Chapter 1127 - Zhong Xiaoying

Zhong Lishi soon discovered that his new charge was a bright and capable young woman. Beyond her domestic duties, she would stand quietly to the side whenever he conducted experiments, observing with keen interest and occasionally lending a practiced hand. As the weeks passed, Dr. Zhong recognized a genuine aptitude for technical work and began teaching her scientific principles and basic mathematics.

Her capacity for learning exceeded all expectations. She absorbed concepts with remarkable speed, asking incisive questions that revealed a sharp, intuitive mind. After much deliberation, Zhong Lishi resolved to adopt her formally, bestowing upon her the name Zhong Xiaoying.

Xiaoying was no ordinary refugee. She could read and write with a fluency that eluded most Committee members, and her brush calligraphy possessed an elegance that spoke of refined upbringing. She even knew rudimentary martial arts. Intrigued by such accomplishments in one so young, Dr. Zhong retrieved her original statement from the refugee camp records. The document revealed a girl born into a family of minor officials—her grandfather had served as a county magistrate, while her father, the third son, had failed the imperial examinations. When the grandfather died and the family patrimony was divided, the household's fortunes swiftly declined, surviving only through the women's silk-reeling labor. Then, some years past, a sudden fire had consumed everything. The orphaned Xiaoying had nearly been sold to a brothel by unscrupulous relatives before the Committee's intervention plucked her from the abyss.

The Australians had not merely saved her life—they had given her peace and purpose. Dr. Zhong, with his scholarly demeanor and gentle authority, commanded her deepest admiration. After the adoption, her devotion only intensified. She observed the traditional morning and evening respects with meticulous care, and after accidentally glimpsing several animated films from his personal collection, she had taken to addressing him as "Honorable Father."

"Honorable Father, you have labored all day. Please rest," Zhong Xiaoying said softly, taking his arm.

"What time is it?"

"Ten-forty in the evening, Honorable Father."

"Still early." Dr. Zhong stifled a yawn, weighing whether to continue his work.

His thoughts drifted to the newly installed Weight-Pendulum Type 2 on the experimental clock tower outside. He had implemented a simple hourly chiming function—limited to a single strike on the hour, not unlike the factory whistles that marked the working day. Primitive, certainly, but a beginning nonetheless.

Even this modest achievement represented years of painstaking effort. Since his arrival, Zhong Lishi had devoted himself almost entirely to rebuilding the clockmaking industry from scratch. It was a matter of both institutional trust and personal pride.

Those bastards at the Construction Corporation! The curse had become a silent refrain over the past two years. Those architects knew perfectly well that proper clocks could not be produced anytime soon, yet they insisted on incorporating clock towers into every new building. Supposedly this fulfilled the Committee's mandate to "instill modern concepts of time into every native's mind."

The problem was self-evident: these towers had no clocks to install. They stood as hollow monuments with gaping mouths, their intended clock faces sealed with wooden boards and reed mats to keep out the elements. These ugly, plugged openings seemed to accuse him at every hour. Dr. Zhong could not look upon them without discomfort.

At every Standing Session, some oblivious Committee member would inevitably inquire when the Customs House clock tower would finally chime—the empty structure having already spawned considerable speculation among naturalized citizens and natives alike. Dr. Zhong's clock tower had become a running joke, a reliable source of embarrassment.

In the early days, such questions left him squirming. Eventually, he learned to let them wash over him. As Science and Technology People's Commissar, he had direct access to the Executive Committee at expanded meetings. Those who secured seats at such gatherings generally understood the nature of scientific research—that breakthroughs could not be commanded on a schedule. Thus, they remained generous with investment.

Under Zhong Lishi's personal direction, the Planning Committee approved construction of the Taibai Timekeeping Center. Upon its completion, he relocated to Taibai Mansion and embraced a semi-reclusive existence. Apart from one day per week handling administrative matters at the Science and Technology People's Commissariat in Bairencheng, and his obligatory attendance at Central Administration and Executive Committee meetings, he rarely showed his face in town. Save for important occasions like the New Year's gathering, he had withdrawn entirely from the social whirl.

Seclusion afforded focus. But he quickly discovered that tinkering with ready-made timepieces and actually designing clocks from first principles were entirely different propositions—especially when constrained by abysmal raw materials and primitive manufacturing capabilities.

The Planning Committee authorized him to use controlled materials, even the precious "Category One" items brought from the old timeline that could not yet be replicated. But Dr. Zhong understood clearly that squandering such irreplaceable resources on clock manufacturing served no purpose—there was no sustainable production capability to justify it. The same logic applied to the batch of mantel and grandfather clocks they had assembled using components brought through the crossing.

For simplicity's sake, his first project was a pendulum clock—technically the least demanding design. Primitive versions had already appeared in the sixteenth century. Such clocks were generally large and crude, with relatively forgiving requirements for materials and precision.

Even so, the first prototype gave Zhong Lishi headaches for quite some time.

The heart of any timepiece was its regulator mechanism. For a pendulum clock, the first challenge was the escapement—the mechanism that controlled the release of power. In its simplest form, the escapement was a Y-shaped device with two teeth that oscillated back and forth, alternately catching and releasing an escapement wheel, advancing it tooth by tooth with each swing. The Y-shaped component was called the pallet fork, and its two teeth were the pallet jewels.

The pallet fork and escapement wheel were the first components Zhong Lishi designed. These two simple parts left him thoroughly frustrated.

His first wooden test sample—designated Number 1—ignored all other functions and tested only the escapement. One person manually moved the pallet fork back and forth while another twisted the wheel, testing the mechanical relationship between them. Zhong Lishi had initially positioned the pallet fork below the wheel, since the pendulum would also hang below. But during actual testing, the moment he let go, the fork disengaged completely. Bart, who was twisting the wheel, had applied too much force and wrenched his elbow.

Bart's surname was not actually "Bart." His true name was Bateer—his father had been a Mongol soldier who transferred to Guangdong with some military commander. Though Bateer was born on the steppe, he had grown up along the Pearl River, becoming a Mongol who spoke fluent Cantonese. Despite his rice-fed upbringing, he had grown robust and powerful. During the Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign, fifteen-year-old Bateer had fought as a Ming soldier and eventually became a prisoner of war. Then he became Bart.

Zhong Lishi could not single-handedly build clocks; he needed trained assistants. He decided to take on a few apprentices for personal instruction, and Bart was among them. The reasoning was simple: Zhong Lishi needed a strong apprentice, and the naturalized candidates sent by the Personnel Department were uniformly frail and unsuited for heavy labor.

Bart's elbow remained swollen for several days. To prevent such accidents, Zhong Lishi redesigned the pallet fork to sit atop the wheel. In hindsight, his concern had been premature—assembling the pendulum rod with the pallet fork eliminated the disengagement problem entirely. The incident exposed his inadequate understanding of mechanical principles. Humbled, he made a special trip to the Grand Library for books on clock component machining.

Subsequently, he began constructing the Number 2 escapement test machine, intended to verify the "impulse" function. Impulse referred to the energy transfer that occurred when the pallet jewels disengaged from the escapement wheel teeth—the inclined surfaces of jewels and teeth interacted, transferring the wheel's rotational power to the pallet fork, which then transmitted this energy to the pendulum, sustaining its swing. This test achieved ninety-eight percent success. Zhong Lishi had Bart forcefully twist the wheel, and the moment he released the pallet fork, it sprang powerfully to the opposite side exactly as designed—striking and swelling his hand. That evening at dinner, the stunned apprentice received two chicken drumsticks as compensation.

The Number 3 test device evaluated the complete pendulum regulator. Zhong Lishi ordered a ten-meter wooden platform constructed in the clock workshop, with a four-meter pendulum mounted on top. The Number 2 test device was installed upon it, with a notch cut in the pallet fork's tail to engage a pin on the pendulum rod.

(End of Chapter)