Chapter One: The Night Shift Bath
At eleven at night, only the hum of the rectifier remained in the workshop. A-Cheng placed the last rack of workpieces into the zinc bath and glanced down at his watch: nine hours until the delivery deadline.
A layer of fine foam floated on the surface of the bath. He tested the alkalinity with test paper, and the value was two points lower than the day shift record. The old master had said that a thin zinc layer is not necessarily due to insufficient current—it could also be that the bath is "tired" at night.
He woke up A-Ling in the dormitory. There were a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, then only one sentence came back: "Don't add chemicals yet. Keep the temperature steady. I'm coming over."