Chapter 25 (Corrected): The Inheritance
Three Years Ago – When the Letters Came
Chen Rui was only fifteen, sitting in a dusty classroom, when his father handed him a folded letter during lunch break.
"Effective immediately, the Kaiyuan Motorcycle Factory is entering joint restructuring under municipal directive 32-B…"
He didn't understand the full meaning, but he understood the tone in his father's voice: heavy, resigned, bitter.
"They're pulling out?" Chen Rui asked.
"They're cutting off the oxygen," Chen Jianhua replied. "The city's done with subsidizing dying factories. Either we find a way to survive, or someone tears it down for a shopping mall."
That night, Rui saw the factory differently — not just a place of metal and smoke, but legacy and deathwatch. He remembered the rallies, the pride parades, the workers smiling when a new model came off the line.
That factory had fed entire neighborhoods. Now it was barely hanging on.
And his father?
Still clocking in at 6 a.m., fixing machines like it was 1985.
The Early Passing of the Torch
By the time Rui turned seventeen, his grades were decent—but not great. His interest in college was shaky. What pulled him in wasn't textbooks, but equipment blueprints, supply lists, and assembly schematics that his father quietly left on the kitchen table.
One day, Jianhua pointed to a torn-down gearbox housing on the workbench and said:
"Learn this. It fails at 8,000 km. If you can fix that, you're smarter than most men who wear suits in government offices."
Rui studied. He asked questions. He began visiting the factory after school, eventually shadowing Li Wei and the other managers.
By the time the restructuring finalized, Rui—still underage—was already involved.
The city agreed to a partial equity transfer, putting minor shares in his name under a legal guardian agreement. His father refused to hold the majority.
"You want to save it?" Jianhua said. "Then carry it. Even if your legs shake."
The Promise
Rui looked at the factory floor one night, lights dim, machines silent.
He whispered to himself:
"If I'm going to run this place, I'm not going to do it like the old men. I'll make it fight back."
That was the moment the new Kaiyuan Factory began to form—not in a boardroom, but in the heart of a teenager staring at dying steel and dreaming of resurrection.