Chapter 481 - Chapter 481: Chapter 481: Super Alice (Part 2) (1/2)

Chapter 481: Chapter 481: Super Alice (Part 2)

Xiang Kun nodded to Liu Zhengyi beside the car and asked, “There are no problems with the construction site, right?”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Xiang, there won’t be any problems with the construction site with my brother and me looking after it,” Liu Zhengyi said confidently.

Right now, Liu Zhengyi and his brother, Liu Gaoshang, were both working for Xiang Kun. Or more accurately, they were working for the research base that was to be established in Chongyun Village in the future.

At the moment, the two brothers mainly helped Xiang Kun keep an eye on the renovation of the research base. Once the research base was officially completed and the equipment moved in, a portion of the staff would also need to be hired. These two native people of Chongyun Village could then also serve as security personnel.

Compared to hiring new people then, the Liu brothers, who had already had many contacts with Xiang Kun and had a complete cognitive model of him, were obviously more suitable.

Through contact in this period, Xiang Kun had a very clear idea of how to arrange these two brothers.

Although the two brothers were somewhat opportunistic and did not have much respect for rules and laws, they were not fundamentally bad. With no one to control them since they were young, they often thought crookedly and walked alongside roads. However, they admired authority very much. After recognizing Xiang Kun as a “big figure”, they were much easier to guide.

If they were assigned to the right positions and given positive incentives, they could still do a good job.

Xiang Kun stopped the car and brought Li Yang, Xia Tianhuo and others for a tour of the construction site.

Not only was the previous farm allotted to Xiang Kun for the “High-Tech Farming Research Base”, but a large nearby area was also included. Under the efforts of Liu Caifu, Chu Xiuwen, and later Liu Feibao and Qi Haoguo, not only Chongyun Village but also Tongshi Town and even Jianzhou City tried their best to provide convenience and support for what Xiang Kun and others wanted to do in terms of catering, technology companies and the Chongyun Village breeding research base. Of course, this also brought great benefits to the local area.

Xiang Kun simply described the layout of the research base, without going into detail about the specific tasks they were going to do and the equipment they were going to set up.

His goal was mainly to “make a name” with Li Yang. At present, the research on himself and “mutants” still had to be conducted in secret, and only he and Old Xia could know and participate deeply – of course, Alice, who was rapidly evolving, could be of great help in the future.

However, both he and Old Xia had limited abilities. Once he had enough resources on hand, he might, like “Divine Technology”, look for more research-related help to assist from the periphery with partial information.

As Xiang Kun introduced Li Yang to the future laboratory location, Xia Tianhuo was also observing the situation of the construction site. The scale of this place, the environment of Chongyun Village, and the discussions of Xiang Kun, Old Xia and others about this place, as well as the attitudes of the locals towards Xiang Kun and the others, made him realize that this situation seemed different from what he had thought before.

He had always thought that Old Xia, a psychiatrist who had studied medicine for many years, and Xiang Kun, a coder who had been developing software for many years, suddenly ran to Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village, which were essentially backward and remote places, to start a restaurant and a so-called breeding research base, a research center, was purely out of interest. It was a small project that would probably end when Old Xia’s money ran out.

But after coming here, he suddenly realized that things seemed to be different from what he had thought before.

After a simple tour of the construction site, Xiang Kun took them to a three-story self-built small villa with a courtyard for their stay.

This three-story villa was not the one he and Old Xia had rented before. After Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er arrived, Xiang Kun rented another self-built villa with better decoration through Liu Caifu.

There are quite a few beautifully constructed buildings in Chongyun Village, most of which are vacant with only the elderly living in them.

In the past, the area was not very accessible, there were no enterprises around, not even tourist attractions. The young people went out to work or do business, so even if houses were to be rented out, they would not fetch a high price. People generally wouldn’t go through the trouble of renovating and renting them out for just a little bit of money, so vacant houses would stay vacant. But with Liu Caifu’s introduction, Xiang Kun didn’t have a problem; the owner of this house was a cousin of Liu Caifu’s great-grandparent.

Although Xiang Kun was now in a bigger house, he continued to rent the previous one. The research base was still under construction. “Zero Zero One,” “Zero Zero Two,” and the large portions of their newly cultivated ant colonies were still housed there. If Xiang Kun needed to drink blood, he would go to that house.

As soon as they arrived at their new home, “Xiao Pingguo” let “Golden Sparkle out of its cage.

Seeing “Golden Sparkle” suddenly beat its wings and fly away, landing beside the window ledge of the villa’s third floor, Xia Tianhuo was startled. He pointed at the canary on instinct, stating, “It ran away…”

“Xiao Pingguo” giggled, “Don’t worry, Uncle Xia. ‘Golden Sparkle’ won’t run away.”

Li Yang also laughed, “The food Xiao Pingguo provides is irreplaceable. Even at home, it will occasionally go for a little fly around the community, but always return by mealtime.”

This was the explanation “Xiao Pingguo” gave to justify “Golden Sparkle’s” special behavior. But it seems she has already convinced her father, and Deputy Professor Li unquestioningly accepts it – after all, controlling through feeding seems more reasonable compared to their daughter communicating with a canary through super sensory contact.

Yang Zhen’er held her phone up to take a photo of “Golden Sparkle.” The position the bird was in also captured the moon, creating a pretty artistic impression.

If you want to tame a proud canary, you must first conquer its stomach! It seems Xiao Pingguo has learned the secret from Brother Xiang,” Yang Zhen’er teased, looking at the photo she’d taken. “Oh, ‘Golden Sparkle’ has really gotten so much fatter! Nana, look at the photos we took the first time we saw ‘Golden Sparkle’ at Brother Xiang’s place for dinner. It’s like looking at two different birds!”

Tang Baona also laughed, “Xiang Kun, if ‘Golden Sparkle’ could choose its owner now, it wouldn’t choose you, would it?”

Xiang Kun chuckled, “That’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes, my prestige as an old owner is quite effective.”

After a bit of laughter and jokes, Xiang Kun led everyone to their rooms. Before picking up Xia Tianhuo and Li Yang today, they had already arranged for someone to clean the rooms and prepare new bedding and toiletries.

Since there were many rooms, Li Yang and Xia Tianhuo each had their own. As for “Xiao Pingguo,” she was arranged to share a room with Old Xia, and Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er stayed in rooms on the same floor, just next door.

The excuse, naturally, was that the girls and Xiao Pingguo were close and wanted to stay up late chatting about making videos and being UP masters. And it was more convenient for the girls to take care of Xiao Pingguo’s daily life.

But actually, Xiang Kun had another motive for this arrangement.

In fact, more than a month ago, he had considered inviting “Xiao Pingguo” and “Golden Sparkle” to Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village. Back then, his purpose was to try to bring some substantial changes to “Golden Sparkle” to “expand its equipment” so that it would have more hidden abilities and be able to protect itself better. This would also allow “Xiao Pingguo” to wander around the outside world through its senses more safely.

However, Professor Li Yang was then occupied and couldn’t take “Xiao Pingguo” to Haixi Province. Soon afterwards, Xiang Kun was also too busy to host them. Therefore, the plan was postponed until now, when Xiang Kun used the excuse of “celebrating Xia Libing’s birthday together” to invite the father and daughter duo to Chongyun Village.

But this time, the most important purpose for inviting “Xiao Pingguo” was not to enhance “Golden Sparkle’s” abilities, but to let her “meet” Alice.

Over the past month, with the help of Xiang Kun, Old Xia, and the Little Fatty Girl, Alice and the Super Sensory Item System have grown increasingly intertwined, almost entirely integrated. However, she hasn’t been able to completely immerse herself in the Super Sensory Item System just yet.

Nevertheless, Alice has been already able to do a lot more things beyond the digital network through the Super Sensory Item System, like controlling some appliances through super-connected objects.

In fact, Xiang Kun himself can directly do these things via super-connected objects, but his operations tend to be simple and crude, sometimes even accidentally damaging the appliances due to lack of control. Compared to him, Alice finds detailed operations much easier, as she is naturally adept with these tasks.

Of course, what Alice can do right now is still quite limited. For instance, she is not yet able to directly access the internal information of a computer or an electronic storage device that is not connected to any network.

Moreover, any operation that Alice needs to perform requires a large number of super-connected objects that she can call upon. The number required is far more than what is needed when Xiang Kun performs similar operations.

Even though Alice hasn’t fully assimilated into the “Super Sensory Item System” and still needs Xiang Kun to assist and guide her, she has already been able to utilize the Super Sensory Item System for many operations and applications.

The first application that Xiang Kun thought of was to help Little Apple understand and “see” the world better.

Allowing Alice to act as Little Apple’s “eyes”!

After the idea emerged, Xiang Kun, Old Xia, and Alice conducted multiple discussion and design considerations based on this concept. Eventually, they came up with a plan that they believed had a high chance of success.

The first step was for Xiang Kun to connect Alice and Little Apple.

This did not mean that Xiang Kun would make Alice’s voice heard via any digital device, or co-manifest Alice’s appearance for Little Apple to see. Instead, he had to ensure that the two of them were genuinely “connected”.

The most direct way of establishing this connection would be similar to Little Fatty Girl. Old Xia would bridge them through his Dream in a Dream, initiating the connection in a dream state.

However, Little Apple didn’t have as strong an influence on super-connected objects as Little Fatty Girl did. Hence, she couldn’t manufacture dreams equivalent to Old Xia’s Dream in a Dream using super-connected objects as a foundation while having Alice as an “extra weight”. Thus, Old Xia’s Dream in a Dream couldn’t induce Little Apple to dream.

The solution Xiang Kun thought of was to let Old Xia, Alice, and Little Apple establish a connection with the same “emotion infused object” – a piece of Black Circle Graffiti.

It was easy for Old Xia to establish a connection with other pieces of Black Circle Graffiti, since he had possession of the “CAKE01” Black Circle graffiti notebook;

Little Apple had already proven that she could quickly establish connections with “emotion infused objects”.

As for Alice, although it isn’t easy for her to establish connections with other “emotion infused objects”, the Black Circle Graffiti is an exception – she initially accessed super sensory information and connected to the Super Sensory Item System through the Black Circle Graffiti, so she can use the graffiti with which she has already established a connection.

Once everything was ready, Little Apple was invited to Chongyun Village. Xiang Kun felt it was safer to have her nearby, where he could keep a real-time watch and have full control, as there were still a series of attempts to come.

So tonight, Xiao Pingguo, who had been briefed by Xiang Kun earlier, yawned a few times past ten o’clock, showing her fatigue. Consequently, Tang Baona took Yang Zhen Er back to their room, so Xiao Pingguo could rest early.

The moment Tang Baona and Yang Zhen Er left, Old Xia immediately took out the black circle graffiti that she and Alice had connected with earlier and handed it to the somewhat excited and expectant Xiao Pingguo, asking her to try understanding the emotions infused in the graffiti through her cognitive system.

Xiao Pingguo knew that Xiang Kun wanted to help her develop a new capacity to “see the world”, but she wasn’t sure what specifically he was planning to do.

In fact, to Xiao Pingguo who was born blind, her current state had already hugely improved beyond her expectations. Through training with the woodcarving Xiang Kun had gifted her and the method of object sensing, her already exceptional hearing and smelling, compared to that of an average person, had been greatly enhanced. Her perception of her surroundings was now more comprehensive, and she could even accurately gauge other people’s emotions.

After establishing a connection with “Canary” and sharing a part of its sensory information, Xiao Pingguo was already able to experience the wider world through the “Canary”, even if she couldn’t freely leave her house herself. She could go places where no one else could, and perceive the broader world.

Now, if the Canary was not far from her, she wouldn’t even need a guide cane. Even if she were in a new place where she’s never been before, she wouldn’t panic or fear anymore. She felt just like any other normal-sighted person.

Nonetheless, Xiang Kun’s promise of giving her “a pair of eyes,” a new ability to “see the world,” made her very excited — Uncle Xiang had never let her down.

Xiao Pingguo took more than three hours to establish a connection with the black circle graffiti, finally falling into a deep sleep due to exhaustion around one in the morning.

After sending a message to Xiang Kun, Xia Libing, who had been by Xiao Pingguo’s side, went to bed and quickly fell asleep.

On the bedside tables placed on both sides of the big bed they were sleeping in, the left table held a pair of chopsticks, a piece of black circle graffiti, some coins, a chewing gum container full of ball beads, and the right table sported a cute minion woodcarving.

Downstairs, in Xiang Kun’s room, he was playing with his P40pro — a new phone that Old Xia bought him after they returned from Burma.

He gripped the phone that was flipping between his hands tightly. Judging by the breathing rate and physical condition of the two upstairs, they had already fallen asleep. So, according to the plan, Xiang Kun began to sense the “emotion infused objects” and initiate Xia Libing’s dream.

When the “Dream within A Dream” just started connecting, Xiao Pingguo’s dream gave Xia Libing a feeling somewhat similar to the first time she pulled Alice into a dream. Both were experiences that she couldn’t fully comprehend.

However, this time she didn’t help Xiao Pingguo build and express the dream visually, as she had done with Alice’s dream. Xiang Kun and she had discussed on this point; doing so might not help Xiao Pingguo get used to normal vision and might even frighten her, damaging her already established cognitive system.

Therefore, Xia Libing gave the reins of the dream to Alice, letting her help Xiao Pingguo shape the dream.

Alice was much better at comprehending the method by which Xiao Pingguo dreamt then Xia Libing. Even when Xiang Kun first sensed it, he was unable to fully interpret it. However, for Alice, this was not a problem – the sensory information of normal people was also a perception model that transcended her original understanding.

Compared to others’ dreams, Alice could actually understand Xiao Pingguo’s dream expression better.

This is because Xiao Pingguo’s dream expression is essentially transforming other sensory information such as sound and smell into a comprehensive construction based on her own experiences and instincts through her cognitive model. This is vastly different from the direct visual, auditory, and olfactory construction of ordinary people. As long as one understands this cognitive model, one can understand Xiao Pingguo’s cognitive “algorithm” and immediately comprehend her way of understanding all sensory information.