You think I would be afraid of your threats? (Vote, please)

"What are you doing?"

Seeing the child take out a strange, ugly-looking tool he had never seen before, Huang Jian already sensed trouble. His heart sank further as the boy raised that unsightly device and began dismantling the casing of a top-of-the-line centrifuge worth millions. Huang Jian instantly shouted, his tone fierce and commanding.

Zhong Yun was startled, but fortunately, the manual auxiliary device in his hand corrected itself in time, averting disaster; otherwise, the machine would have been ruined.

Annoyed at being interrupted, Zhong Yun looked up to see the B-grade mechanic leap over, stepping between him and the high-end equipment whose casing Zhong Yun had already removed. Pointing at Zhong Yun’s nose, the man demanded, “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Sprayed with the man’s spittle, Zhong Yun felt a surge of irritation. His face darkened as he replied, “All I know is, if you don’t disappear from my sight, you’re going to lose your job.”

Huang Jian was clearly unmoved by the threat. His anger flared. “You think I’m scared of your threats? Even if I lose my job, I won’t let you ruin these machines!”

Faced with Huang Jian’s righteous indignation, Zhong Yun felt a headache coming on. How had he ended up dealing with someone like this? “I hired you to help, not to make trouble.”

“I won’t let you destroy these machines in front of me,” Huang Jian declared, showing no sign of backing down.

“You leave me no choice,” Zhong Yun said helplessly.

Huang Jian snorted coldly, a look of contempt in his eyes. He couldn’t fathom how a half-grown kid and two old men could possibly do anything to him.

Zhong Yun turned to Yang Siqing, spreading his hands in silent appeal: this was his mess, he should fix it.

Yang Siqing nodded expressionlessly. With a flick of his finger, an invisible force struck Huang Jian in the back. The well-meaning mechanic, so intent on protecting the machines, let out a muffled grunt and collapsed to the ground as if struck by a heavy blow.

Zhong Yun dragged him to a corner and resumed his work.

This small incident did not disturb them.

Old Huang, reclining on the couch, watched as Zhong Yun wielded that odd tool, dismantling one large machine after another until the floor was covered in parts. His efficiency was enough to make seasoned technicians sweat in shame.

But the real reason he was there was to take part in the plant treatment, not to watch Zhong Yun display his mechanical prowess.

Yet, seeing Zhong Yun so focused and absorbed, Old Huang dared not disturb him. Instead, he found himself inwardly conflicted.

Meanwhile, the person at the center of it all, Yang Siqing, appeared entirely unperturbed, as if none of this concerned him. But the bulging veins on the hands that cradled the withered “Crystal Glass Rose” betrayed his true feelings.

Each time Zhong Yun disassembled a machine, he would carefully sift through the parts, extracting what he deemed useful and sweeping the rest into a corner.

Gradually, both old men began to understand what he was doing—though the idea seemed absurd. Was this youth not only a master of floriculture but also a designer and assembler of machines?

There are geniuses in the world, and both men had seen prodigies achieve astonishing success at a young age in their own lives.

Indeed, both Old Huang and Yang Siqing had been remarkable figures in their youth.

To them, for Zhong Yun to have cultivated the nearly extinct “Seven Fairies” by seventeen, whether through luck or skill, was already enough to earn their respect.

Now, with his claim that he could revive the withered “Crystal Glass Rose,” they were half-convinced—Old Huang more so, Yang Siqing less.

For their own reasons, both joined this seemingly absurd healing endeavor.

Yet upon entering, they found Zhong Yun rolling up his sleeves and dismantling machines, which only added to the sense of the bizarre.

But as Zhong Yun began carefully selecting parts, they started to suspect his true purpose. Both were men of patience and experience; whether Zhong Yun was bluffing or not would soon be revealed.

After more than an hour, Zhong Yun finally finished dismantling all the machines. The spacious room was now crowded and chaotic, filled with piles of metal fragments.

Wiping away imaginary sweat from his brow, Zhong Yun announced, “Finally done.”

“Oh my god.”

At that moment, the unconscious Huang Jian groaned and slowly woke. Seeing the scene before him—more than a hundred pieces of cutting-edge equipment reduced to a field of parts, not a single one left intact—he let out a wail and nearly fainted again.

“This is a crime!” he shouted, leaping up, ready to fight.

Zhong Yun, at his wits’ end, pointed his dismantling tool at him. “Keep it up and I’ll take you apart, too.”

“Go ahead!” Huang Jian, eyes bloodshot, puffed out his chest and rammed himself toward the tool in Zhong Yun’s hand like an enraged bull.

“Damn!” Zhong Yun hurriedly pulled back, nearly drilling a hole in the stubborn bald man.

“Maniac,” he cursed. “If you don’t stop, I’ll have someone knock you out again.”

Huang Jian paused, a bit more subdued now—this threat clearly hit home. He still didn’t know what had happened earlier, only that he’d suddenly blacked out. If he was knocked out again, these rare machines might truly be beyond saving.

With that in mind, he anxiously started making calls, summoning colleagues and repair experts to see if there was any hope of reassembling the equipment.

Now that Huang Jian was no longer bothering him, Zhong Yun got back to work, arranging the selected parts—fewer than expected, just over a hundred, mostly one from each machine, a few with two.

Gazing at the assortment of parts, Zhong Yun felt troubled. Assembling them into a functional whole was no easy task.

“Watch him for me,” Zhong Yun said, pointing at the B-grade mechanic, who was still on the phone. “Don’t let him interfere.”

“No problem,” Yang Siqing replied, a flash of menace in his eyes. The murderous look he shot at Huang Jian made the mechanic’s back go cold even as he made his calls.

Zhong Yun briefly recalled the design in his mind, reviewing every step.

There were two ways to revive Yang Siqing’s “Crystal Glass Rose.” The first was to channel his internal energy into it, stimulating the plant’s vitality over and over until it revived. But Zhong Yun didn’t have much energy to spare, and the process could take months—time he neither had nor wanted to spend.

The other option was to use a machine. Unfortunately, while the technology existed in Davos, such a device was not in production.

So Zhong Yun had to take a roundabout approach: buy up a slew of machines, extract the useful components, and assemble one himself.

It was troublesome, but there was no other way.