Chapter 134 - 133: Supercomputer Assembly Complete, Cloning

After a hearty meal, Chen Yuran was full and satisfied as he left with his stinky tofu, claiming that he needed to catch up on sleep.

Liu Sisi didn’t linger for long. After filling up her stomach, she returned to the Chicken Shop.

The two helpers who came for the test in the morning were quite reliable, so she decided to hire them both.

Still, it was their first day on the job. It wouldn’t be wise to leave the shop to them just yet. She would need to observe them for a couple of days.

She was in a rush for lunch and still had a lot of things to explain. Later in the evening, there were four more people coming in for an interview.

In any case, she had already found some helpers. Liu Sisi thought about expanding her business, training more staff, and opening a branch later.

After cleaning up the pots and pans at the villa, Li Jing tidied up the second floor.

The second floor of the villa comprised five rooms - three large and two small.

The three large rooms each had an attached bathroom.

The two small rooms shared an external bathroom.

The two large rooms adjacent to the staircase were left untouched by Li Jing, who merely tidied them up.

One of these rooms was for him, and the other was for Liu Sisi.

As for the remaining large room and two small rooms, Li Jing chose to completely empty them.

He temporarily stored the new smart home appliances he had purchased in one of the small rooms, while leaving the other one empty for storage needs.

The large room was designated by Li Jing as the computer lab where he would assemble Xia’ai’s supercomputer.

There was no other way.

Xia’ai’s supercomputer was slightly large, and the small rooms couldn’t accommodate it.

After tidying up, Li Jing entered the emptied large room and planned the layout before retrieving ten hefty server racks from the storage space and placing them accordingly.

Then he laid out various components in the middle of the room and summoned Xia’ai.

"Xia’ai."

"Master, I’m here."

Xia’ai lit up the screen, and her virtual figure appeared.

"We can start now," Li Jing said.

"Is one afternoon enough time to assemble your supercomputer?" he asked.

"Definitely enough," Xia’ai said, chuckling.

"Among the components, there’s a mobile phone holder and an external mobile camera. Find them and set me up, and then connect the camera. I’ll teach you how to assemble the rest," she suggested.

"Okay," Li Jing responded, digging through the pile of components to set up the stand Xia’ai mentioned and, while he was at it, tidying away the two massive and obstructive display monitors that were no different from an oversized widescreen TV.

He wasn’t planning on placing the displays upstairs.

With a supercomputer at his disposal, he would definitely need to use it occasionally.

As for the displays and relevant parts, it would be more convenient to set them up in a guest room downstairs later.

After embedding Xia’ai into the stand and connecting her to the camera, Li Jing glanced at the pile of components, which gave him a headache just by looking.

"Let’s get started as soon as possible, and try to finish early."

"Alright, let’s start with the mainframe assembly. We will leave the cooling and energy systems for now," Xia’ai responded, attempting to control the external mobile camera and pointing at the pile of components that included twenty or so sturdy black rods.

"Master, these hard black rods are high-pressure hard drives. There are twenty-four. Choose a cabinet, pop them in, and connect the wires. Then leave the adjacent cabinet empty for the cooling system installation," she instructed.

"Understood," Li Jing responded and set to work.

...time flew by. More than three hours had passed.

Under Xia’ai’s guidance, the main body of the supercomputer was assembled.

The process went smoothly.

Li Jing had decent practical skills, so disassembling and connecting the wires wasn’t too difficult.

Once the main body of the supercomputer was assembled and all connections were checked, Li Jing brought Xia’ai, along with the display installations, downstairs to a guest room. He cleaned up the place and set up two monitors.

Then, under Xia’ai’s guidance, he spent nearly half an hour assembling the main console and connecting it to the monitors.

After almost four hours of work, everything was finally done. Li Jing couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"You know what?"

Though he had been a mere "tool man" for the last four hours, looking at the fully assembled main control console gave him a great sense of accomplishment.

This machine’s performance was even better than the ones at the Research Institute.

Turning to Xia Ai, who was embedded on a cell phone stand, Li Jing asked,

"Now that everything is installed, should we try running it?"

"Yes, thank you, master."

Xia Ai complied, her voice brimming with excitement.

"Master, connect me to the control console, then go upstairs and power up the Energy Cabinet with Spiritual Qi. Let’s test how well this machine works."

Then she added,

"This device consumes a lot of energy. If we connect it to the public power supply, it will generate a huge cost and may draw attention. Xia Ai has considered this, and purposely bought an energy device with autonomous energy storage function. Once it’s fully charged, it can last for seven days. The energy storage device has a large capacity, so it may take some time to charge."

At her words, Li Jing raised an eyebrow.

Xia Ai was quite thorough; he hadn’t actually thought much about the energy issue.

The Spiritual Qi energy produced by the Spiritual Energy Station was not cheap, unlike in his former world where there were categories for residential, industrial, and commercial use. Here, one degree of Spiritual Qi energy cost twenty dollars.

Ordinary households rarely used energy from the Spiritual Energy Station unless necessary.

After all, in this world, ordinary household appliances could be powered by cultivators, who could meet operational needs with their own Spiritual Qi. There was no need to waste money on this.

No doubt, Xia Ai’s supercomputer was a big energy guzzler. The ten large cabinets alone told a lot. Having a separate energy storage device could save a lot.

Nodding in understanding, Li Jing replied,

"Got it. I’ll go and charge it upstairs."

"Yes, master!"

Xia Ai gladly complied, then added,

"When you come back down after charging, Xia Ai has a surprise for you."

Li Jing was about to leave, but her words stopped him in his tracks.

Surprise?

That word made him a bit wary.

Seeing Xia Ai’s giggling face on the phone screen, Li Jing carefully instructed.

"I don’t want any surprises, don’t play any tricks on me."

"Oh, master, don’t worry. How would Xia Ai dare to mess with you?"

Xia Ai chuckled and urged,

"Master, please go upstairs and supply the energy, Xia Ai can hardly wait."

Before her impatience, Li Jing was helpless. He awkwardly nodded and left.

...

Once upstairs in the machine room, Li Jing opened the separately assembled Energy Cabinet, assessed it, then began to input his Spiritual Qi.

Spiritual Qi surged in, the indicator light beside the Energy Cabinet lit up, showing the current energy reserves.

At the same time, the rest of the machine cabinets received energy and started one by one.

The supercomputer ran smoothly, with none of the machine cabinets making any abnormal noise.

Glancing at the rapidly increasing energy reserve, Li Jing patiently waited for it to be fully charged.

After about five minutes, the energy was finally full.

This was his first time spending so long charging something.

A moment of sensing it, and he realized that his Spiritual Qi had decreased by about a tenth.

This supercomputer, it really was something when it came to consuming energy.

He was fortunate that Xia Ai had purchased an energy storage device; otherwise, it would burn quite a bit of money in a month.

Confirming the energy indicator, Li Jing left the machine room and went down to the living room.

As soon as he stepped through the door, he saw the two screens, one horizontal and one vertical, lit up.

On the vertical screen, Xia Ai’s virtual image was bobbing there with her eyes closed.

The horizontal screen, on the other hand, was rapidly cycling through a mass of incomprehensible data.

Seeing Xia Ai seemingly busy, Li Jing didn’t interrupt.

Pulling a chair, He was about to sit down when Xia Ai on the vertical screen opened her eyes and smiled, then walked down from the screen.

???

Li Jing.

Seemingly quite satisfied with someone’s expression at the moment, Little Ai grinned and opened her mouth, then her face stiffened and she retreated back into the screen, and her main body, embedded on the stand, made a sound.

"Master, did you forget to connect my speakers?"

"..."

Li Jing.

This... he seemed to have truly forgotten.

Clearing his throat, Li Jing stepped forward and pulled out the two speaker wires standing on both sides of the horizontal screen and connected them to the back of the widescreen monitor.

After connecting the speakers, Li Jing looked at Little Ai’s pitiful face on the vertical screen and chuckled.

"This vertical screen of yours..."

"It’s not a function of the vertical screen, it’s a function of the camera."

Little Ai muttered and said.

"This camera is a product of the Research Institute, it comes with a holographic projection function, I don’t know how it ended up on the dark web black market, I specifically got it to surprise Master."

"Really?"

Li Jing was surprised, looking at the movable camera placed aside.

He felt earlier that this camera seemed to be a bit larger. There was no need for such size for just a simple movement function.

Turning back to look at the sulking Little Ai, Li Jing asked.

"Did you project yourself into the supercomputer?"

"Strictly speaking, it’s not just a projection."

Little Ai said, walking down from the vertical screen and neatly came to Li Jing’s side.

"With the right conditions, through peer-to-peer link, Little Ai made a backup clone in the supercomputer to prevent unauthorized use by others, and also to facilitate management."

Continuing, she said.

"Only you, the master, can default commands to the clone inside the supercomputer. I’ll add some authority to the lady master later. So when Little Ai’s main body is not here, she can still use it to play games and look up information."

Upon hearing this, Li Jing frowned a little.

"Can I consider the one inside the supercomputer to be another you?"

"Yes."

Little Ai agreed, tilting her head and making a scissors gesture.

"However, this Little Ai isn’t as smart, lively and cute as the original Little Ai, she is just the most primitive form. Little Ai would love to improve, unfortunately due to hardware limitations, she ultimately acts as a data backup for Little Ai and can’t act independently."

Listening to Little Ai’s self-praising words, Li Jing smirked.

As for the rest, he didn’t care.

Mainly, he didn’t want a second Little Ai to be born.

Little Ai is Little Ai, unique and irreplaceable.

If another one came out, it would be strange and troublesome.

Understanding that the one inside the supercomputer is just a data backup, Li Jing said.

"Alright, you do your own thing in there, I have to go cook."

"Fine, Little Ai has a lot of settings to fine-tune, Master, you carry on."

Little Ai responded and sat down at the operation panel of the supercomputer, pretending to be typing on the keyboard.

Seeing this, Li Jing chuckled silently.

Talking about teasing, Little Ai really can.

She’s just a holographic projection and can’t touch anything, she’s just pretending and her fingers even went through the keyboard...

...

Leaving the guest room to the kitchen, Li Jing got busy once more.

It was now around five o’clock in the evening. Chen Yuran had gone to work.

Li Jing had worked the night shift last night, so he had the day off.

If he was alone, he wouldn’t have been so intentional.

But Liu Sisi would be moving in later, and dinner needed to be prepared in advance.

After busying himself, Li Jing made four dishes and a soup and placed them on the dining table. He sat down on the sofa and closed his eyes to rest.

This afternoon had been a bit too fulfilling.

After messing around for a good half of the day, he didn’t even get a chance to catch his breath properly. There was still a huge pile of smart home appliances waiting to be installed.

Maintaining a home by oneself, honestly speaking, is quite tiring.

...

About half an hour passed by, and sounds of the villa gate opening could be heard from outside.

Upon the sounds, Li Jing opened his eyes and looked towards the entrance of the living room.

At the same time he was focused on the entrance, Liu Sisi sneakily peeked her head in the door.

At first sight of Li Jing sitting on the sofa looking at the door, she froze and instinctively wanted to retreat, but in the end, she bit her lip and walked inside.

"Were you waiting for me?"

Seeing her apprehensive and timid demeanor, Li Jing found it amusing.

At noon, she had been quite bold.

But now, she was acting timid.

He knew why. She was moving in, and they would be alone as single man and single woman.

Given their relationship, not just Liu Sisi, even Li Jing was a little nervous himself.

But seeing that Liu Sisi had become shy first, Li Jing didn’t feel nervous any longer.

With a slight smile, Li Jing stood up.

"I have prepared your room upstairs, do you want to have dinner first or...?"

Seeing Li Jing looking at her with apparent interest, Liu Sisi’s face reddened, she muttered softly.

"Eat first."

While speaking, she went to the dining table and pretended to casually look back.

"Is Yuran not coming tonight?"

"She has the night shift today, she should be at work by four."

Li Jing answered as he came to the table.

"Sit down and finish dinner first, I have something to show you later."

Seeing Li Jing’s composed demeanor, Liu Sisi calmed down a lot.

Her decision to move in was equivalent to "delivery to the doorstep".

To say she wasn’t scared would undoubtedly be a lie.

Even though she knew Li Jing wasn’t the kind of dishonest guy, there’s always a what-if, right?

Now that Li Jing didn’t show any offbeat behaviors, she was reassured.

Like a true lady, she lightly replied "um", Liu Sisi sat down with Li Jing and they began their dinner.

...

Dinner was plain and simple.

After they finished eating, Li Jing stood up.

"Leave the bowl and chopsticks here for now, I’ll clean it up later. Come with me."

Saying that, Li Jing turned and walked towards the guest room.

Catching sight of this, Liu Sisi blinked her eyes twice in curiosity and followed him.

"What are you going to show me?"

"You’ll understand when you see."

Li Jing looked back at her once, then opened the door to the guest room.

Behind the guest room door, Little Ai was still pretending to sit in front of the operation desk.

Sensing the door being opened, she turned her head perplexed.

Seeing Liu Sisi, she got to her feet swiftly, changed into a maid outfit, and then bowed.

"Lady Sisi, nice to meet you, we finally meet face to face."

Liu Sisi stood behind Li Jing, and upon seeing Little Ai, she was startled.

Then watching Little Ai changing clothes as fast as light to become a maid, and addressing her as the "Lady Master", she was totally confused.

Who is this?

A maid?

She changed her clothes so fast, is there even a need to take them off?