Chapter 4: The Koi Fish of the 1970s, Illustration 4

After the busy farming season ended and things quieted down, apart from tending to her family's small plot of land, gathering firewood, picking wild vegetables, and cutting pigweed, Chen Ying found herself with little else to do. She didn’t quite know what she could occupy herself with.

While rummaging through the house, she discovered a complete set of woodworking tools, including some carving knives. It reminded her that her father had once been an apprentice carpenter and had learned the craft fairly well. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to work in a factory, mainly because there were no furniture factories nearby. The local wood wasn’t suitable for making furniture, Chen Ying thought. She believed she could use these tools to create something, but what exactly to make remained unclear.

Taking the tools with her up the mountain, she stared at the trees, unsure of what to do. “Yingzi, what are you doing here?” Liu Li asked.

“Nothing,” Chen Ying replied, shaking her head.

“Can you do woodworking?” Liu Li asked curiously, eyeing the tools on the ground.

“A little,” Chen Ying responded. Although she hadn’t formally learned, she felt she could manage.

“So, what do you want to make? Even though this isn’t a timber forest, you’d still need to report if you want to cut trees.” The local forest mainly consisted of ordinary pines, but they were public property.

“I don’t know. I want to make something to earn money and improve our home, but I’m not sure what would sell,” Chen Ying confessed, her worries slipping out naturally.

“Earn money? There’s probably nothing selling well right now, especially wooden goods. Even furniture wouldn’t fetch much,” Liu Li hesitated.

“Hmm, I think I could make something more complex, like mechanical devices,” Chen Ying said, a vague idea stirring in her mind.

“Mechanical devices? You mean like bicycles or robots? Well, if that’s the case, maybe you could make a threshing machine. There aren’t enough in the village, or some other tools that could make life easier,” Liu Li laughed, though she didn’t truly believe Chen Ying could pull it off.

Yet, hearing her words sparked many ideas in Chen Ying’s mind—bicycles, robots (puppets)—and slowly a plan began to form. “Your suggestion isn’t bad.”

“Ah? Sister, what exactly do you want to make?” Liu Li asked, surprised and somewhat confused.

“Nothing,” Chen Ying said, patting her shoulder and picking up her toolbox as she headed back down the mountain. Once home, she searched around the backyard and found some wood her father had stored—nothing precious, but quality timber nonetheless.

That evening, after consulting with her father and receiving his approval, she began crafting the next day. Her movements were swift. She decided against making a bicycle—she’d seen those before, and without tires, it wouldn’t work. But the fleeting image of a mechanical puppet from her memories was worth considering.

However, she soon realized it was impossible. The intricate patterns she recalled that supposedly controlled the puppet’s movements turned out to be useless. In the end, she gave up on that idea and settled on making a fan—not electric, nor hand-cranked, but a wind-up mechanical fan.

Indeed, the kind that runs by winding a spring. The airflow was decent, but it only ran for five minutes at a time and wore down easily. Chen Ying believed she could improve it, perhaps by converting it to electric power, though that would require a motor capable of generating electricity—and wood was not conductive.

Looking at the model engine she had made, Chen Ying sighed. Alas, it seemed unlikely she could make money from this. Still, when she showed the wind-up fan to her family, they were amazed—no one expected her to create such a thing.

Her father examined the fan excitedly, inspecting every detail before trying it out himself. “Yingzi, you’re amazing. I couldn’t make something like this.”

“Yeah, sister, you’re incredible!” her younger siblings chimed in, their faces full of admiration.

“What use is it? You can’t sell this,” Chen Ying felt indifferent. To her, the fan was practically useless.

“Not necessarily. Maybe someone will buy it,” Chen Wen said with confidence.

“No, it won’t work. Because it’s made of wood, the spring lasts only five minutes, and it wears out easily. If only it were made of iron, then with a motor, it could run on electricity,” Chen Ying shook her head, grounded in reality.

“A motor?” Her father looked at her curiously. “Does what you made have a motor?”

“Of course. But it can only use iron and must be paired with other conductive parts,” Chen Ying explained, showing the wooden model engine she had crafted.

She then described the mechanical principles involved in detail, impressing her father. He began asking about other engines, ones powered by oil or other means, and Chen Ying was able to answer.

“When did you learn all this, Yingzi?” her mother couldn’t help but ask. How did her daughter know these things without her knowing?

Chen Ying tilted her head, thinking for a moment, then shook it. “I don’t know. When I want to make something, I just know how to do it.”

“Maybe it’s true what they say: surviving hardship brings good fortune,” her father said happily.

“Hopefully. But what’s there to be so happy about?” her mother nodded, noting that aside from no longer fussing over Liu Xin, their daughter hadn’t changed much. She didn’t question anything else and simply found her husband’s silly grin a bit exasperating.

“Heh, you know, my senior brother works at the machinery factory in town. From what he says, the engines we have now are mostly discarded ones from abroad. If what Yingzi makes is real, then maybe…” her father shared his thoughts.

“You believe your daughter’s nonsense?” her mother thought her husband was just imagining things.

“Maybe. Foreign engines weren’t invented by aliens. Why couldn’t our daughter do the same? What she’s made looks a lot like what I’ve seen before,” her father argued.

“You’d better calm down,” her mother said, rolling her eyes before returning to her chores.

“Yingzi, in a couple of days, your father will take you to the machinery factory in town. See if you can draw some design plans or something. It’ll be good to have a method. If it works out, maybe you can get a job there,” her father said, ignoring her mother’s skepticism as he turned to Chen Ying.

“Okay.” Chen Ying was eager to give it a try.