In the cold winter in Northeast China, the construction of the Dongling Line Railway is racing against glaciers and construction schedules. Cheng Ye led the workers to build a temporary bridge on the thin glacier. The steam crane puffed out white mist, and the old wooden piles pushed into the ice with the smell of moss. Every vibration of the steel cable affected lives - the thrill of the apprentice Xiaoqu falling into the ice crevice and the crisis of the steam valve losing control were just ordinary tests in the construction.
A telegram broke the rhythm: the Northeast Iron and Steel Plant produced steel ahead of schedule and required it to be opened to traffic before the Spring Equinox, which was 27 days shorter than the original plan. The ice melted early, there was a shortage of steel, and bolts broke due to fatigue. Problems arose one after another. Cheng Ye led his team to dismantle the old rails outside the West Dam and use locomotive connecting rods to replace stiffeners. The sparks of cutting guns and the screams of hand drills in the middle of the night weaved a web of hope in the cold night.
Lao Wen's calm command, Sister Lin's scrap support, and his sister's letter telling him to "slow down" allowed Cheng Ye to find a balance between "maintaining progress" and "maintaining safety." When the upstream reservoir released water ahead of schedule, they carried out a static pressure test against a three-hour countdown. Listening to the muffled sound of bolts and the crackling of ice rows, they finally drove the steel nails firmly into the frozen soil, allowing the rails to bite the glacier before the vernal equinox. The builders' faith was forever nailed to this frozen soil.
