31: Chapter 31 Mi Fan's Works

Liu Guitang once again invited Cao Xiao to his home. Cao Xiao and Old Chen went to Liu Guitang's villa in the East Lake District. Upon meeting Liu Guitang's wife, they learned that this serene lady could not speak; all communication was conducted through Liu Guitang. They had a pair of eight- or nine-year-old twins. The family warmly received Cao Xiao and the others, and Cao Xiao also formed a friendship with the two children, secretly promising to take them out to play quietly in the future.

After leaving Liu Guitang's home, Cao Xiao first dropped Old Chen off at his place before returning to Biyuntian Villa. The lights were on in the living room on the first floor. He thought Liu Chang and the others were quietly resting at home today, but unexpectedly, only Mi Fan was there. As expected, Liu Chang had gone out again in search of good food. She had asked him for pocket money several times in just over a week. Cao Xiao was quite speechless about his foodie cousin and was even considering cutting off her allowance to make her stay quietly at home in the evenings. It wasn't safe for several pretty girls to be out late at night. Liu Chang also drank alcohol, and if she couldn't resist drinking too much and then drove, it would be very dangerous.

In the living room, Mi Fan was leaning over the coffee table, drawing something on her laptop, unaware that Cao Xiao had already approached. Cao Xiao was also very curious about this girl. Despite her poor family background, she had a keen understanding of fashion and was studying a major in art and design. The low-priced clothes she wore could be styled and altered to achieve a fashionable effect.

Looking closer, the software on the computer desktop was actually the latest version 13 of 3DMAX. 3DMAX is a PC-based 3D animation rendering and production software widely used in advertising, film and television, industrial design, architectural design, 3D animation, multimedia production, games, auxiliary teaching, and engineering visualization. Knowing how to use 3DMAX is normal for a design student, but few could operate it as rapidly as Mi Fan was doing now. Software operation isn't just about using commands to complete a work; the method and precision are key. If a step gets stuck or the operation isn't precise, the work won't achieve the desired effect.

But what did Cao Xiao see? Mi Fan was currently creating a 3D animation, her hands rapidly tapping the keyboard and occasionally moving the mouse. The computer interface switched constantly along with her actions. In less than five minutes, she had created a clothing model, completed texture and color rendering, quickly attached it to a character module, and placed the character on a street. Cao Xiao was very familiar with this street—it was the foreign-style pedestrian street where they had gone shopping for clothes that day. At first, Cao Xiao thought it was a picture, but as the scene changed, he realized it was a built model. Mi Fan had made it incredibly lifelike, with meticulous details and well-proportioned elements. Although the distant scenery was blurry, it looked realistic from every angle—an effect that couldn't be achieved with a mere picture. It seemed that even if the architectural details weren't fully processed, the general models for the buildings and scenery had been established.

Cao Xiao watched from the side, deeply impressed. What incredible observational skills and spatial awareness! Not to mention Mi Fan's powerful 3D modeling ability, just her observational skills and spatial awareness alone made Cao Xiao feel she was unbeatable. It was important to note that this was done by one person, not a team, without any measuring instruments or a helicopter equipped with a high-definition camera for aerial photography. She had relied entirely on her own eyes and a low-pixel phone to capture the scene. Phone photos could only serve as references. Cao Xiao could tell that the proportions of the physical models Mi Fan had created had minimal errors. Such precise three-dimensional spatial awareness was truly unparalleled. Keep in mind, this was a vast complex of buildings, not just a single structure or a short stretch of street. There were also various facilities, the dazzling array of goods from shops, and the diverse pedestrians with their distinct clothing and accessories. For a large design team, this would be an immensely huge project. For one person to complete it, how much time and effort would it take? Just capturing the scene alone couldn't be done in a short while.

Cao Xiao looked at Mi Fan with admiration in his eyes. This girl was amazing! Such perseverance and creativity were not something ordinary people possessed. Just the character designs alone could intimidate many, even experts.

After Mi Fan completed the animation settings for this character, perhaps because the work was finished, she prepared to render the entire module. She still hadn't noticed Cao Xiao, and he didn't intend to disturb her. After entering the command, she gripped the mouse with one hand, nervously watching the desktop. The progress bar showed almost no movement, and only some commands rapidly changed in the rendering operation window.

Two minutes later, when the progress bar reached one percent, Mi Fan let out a happy cheer, then stared nervously at the progress bar again. Cao Xiao quietly watched from the side. Suddenly, a smell of burning plastic wafted over. Mi Fan seemed to notice something and quickly tried to stop the rendering program with her mouse. Perhaps due to the laptop's low configuration, rendering consumed a lot of CPU power. No matter what Mi Fan tried, she couldn't stop it. The smell of burning grew stronger. Mi Fan tried to open the task manager to stop the program, but it didn't work—the system had completely frozen, and even shutting down was ineffective. Within a few seconds, before Mi Fan could unplug the power or remove the battery to force a shutdown, black smoke began to rise from the computer. The screen went black—the computer had burned out.

Cao Xiao, standing nearby, hadn't had time to react before things turned out this way. Mi Fan seemed stunned, staring blankly at the burnt computer, motionless. Cao Xiao quickly stepped forward, unplugged the power cord, removed the battery, and gently touched Mi Fan's shoulder with concern, asking, 'Mi Fan, are you okay?'

Mi Fan didn't respond. Cao Xiao moved in front of her, grabbed her shoulders, looked at her, and shook her firmly. 'Mi Fan, snap out of it. If the computer is broken, we can just buy a new one.'

Only then did some light return to Mi Fan's eyes. Slowly, her pupils regained focus. When she clearly saw Cao Xiao, she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears. Cao Xiao felt a bit awkward—it was the first time a girl had hugged him. Although he had a girlfriend in school, the most intimate gesture they shared was holding hands. Back then, his understanding of love was somewhat idealized. If his girlfriend wasn't willing to be more intimate, he didn't force it. He believed that if they truly loved each other, everything would happen naturally. In the end, he didn't even get love.

'Don't be so sad. Your computer might just have a burnt-out memory. The storage drive should be fine, and the original data is still there. We just need to copy the data from the hard drive,' Cao Xiao said softly, gently patting Mi Fan's back to comfort her.

'There's not enough time! I need to participate in a design competition. The submission deadline is tomorrow morning. Even if the computer is fixed by tomorrow, it'll be too late! Wuwuwu!' Mi Fan cried even more sorrowfully.

Cao Xiao was curious about what competition Mi Fan was participating in that required such a work. He could see that the theme of Mi Fan's design was clothing, but a clothing design competition didn't require creating a large-scale 3D animation like this. A set of design drawings or finished clothing would suffice. Moreover, there was no need to design so many outfits. The clothes on the characters in the street numbered at least a few hundred. For competition submissions, only one entry was needed—even if the requirements were high, ten sets would be impressive.

It was already 10:30 PM. There was no place to repair the computer at this hour. But Cao Xiao had a solution, and it wouldn't take much time either: using the Detection Function of the Intelligent Industrial Mother Machine to extract data from the hard drive, just like scanning a book. With the capabilities of the research space's intelligent brain, it would only take a few minutes to organize this data.

A hard drive is a data storage device that uses magnetic media. Cao Xiao didn't know the exact principle behind the Detection Function of the Intelligent Industrial Mother Machine, but something as basic as electromagnetism, which even primary civilizations could utilize, was no problem for it. Before going to the library to collect civilization knowledge, Cao Xiao had considered gathering information online. However, the Detection Function didn't have signal transmission capabilities; it could only collect data after he manually searched and downloaded it online. So, he had no choice but to obediently go to the library. But through experimentation, Cao Xiao discovered that the Detection Function could also collect information stored in electronic devices, even when they weren't powered on. Moreover, as long as he gave the command, all electromagnetic signals carrying information within a ten-meter radius around him could be captured. If he could decipher the Detection Function, it would be a powerful tool for surveillance. If the detection range could cover the entire Earth, he didn't dare to imagine the possibilities.

He was already reading the information from Mi Fan's computer hard drive. Just as he picked up Mi Fan and placed her on the sofa, the information from the hard drive had been fully read and stored in the intelligent brain. Sitting on the sofa, he seemed distracted, focusing his mind on organizing the information in the intelligent brain. He found the 3DMAX data program. Sure enough, not a single piece of Mi Fan's work data was lost—it was saved in the 3DMAX file format. All that was needed was to copy it to another computer and open it with 3DMAX software. Finding this, Cao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief. Coming back to his senses, he realized he was still holding Mi Fan, who was still crying sadly. Her tears had soaked the front of his clothes. The weather was getting warmer, and Mi Fan was wearing light clothing at home. With their bodies in close contact, Cao Xiao... quickly dismissed the messy thoughts in his mind.

Cao Xiao didn't consider himself a gentleman, but he wouldn't take advantage of a girl in distress. Yet, he couldn't control his body's reaction. They were sitting side by side, with Mi Fan hugging him from the side. Perhaps because they had been holding each other for some time, Mi Fan's arm, which was wrapped around him, had slipped to that position. Cao Xiao was too scared to move, but Mi Fan's arm... Cao Xiao was so startled by Mi Fan's movement that he felt his soul almost leave his body. Regardless of whether Mi Fan noticed the anomaly, he immediately gently pushed her away from his embrace.

'Stop crying. I know a bit about computers. Let me see if I can retrieve the data from the hard drive for you. Wait here for a moment. I'll go upstairs to get some tools and try,' Cao Xiao said, ignoring Mi Fan's reaction. He hurriedly stood up, picked up Mi Fan's computer, and went upstairs.

Hearing that Cao Xiao knew about computers, Mi Fan immediately stopped crying. As long as Cao Xiao could help her retrieve the data today, she could work overtime through the night and finish her work before tomorrow. Seeing Cao Xiao run upstairs in a fluster, Mi Fan found it a bit strange. Then, after thinking for a moment, as if she remembered something, she chuckled, her pretty face blushing. Covering her face, she ran to her bedroom.

Returning to his bedroom, Cao Xiao's heart was still pounding rapidly. For an old boy like him, this kind of test was truly severe. He calmed his heartbeat, gulped down a large mouthful of water, and slowly composed himself.

He took out the new laptop he had bought just two days ago. This laptop was an Asus top-tier gaming model, which he had purchased two days ago to play games and relax his mind. It had cost him a full 70,000 yuan. After buying it, he installed the most popular games of the moment. But after playing for a while, he couldn't continue—no one guided him, and there were too many experts in the games. After being brutally beaten a few times and being called 'uncle' and criticized until he felt utterly ashamed, he sighed, lamenting that he was getting old, and decided not to intrude into the world of young people to bother others anymore.

Although this was a gaming laptop, its configuration was much higher than Mi Fan's. It had an 18.4-inch ultra-clear 4K screen, dual independent graphics cards, an Intel Core i7-7820HK processor, 64GB of RAM, a 1.5TB solid-state drive, and a unique water-cooling design that effectively solved Asus computers' heat dissipation issues. Even if used for design work, it wouldn't suffer the same burnout as Mi Fan's computer. However, thinking about Mi Fan's work, Cao Xiao wasn't entirely sure.

Without turning on the computer's power, he directly used the transmission mode of the Intelligent Industrial Mother Machine to forcibly write the files into the hard drive's storage sectors. He also found the 3DMAX installation package in the intelligent brain and wrote it in. This process took less than a few seconds. The installation package was 2GB in size, and Mi Fan's work file reached 80GB. This data transfer speed was countless times faster than the computer's own read/write speed.

After turning on the power and booting up, he found the 3D installation package and began the installation. Once installed, he opened Mi Fan's work file. Only after confirming that the file wasn't damaged did Cao Xiao truly relax. He had been upstairs for less than ten minutes. Going down now to give it to Mi Fan wouldn't work—it was too short a time. Even taking it to a repair shop wouldn't yield results this quickly. Just finding the data would take considerable time. Cao Xiao went to the bathroom, took a cold shower, dried his hair, got dressed, and smoked a cigarette. Seeing that half an hour had passed, he took his computer and accessories downstairs.

When he reached the living room on the first floor, Mi Fan wasn't there, and Liu Chang and the others hadn't returned yet. So, Cao Xiao had no choice but to go to Mi Fan's room and knock on the door.

'Who is it?' Mi Fan's voice came from inside after he knocked.

'It's me, Cao Xiao. I found your stuff. It's saved on my computer now. Come out and get it,' Cao Xiao said.

The door quickly opened, but when Cao Xiao saw Mi Fan's current appearance, his eyes went wide. Her hair was wet, and she was only wearing underwear—she must have just taken a shower. Her delicate figure and exquisite face made Mi Fan look like a graceful lotus emerging from the water.