I carefully smoothed out the creases on the dirty banknotes, folded them neatly, and solemnly placed them in the inner pocket of my coat.

That pocket pressed tightly against my chest.

Standing behind Bill all the time, a young girl frowned. She was the boss's daughter, Melody Lamar.

I did not look at anyone and turned around directly toward the dusty machine. My back was straight. "Now, it's mine."

I walked around the DMG machine, as if inspecting an old acquaintance I had not seen for a long time.

The others had dispersed and returned to their workstations, but everyone's ears were perked up, and out of the corner of their eyes, they would occasionally glance at me, the "clown" in the corner.

Melody did not move. She crossed her arms and stood a little distance away, her face showing blatant suspicion and curiosity.

"I need a set of tools," I told her.

She raised an eyebrow. "What tools? They're in the warehouse. You can get them yourself."

I shook my head and recited a string of Gorman words.

Melody's expression froze. Although she barely understood, the pure Gorman pronunciation made the disdain on her face fade a little. "What did you say?"

I switched back to English and patiently repeated, "A Gorman-made Hoffmann tool set, 16 sockets, a torque wrench, and a precision micrometer set. They were bought with this equipment when the factory was built; it should be in a silver metal box."

Donald Winston, the workshop supervisor and a seasoned equipment maintenance veteran, scoffed. "Hey, Mr. Zigger, do you think this is your home? You know where everything is? We don't have those in our factory!"

I calmly replied, "You do. It's on the second shelf in the warehouse, the third box from the top. It should have an 'Ersatzteile' label on it."

Donald's expression instantly changed.

'Ersatzteile' was Gorman for 'spare parts'. They did have that label there, but few people in the factory recognized it.

Melody's eyes flickered before she said to Donald, "Mr. Winston, go check it out."

Skeptical, Donald muttered, "I think he's just guessing." He then led two workers to the warehouse.

A few minutes later, the three men returned carrying a dusty, silver metal box, their faces filled with shock.

The box was opened, revealing a brand-new, gleaming set of Gorman-made tools neatly arranged in a red velvet lining, the packaging oil still wet.

Donald's face flushed red and then paled.

A few suppressed gasps came from the crowd.

Melody's gaze toward me changed completely.

I ignored their reactions, pulled my reading glasses from my pocket, and took a half-meter-long metal stethoscope from the box.

I did not open any of the machine's electrical control boxes, nor did I connect any diagnostic equipment. I gently placed one end of the stethoscope against the outer casing of the machine tool spindle box. Then, I leaned down and pressed the other end firmly against my ear.

I closed my eyes.

"Haha, who are you acting all mysterious for?" A young worker taunted in a whisper.

"Exactly, does he think he's an expert? Just listen, and he'll know the problem."

Melody also frowned, clearly not understanding my actions.

I ignored them, and the entire world seemed to consist of me and this machine. I could hear the subtle sounds inside it—the almost inaudible, abnormal friction between the gears; the extremely subtle, sluggish jolts when the guide rails moved; the faint popping sound of bubbles breaking as lubricating oil flowed in the pipes.

These sounds were a jumble of noise to others, but they were a clear report filled with symptoms to me.

I remained motionless for a full ten minutes.

Then, I straightened up and took off my reading glasses. I repeatedly ran my rough hands over the cold seams of the guide rails, as if caressing a lover's skin. My fingertips could feel the micron-level misalignment and wear.

"How is it?" Melody finally could not help but ask. Her voice had lost its previous disdain, replaced by deep confusion.

I turned to look at her and at Bill and the group of workers who had gathered again at the sound of my voice. I calmly announced my diagnosis. "It's not a circuit problem. The XY-axis linkage transmission module of the machine tool suffered severe impact during transportation or installation, resulting in irreversible loss of mechanical accuracy. My preliminary assessment indicates that the loss is at least 50 micrometers or more."

These words caused an uproar in the workshop, as if a bomb had gone off.

Melody's eyes widened instantly. She strode to the nearby desk, pulled a report from a pile of documents, and held it up to me. "But... But the diagnostic report jointly issued by those eight experts concluded that the main control chip was overloaded and burned out, the driver circuit board was faulty, and they suggested that we replace the entire motherboard and servo system!"

The report highlighted 'Main control chip failure' in bold red, followed by a shocking repair quote of 1.2 million dollars.

My gaze swept over the report as I sneered. "They're wrong."

"How can you be so sure?" Melody pressed with an urgent tone.

I pointed to an inconspicuous hexagonal bolt on the machine tool base. "This bolt is one of the reference bolts that were calibrated horizontally before leaving the factory. Its tightening torque is strictly regulated; the tolerance cannot exceed 0.1 Nm."

I gently rubbed the bolt between my fingers. "But this bolt's torque is incorrect; there are signs of it being tightened twice. Moreover, the method was amateurish. Not only was it not calibrated, but it also disrupted the stress balance established at the factory for the entire base. This is the root cause of the loss of precision."

"As for the circuit alarm..." I paused.

"It was simply a mechanical malfunction that caused excessive load on the servo motor, triggering the system's self-protection mechanism."

The entire workshop fell silent. Everyone stared at me as if I were a monster.

A warehouse manager overturned the conclusions reached by experts using various precision instruments simply by listening and touching.

It was sheer nonsense!

Bill's expression changed constantly. He looked at me and then at the expert report, his eyes a mixture of doubt and shock.

Melody was completely stunned. She looked at me, and the last trace of contempt in her eyes vanished completely, replaced by an unconcealable shock and intense curiosity.

Bill remained grim as he broke the silence. "Talk is cheap. You said you can fix it, so do it. I don't care if you figured it out by hearing or touching. All I want is the result."

"Okay," I replied without any other comments, took off my coat, and wore only an old grey vest.

I took out several strangely-shaped tools from the brand-new Hoffman toolbox. Without a single blueprint or a maintenance manual, I began to disassemble the most crucial transmission component.

Every movement I made had a strange rhythm—loosening which screw, with what force, removing which component, and in what order.

Everything seemed to have been practiced countless times and had become integrated into my muscle memory.

My calloused and scarred hands were now moving nimbly, as if they were dancing.

The onlookers, initially just watching with amusement, pointed and whispered.

"Look at him pretending; it'll be funny when he takes it apart and can't put it back together."

"Exactly, this is Gorman-made. He messed with it without blueprints. He's asking for trouble."

However, the laughter gradually subsided. Everyone fell silent, their gazes shifting from mockery to silence, astonishment, and finally to a near-awe. My actions were utterly inconceivable to these experts.

Melody pulled out a thick, original Gorman repair manual from somewhere. She flipped through the pages rapidly, comparing them to my movements. Her mouth opened wider and wider, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Gosh... Your operations..." she murmured, her voice trembling. "The manual's... emergency calibration method under extreme conditions... Even... Even our Gorman teachers said that this is only an optimal solution in theory; no one could do it in reality!"

This calibration method demanded an extreme level of skill, experience, and judgment from the operator; even the slightest mistake could render the entire core module unusable.

Without looking up, I focused on measuring the clearance of a ball screw using a special caliper.

I replied casually. "Theory? Twenty years ago in Honover, this is how the veteran DMG technicians taught me, step by step."

I paused as I wiped the sweat from my brow and looked up at Melody's shocked face before calmly revealing my identity. "20 years ago, at DMG headquarters in Honover, Gorman, I was among the first batch of trainees they invited from our country."

My thoughts were instantly transported back to that spirited era.