Marrying My Bestie's Ferocious Brother - He Calls Me His Baby!-Chapter 204 - 203: A Watch Worth Tens of Thousands? Taken Apart, So Be It!
The night was very heavy.
Lin Wan Yi stood by the crib.
Moonlight like a thin layer of frost, scattered on the ground of metal parts.
Gears, hairsprings, springs, pointers...
Every piece sparkled with a cold light.
That was Professor Liu’s treasured pocket watch.
An antique that in this era could trade for a courtyard house in Beijing.
Now, it has become a pile of scrap metal.
Lin Wan Yi held her forehead.
Her temples throbbed.
The instigator, Gu An, was already fast asleep.
Small chest rising and falling, with a trace of satisfied drool at the corner of his mouth.
As if what he had dismantled wasn’t a watch, but an ordinary block toy.
Lin Wan Yi let out a long sigh.
How to explain this?
The next morning.
The sky was just lightening.
"Knock, knock, knock!"
The abrupt knocking sound began.
Lin Wan Yi’s heart skipped a beat.
What’s supposed to come, still came.
She opened the door.
Standing outside was Professor Liu, his face radiant.
The old man was wearing a brand-new Chinese tunic suit, his hair neatly combed.
"Xiao Lin! Good morning!"
Professor Liu’s voice was loud and full of energy.
"I’m here to pick up my treasured pocket watch!"
He rubbed his hands, his face full of anticipation.
"An An must have liked it a lot, right? Did he figure out anything?"
Lin Wan Yi stepped aside, making way.
Her expression was somewhat complex.
"Professor, please come in and have a drink of water first."
"No drink, no drink!" Professor Liu waved his hand, heading straight inside.
"Let me see my watch first!"
His footsteps stopped in the center of the living room.
The smile on his face instantly froze.
He saw on the table.
That laid-out on the white cloth, categorized and neatly arranged... parts.
Hundreds of them, big and small.
Each one was once part of his treasured pocket watch.
Professor Liu’s body swayed.
The color on his face faded at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Turning pale.
"My... my watch..."
His lips quivered, unable to produce coherent words.
He reached out his hand, shaking, wanting to touch those parts, but dared not.
Like he was looking at his own child’s corpse.
"Professor..."
"Don’t touch me!"
Professor Liu suddenly stepped back, clutching his chest.
He breathed heavily, veins bulging on his forehead.
"Medicine..."
"My medicine... fast heart-relief pill..."
He started fumbling around on his body.
Lin Wan Yi was terrified, hurriedly supporting him.
"Professor, don’t panic! Let me help you find it!"
Just then.
"Yiya!"
A crisp baby sound echoed.
Sitting in the high chair, Gu An was banging his plate with a small spoon.
Seeing he had caught everyone’s attention.
His little hand pointed.
Pointing to the pile of parts on the table.
Professor Liu was in too much pain to breathe, completely ignoring him.
Gu An grew impatient.
He slid down from the high chair, running over with his short legs to the table.
He tiptoed, rummaging through the table with his small hands.
Soon, he found two items.
One, a gear smaller than a grain of rice.
The other, a piece of paper soaked with saliva.
On the paper, a crooked circle was drawn with a pencil, with an obvious gap in it.
Gu An held these items up to Professor Liu.
Making "ah ah" sounds from his little mouth.
As if explaining something.
Professor Liu didn’t even look, waving his hand, his face filled with despair.
"Ruined..."
"All ruined..."
"The unique piece I brought back from Germany..."
Gu An saw he was being ignored.
Got angry.
He forcefully slapped the gear and paper onto Professor Liu’s hand.
Then, he picked up the tiny screwdriver from the floor.
With the tip of the knife, he first poked a tiny dot on the gear.
Then, he poked the gap on the paper. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞
Finally, he mimicked grinding motions with his little finger.
"Yiya! Ya!"
His little face tightened, seemingly saying: You fool, look here!
Lin Wan Yi understood.
"Professor! Look quickly!"
She supported Professor Liu, forcibly making him bow his head.
Professor Liu, with tears in his eyes, looked over despondently.
Just one glance.
He looked as if he had been struck by lightning, completely frozen in place.
Suddenly, he fished an old pair of reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on.
Then he pulled a portable magnifying glass from around his neck.
He quickly grabbed the tiny gear, about the size of a grain of rice, and brought it up to his eyes.
"This... this is..."
Under the magnifying glass, there was an extremely tiny, almost imperceptible wear mark on one of the gear’s teeth.
And the edges of this mark had been smoothed to perfection by something even more delicate.
He then grabbed the paper with the sketched gap.
A buzzing sound filled his brain.
This wear and tear would cause the pocket watch to run a fraction of a second slow each month.
He had always thought it was a lubrication issue.
He never expected...
Never expected it was a defect in a gear invisible to the naked eye!
And this child...
This merely six-month-old child!
Not only did he discover it!
He even... repaired it!
"Snap!"
The magnifying glass in Professor Liu’s hand fell to the ground.
He didn’t bother to pick it up.
He grabbed Gu An’s small shoulders, his face, full of wrinkles, flushed red with excitement.
"How... how did you figure it out?!"
"How... how did you do it?!"
Gu An, feeling dizzy from being shaken, pushed his face away in annoyance.
Professor Liu laughed instead of getting angry.
He laughed.
Laughed heartily.
"Hahahahahaha!"
He laughed until he cried.
He hugged Gu An and spun him around.
"A genius!"
"Extraordinary! This is a one-of-a-kind genius!"
The earlier despairing look disappeared without a trace.
He pointed at the pile of parts and shouted at Lin Wan Yi.
"Well taken apart!"
"Brilliant disassembly!"
"Without taking this broken watch apart, how could we have discovered its problem?!"
"Xiao Lin! This watch! I’m not taking it back!"
Professor Liu waved his hand grandiosely.
"It’s a gift for An An!"
"The best fate for this watch is to be dismantled by him!"
"What do tens of thousands of dollars matter! Knowledge is priceless!"
He seemed to remember something and slapped his thigh.
"I have two more Swiss-made mantel clocks in my study! They’re even more complex! I’ll bring them all over next time! Let him take them apart! For practice!"
Lin Wan Yi was utterly speechless.
Are all these researchers so eccentric in their thinking?
Just then.
"Old Liu! You’re snatching my student again!"
From outside the door came Professor Wang’s exasperated voice.
He stormed in angrily, carrying a basket of fresh cucumbers.
After he listened to Professor Liu’s enthusiastic explanation.
Professor Wang disdainfully spat.
"What’s so special about taking apart a broken watch?"
He pushed Professor Liu aside, smiling kindly at Lin Wan Yi.
"Xiao Lin, don’t listen to him."
"Machines are dead; we in biology are alive!"
"Dismantling lifeless objects, such small-mindedness!"
Professor Wang patted his chest, speaking even louder than Professor Liu.
"Tomorrow! I’ll personally bring over the Zeiss microscope from our Agricultural College lab for An An!"
"That thing can see cells! Now that’s true precision!"
"Let him dismantle it! If he breaks it, it’s on me!"
Lin Wan Yi felt overwhelmed.
One gifts a clock.
One gifts a microscope.
Is she raising a son, or the head of a demolition crew?
This news quickly spread back to Beijing University.
That afternoon.
The physics department of Beijing University held an emergency meeting.
Half an hour later, a decision shocked the entire school.
It was unanimously decided by the faculty that Gu An would be exceptionally admitted as an "Honorary Auditing Student" of the Physics Department.
A six-month-old infant became the university’s most distinguished student.
The family quarters were filled with joy.
Dean Li and several old professors all came to the Gu Family to offer their congratulations.
The room was filled with an atmosphere of happiness.
Just as everyone was immersed in this joy.
"Bang!"
The door was suddenly flung open.
The technician Jiang Zhou, left by Gu Yanshen, rushed in, covered in sweat and white-faced.
His lips were trembling, his voice tinged with sobs.
"Sister-in-law! It’s not good!"
The laughter in the room abruptly ceased.
Lin Wan Yi’s heart skipped a beat.
"What happened?"
Jiang Zhou, gasping for breath, could barely stand.
"The color TV factory!"
"The production line for picture tubes that we just put into production..."
"Exploded!"
