Ji Tong gasped with laughter before finally calming down and explaining the whole story to the confused Fang Hao.
“Oh, so it is Shu.” He suddenly realized. “This name is really advantageous. What do you think if I changed my name to Fang Ge?” (Ge= Older brother)
“It is better to be called Fang Di, the Di of emperor.” Ji Tong smiled. “It is more in line with your temperament.”
Fang Hao was about to nod in agreement when he suddenly realized the homophone and snorted. “Don’t you want to eat fried food?”
Seeing the two bags of delicious fried skewers in Fang Hao’s hand, Ji Tong chose to bow his head with no principles. “I’ll go and get a drink!”
The two systems had a clear division of labor. One got the drinks while the other set up chairs at the coffee table on the balcony. In addition, the cap was taken out to play background music.
Ji Tong put down the drinks and stood on tiptoe. He carefully turned down the volume of the speaker on the table.
The big and small system spent a long time choosing from among a bunch of board games and finally decided to play Monopoly. Hua Hua was responsible for the role of the bank and real estate bureau, issuing money and deeds to the contestants.
On the other side, Pei Qingyuan consciously went back to his room to study. The room was very quiet. He was separated from the balcony by a door and couldn’t hear the cheerful sound of playing games outside, nor could he smell the aroma of fried food.
Under the baptism of the late-night snacks that changed every night, Pei Qingyuan felt that his self-control had become stronger.
Ji Tong and Fang Hao wouldn’t get fat no matter how they ate or played. There wouldn’t be an impact on their bodies due to an unbalanced diet, but he was just an ordinary human being.
In front of the desk, Pei Qingyuan slowly flipped through the book in his hand. He had already reviewed the cultural classes and there should be no problem with the recommendation exam in a few days.
Now he was reading professional books on algorithms. Both Xiao Jianping and JI Tong felt that he was very talented in the field of artificial intelligence. Pei Qingyuan learned it devotedly and made rapid progress.
But no matter how interesting he found this knowledge, he would still feel a bit tired at night when he was alone in front of the desk lamp.
He wanted to grow up as quickly as possible and often felt that there wasn’t enough time. There were too many things to learn and too many things to do. After all, people weren’t tireless perfect machines. Their energy and attention were always limited.
It was indeed a boring and lonely thing to bury his head in books all day to constantly absorb and learn new knowledge, even if he was accompanied by a thirst for knowledge and curiosity.
Pei Qingyuan pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to suppress the anxiety that emerged in his heart so he could continue to read.
At 11 o’clock in the evening, a knock sounded on the door. This was the rest time he had agreed upon with Ji Tong. It was time to wash up and prepare for bed.
He closed the book, got up and opened the door. Sure enough, he saw Ji Tong with a smile on his face.
However, today, Ji Tong was holding a roll of paper in his hand.
“Host, I discussed it with Fang Hao and I have an idea.” Ji Tong’s eyes were full of pride and his tone was mysterious. “Do you want to make a robot with your own hands?”
Pei Qingyuan was stunned and instinctively replied, “I want to.”
There were three main directions for the research of artificial intelligence: pure theoretical research, algorithm optimization and industrial application in the direction of machinery.
The type of artificial intelligence that most ordinary people understood, i.e. humanoid robots, the algorithms used to achieve intelligence and the machinery used to achieve actions were inseparable.
At least at the college level, many students in this major had the experience of designing and manufacturing various simple robots and taking them to competitions. Creating a moving robot by themselves was obviously more exciting than being immersed in theory and algorithms all day.
Pei Qingyuan sometimes thought that Ji Tong could peek at his emotions.
“But I don’t have a deep understanding of mechanical control and automation.” He looked at the roll of paper in Ji Tong’s hand and his eyes surged with eager anticipation. “Is this a design drawing?”
“Yes.” Ji Tong handed it to him and emphasized, “This is the optimized drawing generated by me and Fang Hao using data. It is completely in line with the technological level of this world. The chips, drivers and other components can be found from the market’s existing products for assembly. The key steps and points are decomposed and marked on the drawing.”
“As long as the host can find the corresponding parts, the robot can be built exactly like the drawing.” Ji Tong tried to make an analogy. “It is like putting building blocks against a drawing. The finished product looks complicated but it will be much easier when disassembled step by step.”
Ji Tong felt that this was a good teaching method. The host could put together parts from the blueprint while following the design logic backward. He would definitely have a deep impression of this and unknowingly learn a new skill.
Pei Qingyuan listened to him and opened the drawing, looking at it seriously.
The main body of this robot was like the cap speaker. Pei Qingyuan wasn’t surprised by this. He had seen Ji Tong staring at the cap before and knew that Ji Tong liked this strange looking speaker very much.
Below the speaker was an over-shaped colored shell that was like a jelly bean. The drawing had markers for placing internal parts such as circuit boards and motherboards. A pair of short manipulators extended out of the casing and there was a pair of long mechanical legs.
The robot looked like a jelly bean wearing a cap, with short hands and long legs. This was slightly weird and a bit cute.
Rationally speaking, Pei Qingyuan felt that this design was very smart. The jelly bean shell and robot arms below needed to be assembled by himself and the workmanship definitely wouldn’t be too good-looking. The cap speaker that Deng Shu gave him had an exquisite appearance and made the whole robot look very textured.
But emotionally…
Pei Qingyuan inexplicably felt that this pair of mechanical long legs was a bit familiar.
He thought for a while before an epiphany came to him. “Is this an improved and upgraded version of the previous long-legged bowl drawing?”
At that time, Ji Tong didn’t have a fixed daily form and had been discussing with him about what item to turn into for a long time. So he proposed the idea of turning into a bowl with long legs, but Pei Qingyuan politely but firmly refused.
Ji Tong’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected the host to remember.
He was afraid of being rejected again and quickly brainstormed to try to brainwash his host. “A robot must have legs. I heard that humans like long legs and I also designed a dance mode for it. A long legs dance is more beautiful…”
Fang Hao watched from the side and chimed in, “It looks a bit silly but it is quite interesting.”
Ji Tong nodded repeatedly. “When the jelly bean is really made, everyone will definitely love it. No one can refuse a long-legged jelly bean wearing a cap that can dance.”
He had always been obsessed with the idea of a long-legged bowl. Today, he finally seized the opportunity and he naturally had to put it into practice. However, the body had changed from a huge bowl to a round jelly bean so there was a faint melancholy in his excitement.
Perhaps this was what Sister Yinyin often called the stand-in literature.
Pei Qingyuan heard him say this and a vague thought flashed in his mind.
Would this uniquely conceived robot be loved by others?
No matter whether it was or not, it was a new thing that no one had seen yet.
Freshness was an important factor to attract people’s attention.
Pei Qingyuan wasn’t sure whether this robot would trigger enough talk to complete the task in the future, but he was sure that if he really made such a robot and recorded a video of it, high school students like Fu Chengze and Lin Zihai, who were familiar with the Internet and loved to follow the trends, would share it with their friends for the novelty.
Whether or not he could complete the mission with this, it was at least an opportunity for him to try and learn.
Pei Qingyuan no longer hesitated. He controlled his thoughts and said in a deep voice, “I will try to make it.”
Ji Tong immediately smiled. “Host, jiayou!”
“Jiayou,” Fang Hao told him solemnly. “You have to do a beautiful job and not mess around, because this hat still has half of me.”
Fang Hao was obviously an adult male who looked a bit older than him, but Pei Qingyuan somehow felt the elementary school atmosphere of ‘save something from this bag of snacks. You can’t mess around because I also want to eat.’
He felt amused in his heart but seriously answered, “I will work hard.”
In the next few days, Pei Qingyuan first bought a development board kit of a basic single chip microcomputer to practice his hands. He familiarized himself with the most basic circuits and control systems. At the same time, he collected various components listed on the blueprint and started a partial assembly.
Ji Tong could conjure things out of thin air but like his human form, those things couldn’t exist for a long time. This meant he couldn’t be relied on to complete the preparation of these parts.
In this process, every time Pei Qingyuan encountered some temporarily incomprehensible content, he would ask for help in the largest robot enthusiast exchange forum in China. It was because Ji Tong as a system only ‘possessed’ this knowledge and he couldn’t use it as thoroughly as real human experts.
In fact, he could ask Xiao Jianping directly but Xiao Jianping’s level was too high. It was a one-sided teaching and he lacked some of the insights that only appeared when communicating and discussing with others.
At Ji Tong’s suggestion, Pei Qingyuan attached a partial drawing of the jelly bean robot when he posted. This way, he could describe his problem more intuitively.
After seeing this drawing with a fairly high design level, many netizens were very interested and responded to the post one after another. Not only did they enthusiastically answer Pei Qingyuan’s questions but they also asked some questions about the design drawing.
Regarding this, Ji Tong would reply whenever Pei Qingyuan couldn’t answer.
[Hehehe: This design is so beautiful. I didn’t expect the joint part to be handled like this. I was recently tortured by the steering gear recently and felt like vomiting when I saw it. Can I ask what you were thinking when making this part of the design? Can you share your thoughts?]
Pei Qingyuan and Ji Tong sat side by side at the desk. Two shoulders of different widths were almost at the same level because Ji Tong sat in a high children’s chair.
Seeing this reply, Pei Qingyuan skillfully moved the laptop to the left and pushed it in front of Ji Tong.
Ji Tong saw the netizen’s praise. At first, he smiled happily. Then he touched his chin deeply as if thinking how to reply.
Pei Qingyuan waited patiently. He watched Ji Tong use his short fingers to type on the keyboard one by one. After typing for a while, he pushed the computer back.
He looked curiously at the screen.
[Netizen 6391323: So-so, it isn’t worth sharing.]
With just a few words, the spirit of an independent bigshot was about to come out.
Pei Qingyuan: “……”
He looked back at Ji Tong and was about to say something when he saw Ji Tong innocently spread out his hands.
“My hands are too small and typing is tiring.”
In fact, it was because he didn’t know. Who knew what the intelligent data that generated this design drawing thought?
Pei Qingyuan understood the deep meaning of his words and skillfully opened the drawer. He took out a piece of jelly, tore open the wrapping paper and handed it over.
Ji Tong hadn’t eaten snacks in two hours and he should indeed be tired.
In the midst of the cheers of the child, distant birds outside the window flew across the cloudless winter sky.
After eating the jelly, Ji Tong looked longingly at the sky outside. “Ruan Ruan, winter is coming. When will it snow?”
He had already made an appointment with Fang Hao to fight in the snow.
Pei Qingyuan had lived in the city for a long time. Once he heard this, he recalled the time when it snowed in previous years and replied, “Soon. It snows every December.”
“That’s great.” Ji Tong looked at the warm sweater on the host and thought of something. “By the way, I bought you a present!”
Pei Qingyuan watched him run quickly to his room and waited with some curiosity.
Recently, Ji Tong had fallen in love with online shopping. Every time with Fang Hao, he used the special ability of the system to search for all types of interesting things on shopping websites. Then he let out a long sigh at the whims of human beings.
However, he didn’t really buy much because they exchanged some of the world’s currency with the savings of the system. He wanted to save money. Fang Hao was relatively rich and could buy things that elementary school students liked every day.
Pei Qingyuan wanted to give them money but was refused. Both systems said they had to be self-reliant, so he had to buy them more jellies and snacks.
The door was pushed open, revealing Ji Tong’s smiling face. He had his hands behind his back. “Guess what?”
Pei Qingyuan had an excellent memory and accurately remembered Ji Tong’s unfulfilled wish. “A dinosaur sweatshirt?”
“Host, it turns out that you really want the dinosaur sweater. You should’ve said it earlier!”
“…That isn’t what I meant.”
Soon, it was the day when Jiangyuan College held the recommendation exam.
Candidates arrived one after another and waited outside the arranged examination room while flipping through their textbooks. Some of the college’s students were helping to maintain order and the atmosphere was tense and noisy.
Qiao Yunhe was a sophomore student of the school of artificial intelligence. He was called by the teacher along with his classmate to help today. After leading the way for the high school students who couldn’t find the examination room, he casually chatted with his classmate.
“How did you fix that steering gear? I see that the robot of your group is much more sensitive.”
“I followed along and didn’t expect it to be successful.” Qian Yunhe touched the phone in his pocket. Then he saw the teacher not far away and held back. “I don’t know if that poster will appear today. I really want to go to the forum to see.”
“Is there an interesting post on the forum again?”
“It is a normal-looking help post but the post is so interesting.” Qiao Yunhe’s eyebrows immediately danced as he talked about this. “He asked some very basic questions and looks like a novice, but he sent a very awesome design drawing. Then sometimes, the content of his reply is particularly esoteric and domineering.”
He thought about how to describe it. “It is like the reclusive Frankenstein in the movie. You can’t figure out which sentence is serious and which sentence is teasing you.”
“Really?” The classmate was suspicious.
“Really. I think he might be a weird old man who is playful. He just registered on the forum and came to play with young people.” Qiao Yunhe touched his beardless chin and pondered on it. “How about I test it when I have time later?”
The classmate was obviously aroused. “I’ll check this post later.”
As the two of them were talking, they saw another candidate walking in front of them and immediately fell silent. They put on the steady and elegant posture of a senior. “Student, the examination room is here. There are still ten minutes before entering and you can place your bag on the table over there.”
The high school student walking toward them had a tall and outstanding appearance. He was wearing a beige sweater and a dark blue scarf around his neck. The scarf fluttered as he walked, revealing a lovely white mushroom embroidered on the edge of the scarf. It was very incompatible with his cold temperament.
He heard Qiao Yunhe’s guidance and politely said, “Thank you.”
He walked away again and Qiao Yunhe and his classmate looked at each other.
The envious classmate silently expressed his amazement with his lips, “Handsome—brother—”
Qiao Yunhe was full of curiosity about strange things and he also mouthed, “Mush—room—”
The teacher noticed their movements and couldn’t help laughing while scolding, “Are the two of you acting a pantomime here?”
