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墨書 Inktalez
"Who cares about me? How could there possibly be anyone in this world who cares about me?" Song Pearl chewed on a tasteless bun, thinking about the words left by the Cat Demon earlier. She hadn't expected that the simple Cat Demon would disappear just like that; when she had tried to catch it, her heart didn't know what to do.
Now everything was resolved. Ever since the mist had dissipated, she felt the demonic energy that had been surrounding the factory vanish.
As for the threat from the Cat Demon before it disappeared, Song Pearl didn't take it seriously. She believed there was no one in this world who cared about her. The real regret would be if she turned back into a fish.
She didn't know where she came from. From the moment she could remember, she had been a lonely fish, drifting along with the currents and settling wherever she found herself, until she transformed into Song Pearl.
Becoming Song Pearl made her even lonelier because she had lost even the right to swim and didn't dare to approach the river at all.
If there were truly someone who cared about her, they should have come to save her when her soul was stuffed into a girl's body, allowing her to return to being a fish. Then she wouldn't have to face this complex, unfamiliar environment filled with so many rules...
After finishing two buns, Song Pearl remembered that she still needed to flip the attendance board at noon. The procedures in this factory were too complicated; the workers didn't leave at noon but had to flip a metal plate back and forth.
At the entrance of the Gatekeeper's office, there was a table where two staff members who looked quite similar sat, both dressed in uniforms. Song Pearl walked behind them and flipped over her nameplate back and forth before standing in front of a metal box for a while, looking at many unfamiliar names before leaving.
The work assigned by Minister Liu in the morning was still not finished. Song Pearl returned to the laboratory to continue following the steps outlined in the manual.
She had encountered a Distillation Apparatus during her lab classes, but at that time, there were several people in each experiment group, and with her timid personality, she never had the chance to actually install anything; she only watched others set it up while taking notes.
She hadn't expected to encounter a job she once disliked so soon after starting work.
Following the installation diagram in the manual, she connected the apparatus without as much trouble as she had imagined. The latex tubes of the Condenser were connected according to the diagram. After turning on the tap water, water flowed out from the outlet of the Condenser. Song Pearl couldn't help but cheer; she actually managed to do this herself! Back in school, she could only stand by and envy others.
Not long after turning on the power of the Electric Stove, the liquid in the distillation flask began to boil. A large amount of foam rolled around in its plump round glass belly as gas distilled through the Condenser dripped down into the receiving bottle below.
"Hey! You're moving things around again! What is this? Where did you find it?"
Song Pearl was admiring her masterpiece when Gao Xiaoxia, who entered with a chill, exclaimed in surprise.
"It's right in the cabinet! This cabinet has a lot of experimental instruments, just like you told me!" Song Pearl explained, looking at Gao Xiaoxia, whose expression was one of disbelief.
"I'm going to tell the Minister that you're messing everything up. You won't be able to do this job anymore; let Inspection Station handle it!" Gao Xiaoxia turned and left like a gust of wind.
Song Pearl was confused, not understanding what had gotten into Gao Xiaoxia. Were they really not allowed to touch anything here, as if it were just for exhibition?
Minister Liu was soon called over by Gao Xiaoxia. At that moment, the reaction liquid in the distillation flask on the electric stove was making loud popping sounds, and the flask was bouncing around on top of the stove.
Not knowing if the distillation was complete, Song Pearl grabbed some pH test paper and tested the outflowing liquid. It showed neutral, confirming that the distillation was indeed finished.
"Minister, look at her! From now on, don't record any of this under my name; put it all under Song Pearl. If anything gets damaged, it's not my responsibility," Gao Xiaoxia said.
"Alright," Minister Liu agreed as he walked in, curiously examining the glass distillation apparatus set up by Song Pearl. "What is this? Is it part of this laboratory's equipment? It's quite interesting!"
Just a bunch of outsiders.
Ignoring Minister Liu's comments, Song Pearl disassembled the distillation equipment to proceed with her next tasks: titration and calculations.
However, when she looked at the calculated data, Song Pearl was stunned—there was nothing; the result was a negative number.
Is this even possible?
"Have you gotten any results?" Minister Liu asked. Song Pearl, embarrassed and ignoring his question, continued to focus on her work. Seeing her staring blankly at the calculator made him realize something was off.
"One result came out—it’s negative zero point something," Song Pearl said quietly.
"Negative numbers, if nothing comes out, that's fine, but how can there be negative numbers? This is fertilizer, bought for over a hundred dollars. You end up with a negative number; can you do it or not?"
This was her first time doing it, and she might have made a mistake. Song Pearl lowered her head and remained silent.
"You haven't produced anything and have made such a mess in the lab; there's no equipment you haven't touched," Gao Xiaoxia began to nag again from the side.
"There are still two data points that will come out soon." Reminded by Gao Xiaoxia, Song Pearl recalled that she had measured three components according to the specifications on the packaging. The nitrogen content was already out, while the other two using gravimetric analysis were still in the high-temperature oven.
She hurried to the high-temperature room, only to find that both ovens had been turned off.
"Why is this powered off?" She clearly remembered adjusting the temperature of the oven; by timing, one of them should have been done already.
"I turned it off; it's very dangerous. Last time, a pair of pants got ruined in there. You can't just turn it on!" Gao Xiaoxia said.
Lack of common sense was truly frightening. Song Pearl felt some sympathy for Gao Xiaoxia; working in such an anxious environment wasn't worth it!
"But I still need to use it," Song Pearl said as she closed the circuit breaker. "There are no pants in there; it's fine."
"This is laboratory equipment; who uses it to dry pants?" Minister Liu was also somewhat displeased by Gao Xiaoxia's words. If company leadership heard this, they would only blame him for poor management.
The Inspection Station only had this Machinery Factory in Hongqing, which was just a dispensable transfer station. The work was relatively simple and easy; the only aspect with some technical content was the laboratory.
Minister Liu had worked his way up from being a factory worker step by step. He had no problem with assembly and repair but was an outsider when it came to the inspection work at the Inspection Station, so he rarely came here to give guidance.
Now, Gao Xiaoxia's remarks made Minister Liu feel embarrassed. Gao Xiaoxia hadn't participated in any inspection training, while Wang Shuzhi had a higher education level and broader knowledge than Gao Xiaoxia. The company had sent Wang Shuzhi for inspection training.
This time, when the former minister resigned, both Wang Shuzhi and he were competing for the position of acting minister. In the end, Wang Shuzhi received fewer votes and lost out, while Wang Shuzhi continued to work at the Inspection Station.
As former competitors, Minister Liu did not like Wang Shuzhi, which is why he valued Gao Xiaoxia more. The work at the Inspection Station was primarily assigned to Gao Xiaoxia.
However, although Gao Xiaoxia was eager and sweet-talking, her technical skills were far inferior to those of Wang Shuzhi. She could only perform tasks that Wang Shuzhi taught her; if not taught, she wouldn't know anything at all. Wang Shuzhi, on the other hand, only taught what was necessary for daily work and did not bother with anything else. As a result, despite working for a long time, Gao Xiaoxia had made little progress.
"I forgot who it was, but someone," Gao Xiaoxia felt she had let something slip and left with her head down.
Finally, after two hours, Song Pearl produced the test results. During this time, Minister Liu patiently watched her, waiting to find fault.
Song Pearl had no intention of paying attention to Minister Liu standing there. After turning off the oven's power supply, she weighed another sample and repeated the distillation process. After calculations, the result was still nothing; instead of being a negative value of a few tenths, it was zero.
The other two testing indicators also came out with unusually consistent results—both were zero.
Song Pearl found a blank report form, filled in the data, and handed it to Minister Liu. "Here it is; the result is zero—nothing at all."
Minister Liu took the report without saying a word and left. A result of zero—was there such an Inspector? It was a waste of so many reagents. He needed to inform the Factory Director about this matter.
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