Chapter 39: Are You Joking with Me?

TL: Etude

"Brother Chen, are you there?"

Upon hearing this voice, Chen Jianghai arched his eyebrows and followed it outside.

"Boss Jin, what's the matter?"

"Hey, it's that new color TV I bought. When I turned it on, the colors on the screen didn't look right. I don't know what's going on. Can you come and take a look?"

Boss Jin said with an unhappy expression.

Chen Jianghai could understand.

He had originally planned to just show his face, but now this situation had arisen. Those who didn't know better might think he had bought a faulty color TV!

Where would this leave Boss Jin's face?

"Oh, let me take a look then," Chen Jianghai said calmly.

Boss Jin nodded, "Alright, I'm troubling you again, Brother Chen."

The Lin family's house had only one floor, with two rooms distributed on each side of the hall.

Xue Chunli, who was in the next room, also heard their conversation and immediately stood up.

"What are you doing?" Lin Jianguo couldn't help but ask.

Xue Chunli gave him a disdainful look, "I want to see what kind of remarkable skills this Chen Jianghai really has."

Lin Jianguo was first stunned upon hearing this, then he became excited.

This finally gave him a legitimate reason to check out the color TV.

At this moment, the Lin family's living room was already full of people, with today's protagonist in the center: a 24-inch Panda brand color TV.

Next to the color TV stood Lin Jihua, his face looking a bit unpleasant.

A young man was standing in front of the TV, seemingly inspecting it.

After Chen Jianghai entered the room and glanced at the color TV, he noticed that the colors were indeed a bit strange—it seemed to be a case of magnetization.

There were many reasons for this phenomenon, but there was one method of elimination that was the simplest.

Chen Jianghai discreetly scanned the vicinity of the color TV and immediately found the cause.

Boss Jin then said from the side, "Brother Chen, please have a look quickly. What exactly is the problem? This is my new color TV!"

Hearing Boss Jin speak like this, the young man next to the TV suddenly became a bit unhappy and looked up at Chen Jianghai.

There seemed to be a sense of rivalry between fellow technicians.

At this point, Lin Jianguo's family also came over.

"This is not an issue with the color TV, just a small problem," Chen Jianghai noted the young man's gaze but couldn't be bothered to squabble with him, and said with a smile to Boss Jin.

Boss Jin was a bit incredulous and said with raised eyebrows, "You knew the problem just by looking?"

"That's right." Chen Jianghai nodded confidently.

Before Boss Jin could reply, the young man next to the TV couldn't help but interject.

"Who are you? Don't you think before you speak? This is a color TV, why are you causing a fuss?"

Chen Jianghai feigned ignorance and asked, "Who is this?"

Boss Jin quickly explained, "This is the master my father-in-law found."

Chen Jianghai couldn't help but smile, "Boss Jin, that's not very kind of you. Since someone is already here to fix it, why did you call me?"

"He's been looking at it for a long time and still hasn't fixed it, of course I had to find someone else!" Boss Jin said as a matter of course.

Hearing Boss Jin say this, the young man's face turned beet red with frustration.

Chen Jianghai said indifferently, "Let's keep things separate; let him continue the repair first!"

"No, no, no! You say you can fix it just by looking, I don't believe that. You try!" The young man was obviously provoked and said with glaring eyes.

At this time, Lin Jihua also couldn't help but chime in, "Xiao Dai has been checking for a long time, you dare to say you can fix it right away?"

Clearly, Lin Jihua did not believe in Chen Jianghai.

Perhaps there was another reason, which was that Chen Jianghai was Lin Jianguo's son-in-law.

Lin Jihua certainly did not want Lin Jianguo's son-in-law to steal the spotlight in his own home.

Meanwhile, the onlookers began to buzz with conversation.

"Is this young man from our village?"

"Yes, he's the husband of the second daughter of the Lin family."

"Oh, I know who you're talking about, the one who's always loafing around and up to no good?"

"That's right, it's him! Xue Chunli has not stopped complaining about this."

"I think he's just bluffing. He claims he can fix it just by looking, probably hasn't even seen a color TV before."

"You said it, even Xiao Dai couldn't fix it, what makes him think he can?"

...

Faced with the crowd's skepticism, Chen Jianghai remained indifferent.

But Boss Jin couldn't stand it.

This youngster dared to question him to his face, which somewhat displeased him.

"Young man, you don't know how high the sky is or how deep the earth is. My air conditioner was fixed by Master Chen in about ten minutes. Just because you can't do something doesn't mean others can't."

Xiao Dai, feeling unconvinced, said, "Alright, if he can fix this color TV within ten minutes, I will respectfully apologize and call him 'Master, I'm sorry.' But if he can't, he should admit to everyone that he was just bragging, how about that?"

Chen Jianghai hadn't expected that his offer to help would turn into such a spectacle.

Boss Jin was eager to agree immediately, but since it involved Chen Jianghai, he couldn't help but turn his gaze towards him.

Being challenged directly, Chen Jianghai naturally agreed without hesitation.

The young are truly unaware of their limitations!

Xue Chunli brightened at the scene, thinking it was the perfect opportunity to see whether Chen Jianghai was as skilled as he boasted.

Lin Wanqiu was somewhat worried, her fists clenched tightly together.

Others had inspected for a long time without finding the cause; could Jianghai really fix it within ten minutes?

Chen Jianghai was full of confidence, having seen Xiao Dai's inspection.

There seemed to be no problem inside the color TV; the issue must be external.

Chen Jianghai walked up to the TV, unplugged the power, then turned to a table next to the TV and picked up a large magnet.

Such large magnets were often used in heavy machinery.

There used to be a military factory near Linjia Village that produced these large magnets.

After the military factory closed down, many parts were scattered, and each household ended up with a few.

The demagnetizing issue with Lin Jiawei's color TV was due to this large magnet.

Xiao Dai watched Chen Jianghai closely, curious to see how he would fix the TV.

But after Chen Jianghai took the magnet away, he did nothing but wait there.

At first, the crowd waited patiently for Chen Jianghai to act.

But after a while, they realized he had no intention of doing anything; he was just standing there.

"What are you doing?" Xiao Dai couldn't help but ask.

Chen Jianghai just smiled and remained silent.

The crowd began to murmur, thinking that Chen Jianghai had no real skill and was all talk.

Even Boss Jin asked in surprise, "Brother Chen, is it too difficult to fix? Why haven't you started?"

"Boss Jin, I have already fixed it," Chen Jianghai replied, pointing at the television with a smile.

Hearing Chen Jianghai's response, Boss Jin's face went slack.

Brother, are you kidding me?

------

Thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying the story so far.