Harper disassembled the device carefully, while Jefferson watched with intense concentration.
His gaze, however, was not focused on the Extreme Fire T80, but on Harper's hands.
Those hands seemed flexible, soft, and delicate.
Definitely the hands of someone cut out for mechanics.
It's a pity...
He shook his head inwardly, not quite knowing what he was regretting.
Harper was meticulous, and his eyesight was surprisingly good.
Even a tiny 1 millimeter connecting screw could be carefully removed by him and attracted to the magnetic tray.
Now, he finally understood what Jefferson meant by "complicated process."
Inside the small cylinder, many circuit components were integrated, which looked complex and dense.
He slowly disassembled those things, only to find that most of them were useless.
Perhaps the only purpose, as Jefferson had said, was to prevent theft and plagiarism.
"The circuit is fine," Harper said.
Once the inside of the machine was opened, the problem could be clearly identified.
"Hmm, it seems there's a fault in the release port."
Harper disassembled the port, scraped the release port area with a knife tip, and found that the metal had oxidized.
Well, that made things much easier. Harper let out a sigh of relief.
He removed the port, put it in a solution for acid washing, and then reinstalled it. That would be the job done.
After spending some more time reassembling the Extreme Fire T80, Harper slowly exhaled.
"Shall we try it?" He twisted his somewhat stiff neck to look at Jefferson.
"Don't point it at people."
Harper's thumb covered the patterned area again, applied a little force, and to his surprise, a dazzling white "electric current" sprayed out from the release port, accompanied by a frightening crackling sound.
"Hmm!"
Harper was a bit surprised, then he frowned.
"The maximum current is 42 volts, the lethality is far from enough... but the visual and auditory effects are maxed out - could there have been a mistake during assembly?"
The safe voltage for the human body is 36 volts, and the power of 42 volts is not enough to kill or even cause unconsciousness.
He looked at Jefferson with some confusion, but the other just nodded with a poker face, "It's fixed."
"Is it fixed?"
"The Extreme Fire Gang is a street gang, not a killer organization."
Jefferson explained, "The weapons they carry only need to have enough deterrent power. Otherwise, if someone gets killed, it would be bad for everyone."
"Oh..."
"This thing," Jefferson took the electric baton, tossed it a couple of times, "The police would only classify it as 'general protective gear.' Carrying general protective gear does not violate the Empire's safety laws. The police in the South Horse District and the Extreme Fire Gang have always been at odds. If they were caught carrying dangerous weapons, many unsolved crimes in the South Horse District over the years would be pinned on the members of the Extreme Fire Gang."
Harper nodded. From the last interrogation, it was clear that the police and military of the Empire were not very reliable.
It seemed that the social contradictions of this world were reflected in various aspects.
Jefferson put the Extreme Fire T80 back in the drawer, lifted his head, and for the first time in a long time, seemed to look at his son directly.
"You do have some talent..."
It took over an hour to repair the Extreme Fire T80. He looked at the time, it was not yet 9 PM, still early.
"Come, lend a hand."
Jefferson pointed to the household appliances on the table that hadn't had a chance to be repaired yet.
The repair of these appliances usually took Jefferson one to two days.
Then, in one to two days, a large batch of appliances that would take him another one to two days to repair would accumulate again.
Father and son each sat under a lamp and began to repair in silence.
From nine o'clock to three in the morning, the pile of broken appliances was cleared.
A trace of fatigue appeared on Harper's face.
His "genius disease" debuff had kicked in again.
But the good news was that the experience progress bar of the just-upgraded "Mechanics - Practical Subject" Level 3 had already risen by a third.
Jefferson checked Harper's repair results.
As expected, they were very good.
Even in terms of wiring and aesthetics, they were better than Jefferson's.
Jefferson looked at his own results, his face turning red due to the shoddy work and deception.
"Go to sleep," he noticed the fatigue on Harper's face, "You don't have to do anything tomorrow, just finish the remaining quarter of the book."
"Oh."
...
With Jefferson's words, Harper really did stay in his room all day the next day, gnawing on the thick "Practical Appliance Repair Manual."
The remaining quarter wasn't too difficult, mainly explaining the common types of household appliances in the Empire.
Again, it was full of pictures and text, intricate yet interesting.
In the evening, an unexpected person knocked on his door.
"...Lillian?"
It was the nurse, Lillian, who visited.
She had shed her white medical coat, dressed casually, and was cheerfully carrying a medical box, "Oh, it looks like you're recovering well - I won't come into your room, let's go to the living room."
Harper didn't know why she was here and came to the living room with a puzzled look.
Lillian lived about twenty meters away from their house. Her parents were quite old and had only one daughter, who ran a grocery store in town.
This was what Harper had learned when he went out to buy energy bars these past two days.
"Uncle Ji said you're not in a good state of mind, so he asked me to give you an IV drip of nutrient solution."
Lillian skillfully patted the chair, picked up the coat hanger and hung it on the window sill, then hung the nutrient solution on the coat hanger.
"I think he really cares about you."
Lillian had said a lot of bad things about Jefferson when she was in the hospital, and now she felt a bit guilty.
Not in a good state of mind?
Harper realized it may have been because Jefferson noticed when he had his debuff yesterday.
"Hmm."
He nodded and sat down.
It was just a nutrient solution, so he didn't mind getting one.
The bag of nutrient solution was huge and took a long time to drip.
In this way, it wasn't much different from the first world.
He always thought that in a world where even floating cars existed, there should be some drugs like "recovery" potions that could cure all diseases with one inhalation.
But there was nothing like that.
"We are short of supplies here, but I guess there should be plenty of what you mentioned in the capital circle."
Lillian answered, "But even though we are short of supplies, it's much better than the mining pits. I heard that children there are left to fend for themselves from birth, toughing out minor illnesses and waiting to die from major ones..."
Harper's heart moved.
Mining pits...
That might be the birthplace of the "poverty" class.
After the nutrient solution was finished, Lillian checked his wound and changed his medicine.
Because the wound showed signs of inflammation and swelling, she also gave Harper an injection of anti-inflammatory medicine.
She cleaned up the medical waste and looked around.
"Throw it in the trash can, I'll take it out later."
Harper said without any change in his expression.
"Okay, then I'll leave it to you."
Lillian cheerfully bundled up the garbage and threw it into the Ji family's trash can.
After sending Lillian away, Harper wiped the blood seeping from the needle hole and returned to the living room.
He squatted beside the trash can.
---