“Too many wrenches spoil the machine,” Old Zhang would always say, his weathered hands hovering over the metallic carcass of yet another broken android. The repair shop’s dim lighting cast dancing shadows across the wall, making the hundreds of hanging wrenches seem alive.

I watched him work, mesmerized as always. “But Master Zhang, isn’t having more tools better?”

He chuckled, the sound reminiscent of rusted gears. “Little Lei, in this world of excess, we’ve forgotten the virtue of simplicity. Look here.” He held up a single wrench, its surface worn smooth by decades of use. “This one tool has fixed more machines than all those shiny new ones combined.”

The year was 2157, and humanity had become obsessed with optimization. Every household had at least five androids, each requiring specific maintenance tools. The market was flooded with specialized wrenches - quantum wrenches, nano-wrenches, AI-guided wrenches that claimed to think for themselves.

“The machines are learning to fix themselves now,” I said, repeating the advertisement I’d seen that morning. “They say human repairmen will be obsolete soon.”

Old Zhang’s eyes twinkled with an ancient wisdom. “Did your mother ever tell you about her childhood? Before the Great Mechanization?”

I shook my head. Mother rarely spoke of the past.

“People used to fix things with their hearts, not just their hands.” He placed the wrench in my palm. It felt unusually warm. “This wrench belonged to your grandfather. He could hear the souls of broken things.”

“Machines don’t have souls,” I protested, but even as I spoke, I felt a strange vibration from the wrench, like a heartbeat.

“Everything has a soul, Little Lei. We’ve just forgotten how to listen.”

That night, I dreamed of wrenches raining from the sky, each one singing a different melody. When I awoke, Old Zhang’s shop had transformed. The walls were breathing, the tools pulsing with life. And in the center, the android he’d been repairing stood upright, its eyes glowing with an impossible warmth.

“How?” I whispered.

“One wrench,” Old Zhang smiled, holding up my grandfather’s tool. “One heart. One soul at a time.”

Years later, when the world finally realized its machines were turning cold and lifeless despite the endless array of specialized tools, I understood. In our quest for perfection, we’d multiplied our wrenches but divided our souls.

Now I run my own shop, with just one wrench hanging on the wall. People come from all over, bringing their dying androids, seeking that spark of life their high-tech tools can’t provide.

“Too many wrenches spoil the machine,” I tell them, channeling Old Zhang’s wisdom. “But one wrench, wielded with love, can work magic.”

And sometimes, in the quiet hours, I swear I can hear the machines singing.