I picked up skill fragments in the demon world.

Chapter 1080 A Stable Life
Warden Liu personally led a large group of people to the large warehouse to help Zhang Chen repair and clean it up. Zhang Chen and Bai Ziling also moved their luggage over and settled it in the new house.

The two chose a house opposite each other. The so-called opposite house meant that they shared a door and a stove, but it was divided into an east room and a west room.

Liu, the warden, personally delivered a small cart of firewood and helped the two men repair the leaky doors and windows. Only then did he direct the people in the hunting grounds to transport various living supplies, as well as various broken farm tools and implements.

"Take a look, is there anything else you need?" After looking at the cleaned yard and hanging up a simple sign for the agricultural machinery station, Officer Liu asked Zhang Chen.

Zhang Chen smiled upon hearing this: "If we could build a small blast furnace to smelt scrap iron, that would be perfect. However, I can handle this myself, but the approval procedures still need to be approved by the supervisor."

"You can even smelt steel?" Upon hearing this, Warden Liu stared at Zhang Chen in shock, wishing he could crack open Zhang Chen's skull and ask this kid what else he couldn't do.

Zhang Chen smiled upon hearing this: "Steelmaking is not difficult; the difficult part is obtaining the necessary permits and licenses."

“The approval process is actually the simplest here. Our place is deep in the mountains and forests, completely isolated from the outside world. No one ever comes here on weekdays. You can buy whatever you want as if you were at home. I just need to approve a procedure for you, and that will be it,” said Inspector Liu.

Upon hearing what Instructor Liu said, Zhang Chen smiled and said, "Then I'll have to trouble Instructor Liu to put in the effort."

For Zhang Chen, who held the power over the Five Elements, steelmaking was merely a matter of a thought. But he still needed a cover.

Moreover, he wanted to make a contribution by rescuing Bai Ziling from this bitterly cold place in the north.

Redeeming Bai Ziling wasn't difficult for Zhang Chen. With the start of his Qi cultivation, his primordial spirit had been re-formed, and his mental processing power far surpassed that of Einstein by tens or even hundreds of times. Leveraging his mechanical knowledge from his previous life and the fact that this era was still in the early stages of steam civilization, Zhang Chen could easily deduce some of the products of the mechanical revolution from his past life, bringing about earth-shattering changes to the world and ushering in a new era of transformation for the entire steam age civilization.

After seeing off Inspector Liu and his group, Bai Ziling lay on the warm kang (heated brick bed), feeling as if she were in a dream: "I really can't believe it. Yesterday I was still crammed into a small, dilapidated room, and today I can sleep in a big room all by myself!"

Then he suddenly sat up, looking Zhang Chen up and down with his eyes: "Zhang Chen, you are really amazing. You have come to this unfamiliar place and you still have this ability to make Liu the warden listen to you. You are really amazing. Liu the warden is as obedient as your son."

Zhang Chen rolled his eyes upon hearing this: "It was just some petty tricks. I was arrested for promoting feudal superstition. If I didn't possess some extraordinary power, wouldn't all this suffering have been for nothing?"

At this point, Zhang Chen looked at Bai Ziling and said, "Don't worry, I will do everything I can to help you get out of this predicament as soon as possible. At most, I will help you return to Shanghai within a year!"

"You have that ability?" Bai Ziling was stunned when she heard this. She stared at Zhang Chen with disbelief in her eyes. She immediately perked up and stared at him intently.

Zhang Chen smiled upon hearing this: "You can rest assured about me and leave everything to me."

"I'm going to dig up some loess to build a blast furnace. I'll solve the steelmaking problem first. How can we build machinery without a blast furnace?" Zhang Chen said, putting on his cotton coat and dog-skin hat before heading out.

"I'll help you!" Upon hearing this, Bai Ziling immediately jumped off the kang (a heated brick bed), said to Zhang Chen, picked up her coat and put it on, and followed closely behind Zhang Chen.

"You're a delicate young lady, too weak to even kill a chicken. How could you possibly do that kind of physical labor?" Zhang Chen said irritably.

"Even if I can't do that kind of physical work, I can still help you with some small things. Even just talking to you is my way of doing my part," Bai Ziling said.

Upon hearing Bai Ziling's words, Zhang Chen looked at the young lady with new respect. He did not refuse Bai Ziling, but instead picked up the pickaxe and went outside.

In these freezing weather, the ground is like iron, and ordinary shovels can't dig it up; only a pickaxe can. "Boil a pot of water in the house; we'll use it to mix the mud later."

Will Zhang Chen go dig up the soil?

He's just putting on an act. He has the authority over the Five Elements, so why is he digging in the soil?
Zhang Chen walked all the way to his former home, a look of emotion in his eyes. Looking at the house that had been completely demolished, and even the small village that once existed had disappeared into the long river of history, turning into a grassland.

"Truly, the world changes and time transforms everything. Under the power of time, everything will turn to dust and ashes." Zhang Chen sighed. If he remembered correctly, the soil used for his house back then was refractory soil, which was the main reason why he was so confident in building a blast furnace in the small village.

Zhang Chen stood there for a long time, and after a while, he pulled the small cart to his old courtyard. As soon as he had a thought, the frozen soil on the ground flew up and landed on the cart: the blast furnace was about to start operation!
Zhang Chen's life settled down, while the prisoners and educated youth who had gone into the mountains were now braving the cold wind to cut down trees. Old Wang and Zhang Jun, who had teamed up, stood in front of a large tree, pulling logs one after another. Digging through the mud in the freezing cold was difficult, but pulling logs was anything but easy.

Trees frozen in ice and snow are easier to pull up.

“Zhang Chen is having a good time right now,” Li Bai remarked from the side.

Li Bai teamed up with a female educated youth. The female educated youth and Li Bai exchanged glances, and they somehow ended up together.

“I heard that Warden Liu is going to build a separate agricultural machinery station on the farm. Bai Ziling will definitely be pulled into the agricultural machinery station by him. Inside the agricultural machinery station, you won’t have to endure trekking through mountains and rivers or the biting cold wind. It’s really a life of luxury. I wonder if we can take this opportunity to sneak into the agricultural machinery station,” the female educated youth said from the side.

The female educated youth was named Niu Aihua, and it's unclear when she started having an affair with Li Bai.

"Hmph, he only managed to fix the truck by luck. It won't be long before he's exposed and found out he's a complete idiot. I don't think his farm machinery station will be able to keep operating." Li Bai muttered irritably, a little jealous.

Upon hearing Li Bai's words, Zhang Jun chimed in, "A big truck isn't something just anyone can fix; Zhang Chen has real skills."

"Heh, what real skill? It was just a lucky break. If I had been in that situation, I definitely could have done it too," Wang Tiejun chimed in from the side.

When Zhang Chen and Bai Ziling were walking together on the train, Li Bai and Wang Tiejun tried to talk to Bai Ziling, but she refused without hesitation, which embarrassed the two of them. The two of them had long harbored resentment towards Zhang Chen and Bai Ziling.

“Especially that Bai Ziling, she looks so fair and gentle, but she got into a car and started messing around with some random guy. She’s probably a used slut who’s already been played with. She looks so quiet and gentle, maybe we can make some more money and have some fun with her too.” Wang Tiejun’s words were full of lewd laughter.

Upon hearing Wang Tiejun's words, Wang Gong shook his head and gave Zhang Jun a wink, signaling that Zhang Jun didn't need to say anything more. Zhang Jun indeed stopped talking and didn't say anything more.

The prince said in a low voice, "These two are wicked and should be kept at a distance."

Building a blast furnace was not difficult for Zhang Chen, nor was refractory material. He held power over the earth industry, and wherever he went in the mountains, he had access to refractory clay.

When the group returned from the mountain that evening, they found that Zhang Chen's luggage in the house was empty. They then began to inquire among themselves, and soon learned that the agricultural machinery station had been newly built and that Zhang Chen and Bai Ziling had moved in. This immediately made the people who had crowded the large room green with envy, but even though they were envious, they were still helpless.

Zhang Chen's days were as quiet as flowing water. During the day, he wandered around the hunting grounds, looking for materials such as refractory clay, and brought them back in a small cart to fire bricks. At night, he repaired broken motor vehicles and ironware.

In this cold winter, the entire hunting grounds were bitterly cold, except for the machine repair shop where Zhang Chen worked. Because he lit charcoal fires to forge iron, the temperature not only did not drop, but it was actually the highest in the entire hunting grounds.

Because the stove used for blacksmithing was connected to the earthen bed in the house, the earthen bed in the house became extremely dry and the temperature was frighteningly high. At night, one had to sleep with the window slightly open, otherwise one was afraid of being burned.

Zhang Chen's life was peaceful and uneventful. Thanks to his efforts, in just ten days, a small blast furnace was erected in the courtyard. The blast furnace was only a little over two meters high and was a small furnace, but it had no problem smelting steel at all.

Today the cold winter has cleared up.
Liu, along with a dozen or so other guards, kept circling the blast furnace. Liu looked at the blast furnace with a look of astonishment: "You've got some skills! This is a rare thing, and you actually managed to build it?"

“We’ve already put some discarded ironware inside the blast furnace. Why don’t you try lighting it?” Zhang Chen said with a smile to Instructor Liu.

Building the blast furnace was certainly not his goal; his goal was to create something that had never existed in this world before, and then have Bai Ziling leave the North after making a name for herself.

"Today, I, Zhang Chen, will handcraft an engine, creating a firewood engine for the old farmer, to open the eyes of the world!" A hint of amusement appeared in Zhang Chen's eyes.

"To survive this special era, we really need to do something to make a difference in order to live a better life," Zhang Chen thought to himself.

(End of this chapter)