Cheng Zhujun sighed. “Your brother must be really skilled… That machine he’s working on has been broken for a long time. No one in the factory knows how to fix it, but if it’s not repaired, the impact on our factory will be huge! I heard production has already dropped by half!”

Taotao watched for a while and found it boring, so she wandered off.

The machinery factory was quite large, but after walking around for a bit, Taotao had already seen everything.

It was just… really boring.

At the very least, she went to check on Song Zhi three times, wanting to know when he’d be done. But it seemed like the more they discussed, the more heated their conversation became?

Taotao found a spot that looked relatively clean, brought over a small stool, and sat down.

Cheng Zhujun kept her company.

The place they chose was in front of an office in the factory area.

Inside the office, several people were arguing fiercely.

“That word refers to the motor!”
“Nonsense, it’s for the turbofan!”
“Which one of you is actually right?”
“I think Xiao Wang is correct!”
“No, it’s the turbofan…”
“If we mess up again, another one will be scrapped!”

Taotao sat at the office door, watching the people inside argue so heatedly.

Cheng Zhujun explained, “Most of our factory’s machines were made in the Soviet Union. Back when their experts were stationed here, college students served as translators. But now that those experts are gone, barely anyone in the factory can read Russian manuals. When the machines break down, we can only rely on guesswork to fix them!”

Taotao thought for a moment and asked, “Russian?”

—She actually knew a little Russian. Song Zhi had introduced her to it, and after that, she started looking up words in the dictionary on her own. The dictionary recorded a lot of specialized terms, which she found interesting. Sometimes, Taotao even treated it like a storybook—it was pretty fun.

Taotao stood up. “I’ll go take a look.”

“Taotao, don’t! Let’s not disturb them…” Cheng Zhujun hurriedly tried to stop her.

It was too late. Taotao had already run into the office, squeezed into the middle of the crowd and craned her neck to see.

—Oh, she actually recognized the sentence they were pointing at in the manual!

Taotao read the Russian text aloud, then translated, “This sentence says, ‘Under no circumstances should the engine cover be opened directly. The first step must be repeated, or the engine will be damaged.’”

The room fell silent.

A middle-aged man in a gray work uniform asked, “Hey, little girl, who are you?”

Cheng Zhujun quickly answered, “Engineer Ma! She’s Engineer Song’s younger sister!”

“Engineer Song? He’s here today?” Engineer Ma asked.

Cheng Zhujun nodded.

Engineer Ma immediately grabbed the manual and hurried out.

Taotao followed. “My translation is correct!”

Engineer Ma ignored Bai Taotao, carrying the manual as he searched around the factory floor. Eventually, he found Song Zhi. “Engineer Song, could you… take a look at this manual?”

Song Zhi, who had been talking so much his mouth was dry, was interrupted. He turned to glance at the manual in Engineer Ma’s hands.

The people around them protested—

“Engineer Ma, we’re in the middle of something!”
“Yeah! There’s an order to these things, you know?”
“Engineer Song, don’t mind him. Let’s solve this problem first…”
“This is urgent, too!”

Song Zhi studied the manual for a moment and said, “It says here that the engine cover must not be opened directly. To open it, the first step needs to be repeated, or the engine will be damaged.”

Engineer Ma froze and turned to look at Taotao.

Taotao, unwilling to back down, declared loudly, “I told you my translation was correct!”

All eyes shifted to Taotao.

Song Zhi looked at her and smiled.

He had taught Taotao Russian himself, so of course, he knew her skill level—she was shockingly intelligent, with an excellent grasp of concepts and an outstanding memory. She just lacked some basic life skills and was quite naive when it came to dealing with people.

Song Zhi skimmed through the manual from beginning to end in just two or three minutes before telling Engineer Ma, “You can trust her translation. She might not understand machinery, but she can definitely read the Russian text.”

The factory workers looked at the young, beautiful, and slightly dazed girl—she could read Russian?

They all sucked in a sharp breath.

Engineer Ma quickly led Taotao to his office. “Comrade Xiao Song^[1]He’s calling her Xiao Song which means little Song because he thinks she’s Song Zhi’s younger sister so they would share the surname., please come this way…” His tone was now much more respectful.

The moment Song Zhi heard “Comrade Xiao Song,” the smile on his face faded slightly, replaced by a thoughtful expression.

Taotao followed Engineer Ma back to his office and translated the entire Russian manual. Engineer Ma and the others were overjoyed and hurried to write everything down in Chinese.

Then, Engineer Ma pulled out another manual. “Comrade Xiao Song, here’s another one. Could you help us translate this as well?”

Taotao stared at the new manual—it was clearly more than twice as long as the last one: !!!

Her eyes darted around before she asked, “Engineer Ma, if I work for you, will I get paid?”

Engineer Ma was taken aback. “Paid?”

Taotao declared, “I want braised pork for lunch!”

Engineer Ma considered it. “How about stir-fried pork slices?” The factory served communal meals, so they couldn’t cook something special just for one person, but they could collect the stir-fried meat and give it to her.

“That works! But I want three servings!” Taotao held up three fingers and added, “And I want three fried eggs! And three bottles of tangerine soda!”

—Yesterday, she had seen someone selling bright red tangerine soda at the bus station, but her mother hadn’t let her buy any.

Engineer Ma thought about it and set a condition. “Alright! But you have to translate one more manual.” As he spoke, he pulled another one from his drawer.

Taotao: !!!

Sure enough, the older the ginger, the spicier it gets.

But… she really wanted to eat meat.

So, Taotao nodded.

After obediently translating two long and tedious manuals, it was finally the midday break. Taotao’s stomach was already growling, and she immediately started pestering Engineer Ma to take her to eat meat.

After finishing his work, Song Zhi came to find Taotao.

Engineer Ma stopped him and handed over the Russian manual along with Taotao’s translation for him to review.

Song Zhi compared the two and said, “The translation is quite good, it could score ninety points… just needs a note that it’s an axle belt, not a wheel belt.”

Engineer Ma immediately explained, “That’s not Comrade Xiao Song’s fault, it’s just that we’re used to calling it a wheel belt. Xiao Song already asked us about it.”

Song Zhi smiled. “Then there’s no problem.”

Taotao exclaimed, “Braised pork!”

Song Zhi was stunned.

Engineer Ma burst out laughing. “I already had my apprentice inform the cafeteria. You two should go eat now! I guarantee there’ll be plenty of stir-fried meat slices!”

Cheng Zhujun said to Taotao, “Taotao, I’ll take you to the cafeteria.”

Excited, Taotao grabbed Song Zhi and followed her.

Sure enough, when they arrived, Engineer Ma’s apprentice had already gotten their meals ready and called them over warmly.

—Three aluminum lunch boxes filled with white rice, topped with generous portions of stir-fried meat slices. Each box even had a golden-fried egg on top! There were also stir-fried green beans and eggplants, and three plastic cups filled to the brim with bright red orange soda!

Taotao was overjoyed.

Because today’s meal was earned with the knowledge she had learned!

So Song Zhi was right—knowledge really was money!

Happily, Taotao handed the rice-heavy lunch box to Song Zhi, kept the meat-heavy one for herself, and gave the last one to Cheng Zhujun.

Cheng Zhujun was stunned. “Taotao, is… is this for me?”

Taotao nodded, picked up a piece of stir-fried meat, and ate it, feeling utterly satisfied!

She turned to Song Zhi, waiting for him to eat some meat… then quickly asked, “Is it good?”

Song Zhi smiled and nodded.

Taotao turned again, wanting to ask Cheng Zhujun if the stir-fried meat was good, but then she saw Cheng Zhujun quickly grab an empty lunch box and pour all the meat from her box into it?!

Faced with Taotao’s clear, puzzled gaze, Cheng Zhujun felt a little embarrassed and whispered, “My younger brother isn’t in good health. I’ll take this back for him later.”

Taotao understood and nodded. Then she said, “But you should eat some too! Your brother can only have a better life if you stay healthy.” With that, she stuffed three pieces of stir-fried meat into her mouth at once!

Cheng Zhujun froze.

After a long moment, she looked at Taotao, her eyes filled with gratitude.

Taotao’s cheeks were puffed up with meat, like an autumn chipmunk.

Ah! The feeling of eating meat in big bites was just too good! And the meat even had different flavors—some had the taste of chili, some of potatoes… though the flavors were a bit mixed, the meat was springy, rich, and incredibly delicious!

Taotao was thoroughly enjoying herself and couldn’t help but ask Song Zhi again, “Is it good?”

Song Zhi: …

He understood the little girl’s excitement at using her newly learned knowledge to earn this reward, and he wanted to encourage her, so he smiled and said, “It’s very good.”

Taotao was overjoyed.

Seizing the moment, Song Zhi continued, “So Taotao, you have to study even harder in the future. Not just for the sake of eating meat. With knowledge, we can dive into the deep sea, explore outer space… our goal is the stars and the vast ocean.”

Taotao thought the stars and the ocean sounded far away, and they might not be as delicious as the stir-fried meat in front of her.

Song Zhi went on, “In 1957, the Soviet Union launched an artificial satellite. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin went into space… He saw, with his own eyes, the massive blue planet floating in the universe—beautiful and breathtaking.”

Taotao was stunned. “Someone… really went to the sky?”

Song Zhi said, “Taotao, don’t you want to see what our Earth looks like? Don’t you want to know what’s at the bottom of the deep sea?”

Taotao thought: Better fill my belly first before thinking about such grand ideals!

She picked up another chopstick-full of meat and happily stuffed it into her mouth.

So delicious.

Taotao was enjoying her meal when suddenly, someone strode over and slammed an empty aluminum lunch box onto the table with a loud clang, startling her!

Right after, the person sneered sarcastically, “Hey! Who gave you permission to sit here?”