Quick Transmigration: The Pregnant Little Fairy is Pampered by the Heirless Boss

Chapter 330 Era: XCMG's Simple-minded Wife 34

In early autumn, the aroma of roasted chestnuts wafted through the residential compound of the Hongxing Steel Plant in the western suburbs.

Six-year-old Xu Zhigang squatted on the cement ground, twirling a piece of chalk between his fingertips before drawing a string of numbers on the gray ground.

"X equals 5, Y equals -3!"

The little boy looked up, his bright, dark eyes sparkling. "Auntie Dan, I solved it!"

Ji Dan, who was hanging clothes to dry, unfolded a small shirt, and sunlight shone through the fabric, casting dappled patterns of light on her face.

It bent down to examine the system of two linear equations in two variables on the ground, its red lips slightly parted: "Good heavens, your dad just taught you that last month."

Aunt Zhang from next door, carrying a vegetable basket, stopped when she heard this: "What is Xiao Gangzi plotting now?"

She squinted at the densely packed formulas on the ground, then suddenly slapped her thigh. "Oh my goodness! This isn't something a child can play with! My son is six years old and can't even count to fifty yet!"

Hello, Grandma Zhang!

Xu Nian'an, with her hair in pigtails, bounced out of the house, holding a well-worn copy of "100,000 Whys." "Do you know what the most abundant element in the human body is? Oxygen 65%, Carbon 18%, Hydrogen 10%, Nitrogen 3%..."

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Aunt Zhang waved her hands repeatedly, turning to Xu Zhitie, who was adjusting his homemade telescope, "Tiedan'er, your older brother and sister are both obsessed, you should at least..."

"Grandma Zhang!" The little boy exclaimed without turning his head, "Jupiter has red spots because of superstorms, and it's four times the size of Earth! The telescope was modified by my dad from a scrapped artillery telescope!"

Ji Dan suppressed a laugh as he put the dried clothes into the basket, and the three little ones immediately lined up to help him get the hangers.

Aunt Zhang clicked her tongue in amazement: "Is the Xu family blessed with extraordinary luck? A whole family of child prodigies!"

“Their mother was calculating steel strength formulas every day during her pregnancy,” Ji Dan blinked. “Their prenatal education was quite unique.”

Ji Dan has become more and more like a human being, and over the years, no one has ever doubted that it is actually an anomaly.

*

As the sun was setting, Ji Xiaosong pushed open the door with her cloth bag in hand, only to be met with three small cannonballs.

"mom!"

"Aunt Dan said I can memorize the periodic table today!"

"The telescope can see Saturn's rings!"

She kissed each of the children's muddy little faces, and the aroma of braised pork wafted from the kitchen.

Ji Dan, wearing an apron, poked her head out and said, "Xu Weidong called to say the spectrometer data has been verified, and he'll be back later."

"Stay up late again."

Ji Xiaosong sighed softly and took out a book wrapped in kraft paper from her bag. "Where did we get to today?"

"Trigonometric functions!" Zhigang held up a draft paper filled with formulas.

"We learned about cell structure in biology class," Nian'an said, pointing to a picture of a microscope in the book.

Zhi Tie silently handed over a star chart: "The Big Dipper and Polaris."

Ji Xiaosong's eyes welled up with tears. These three children, born on the night of the steel plant explosion, came into this world with a mission.

Just as she was about to say something, Ji Dan suddenly grabbed her shoulder: "Don't worry, they're happy."

Indeed, the courtyard was filled with laughter and cheerful conversation after dinner.

Zhigang drew a force analysis diagram on the ground with a twig, Nian'an gave the rag doll an "injection" using the real stethoscope Ji Dan gave him, and Zhitie disassembled and reassembled the gear toy that Xu Weidong made for him.

Ji Dan leaned against the jujube tree, watching them, the moonlight casting a silvery outline on her silhouette.

"They are not just smart."

Ji Dan said softly, "When Zhigang solves equations, he unconsciously arranges the chopsticks on the table; Nian'an can smell different medicinal herbs; and Zhitie's handiwork is always 0.3 millimeters more precise than his peers."

She looked at Ji Xiaosong meaningfully, "Your spiritual power and Xu Weidong's mechanical talent are both manifested in them."

"That's a good thing. They came into this world to change everything. But sometimes I worry that they might get lost because they don't have memories."

"Don't overthink it." Ji Dan seemed to see right through her. "This country needs children like this."

*

At 11 p.m., the door hinges made a soft creaking sound.

Xu Weidong tiptoed into the house, only to find a kerosene lamp lit in the kitchen.

Ji Xiaosong was heating up food, the steam blurring her profile.

"Are the children asleep?" His voice was hoarse, his work clothes covered in machine oil.

Ji Xiaosong turned around and was startled by the bloodshot in his eyes: "Have you not slept for three days?"

Her fingers traced his newly added gray hair. "How's the spectrometer?"

"It's done!" Xu Weidong suddenly picked her up and spun her around, the spatula clattering to the ground. "The nanophase distribution of Great Wall No. 5 perfectly matches the theoretical prediction!"

He pressed his forehead against his wife's, "You know what? We used a rudimentary method to detect the grain boundary segregation effect that even people in the US hadn't discovered!"

Ji Xiaosong laughed and dodged his unshaven face: "Keep your voice down... wait, what effect did you say?"

Xu Weidong pulled a stack of data from his briefcase: "Look at this diffraction peak! The enrichment of rare earth elements at the grain boundaries is 20 times higher than in the bulk phase! This is the key to the rapid improvement in the toughness of our special steel!"

Under the oil lamp, the two men huddled together, studying the data and occasionally scribbling on draft paper.

Ji Xiaosong suddenly frowned: "This discovery is enough to be published in Materials Science."

Xu Weidong's smile faded: "It was rejected."

He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “The reviewer said, ‘Do farmers in China understand materials science? I suggest they learn basic English first.’”

The kitchen fell silent.

The sound of a train whistle drifted from afar, like a long, drawn-out sigh.

"Son of a bitch!"

Ji Xiaosong suddenly slammed her hand on the table, startling Xu Weidong.

His gentle wife rarely swears. "When we built the spectrometer, they were still using slide rules!"

Xu Weidong was eating his rice in silence when he suddenly looked up and said, "Oh, right, Lao Zhou's son is at the Foreign Languages ​​Institute. He said he could help us translate the journal 'Iron and Steel Research' into the D-country journal."

"If you're going to invest, invest in the best."

A fire ignited in Ji Xiaosong's eyes. "I asked my college classmates to find a Chinese professor at MIT to help polish it."

Outside the window, Zhigang quietly withdrew his little head that had been peeking out from under the covers.

He didn't understand the technical terms, but he remembered what his mother said: "One day they'll be begging to read our papers."

The next morning, Xu Weidong found the three children standing by his bed.

"Dad, teach me calculus!"

"I want to learn electron microscopy!"

"Could you make me a spectrometer?"

He rubbed his aching back and looked at Ji Dan, who shrugged innocently: "They were eavesdropping on your conversation in the middle of the night."

*

At the breakfast table, Xu Weidong tried to persuade him, "When Dad was your age, I was still playing in the mud..."

“But you later became an eighth-grade worker.” Nian’an blinked.

"That's right!" Zhitie waved his spoon. "Grandpa Zhang said you could repair diesel engines when you were twelve!"

Ji Xiaosong suppressed a laugh as she watched her husband's discomfiture.

Xu Weidong finally compromised: "Okay, I'll take you to the factory to see the spectrometer this weekend, but you must finish your primary school curriculum."

He added sternly, "And also, two hours of outdoor activity every day—that's an order!"

After the children ran off cheering, Xu Weidong said worriedly, "Isn't this too early? They deserve a childhood..."

“Every era has its own way of growing up.”

Ji Xiaosong handed over the lunchbox, saying, "When we were their age, you were already picking up screws in the workshop, and I was gathering herbs on the mountain."

Before she went to work, Xu Weidong suddenly stopped her: "I forgot to mention last night that the ministry has approved our construction of a formal laboratory."

Sunlight streamed through the doorway and fell on his face. "Even though the budget only allows for buying secondhand equipment..."

"enough."

Ji Xiaosong straightened his collar. "You know what? The shed that Madame Curie used to separate radium was even more dilapidated than our warehouse."

He laughed loudly as he went out, his bicycle bell ringing throughout the alley.

Ji Dan appeared behind them unnoticed: "You two... one dares to think, and the other dares to do."

*

The blast furnaces of the steel plant spewed out clouds of smoke as Xu Weidong pedaled his bicycle through the morning light.

Old Zhang, the gatekeeper, greeted him with a smile: "Mr. Xu, I heard you guys actually managed to put that foreign machine to work?"

"What foreign machinery!" Xu Weidong patted the parts strapped to the back seat of the car. "We assembled them all ourselves!"

In the technical department, Lin Xiaomei was leading the young workers in debugging the equipment.

Seeing Xu Weidong enter, she waved excitedly: "Engineer Xu! Following your method, we've tripled the speed of nanophase detection!"

Shen Hongying looked up from the pile of circuit boards, her dark circles clearly visible: "I just received a call from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics; they're willing to provide an improved version of the prism free of charge!"

During his lunch break, Xu Weidong squatted outside the workshop and ate a steamed bun.

Zhao Bo leaned closer mysteriously: "You know what? The latest issue of the American journal *Acta Metallurgica Sinica* is full of papers on nanomaterials." He lowered his voice, "I had someone check, and they cited our rejected paper..."

Xu Weidong's steamed bun fell to the ground.

In the distance, the experimental furnace was spewing out dazzling steel sparks, much like their future that would eventually blossom.