In 1974, at an old factory in the Northeast, an imported boring machine breaks down.
The entire factory waits for foreign experts to save the day, until an orphaned apprentice steps forward.
No one knows who he was in his previous life: a chief engineer with top-secret national clearance.
He repairs the foreign machine, then turns around and drafts a plan for purifying monocrystalline silicon.
From the start, he submits a technology crucial to the nation’s future, and the state keeps him under wraps for fifty years.
The deputy factory director wants him to take the blame? He produces his top-secret authorization.
The provincial department wants to seize the documents? He counters with a three-year military pledge.
The West tries to cut off access to technology? He crushes their blockade, one domestic substitute at a time.
A plan for purifying monocrystalline silicon.
A roadmap for domestically made chips.
The underlying code for CNC machine tools.
Fifty years later, when the enemy finally discovers who was behind Huaguo’s industrial rise...
“Who exactly is this No. 0 consultant who was kept hidden for fifty years?”
He wipes the machine oil from his hands. “The next project: start up nuclear fusion.”
