In the midst of busy days, the hands of the clock ticked by unnoticed.
Ordering, purchasing foreign electronic televisions in T City, supervising the renovation of the electric appliance market, and studying.
Fang Bai greedily squeezed out time every day, and it felt like two weeks passed in the blink of an eye.
Some time ago, he secured valve processing orders from four companies, which perfectly filled Jiayu Company's current production capacity.
He estimated he could earn a profit of 40,000 yuan in one month, which was not to be underestimated.
This was even more than what Wang Hengli of Hengli Valve earned. Of course, Hengli Company mainly dealt with low-end products, so their profit margin was relatively low.
Now, Fang Bai was gradually reducing orders from Hengli Company, no longer wanting to cooperate with that short, chubby man.
Additionally, Fang Bai's network of contacts increased by 4, reaching a total of 11.
It was not easy!
By January 15th, Fang Bai's personal wealth reached 905,000 yuan, and Fang Bai's Middle Finger Golden Finger was only 95,000 yuan away from upgrading.
The slowing pace of earning money was not his fault.
The weather was getting colder now, with occasional sleet. Setting up a stall depended on the weather, and there were far fewer pedestrians on the streets.
In the cold weather, with frequent cold winds, fewer people were willing to brave the cold at roadside stalls to watch TV, and their desire to buy was greatly reduced.
Therefore, TV sales were not as booming as before.
In the past, earning 160,000 to 170,000 yuan after tax in half a month was not an issue.
But under the current circumstances, it was only about 120,000 yuan after tax.
Fang Bai went to the docks several times and found that they were not as busy as before New Year's Day.
As the year-end approached, many industries were seeing a contraction in business.
Of course, some industries became busier the closer it got to the end of the year.
The Xinghai Electric Appliance Market had entered the renovation phase, which was smoother than expected.
If the electric appliance market could begin operations before the New Year, TV sales would definitely boom.
Watching goods at a roadside stall in winter was not comparable to being indoors. At least in the market, customers could choose televisions at ease, and with the New Year approaching, many families wanted to buy a color TV for a good New Year.
So, Fang Bai continued to purchase televisions and moved the repaired ones to the renovated second floor for storage.
They might not sell well now, but after the electric appliance market opened, they might not even be enough to meet demand.
The money to be earned was just delayed.
However, Fang Bai's mother felt that their income had decreased, which made her a bit unaccustomed and somewhat disappointed, worrying that things would get worse in the future, or that they might not even be able to sell anything.
In the evening, the elderly couple lay in bed, discussing the recent TV sales.
"Alas, earning money feels like being on a boat, drifting unsteadily and uncomfortably," Liu Fengqing said with some worry.
Fang Shi comforted her, "Our son said it would be better once the market opens. It's cold now, and no one wants to go out. Those bosses who used to pass by our stall, if they wanted to buy, they would have bought already. Now we are targeting customers who specifically come to buy TVs, so it's normal for sales to be a bit lower."
"For our electric appliance market, we don't seek to make a huge profit. Making a small profit and not losing money is enough. If it really doesn't work out, we can rent it out."
Liu Fengqing was used to making small money. If she could earn over a thousand yuan a month, she was already happy.
"Don't say such inauspicious things. We will definitely make money. We must believe in our son."
Fang Shi was now a confident father.
Besides, the family no longer had debts and had so much savings; they were already very content.
The second floor of the house next door had been renovated. After a few months of ventilation, they could move in, and then they would renovate the rooms they currently lived in.
But the newly renovated bathroom could already be used.
The new bathroom was renovated according to his son's ideas. It was much more spacious and had a showerhead and water heater installed, already usable.
Bathing in winter was much more convenient, and the whole family liked it, though using gas was quite expensive.
Unlike before, they often lit candles for baths, and the floor would be wet after bathing, making it inconvenient to change clothes.
There wasn't much farm work at home either. The vegetables they planted were watered once every few days. After getting busy with earning money, they didn't have time to tend to them and bought vegetables at the market instead.
The paddy fields in their hometown were one harvest a year. The paddy fields on the back of the mountain didn't get enough sunlight during the day in the latter half of the year, so they couldn't be planted at all, unlike the south where there were two or even three harvests a year.
Starting next year, he planned to let others farm their family's cultivated land, as long as they helped pay the grain tax. The whole family no longer had time to farm.
Overall, the family's living conditions had improved, from struggling to eat meat to having meat at every meal until they were tired of it, buying new clothes freely, and having better living and travel conditions.
Fang Shi didn't know what a better life would be like.
...
Three days later,
Fang Bai went to collect payment and settle the processing fees from the previous month, receiving over 20,000 yuan himself.
Yesterday, setting up the stall, the revenue was about 40,000 yuan, bringing his personal wealth to 964,000 yuan.
Getting closer to the upgrade, Fang Bai was a bit excited these past few days.
Next time he set up the stall, he might just upgrade.
Five days later, Fang Bai's family set up their TV stall again.
When his mother returned in the afternoon and handed Fang Bai a bag of money after closing the stall, he happily helped count the money.
After counting the money, as soon as his mother left his room, Fang Bai received a notification that Fang Bai's Middle Finger Golden Finger had upgraded.
"Holy cow, it upgraded!"
"These past few days have been really tough."
Fang Bai was very excited and immediately opened the Golden Finger virtual screen.
[Personal Wealth: 1,001,300 yuan]
[Prompt: Fang Bai's Middle Finger can be upgraded. Do you want to upgrade?]
He silently thought "Confirm," and Fang Bai's Middle Finger Golden Finger directly upgraded to Level 3.
Suddenly, he felt a warmth in his right middle finger, and the wound felt a little itchy.
After a while, the warmth stopped, and it no longer itched. He saw that his middle finger, which was swollen, had shrunk, now the same size as his left middle finger, and its joints were much more flexible than before.
However, the scar was still there and still somewhat stiff.
It had recovered 40% in total. Trying to lift heavy objects was barely manageable.
Overall, being able to reach Level 3 meant he could now use his right hand to write normally.
"It's recovering quite well. Finally, there's some hope."
Fang Bai's face showed joy as he tried to move his middle finger more, then tried to move his index and ring fingers, which were a bit less flexible.
"Alas, my index and ring fingers are still LV1!"
"Never mind, let's take it slow."
Now Fang Bai had come to terms with the speed of his finger recovery, knowing that rushing wouldn't help.
After the middle finger upgraded, it gained an additional function.
[Middle Finger LV3: Analyze severe errors in manufacturing processes of physical objects such as mechanical and electronic equipment]
Oh, this upgrade is about processes!
What is a process?
In the field of metal material processing, there are processes such as casting, blanking, machining, welding, coating, heat treatment, and assembly.
For example, welding involves what type of welding material to use, current, voltage, welding speed, and so on. It is the method and process of processing into a product.
After reading the information, Fang Bai was delighted and immediately tried it out.
He took out his bp machine and silently thought, "LV3 function analysis and detection!"
[Analysis Result: No process errors]
He expected this, as it could only detect severe errors; minor issues would not be found.
Similar to checking for design flaws, if the Golden Finger's score was above 60 points, it wouldn't find anything.
He went downstairs to find his bicycle.
He began to use LV3 for process inspection.
Indeed, under the transparent 3D diagram, there were over twenty red dots, even more than the design flaws.
For example, at the steel frame, there was a prompt.
[Analysis Result: Incorrect welding material model used, welding current too high.]
It didn't specifically say what welding material was correct, nor did it say what welding current was appropriate.
But to be able to achieve this effect, tracing back to the source, it was already very powerful.
However, it could still only work on physical objects, and had no reaction to process documents.
But no matter what, Fang Bai felt it was more powerful than LV2's design. Designing was easy, but manufacturing was extremely difficult.
Cars from this era, for example, were ugly!
Was it that they couldn't design beautiful cars?
Not at all. It was that they couldn't mass-produce them.
Even a single curved sheet metal part, such as a streamlined car door, couldn't be manufactured because the raw material thickness varied, the plasticity varied, and even with the same press mold, if the bending equipment had poor precision, the bent dimensions would be different.
If the semi-finished product had too much error, it couldn't be used with automated equipment, couldn't be mass-produced, so they could only lower manufacturing requirements and make a simple bend.
Therefore, the appearance of cars seen was rarely streamlined. Making a concept car was easy, but mass production was difficult.
Design is not just about imagination; it also needs to consider the actual conditions of the factory, i.e., equipment, skilled workers, and processes.
Fang Bai had already thought of the broad future uses of Fang Bai's Middle Finger Golden Finger. If he didn't use it for real industry, it would truly be a disrespect to this Golden Finger, a waste of a treasure.
If the LV3 function was so powerful, what about higher levels?
It would cost 10 million yuan to upgrade to LV4, which was not something Fang Bai could earn in a short time.
As for the other two Golden Fingers, they also had promising futures.
A total of 25,000 words have been updated; there are no more drafts. Starting tomorrow, normal updates will resume with two chapters a day, totaling 6-8K words daily.