In the seventeenth year of the Republic, Linjiang Fuchang Ice Factory. Veteran artisan Shen Changhe used a wooden mallet every night to tap across three hundred blocks of ice, listening by the echo for hidden cracks in the ice cores. The new boss accused him of delaying production, smashed the mallet in public, cancelled night inspections, and compressed the freezing time. Shen Changhe stopped reaching out, only recording the problems day by day in the production log. On the fourth day of opening the cellar, the entire ice wall burst in a chain reaction. Afterwards, the boss wanted him to sign a liability statement, but he refused to sign and quit, moving over to Yongtai. After three days of public ice comparison, regular clients took the initiative to change their orders. As soon as the scorching summer arrived, Fuchang's machines seized up and cut off supply, and the boss came to his door begging him to go back. Shen Changhe wrote his twenty years of experience into regulations: ice never suddenly cracks; it had long since warned you.