Chapter 238: then translation of title, then ===GLOSSARY=== with list of named entities/coined terms appearing in these lines, using

Zhao Jianguo stood at the doorway of the East Room warehouse, still holding that hand‑drawn card. The wind lifted the paper corner slightly; he didn't hurry to put it away, but stared at the window of the distant cleanroom for a few seconds. Dawn had just broken, and there was already movement inside.

He turned and walked into the control room; Dong Xu was already waiting at the operation console. The data streams on the screen rolled upward, temperature, humidity, and static values all showing green.

"Last night's test run was fine," Dong Xu said. "The equipment has been calibrated; all that's left is for you to hit start."

Zhao Jianguo slipped the card into his pocket, sat at the main control station. He swiped the interface a few times, pulling up all sensor records from the past seven days. Every indicator stayed within limits, with no fluctuation.

"We can start up," he said.

As his words fell, the system popped up a prompt: 【Production‑ready conditions detected; start the smart factory module?】

He clicked confirm.

The lights on the ceiling suddenly turned blue, a faint hum rose in the hallway. The cleanroom doors sealed automatically, the gasket pressing tight. A robotic arm pulled the first wafer from its cassette and placed it onto the lithography track.

Everyone watched the live feed. The sound of the machines came through the glass, steady and rhythmic.

Machine number three suddenly stalled. The screen flashed a warning: response delay 0.3 seconds.

"Scrap," Dong Xu whispered.

No one spoke. The next second, machine four smoothly took over the process, and the crystals kept moving. After the detector scanned them, it showed a pass, and a green check mark popped up.

Someone let out a breath and muttered, "Did we make it?"

Zhao Jianguo didn't answer, just kept his eyes on the data. Ten minutes later, the first batch of ten crystals had all been encapsulated. The inspection robot photographed and compared each one; nine passed, one had a tiny burr on its edge.

"Yield is ninety percent," Dong Xu laughed. "Higher than expected."

Applause broke out in the control room. Workers crowded the doorway, pressing their faces to the glass to look inside.

Master Li was the first to be called in. He put on his protective gear, gloves, and walked to the operation screen. Zhao Jianguo granted him manual review permission.

"This crystal, what do you see wrong with it?" Zhao Jianguo handed over a sample.

Master Li turned it over in his hand, then brought it closer to the light. "Here, the cut isn't bright enough—it's as if the blade speed was off by half a beat."

As soon as he finished, the system logged his judgment and tagged it "sensory feature sample." Seven hours later, the backend generated a new algorithm patch, named "Li's Inspection Optimization v1."

"Can I even teach the machine?" Master Li twitched the corner of his mouth as he saw his name in the system update log.

"You don't just see—you teach," Zhao Jianguo said.

After noon, the production line shifted to full‑speed mode. The robotic arms moved ever more smoothly, the conveyor barely stopped. Every three minutes a batch of crystals came off the line, neatly stacked into anti‑static boxes.

Dong Xu stood at the observation window for a while, then turned to Zhao Jianguo and said, "At this output we could cover half a year's demand in a single day."

Zhao Jianguo grunted, his gaze sweeping the corner log window. A barely noticeable entry had just appeared: external IP attempting to access the LAN, blocked.

The source address was a string of numbers that looked familiar.

He silently took a screenshot, locked the screen, and slipped it into his pocket. Only when the afternoon shift change came did he quietly hand his phone to Dong Xu.

The two walked to the stairwell, avoiding the crowd.

"This address," Zhao Jianguo pointed at the screen, "doesn't it look like the one used by the person who secretly photographed the blueprints last time?"

Dong Xu narrowed his eyes for two seconds, then nodded. "It's been disguised, but the routing nodes overlap. Not a coincidence."

"Let's not make a fuss," Zhao Jianguo said, closing the page. "Switch the core database to an offline mirror and put the anti‑reconnaissance protocol on standby."

Dong Xu acknowledged and turned to change the configuration.

At six in the evening, the opening ceremony officially began. Several tables were set up in the courtyard, eight dishes were stir‑fried, and two cases of beer were brought in. San Daye also showed up, holding a cup as he walked around the workshop, clicking his tongue: "These metal contraptions work harder than my grandson."

The crowd pushed Master Li to the front to make a toast. He raised his cup, speaking softly: "Back when I repaired boilers, I couldn't sleep a whole night. Now I stand here, watching the machines run themselves, and I feel more at ease."

Everyone laughed.

Zhao Jianguo didn't drink much—just one glass before setting it down. He sat in the corner monitoring the feeds; the backend was fine, and the firewall gave no further alerts.

Around nine, people began to drift away. Dong Xu pulled on his coat and stepped out, seeing him still there.

"Aren't you going home yet?"

"Just a little longer," Zhao Jianguo said, looking up. "You go home first."

Dong Xu didn't leave; he sat down beside him. The two sat side by side, gazing at the night sky over the roof, neither speaking.

After a long while, Dong Xu spoke: "Do you really think they could copy our stuff?"

Zhao Jianguo turned his phone over and opened a log entry. "Look at this request header—it carries a special marker. Ordinary hackers wouldn't add something like that."

"What does that mean?"

"Someone's watching us," Zhao Jianguo said, pocketing his phone. "It's not about money; they want to know how far we can go."

Dong Xu fell silent for a moment, then chuckled. "They'll be disappointed. This is just the beginning."

Zhao Jianguo smiled too.

They clinked cups, then poured the remaining liquor onto the soil.

The wind lifted a corner of the tablecloth; an empty bottle rolled a bit and came to rest against the wall base.

Zhao Jianguo stood up, reopened the monitoring interface. A new data stream was loading; the workshop's internal temperature held steady at twenty‑three degrees, with a variance no more than 0.1°C.

His finger slid across the screen, switching to the network topology map. All connection points were green, except for a single node at the edge that flashed gray for a moment before returning to normal.

He stared at that spot for a few seconds.

Dong Xu yawned, said he was going home, took two steps, then stopped. "Tomorrow morning's inspection is at eight—don't stay up too late."

Zhao Jianguo nodded.

His silhouette vanished around the stairwell corner.

He didn't move, just kept his eyes on the screen. He refreshed once, then again. The edge node showed no further abnormality.

But he knew there was a problem.

He exported the log and examined it line by line. At 1:17 a. m., the system had briefly opened a debug port for 400 ms, with no operation commands logged.

But he remembered never having opened that port himself.

He sat up straight, then logged back in with bottom‑level permissions.

He entered the command: trace the last three remote access credentials.

Screen jumped, listing two legal records, the third was a blank identity, the login location marked as 'Unknown Relay'.

He pressed Enter, preparing to dig deeper into the path.

Just then, the workshop lighting suddenly dimmed for a moment.

When it lit up again, the color leaned yellow.

He jerked his head up to look at the monitor. All Mechanical Lesson arms halted mid‑air, the conveyor belt stopped, and the detector Screen was pure snow.

Three seconds later, the system rebooted and the lighting returned to normal.

Production continued.

It seemed as if nothing had happened.

Zhao Jianguo's fingers hovered over the keyboard, not pressing down again.