Coincidence

*Snap!* A spiritus blade trembled for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, followed by a muffled *bang*! A rifle barrel flew whistling from Ji Jue's hand, clattered against the wall with a loud clang, and hit the floor, piling up with the other ruined barrels into a small mountain. "I swear to fu—" Ji Jue's face turned livid. Taking a deep breath, he fought down the urge to curse, clutching his hair as he panted and looked around for a punching bag. Little Niuma had long since caught wind of the mood and fled, not daring to show its face. *Well, then, Yan Fei, I'm sorry.* Venting his frustration, he graded Yan Fei's homework and doubled the workload with a vengeance. *His fundamentals are an utter disaster. Go back and practice more!* At that, his mood improved slightly. Turning back to look at the barrels feeding off the lathe one by one, the flames of fury flared up in his chest once more. *Fundamentals. Why is it always fundamentals?* *And how the hell can my own fundamentals be an utter disaster too...?* The reason fundamental skills were called fundamental was that learning had no end; a lifetime was not enough to master them. One could fail to improve, but there was no such thing as reaching the end. And now, Ji Jue had actually slammed headfirst into a ceiling. *This is fucking ridiculous! I want to kill the client!* What kind of bullshit demand was this? Precision? Not even absolute—such an absurdly basic requirement, something Ji Jue had never even paid special attention to, had one day proven difficult enough to trap him. Learning had no bounds, practice had no bounds, and the demand for precision had no bounds. In itself, it meant zero tolerance in the workpiece, zero wear upon assembly, flawless control and machining—and pushing theoretical limits to their absolute peak. If everything began from theory, life would be far too simple. Theoretically, at Ji Jue's current level, given enough time, he could even use molecular tweezers to pluck out extra molecules from mercury grain by grain, turning mercury into gold. If only it were truly that simple. Theoretically, as long as you calculated the ballistic trajectory, you could fire a single shot from one end of the Empire straight to the other! Yet over all these years, spanning the entire breadth of the Empire, White Owl was the only person who had ever pulled off such an ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra-long-range snipe. She was the one who had truly grasped the theory and turned it into reality. And now, with the demand for precision laid before him, Ji Jue began to sweat. Just the machining and correction of a barrel's bore alone had him tearing his hair out. Never mind trembling hands—on the isolated boundary operating station, his spiritus hand merely drifting an insignificant sliver under the microscope was enough to ruin all prior efforts. Parallelism, perpendicularity, coaxiality, symmetry, center of gravity... Dimensions, shape, position... Material, density, stress, and material properties... In just a few hours, failed parts had already piled up like a mountain. Even those failed parts merely had minuscule flaws undetectable under an ordinary microscope. He could very well have passed them off to fill the quota, but the problem was... Even if you didn't engrave your name on it, as a craftsman, could you truly pound your chest with a clear conscience and deceive yourself? Minor details like the handguard, stock, and grip were easy to handle—nothing more than patching what was lacking and reinforcing the whole. But when it came to the receiver and the barrel, the precision demanded of every single component was so extreme that Ji Jue's high-precision lathes were useless. He had no choice but to pick out high-quality pieces from mountains of barrels, then manually correct the tolerances himself. Holding his breath, focusing entirely, devotedly, bit by bit, sliver by sliver, he wielded Chunjun's spiritus blade and used the spiritus hand of Non-Offensive to slowly adjust and calibrate from the inside out. A single moment of slackening or distraction, and all was lost! Not to mention the rough assembly, calibration, secondary machining, and breaking-in that followed. If a single step in the process went wrong, he had to start all over again. Relying purely on a pair of hands to handcraft components with nanometer or even picometer precision? What kind of absurd dream was he chasing?! To make matters worse, this was a rush order. It had to be done tonight, and delivery was tomorrow! Was she insane?! Ji Jue had stayed up half the night, and the components that actually met the standard were so scarce he couldn't even assemble a single complete rifle. Now, he finally understood why an ordinary order that involved neither blessings nor alchemy could be rated Class A by Professor Ye. Purely through precision, a childish toy had been elevated to a ludicrous level. To the point where Ji Jue even began to wonder whether his hands were just useless pig trotters. Where was Masterwork Nature? Save him! Stressed, bewildered, sweating, he finally felt his own limits under his teacher's beating. *Snap—* Off by a hair. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!" Ji Jue roared at the ceiling, his face flushed with rage. He whipped out the pistol on his desk, aimed at Old Man Qitan's photo on the monitor, and pulled the trigger, emptying two magazines. Calming down, he turned back to resume. Amid the ticking of the clock, he mounted yet another climb toward that summit between theory and reality. Gradually frantic, gradually lost, gradually numb. Gradually accustomed. Once he stripped away the arrogance of being a Heavenly Work craftsman and thinking everything was within his grasp, and once again faced the most mundane materials and orders, he rediscovered the sweating, trembling fear and excitement he had once felt as an apprentice. And so, his heart settled into tranquility. As Ji Jue the apprentice, he set off anew. After a long, grueling night, Ji Jue, on light and unsteady feet, finally pushed open the workshop door and emerged with his work, only to see melon seed shells and fruit peels piled like mountains on the table and scattered across the floor. Old Man Qitan was slouched on the sofa with his legs propped up, snoring loudly enough to tempt anyone to kick him down the stairs. Meanwhile, Auntie White Owl remained seated in her spot. A velvet cloth was spread across the table before her, and holding tools in hand, she was meticulously maintaining the parts before her. It was a handgun. The various parts on the velvet cloth, freshly serviced, gleamed brightly in the morning light. Ji Jue's steps faltered; he couldn't take his eyes off it. At best, it could only be called practiced and meticulous. Ji Jue could perform such maintenance as well, but it would never feel like this. It was as gentle as caressing a pet, as attentive as nursing an infant, yet also like painstakingly trimming one's fingernails—caring for a part of one's own body. A partner, a kindred spirit, even a lover. Without needing Deus Ex Machina, Ji Jue could hear a soft song of joy emanating from the parts assembling together, steeped in love and trust. It loved its master so deeply. Never had Ji Jue imagined that one day he would perceive such pure love and trust within another person's tool. "Like a child raised with your own hands," Ji Jue murmured softly. "Hmm?" White Owl smiled. "A-Xian said something similar. I can't really tell, though. You all talk about so many profound things, but I just simply love it. There's nothing that deep about it." "That is precisely what makes it precious," Ji Jue replied. He kept the second half of the thought to himself—*and precisely why it is terrifying!* In that instant, what Ji Jue sensed from her aura was Ascension at its absolute zenith! Through sheer personal love and devotion alone, she bestowed upon a handgun such wondrous qualities. Simply out of affection and dedication, she elevated a mortal object into a miracle. Without that, how could she have forged such an exaggerated track record across such an immense distance? "Did you notice?" White Owl smiled without saying more, looking toward the case in his hands. "What about the goods? Are they ready?" "They're ready, but between several weapons, I can't quite tell which is best." Ji Jue set down the briefcase and said slowly, "As the client, why don't you pick according to your preference? That way, whichever you choose, it will at least please your eye, won't it?" The case opened, revealing three freshly serviced rifles. Objectively speaking, they were purely weapons. Aside from the absolute precision and machining tolerances demanded of them, nothing miraculous could be seen. Yet merely looking at them made the heart leap. Instinctive perception told everyone who saw them what perfection meant! Rough machining, fine machining, breaking-in, balancing, integration, followed by the spiritus nourishment of Fluid Alchemy—even the surface smoothness of the final anti-rust coating reached the nanometer level. Flawless. He had exerted every ounce of effort—no, surpassed his limits—to ensure precision and perfectly satisfy the client's demands. The only drawback was that out of the three, only one was a true finished product. The remaining two had flaws, more or less. The difference was: could she really tell? "A challenge?" White Owl's smile grew even more amused as she grinned. "As expected of A-Xian's student... Back then, your teacher played the exact same game with me." Ji Jue froze for a moment. Then, he saw her reach out, her fingers sweeping across the three rifles. "Hmm, this one had the most effort poured into it. It must be the first finished piece, right? A pity, though—there are still quite a few flaws. The second one, mm, not bad, but there's a slight issue with the breaking-in. So is it the third one? Unfortunately, no. The third is the most well-balanced, solid and without major faults, but still not it. "So—" With a crisp *clack-clack*, White Owl casually dismantled all three rifles into pieces, then reassembled them from scratch. In the end, the sole finished product hidden among the three stood before Ji Jue, without a hair's breadth of error! Ji Jue fell silent. He was speechless. "How did you tell?" If Ji Jue hadn't been the maker himself, even he wouldn't have been able to distinguish in an instant which rifle and which parts were the true masterpieces. "Intuition. With things like this, intuition is enough. Haha, you craftsmen can't understand that, can you?" White Owl chuckled softly, stroking the weapon in her hands with entranced delight. "What a beautiful little guy... A bit short-tempered, hungry and lean, yet remarkably obedient and docile. Overall, it completely meets the requirements. Good, very good. It's already exceeded my original expectations." "Merely meets the requirements?" Ji Jue asked. "Depends on who you're comparing it to, right?" White Owl put the weapon back into the case. "Much as I'd like to praise you, compared to A-Xian, there's still plenty of room for improvement." She thought for a moment and said decisively, "At your pace, in another ten—no, five years, I probably won't be able to tell the difference at all." Ji Jue nodded calmly. His composed demeanor surprised White Owl slightly. "You're not even a little sore about it?" Ji Jue countered, "As a student, being compared to my teacher—isn't that the highest honor and praise?" "..." White Owl went silent for a moment, then shook her head. "Only in this regard are you nothing like A-Xian." "Even between teacher and student, we don't have to be identical in every way, do we?" "Hmm, true." White Owl patted the case in her hand, her smile turning sly. "Still, since you know who I am and still handed this over to me, does that mean you've prepared yourself mentally?" "As a craftsman, my only duty is to fulfill the client's order and requirements. Everything else is none of my business." Ji Jue picked up a cup of cold, strong tea and downed it in one gulp, completely indifferent. Anyone permitted into the workshop was a client Ji Jue recognized. The client wanted a gun, so he made a gun. As for whom this gun would kill, it didn't matter. Anyone could die! Looking across the White Nation today, whoever was qualified to be targeted by this gun—no matter who died, Ji Jue would gladly set off firecrackers and pop champagne. His only regret was that this rifle was merely semi-automatic, its firepower somewhat lacking. If possible, he would have loved to throw in a water-cooled machine gun as a bonus! Between the Federation, the Empire, and the Wild Gathering, they were all a bunch of miserable bastards anyway. Every single one of them could fucking die, die, die, die!!!! "Truly a Mohist," White Owl grinned, hoisting the case onto her shoulder and kicking the snoring geezer awake. "Let's go." Only when pushing the door open did she seem to recall something. Slapping her forehead, she looked back at Ji Jue. "As a craftsman, you should at least give your creation a name. It might not count as an alchemical work, but you spent plenty of blood and sweat on it, didn't you?" Ji Jue fell silent, scratched his head, and gave a self-deprecating smile. "I'm really no good at this sort of thing. Let's just skip it." "Give it one! Anything will do!" White Owl urged. "Give yourself a little sense of participation." *A sense of participation like this? Better not.* Ji Jue sighed, thought for a long while, and said, "Then let's call it 'Chekhov.'" White Owl looked puzzled, seemingly surprised. "I didn't take you for a theater lover." "The designer of the Model B87 had that name," Ji Jue said with a smile. "Quite a coincidence, isn't it?" "Indeed." White Owl nodded and stepped out through the door. In theatrical theory, if a gun appears in the opening act of a story, it must go off before the end. That was Chekhov's Gun. And even more coincidentally, also in theatrical theory, if the gun that determines the ending never appeared at the start of the story—then its name was Deus Ex Machina! Either way, a gun would sound. Because someone was about to die. "Fucking wonderful." Ji Jue set down the empty teacup and looked out the window at the sky. Amid sonic booms, fighter jets streaked past in an endless stream. Bearing the winds of war toward the distance. *BOOM!!!* In the distance, amid the thunderous roar of explosions, thick smoke and hellish flames rose once again through the vast swirling sands.