In the open space before the Train Chamber of Commerce, hundreds of people stood in absolute silence around two machines, watching intently as the furnaces blazed and the machinery operated.
Steam hissed continuously, driving the rotation of gears to feed sheets of light gray paper through rolling cylinders, transforming them into newspapers stamped with neat, black text.
Qingkong Gui stepped forward and picked up a freshly printed newspaper. The ink was still wet, the texture rough, and the smell slightly pungent, but it was virtually indistinguishable from newspapers produced by manual printing.
Chapter 220