Ethan Franklin clearly remembered that the name of this old leader was exactly Samuel Lawson, and the drawing hanging on his wall had the drawing number KBS-3720.

Back then, Samuel Lawson only saw this drawing after the project had already gone into production. Or rather, he specifically went to find this drawing. But this time, thanks to Ethan Franklin's reminder, the drawing appeared in front of Samuel Lawson ahead of time.

"Xiao Hou, Engineer Lu, please pause for a moment and come help me take a look at this drawing."

After staring at the drawing for a full five minutes, Samuel Lawson suddenly spoke up. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked in surprise at Samuel Lawson, whose face had turned a bit ashen. Helen Lawson helped clear a space on the conference table so that Samuel Lawson could lay down the drawing. Engineers from the National Metallurgical Design Institute, Patrick Howard and John Lewis, along with others, all came over and leaned over the table to study the drawing.

"Is this a coaxial slider?"

"I think it's a tapered sleeve?"

"Maybe it's a part of the pylon, a triangular support?"

"Sigh, just looking at a single isolated drawing, how could anyone guess..."

Everyone racked their brains, each trying to associate it with parts they were familiar with. A hot rolling mill has thousands upon thousands of components, with a total weight of tens of thousands of tons. Just from a single drawing, it's really not easy to figure out which part this is. There's another important reason: all the rolling mills China had used or built in the past were based on the 1700mm rolling mill at Anshan Steel, which was aided by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The Japanese rolling mills of the 1970s were worlds apart from the Soviet ones of the 1950s. Everyone found it difficult even to understand the overall structure, let alone a single component taken out of context.

When Samuel Lawson first saw this drawing, he was thinking along these lines as well, so he couldn't make sense of it no matter how hard he tried. But then, he suddenly realized that this drawing number had been deliberately written on a note for him—clearly, there was something fishy about it, and it couldn't be viewed with conventional logic. With this thought, his mind opened up, and as soon as it did, he immediately recognized what this thing was. A surge of inexplicable anger welled up inside him.

"Don't limit yourselves to the rolling mill—try to think of other possibilities. Think about whether you've seen something like this in your daily life," Samuel Lawson said grimly, reminding everyone.

"Daily life?"

Everyone was confused. Who spends their daily life around steel plant equipment? And how could steel plant equipment be connected to daily life?

John Lewis had at least put some effort into this set of drawings. He quickly recalled the general situation of the whole set, then carefully examined this KBS-3720 drawing. After a few minutes of silence, he suddenly burst out with a curse:

"Damn it, those damned Japs!"

"To hell with your ancestors, you damn Japs!" Patrick Howard also realized what was going on and immediately cursed the Japanese ancestors.

"Damn you!" Others joined in.

"What do you mean?" Some who didn't understand started asking their colleagues.

"Haven't you seen one at home? Haven't you seen one at the Metallurgical Bureau guesthouse?" a colleague reminded.

"Damn! What the hell is this!"

More and more people started to understand. Even though most people back then had some degree of admiration for foreign things, at this moment, everyone was furious and started cursing. These Japs, when they came to negotiate, each looked so proper and polite, all smiles, truly living up to the title of "international friends." But the equipment they provided was a real trap.

Just a moment ago, everyone had been fighting tooth and nail over whether to spend an extra hundred thousand or eighty thousand on auxiliary equipment, not knowing what to choose. But this thing in front of them was purely a trap for the Chinese, and they had even been helping to count the money.

"What's going on? Is there a problem with this drawing?"

James Quinn wasn't that technically proficient, so he hadn't come over to look at the drawing earlier. Now, seeing everyone so agitated, he was confused and quickly pulled John Lewis over to ask.

John Lewis pointed at the drawing and said with deep regret, "Director Quinn, I must apologize to you. I actually failed to notice the trick the Japanese played in the drawings. The drawing Director Lawson just picked out isn't even a part of the rolling mill."

"If it's not a rolling mill part, then what is it?" James Quinn asked.

John Lewis's lips twitched. He was really too embarrassed to say the truth. But James Quinn was staring right at him, so no matter how awkward he felt, he had to answer. He took a deep breath and squeezed out a sentence through his teeth:

"It's just a flush toilet!"

"A flush toilet!"

The officials who hadn't come up to look at the drawing were all stunned. Since when had Chinese people become so extravagant as to import flush toilets from Japan!

Chapter Four: Must Start Over

To be fair, this really wasn't the fault of John Lewis and the others. This time, when Nanjiang Steel Plant imported the rolling mill equipment, they used a turnkey approach, with Japan's Sanli Steel Works responsible for equipment integration. The Nanjiang provincial side only specified the required capacity, while the specific equipment and manufacturers were all decided by Sanli.