Chapter 13 : Electric Appliance Technician
Huo Tian’s computer repair workshop opened and business was booming.
Initially, Ding Chen had only brought back some spoiled computers for Huo Tian to repair. Ding Chen would then sell the repaired computers at a low price. Usually, they’d be able to earn more than a thousand yuan for each computer.
However, the residents of the urban village did not have much demand for computers. After a few days, the secondhand computer business gradually started to decline. Ding Chen started introducing Huo Tian to the residents of the urban village to fix mobile phones, televisions, and other electronic appliances.
Huo Tian was now a well-known electronics technician in the urban village!
When there were no jobs, Huo Tian would go to the dumping ground with Ding Chen to search for treasures. She managed to find many usable parts. Huo Tian used those parts to make a robotic arm that could move objects for her mother. It could easily help her mother move the heavy fabric from the attic to the workroom on the first floor.
When Ding Chen was chatting with the boss of the dumping ground later on, he mentioned the robotic arm Huo Tian made.
“I’m not bragging, but my niece is really amazing. She used the parts she picked here to make a robot hand for my sister and installed it at the staircase to help her move things. That’s not all. That day, a hooligan went to look for trouble when I wasn’t around. That robot hand threw that hooligan out with a few swooshes, just like the Transformers in the movies…”
The owner of the dumping ground was Ding Chen’s friend. He sneered. “Keep on bragging. How can you make a robotic arm like a Transformer with those scrap metals you picked from this place?”
“Hey, you don’t believe me, do you?” Ding Chen was not willing to let anyone doubt his niece. He threw down a circuit board that he had just pulled out. “I’ll let you see with your own eyes today that there are geniuses like my Tiantian who can turn wastes into treasures!”
Ding Chen stopped picking up the parts and brought the dumping ground’s owner home.
Ding Rong was tidying up the fabric. When she saw him coming back with someone, she thought it was a customer looking for Huo Tian’s help to fix things. She said, “Have you found work for Tiantian again? She’s tired of fixing things these past two days. Be careful, she might give you a bad face.”
Ding Chen also remembered that during the past two days when he was introducing the jobs of repairing electrical appliances to Huo Tian, she had always looked impatient and would always mutter, “It’s such a simple job. Even if I’m able to fix it, I won’t be able to earn much money. It’s such a waste of my time. Can’t someone give me a smart robot to repair?”
Although she was always impatient, Huo Tian would always fix the electrical appliances seriously. She would always say, “Everyone isn’t rich. Even if their electrical appliances broke, they can’t bear to throw them away. Some people would just casually connect the wires and continue to use them. Who knows when an accident might happen. It’s not troublesome for me to fix them. It’s better than letting them mess around with the appliances at home.”
It was precisely because of Huo Tian’s warmheartedness that was incompatible with her appearance that all the surrounding neighbors all liked this little girl very much even though it hadn’t been long since she came to the urban village. In the morning, Huo Tian would go to the breakfast shop on the street to buy buns. The breakfast shop owner would always smile and give her two more buns.
Ding Chen could not understand why the couple from the Huo family could bear to be cold to such a likable girl for such a long time. Fortunately, they did not know how good Huo Tian was, allowing her to return to the Ding family so easily.
Ding Chen could not help but smile at the thought of his niece.
He said to Ding Rong, “This is my friend. He’s not here to find Tiantian to fix things. He just wants to see the robotic arm we have at home.”
Ding Rong smiled too. “Let him see it then. After we threw that hooligan out that day, the neighbors also liked to come over to look at it. They all said that this robotic arm is well made, but when Tiantian asked them to pay to install one at home, they were unwilling to do so. Tiantian had been promoting it for several days, but there wasn’t a single request one. This made her really depressed.”
“This silly child. Given her personality, how could she do the marketing work? She should leave it to me to do the selling.”
Ding Chen chuckled and pulled his friend towards the staircase at the back. “Brother, if you think that robotic arm is useful, you’ll have to patronize our girl’s business.”
His friend scolded him jokingly, “I knew you were up to no good. So you’re thinking of earning the money from my pocket.”
The boss of the dumping ground did not take the robotic arm Ding Chen mentioned too seriously. He felt that a teenage girl could at most repair computers or mobile phones. How could it be possible for her to make something like a robotic arm so easily?
However, when he saw the robotic arm that Ding Chen showed him, he was shocked.
Although he was only in charge of one dumping ground, all those trash would eventually be sent to the garbage disposal company for processing.. When he visited the factory in the center, he had seen many robotic arms in the factory workshops. However, the robotic arms in those factories hadn’t astonished him as much as the one installed on the wall next to the staircase in front of him!