Chapter 3

I took the glass of milk and replied, “I just… wanted to take a look first.”

After Mrs. Quinn left, I finished the milk and turned off the lights.

In the darkness, the shadows of the wrenches stretched across the ceiling. I closed my eyes. I could still hear the chugging thump of Mr. Warren's air compressor from my previous life.

Back then, I thought that was how my life would always be—fixing cars, saving money, and raising a family. I would work until I was old, then set up a reclining chair outside the shop and watch people come and go on the street.

Now, I lay on a bed so soft the mattress felt like a cloud. The ceiling above me was spotless.

Mr. Jude said he would teach me to tear down an engine once I could name a hundred parts.

I would start tomorrow.

…

After my first week, I managed to memorize 97 parts.

On the evening of the eighth day, while Mrs. Jude was setting dinner on the table, Mr. Jude suddenly slid his phone in front of me.

“Do you recognize these?” The screen showed close-up photos of several engine components.

I set down my cutlery and took a look. “Crankshaft, connecting rod, piston, camshaft, valve, timing chain.”

Mr. Jude took his phone back. Mrs. Jude paused halfway through picking up a piece of food.

“You've memorized them already?” asked Mr. Jude.

“I study them when I can’t sleep.” I lowered my head and shoveled the pasta into my mouth.

The truth was, it was not because I could not sleep. In my previous life, I had worked on at least 800 engines, if not a thousand.

Mr. Jude said nothing more.

However, when I passed the study that night, I heard him on the phone. “The fundamentals are solid… He’s faster than I expected… Let’s watch him for a little longer.”

His voice was low, but my hearing was sharper than most people’s.

Back when I worked at the auto shop, Mr. Warren used to send me under cars to listen for abnormal engine noises. Those years had trained my ears well enough that hearing a few words through a closed door was nothing.

…

On the tenth day, Mr. Jude took me to the factory.

Jude Corporation’s testing facility was far larger than I had imagined. It was built entirely from steel, with more than a dozen overhead cranes hanging from the ceiling.

Yellow warning lines stretched across the floor from one end to the other. Rows of engine test stands lined the walls, while dense graphs and data streams flickered across the monitors.

The air was thick with the mixed smell of gasoline and coolant.

I took a deep breath.

“What do you smell?” Mr. Jude stood beside me.

“Gasoline, antifreeze, motor oil, and…” I sniffed again. “Brake fluid? Which test stand is running a brake-system test?”

Mr. Jude glanced at me. He did not say anything. Instead, he pointed toward the third row on the left.

Sure enough, one of the test stands there had a brake-fluid line attached.

He pushed open a glass door and walked into the observation room. Three engineers sat inside, data streams racing across the screens in front of them.

One of them rose to his feet and greeted, “Mr. Jude.”

“Keep running the test.” Mr. Jude walked up to the screen. “Have you looked at the oil-pressure fluctuations on this 1.5-liter turbo prototype under high-RPM conditions?”

“We’re looking into it now. The data shows the pressure curve starts to drop after 6,000 RPM. We suspect there may be a design flaw in the oil pump’s pickup.”

Mr. Jude stared at the graph for five seconds.

“Take out the oil pump and inspect the pickup screen and its flow area. And check the position of the oil-pan baffle. The oil sloshing around in the pan could be affecting it.”

The engineer was startled for a moment. “Mr. Jude, how did you figure that out?”

“Above 6,000 RPM, the oil in the pan starts to slosh. If the pickup is positioned incorrectly, it can intermittently draw in air. Take it apart and you’ll see.”

The engineer quickly jotted it down on his tablet.

I stood three feet behind Mr. Jude, savoring every word and committing each one to memory.

Oil-pump pickup position, pressure drop above 6,000 RPM, and oil-pan baffle.

I had encountered something similar in my previous life—a domestic SUV with an oil warning light that would come on at high RPM. They checked it three times and still could not find the cause.

In the end, Mr. Warren cut open the oil pan and discovered that the baffle angle was off by two degrees. The model was eventually recalled. There were 20,000 vehicles in total.

I stepped out of the observation room and leaned against the hallway wall. Inside, Mr. Jude continued discussing the issue with the engineers.

I closed my eyes, trying to remember the engine code of that SUV. It was manufactured by Jude Corporation. I remembered it clearly.

It would hit the market in four years. Two years after that, it would be recalled.