In my early 20s, I stood before the world's most advanced machine tool, dressed in brand-new blue overalls, my eyes gleaming with a thirst for knowledge.

Beside me were meticulous and rigid Gorman engineers and top technicians from all over the world.

With an unyielding spirit and extraordinary talent, I mastered all the technical points in the shortest time and could even discuss improvement plans with the Gorman masters.

Together, we drank beer, went through drawings, and stayed up all night. We gave each machine we debugged a name.

Back in the present moment, the blond and blue-eyed senior engineer named Klaus patted my shoulder in broken English and said, "Shaun! You're a genius! A true mechanical genius!"

I looked at the dusty machine in front of me, my eyes turning tender. "Back then, its model was still called DMC-60H. We all called it Ingrid. It was like an arrogant and precise Gorman girl. You must treat it with the gentlest and most understanding way, and it will show you its most perfect side. I just... met an old friend I hadn't seen for many years."

Melody was completely speechless. She looked at me, this middle-aged man with a slightly hunched back wearing an old vest, covered in grease stains.

She could not connect the person before her with the one she remembered—a former state-owned enterprise employee reduced to a lowly warehouse manager in a private company.

This stark difference left her mind blank.

"Who... Who are you?" she asked politely, her voice trembling slightly.

I smiled but did not answer. I turned and continued my work. I used a special and almost subtle technique to tap the locking pin of the calibration module. Each tap was executed with terrifying precision. The only sound in the workshop was the crisp, rhythmic tap.

This sound was like a series of heavy hammer blows, striking everyone's hearts. It also shattered the deep-seated arrogance within them that judged a person solely by their education and position.

Three hours later, the mechanical calibration was complete. I closed the last outer casing and tightened the last screw.

The whole process was seamless. After the hundreds of disassembled parts were put back together, there was not a single one left over or missing.

"It's done." I straightened up and let out a long breath.

The entire workshop fell silent. Everyone held their breath, waiting to witness a miracle.

Bill's fists were clenched tightly without him even realizing it, his palms sweaty and his face a mixture of anticipation, tension, and disbelief.

Melody looked at me, her eyes filled with undisguised admiration. She walked to the control panel, took a deep breath, and pressed the green start button with a slightly trembling hand.

Buzz... A steady, pleasant hum of electricity rang, and the machine tool's LCD screen lit up instantly. The various indicator lights flickered in sequence, indicating that the self-test program had begun.

"It's moving! It lit up!" A worker shouted excitedly.

Bill's face instantly showed an ecstatic smile.

It worked!

It really worked!

The piece of metal, condemned to failure by eight experts, had been resurrected by the unassuming warehouse manager!

However, this joy lasted less than ten seconds.

Beep... Beep... Beep...

An urgent, piercing alarm abruptly shattered the workshop's tranquility.

A barrage of red Gorman error codes instantly appeared on the LCD screen; a bold warning message at the top pierced everyone's hopes like a sharp sword.

[SYSTEM OVERLOAD! SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY!]

The alarm was so shrill that it was going to puncture eardrums.

The indicator lights that had just illuminated went out, and the code on the screen scrolled wildly before finally settling on blood red.

The lively atmosphere that had just begun to rise in the workshop was instantly doused with ice water, freezing solid.

Bill's smile froze, becoming more like a grimace.

How could this be? It was clearly fixed, so why did it suddenly set off the alarm?

Just then, hurried footsteps came from the workshop door. "Mr. Lamar! Mr. Lamar! I've brought Mr. Henry Lewis for you!"

Bill's assistant, John, strode in with a middle-aged man in a sharp suit.

It was none other than Henry, the expert Bill had regarded as an honored guest and had overseen the repairs.

The moment Henry entered, he saw me, the warehouse manager, standing beside the machine, and his expression immediately darkened.

"You're fooling around!" he roared, his voice filled with scholarly arrogance and an unyielding anger that did not allow anyone to violate his authority.

"Mr. Lamar, didn't I tell you? This equipment is incredibly delicate. Leaving it to an untrained person could cause devastating consequences! How could you let a handyman touch my 'patient'?"

He strode to the control panel, glanced at the blood-red error code on the screen, and his face immediately showed an agonized expression.

He slapped his thigh and pointed at the screen before saying to Bill, "We're doomed! We're completely doomed! Mr. Lamar, the motherboard is completely burned out! It was originally just a problem with the driver chip; we still had a sliver of hope for repair. After he messed around with it, the high-voltage current directly damaged the main control CPU! This machine is now just a pile of scrap metal! It has absolutely no value for repair!"

Every word Henry spoke struck Bill's heart like a hammer blow.

Bill's face instantly went from ghastly pale to ashen, then as black as the bottom of a pot. He whirled around, his eyes fixed on me. His gaze was icy cold, as if he wanted to devour me alive.

"Shaun... Zigger..." His voice seemed to come from hell, filled with the fury of being deceived and betrayed.

The life-or-death contract I had signed and the massive four million dollars in compensation crashed down on me like an invisible mountain.

In the workshop, gloating, sympathetic, and contemptuous glances once again wove together into an impenetrable net, trapping me firmly in the center.

I met Bill's murderous gaze and Henry's contemptuous and smug gaze.

I spoke, word by word. "He's wrong. This isn't an overload. It's a protection protocol. Someone deliberately modified the safety parameter thresholds in the system."

As soon as I finished speaking, Henry burst into laughter, furious. He pointed at me and said to everyone, "Absurd! Absolutely absurd! Listen, a warehouse manager who can't even read a circuit diagram is discussing safety parameters with me? It's utterly absurd!"

"This is a typical chain reaction caused by hardware damage! Do you know what a security parameter is? Do you know what level of access is required to enter this machine's backend?"

He turned to Bill, continuing to fan the flames with a heartbroken expression. "Mr. Lamar, you're just too soft-hearted. That's why you were deceived by these charlatans! Now, great. Four million dollars has been completely wasted!"

Bill's fists were clenching, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He pointed at me, his voice trembling with extreme anger. "Shaun, you'd better give me an explanation. Otherwise, that contract... Today, you won't be able to walk out this door no matter what!"

The immense pressure squeezed me from all sides, like tangible seawater.

Bill's eyes flashed with a fierce glow, as if he were about to pounce over and tear me apart.

Henry stood to the side with a smile.

The slight awe the factory workers had felt for me vanished instantly, replaced by the amusement of onlookers watching a spectacle.

However, I remained unusually calm. I pointed to a line of error code on the screen and said to Melody, "Look here."

Melody instinctively leaned closer.

My voice was not loud, but everyone heard me. "Error B-4711. In DMG's fault code database, all hardware fault codes start with A. Codes starting with B indicate software or parameter anomalies. The official definition of B-4711 is: Unauthorized external parameter writing causing system protective lock."

"Henry." I turned to look at him. "You're an expert in this; you should understand this code better than I do, right?"

Henry's smile froze. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but he immediately denied it. "Nonsense! I've studied DMG's systems for over a decade, and I've never seen a B-4711 code! You're making things up to stall for time!"

"Is that so?" I sneered.

I ignored him and turned to Melody, who seemed somewhat dazed from our conversation. My tone was gentle. "Melody, could you do me a favor?"

Melody hesitated for a moment before nodding instinctively.

"Get your laptop from your car and connect it to the machine tool's maintenance port with a data cable."

"What do you want to do?" Melody was somewhat wary.

"Enter engineering mode and check the background logs."

Henry immediately shrieked, "Impossible! Engineering mode requires the highest-level password, and only engineers at the Gorman headquarters have it! How could a warehouse manager like you have it?"

His reaction was excessive.

Even Bill sensed something was off. His gloomy gaze swept back and forth between Henry and me.

Melody hesitated, looking at the hysterical Henry and then at my calm face. Finally, she gritted her teeth and chose to believe me. "Okay!"

She turned around and ran out, quickly returning with a pink laptop. Following my instructions, she connected the data cable.

"Open HyperTerminal, set the baud rate to 115200, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity," I recited a series of parameters.