This book is written for everyone who has ever struck gold in life. I write to you - those who have been made things difficult for their superiors, slapped in the face by reality, and have wondered late at night whether this is the end of their lives. You are not without talent. Your talents have just not been tempered enough times.
Also written to those who have forgotten that they were once ordinary people. When I was twenty-four years old, I graduated from an ordinary university and my first job was as a technician in a manufacturing company. The temperature in the workshop is 40 degrees in summer, and the draft in winter makes my face hurt. My master's surname is Zhao, and half of his middle finger on his left hand is missing - he was punching food. He worked with me for three years, rising from technician to deputy director of the workshop. Later, the company was restructured and I changed careers. I have been in sales, opened a company, lost money, and made a little money. In the past twenty years, I have seen too many people like Master Zhao: those with skills have no way out, those with strength have no choice, they have worked honestly for a lifetime, but in the end they were crushed by the times and did not even make a sound.
Until one day, I passed a blacksmith shop in a small town in Guizhou. The old blacksmith was shirtless and hammering the red-hot iron. Sparks splashed on his body and the hammer landed evenly and steadily. I suddenly thought: a piece of iron may be burned by fire, hammered, quenched, or sharpened, but it will always be the same piece of iron and will not become anything else. This is the kind of thing I've seen.
So, I wrote Shen Tie. I won't promise how good this book will be. But I promise: I have seen every hammer written here. It's not something you see in a blacksmith's shop - it's something you see in the world.
