song Ning attended the Hua-De Laboratory’s inauguration and learned that Mike would arrive after dealing with trouble involving his father, Kurt.
• Song Ning organized the Laboratory’s research assignments and planned to overcome its technical hurdles within three months.
• At a Ministry of Commerce banquet, Song Ning saw Lin Xiaoming dining with Zhou Weide’s daughter and later followed them toward a bus stop.
• Song Ning watched Zhou Weide’s daughter board a bus alone, then heard an old woman and a burly man pretend to be her relatives and force her off.
• Song Ning got off the bus just before its doors closed, following Zhou Weide’s daughter’s apparent abductors.

Song Ning followed Tian Mazi and his mother after they took Zhou’s daughter to their home, but Officer Xiao Wang accepted their cover story instead of investigating. Song Ning sent a message through him to Gu Zheng and then resumed watching the house, where Tian Mazi soon began moving the girl and other belongings away by tricycle.

• Song Ning saw Tian Mazi and his mother carry Zhou’s daughter into their home in Mao’er Alley and reported the kidnapping to Officer Xiao Wang.
• Officer Xiao Wang visited Tian Mazi’s home, accepted his explanation that his sick wife had been taken to see a doctor, and told Song Ning there was no cause for concern.
• Song Ning asked Xiao Wang to contact Wei Jinjun and pass a message to Gu Zheng about her report at Mao’ertun Police Station.
• Song Ning waited outside Tian Mazi’s home and watched him and his mother load someone, quilts, and other belongings onto a tricycle.
• Tian Mazi told a neighbor he was going to the hospital, and Song Ning followed him out of the courtyard.

Song Ning followed Tian Mazi to a hospital, where she discovered that the sick woman he brought there was not Zhou Xiaotang. After Gu Zheng joined her, they suspected Xiaotang had been taken to the Red Light Machine Tool Factory and climbed over its wall to search for her.

• Song Ning followed Tian Mazi to the Red Light Machine Tool Factory, then watched him take a sick woman to the hospital and realized she was not Zhou Xiaotang.
• Gu Zheng arrived with public security officers, assigned them to watch Tian Mazi and search his home, and listened as Song Ning explained how Xiaotang might have been taken from the tricycle.
• Song Ning suggested someone had taken Xiaotang while Tian Mazi was speaking at the factory guardroom window.
• Gu Zheng learned that the Red Light Machine Tool Factory had suspended production and arranged for help while he and Song Ning prepared to search it.
• Gu Zheng gave Song Ning a sheathed dagger, marked the jeep, and led her over the factory wall.

Gu Zheng and Song Ning searched the Red Light Machine Tool Factory for Zhou Xiaotang and found no signs that anyone had entered its final assembly workshop recently. A triangle-marked switch activated a hidden square opening, leaving them facing a possible underground passage.

• Gu Zheng and Song Ning slipped into the factory duty room, found the sleeping guard Li Youquan, and studied his patrol log and the factory layout.
• Gu Zheng and Song Ning entered the final assembly workshop through a broken window and found only undisturbed dust, with no footprints or traces of Zhou Xiaotang.
• Song Ning noticed a triangle beneath a knife switch on the workshop’s electrical panel and recalled seeing the same mark in the place where Li Zekun had been tortured.
• Gu Zheng and Song Ning powered the panel and closed the triangle-marked switch, causing a square opening to appear nearby.

Song Ning and Gu Zheng discovered a hidden underground facility beneath the factory, including two corpses and a symbol linked to Ghost. After military personnel took over the site, Song Ning reconsidered Zhou Xiaotang’s kidnapping and began tracing how she might have been taken from the alley.

• Song Ning and Gu Zheng entered the underground passage and found two decomposed bodies, one beside a symbol Gu Zheng recognized as Ghost’s mark.
• Gu Zheng concluded that the factory required an official search and summoned military personnel, who arrived and took over the grounds.
• Han Xiao drove Song Ning away from the factory, and she reconsidered whether Tian Mazi had really planned to bring Zhou Xiaotang there.
• Song Ning asked Han Xiao to stop at the alley where Tian Mazi had parked, then reasoned that someone might have taken Zhou Xiaotang through a nearby back door.
• Han Xiao pointed to the right-hand door as the likelier route.

Song Ning helped direct a search of the Guesthouse before beginning work on the IC research project, while Zhou Yuanhang left to assist the Public Security investigation into his cousin’s case. At the Laboratory, Song Ning set a confident schedule for the project, then suspected that a woman pleading with a Qingbei student was his abandoned wife.

• Song Ning urged Han Xiao to search the Guesthouse, and Yang Qi arrived with men to cordon off the area and search it.
• Zhou Yuanhang told Lao Qi and Song Ning that his cousin had also been caught up in trouble and left to cooperate with the Public Security investigation.
• Song Ning led the Laboratory team in setting detailed project milestones and assured them they could meet the schedule.
• Song Ning and Lao Qi saw a young woman pleading with a male Qingbei student, and Song Ning guessed that she was his abandoned wife seeking a debt.

Song Ning helped Feng Yujuan after Kong Jianming struck her and caused signs of a miscarriage, then learned that Liang Lichuan’s friend Li Yanzhou was the National College Entrance Examination’s top scorer. She discovered that Li Yanzhou studied nuclear physics, leaving her startled by his connection to her own field.

• Song Ning left the laboratory and encountered Kong Jianming slapping the pregnant Feng Yujuan outside the university gate.
• Liang Lichuan and his classmate Li Yanzhou intervened, and Song Ning recognized that Feng Yujuan was bleeding and might be miscarrying.
• Song Ning accompanied Liang Lichuan and Li Yanzhou as they took Feng Yujuan to the hospital, where doctors admitted her and warned they might not save the baby.
• Feng Yujuan begged them not to inform her mother, and Song Ning helped her while Liang Lichuan and Li Yanzhou handled the hospital arrangements.
• Liang Lichuan introduced Li Yanzhou to Song Ning and revealed that he had been the National College Entrance Examination’s top scorer.
• Song Ning learned that Li Yanzhou studied nuclear physics in Qingbei’s Engineering Physics Department.

Song Ning learned why Feng Yujuan had been abandoned by Sun Jianming and discovered that Liang Lichuan’s father had disappeared while working on a secret project. On the way back, she connected the missing men to Liang Shunsheng, the engineer from Factory 282 who had stayed at the guesthouse that burned in Yanling.

• Liang Lichuan told Song Ning that Feng Yujuan had supported Kong Jianming while he studied at Qingbei, but he later betrayed her and found another girlfriend.
• Liang Lichuan and Li Yanzhou explained that Feng Yuping worked at the Hua Country Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics and that their fathers had worked in physics-related fields.
• Liang Lichuan revealed that Feng Yujuan’s father had been missing for months after important documents disappeared from the Guoguang Instrument Factory, and that Sun Jianming had left her out of fear of being implicated.
• Liang Lichuan told Song Ning that his father had been away for two years to work on an important project and had left only a note for his family.
• Song Ning connected the secret work at Capital City Institute No. 6 with Factory 282 in Heng City and remembered that Liang Shunsheng, an engineer there, had stayed at the Yanling guesthouse that caught fire.

Song Ning listened as Gu Zheng updated her on Zhou Xiaotang’s kidnapping and Zhou Weide’s death, then learned that Lu Changqing had come to Capital City for a blind date with Zhou Xiaotang. After Gu Zheng fell asleep at her home, he caught Song Ning’s wrist and asked her to help him feel more secure.

• Song Wang reassured Song Ning that his new job was going well, and they agreed to build their own social lives.
• Gu Zheng told Song Ning that Yang Qi had found Zhou Xiaotang drugged and hidden at the police station, while investigators traced Zhou Weide’s death to a power outage in the Constant-Temperature Workshop.
• Gu Zheng revealed that Lu Changqing had arranged to meet Zhou Xiaotang on a blind date but fled after seeing a threatening symbol drawn on his table.
• Gu Zheng explained that Lin Xiaoming had introduced the pair and had taken Zhou Xiaotang to Quanjude to arrange roast duck for Zhou Weide’s seventh-day observance; investigators had verified their accounts.
• Gu Zheng said Lin Xiaoming was currently with the Arts and Culture Troupe and was not considered a suspect, though investigators would continue watching him.
• Song Ning covered the exhausted Gu Zheng with a blanket, and he caught her wrist and asked her to help him feel more secure.

Gu Zheng comforted his jealousy by eating noodles Song Ning cooked for him, then learned that Feng Jicheng’s disappearance might be connected to the classified Dawn Project. The next day, Song Ning questioned Zhou Yuanhang about Zhou Xiaotang’s job offer and asked whether he had investigated her past kidnapping.

• Gu Zheng came to see Song Ning feeling unsettled, and she cooked him noodles that eased his mood.
• Song Ning told Gu Zheng about Feng Yujuan and Feng Jicheng, and Gu Zheng decided to meet Lei Ming about Feng Jicheng’s disappearance.
• Song Ning asked Gu Zheng to investigate Liang Lichuan’s family circumstances, making Gu Zheng jealous again.
• Zhou Yuanhang told Song Ning that Zhou Xiaotang was reluctant to take over her late father’s factory position.
• Song Ning asked Zhou Yuanhang whether he had looked carefully into Zhou Xiaotang’s earlier kidnapping.

Song Ning learned more about Zhou Xiaotang’s kidnapping and refused Zhou Yuanhang’s request to persuade her to take a factory job. When Feng Yujuan attempted suicide, Song Ning helped the doctors treat her, but the wound on Feng Yujuan’s wrist seemed strange.

• Zhou Yuanhang told Song Ning that Zhou Xiaotang had been kidnapped before in an attempt to extort technical documents from her uncle.
• Song Ning advised Zhou Yuanhang to let Zhou Xiaotang and her aunt consider the factory job carefully, but declined to speak to Zhou Xiaotang herself.
• Liang Lichuan told Song Ning that Feng Yujuan had attempted suicide, and Song Ning rushed with him and Li Yanzhou to the hospital.
• A nurse said Feng Yujuan was critically ill and that medication could save her life but endanger the baby; Song Ning urged them to prioritize Feng Yujuan’s life.
• Song Ning entered the emergency room and used silver needles to slow Feng Yujuan’s bleeding and reduce her pain during treatment.
• As the attending physician prepared to stitch Feng Yujuan’s wrist, Song Ning found the wound increasingly strange.

Song Ning arranged care for Feng Yujuan after her suspicious wrist injury and forced Kong Jianming to accept responsibility for the baby and hospital bills. While asking Gu Zheng to investigate, she learned Feng Yujuan’s sister Feng Yuping was the woman found dead in the Red Star Machine Tool Factory basement.

• Song Ning noticed that Feng Yujuan’s wrist wound looked hurried and suspicious, then helped guide her treatment after the doctors stitched it.
• Kong Jianming admitted that Feng Yujuan’s unborn baby was his, and Song Ning made him pay her hospital expenses.
• Song Ning called Wei Jinjun to reach Gu Zheng and asked him to investigate Feng Yujuan’s apparent suicide attempt.
• Gu Zheng told Song Ning that Feng Yuping had been identified as the woman found dead in the Red Star Machine Tool Factory basement.