Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 111: Volume 3, Chapter 21: The Mecha Company’s Trick

Hescoe saw the staff member’s anxious face and couldn’t help but panic a bit himself. He asked, ”Who’s causing trouble?!” The staff member replied, ”You’d better go take a look. It’s hard to explain, but they’re threatening to take down our sign. Everyone is gathered there.”

Realizing the situation was serious, Hescoe hung up the phone and ran to the door. Suddenly, he remembered he had a guest. Turning back, he offered an apologetic and wry smile to Fatty and said, ”Master, please sit here for a while, I’ll go check it out.” Fatty, curious, stood up and said, ”Go ahead, we’ll also check out what’s going on.”

Hescoe didn’t have time for pleasantries with Fatty and quickly followed the desperately anxious staff member to the disturbance. When Fatty and his group slowly arrived, the workshop was already crowded with people, all laughing and talking.

Someone said gleefully, ”We came at the right time today, it’s so lively.”

The person next to them gestured excitedly, ”Yeah, I just saw two idiots arguing, my stomach hurts from laughing.”

Another person scoffed, ”Those two rookies are no big deal. That Fatty running was hilarious, like he had a rocket on his butt.”

Someone else said regretfully, ”Darn, I got here late and missed everything. Did Fatty put on a show?”

The person next to them eagerly interjected, ”I saw it! Fatty streaked, and man, was he fast!”

Another person looked stunned, ”...Fatty streaked? ...But I saw him wearing clothes.”

The person next to them smugly said, ”Well, that’s because you didn’t look closely... he wore clothes on the outside, but he was streaking underneath!”

Fatty was startled, damn it, this counts as streaking! He said to Milan, ”See, the first time I don’t wear underwear, people notice. Did you really not take my underwear?”

Milan laughed so hard she hung onto Fatty, unable to straighten up, her face turning red as she pinched his arm hard. How could this dead brain be so messed up!

Muttering to himself, the jerk said, ”No wonder it felt chilly down there when I was running today, turns out the wind was blowing in!”

The crowd was dense, and Fatty squeezed for a long time but couldn’t get in. He gave Milan and Mills a look, then suddenly shouted in a panic, ”The mecha is smoking, it’s going to explode! Run! Run! Lives are at stake! It’s going to explode!” He changed his voice repeatedly, making it sound like many people were shouting in panic, voices coming from near and far, sounding incredibly frantic. The crowd was shocked and quickly dispersed. Even the staff and Hescoe ran, leaving just a few of them standing there in the end.

Amid the cleared space, a few mecha parts lay in a pile. Fatty walked over, picked them up and looked at them, saying, ”These parts don’t explode, who was shouting just now?”

The crowd slowly realized they’d been tricked. The smart ones knew it was the few people standing in the middle, but their accents didn’t match those who had been shouting earlier, so they disgruntledly gathered back to watch.

At the very center of the crowd, the red-haired guy who had run the fastest earlier yelled angrily, ”Your Invincible Repair Center can’t fix the mecha, fine, but now you’re putting on a show! Who are you trying to scare! I’m telling you, we won’t leave without a proper explanation today! We’ll tear down your sign!” Several unfriendly-looking individuals next to him chimed in, ”Yeah! Such a big modification center and you can’t find a circuit board? Our mecha has been here for so long and you still can’t fix it. Today you must give us an explanation! Otherwise, we’ll take down your Invincible sign!”

Hescoe, maintaining some composure, smiled and asked, ”We don’t have the mecha parts these gentlemen requested in stock?” The repair center mechanics exchanged glances, and one older mechanic said, ”This gentleman brought in an Alpha Company [Round Moon] mecha. It’s the three hundredth one we’ve received in the past ten days, all needing the same circuit board replacement. Their circuit boards are quite special, and lately, Alpha Company...”

Hescoe’s face turned ashen, and he waved his hand, saying, ”No need to continue, I understand!” He then turned to the redhead and said, ”I know you’re from that new repair center in East District with Alpha Company backing you. Think you’re so great, huh? Even stealing business from private repair shops now! Go back and tell them to cut the crap. Take your mecha and get out, we won’t fix it!” Hardly had he finished when the redhead jumped up and shouted, ”Bullshit, what makes you think I was sent by them? The fact that Alpha Company won’t sell parts to you proves you have issues. Can’t even sort a circuit board and still claiming to fix mechas? I’m going to take down your sign right now!”

”Let’s go! Take down the sign! This lousy repair shop can’t even fix a circuit board, should’ve closed long ago!” With that, the thugs who came with the redhead started stirring up trouble, swarming towards the sign to destroy it!

Hescoe shouted angrily, ”Who dares!” The redhead flipped him to the ground with one hand and sneered, ”I dare!”

Several mechanics picked up their tools, seemingly ready for a fight. Fatty, who had been watching for a while, suddenly said, ”It’s just a circuit board, isn’t it a bit much to tear down their sign over it?”

The redhead said, ”None of your business, Fatty. My mecha’s been here almost a week, and they just now tell me there’s no circuit board. Damn it, why wait so long?” Fatty helped Hescoe up and asked, ”Why did it take a week?” Hescoe, face pale, responded, ”The person in charge of arranging the repair schedule quit yesterday!”

Fatty chuckled silently. The business battles in the marketplace have actually led to this, even bribing insiders has become a thing. Every step has been meticulously designed, like a life-and-death struggle. Isn’t it exhausting? He couldn’t help but curiously ask, ”The Mecha repair business is so good, you can’t repair that many Mechas, why are they doing this?”

Hescoe pointed at the crowd surrounding them and said, ”Ask them. What’s the price at the repair centers of those large corporations, and what’s the price here? They want to eliminate all local Mecha repairs, forcing everyone to go to them and be at their mercy!” As soon as he said that, the crowd immediately echoed his sentiments. The redhead sneered, ”Your prices may be cheap, but if you can’t fix the Mechas, it’s useless no matter how cheap you are!”

Fatty angrily said, ”Whether it’s fixed or not, we will discuss later. Anyway, we will give you an explanation!” He turned to a mechanic and said, ”Show me the Mecha schematics.” The mechanic saw Hescoe nod and quickly brought over the Mecha schematics, spread out the first page’s structure diagram, and pointed to a circuit board on the chest of this human-shaped Mecha, saying, ”It’s this one, the detailed circuit board diagram is at G-102.”

Fatty turned to G-102 for a careful look, then examined a few other circuit board diagrams and asked, ”What’s the fault with his circuit board?” The mechanic awkwardly replied, ”We can’t figure it out. We aren’t very proficient with circuits. Usually, in cases like this, we just replace the parts with new ones and send the damaged parts back to the manufacturer.”

Fatty asked, ”Can’t you use another circuit board instead?”

The mechanic smiled bitterly and said, ”If we had similar ones, we would have modified them ourselves and installed them. This Mecha’s circuits are very special.”

Fatty curiously said, ”That’s not right. His circuit board is obviously for leg sensors. Legs move less than hands, many circuit boards can be interchanged. I remember there’s a [Nelson] Mecha circuit board that’s basically the same!”

The mechanic nodded and said, ”In principle, many circuit boards can indeed be interchanged. We used to do that too, but this company’s Mecha can’t. We’ve tried [Nelson]’s circuit board before, but there’s no response when installed. It can’t start the leg system.”

Fatty handed the schematics to Milan and said, ”I think I’m not mistaken, take a look.” He then turned to the mechanic and said, ”Please run another errand, get a [Nelson] circuit board and bring his damaged circuit board too. I’ll compare them.”

The mechanic quickly ran into the product room and brought back two circuit boards.

Fatty looked at the circuit boards and laughed, saying, ”These doggone Mecha companies, they’re playing you.” He then put on a repair arm on his hand, activated it, and quickly removed a component from the old circuit board. He installed it onto the [Nelson] Mecha’s circuit board and said to the mechanic, ”Take me to see his Mecha.”

The mechanic pointed to the side. Not far away, a Mecha was parked; it was the redhead’s [Round Moon]. Fatty walked up to the Mecha, whose chest armor had already been dismantled. He installed the circuit board, then used the automatic repair arm to attach the armor, and said with a smile, ”It’s done!”

Several mechanics stared wide-eyed and said, ”Done?”

Hescoe, who had been standing by, quickly called over a Mechanical Control operator responsible for testing. The operator entered the cockpit, and after a few soft sounds, the [Round Moon] Mecha indeed moved smoothly.

The mechanics at the repair center were incredulous, ”How is this possible! We’ve tried countless times with these substitute circuit boards, but we couldn’t get them to start!”

Fatty laughed, ”Actually, it’s very simple. What you didn’t notice is that, for some unknown reason, this company’s Mecha has an identifier installed on the circuit board. The Mechanical Computer will refuse to start if it can’t detect the correct identification code. There’s another solution: reload the program on the Mechanical Computer and remove this identification system. It’s just a bit more troublesome.”

An older mechanic carefully examined the schematics and the old circuit board, finally sighed, ”Amazing! You’re incredible! If you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have figured out these tricks from top designers of big companies in a lifetime!!”

Hescoe laughed heartily, ”A master is a master! Today’s witnessed a master at work!” He turned with contempt to the redhead, ”Go back and tell your backer, there’s always someone stronger in this world!”

The redhead was stunned for a while, finally came to his senses, sneered, ”I don’t want any [Nelson] circuit board, I want the original one!”

***************

The monthly votes have been a bit weak lately. I don’t know if it’s because everyone has run out of votes or because of my updates, the plot, or the writing isn’t good enough. If you still have votes, brothers, please help me out. Let me break into the top three!

[Note] Those three people, one is called [Someone], another [Nearby Person], and the last [Another Person]

(To be continued, to find out what happens next, please log in to WWW.CMFU.COM, for more Chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!)