Courtyard House: Time Traveler Not Yet a Ghost

Downstairs, He Yushui's clear laughter echoed from the courtyard, like silver bells tinkling throughout. Half a year had passed, and the little girl had grown considerably taller; she used to reach He Damin's waist, but now she was almost up to his chest. Her Cantonese was now quite fluent, with a touch of local Hong Kong accent, and she would occasionally earnestly correct Li Sanmei's pronunciation, making Li Sanmei both amused and exasperated. She was playing in the courtyard with a large yellow dog, almost half her height—a stray dog ​​that He Yuzhu had picked up from the back door of the restaurant a few months ago. At the time, it was skinny and dirty, but after being cleaned and fattened up, its fur was glossy and shiny, and it had become Yushui's inseparable companion. The big yellow dog, tongue lolling out, wagged its tail like a rattle, letting Yushui pull its paws around in circles, making whimpering, affectionate noises.

He Yuzhu has changed a lot in the past six months. Every day without fail, he goes to the Daqing Restaurant to help out, handling everything from stir-frying and chopping vegetables to greeting customers. In the evenings, he studies Xingyi Quan (a style of Chinese martial arts) with He Damin, practicing each move with precision and skill. Occasionally, he practices shooting in the basement that He Damin specially renovated; the gunshots are muffled by the thick walls and soundproofing, barely audible outside. Now, he is more upright and robust than before, no longer the somewhat carefree person he once was. His eyes are more calm and sharp, and his every move exudes the aura of a martial artist.

Meanwhile, He Daqing's restaurant business was also booming. With the one million Hong Kong dollars of start-up capital from He Damin, the restaurant was renovated, good chefs were hired, and since He Damin had taught Wo Shing Wo a lesson last time, no one dared to cause trouble anymore. The restaurant quickly gained a foothold in Wan Chai and became a well-known Cantonese restaurant in the area. Although He Daqing was still taciturn and didn't talk much, the worry on his face had largely disappeared. Occasionally, when he was tending to the flowers and plants in the courtyard, he could be heard humming a few lines of Peking Opera. Although it was out of tune, it conveyed a sense of ease.

The family's maid, Li Sanmei, gradually adapted to life in Hong Kong and was no longer as reserved as when she first arrived. She kept the house in perfect order, and the meals she cooked became more and more to everyone's liking.

Everything is moving in a positive direction.

But as He Damin stood by the window, watching all this, he knew very well that this was just the beginning.

Breakfast was simple: congee, fried dough sticks, and a few plates of refreshing pickled vegetables. Chen Xueru had a good appetite; she drank two bowls of congee and ate a fried dough stick.

After breakfast, Chen Xueru went to work at Global Bank as usual. She wore a well-fitting beige suit skirt, her hair neatly pulled back, her face radiating the competence and confidence of a professional woman. For the past six months, she had done this almost daily, managing the bank's affairs with remarkable efficiency. Under her leadership, both Wing On and Union Bank saw booming business, with deposits more than doubling compared to six months prior. Those older employees and clients who had initially been skeptical of this young, mainland-born "female boss" were now completely convinced and held her in high esteem.

He Yushui, carrying a brand-new schoolbag, skipped and hopped along with Li Sanmei to school. The little girl has now fully integrated into local school life, can communicate fluently with classmates and teachers in Cantonese, has also learned a lot of English with fairly standard pronunciation, and ranks among the top students in her class. She is a good student in the eyes of her teachers.

He Yuzhu also went to the restaurant. Before leaving, he changed into a clean white chef's uniform and said to He Damin, "Uncle, a big boss has booked the entire restaurant tonight, so I might be busy until very late."

He Damin nodded, "I understand, be careful." He didn't say anything more.

Once everyone had left, the large house fell silent, save for the ticking of the clock on the wall. He Damin walked into the study alone and gently closed the door.

He sat down at his desk, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and a thought struck him.

The next second, his figure disappeared from the study.

When I opened my eyes again, I was already in that familiar little world.

In the past six months, this place has undergone tremendous changes and is no longer the desolate plain that once contained only twenty gold bricks and a flying saucer.

On the plain, apart from the twenty enormous gold bricks that still gleamed with a heavy sheen, a well-organized industrial zone had been carved out. Rows of silvery-white metal factory buildings stood neatly, like giant silver boxes. The roofs of the buildings were all covered with deep blue solar panels, reflecting a soft, unchanging light under the constant glow of the small world. Cables of varying thicknesses crisscrossed underground and in the air like a neural network, connecting the various factory buildings. A faint ozone odor, similar to disinfectant but mixed with a metallic smell, permeated the air—the distinctive odor of various precision instruments operating at high speed.

Masao Kobayashi and two other Japanese engineers he had brought from Tokyo were busy at a control panel, dressed in matching white work uniforms. Their hair was shorter, and they were thinner, but their eyes were focused and fervent. When they saw He Damin appear out of nowhere, they seemed used to it, immediately stopping their work and kneeling respectfully on the ground, their foreheads almost touching the ground.

"Master," Masao Kobayashi reported in increasingly fluent, but still slightly stiff, Chinese, "as per your instructions, the lithography production line has been fully debugged. This morning at six o'clock, the first wafer was successfully fabricated, and preliminary tests of all parameters show that they all meet the design standards."

He Damin nodded expressionlessly, ignoring them, and walked straight towards the core area of ​​the industrial zone.

There, twelve robots of different shapes stood quietly, like twelve silent steel statues. Their eyes shone with a soft blue light—over the past six months, He Damin had completely mastered how to control them, and even, based on the data in the photonic computer, had written more complex and detailed task programs for them.

"0037," he said, his voice echoing in the empty factory.

The creature, numbered 0037 and resembling more of a service robot, immediately stepped forward with steady steps, its mechanical and emotionless voice ringing out: "Master, please give your instructions."

"Take me to see the results of the production line."

"Yes, Master."

0037 turned around, taking steps precise to the millimeter, and led He Damin into a cleaner, more sophisticated workshop. The workshop entrance had an automatic sensor door; a slight hissing sound could be heard as it opened. Inside was a constant temperature and humidity dust-free environment, with airborne dust particles controlled to extremely low levels. Through the glass partitions inside, dozens of precision machines, gleaming with metallic luster, could be clearly seen neatly arranged—lithography machines, etching machines, ion implanters, chemical vapor deposition equipment… Each one a marvel impossible in this era, representing a technological level decades ahead of its time.

For the past six months, He Damin has devoted almost all his energy to this. He first retrieved a massive amount of data from the UFO's photonic computer. This vast amount of data not only included the UFO's manufacturing technology, energy system, and weapon system, but also a complete knowledge system about silicon-based chips, computer architecture, and materials science. The photonic computer's computing power was astonishing, equivalent to the combined computing power of countless supercomputers in later generations. With its assistance, He Damin spent three whole months "downsizing" those technologies that were far ahead of their time, disassembling, analyzing, and redesigning them, ultimately transforming them into technical solutions that could be achieved using the existing conditions and materials of the small world.

Then, the robots began manufacturing the equipment.

The lithography machine is undoubtedly the most difficult step in the entire chip manufacturing process. It requires nanometer-level precision and has extremely stringent requirements for materials, environment, and control. Most of the materials He Damin could use were raw metals mined from the micro-world, which needed to be purified and processed by robots first. Finally, he adopted a "hybrid process"—using a micro-energy beam from the flying saucer for the most critical finishing work to ensure nanometer-level precision, and then using a high-strength alloy refined from the micro-world to build the main structure. The first lithography machine took a full two months to complete, during which time it failed countless times. But once successful, with templates and experience, subsequent replication and improvements became much faster.

Today, this small industrial zone has a complete production line, from wafer manufacturing to chip packaging and testing.

0037 led He Damin to the most complex and sophisticated-looking machine. Inside, a crystal-clear eight-inch wafer was being carefully held and slowly rotated by a robotic arm. The surface of the wafer was etched with dense, intricate circuit patterns, resembling city streets, shimmering faintly under the light.

"These are the first batch of sample wafers completed this morning," 0037 said, pointing to a transparent plastic tray next to him.

On the tray, dozens of pre-cut and partially packaged chips were neatly arranged. Each chip was only the size of a fingernail, and its black packaging shell was printed with fine numbers and text.

He Damin stretched out his fingers and gently picked up a chip. The chip was very light, with a slightly frosted feel at the edges. He examined it carefully under the overhead light; the surface of the chip reflected a dazzling array of colors, a unique optical diffraction effect of nanoscale circuits, as brilliant as a rainbow.

"Performance parameters?" he asked, putting down the chip.

0037's eyes flashed blue, and he immediately pulled up a detailed data report, reading it aloud in a flat tone: "Based on x86 architecture, 32-bit central processing unit, 1.2GHz clock speed, using 0.18-micron process technology. The integration density is approximately 20 million transistors, and the computing speed, power consumption control, stability... all reach the level of mainstream desktop processors in 2000 AD."

He Damin nodded in satisfaction.

1.2GHz, 0.18-micron process. This was roughly the level of Intel's Pentium III processor around 2000. In 1956, when even vacuum tube computers were still rare and transistors were just beginning to emerge, this was a miracle ahead of its time—more than forty years ahead! With chips of this caliber, he could build a truly modern computer.

"What about the matching motherboard, graphics card, memory, and hard drive?" he continued to ask.

0037 nodded and led him to another work area. There, a dozen industrial robots were methodically assembling various parts.

The motherboard was a light green PCB, densely packed with capacitors, resistors, connectors, and slots, its wiring as intricate and complex as a spiderweb. The graphics card was smaller than later discrete graphics cards, but it was an incredible feature for its time—it had 32MB of dedicated video memory and supported basic 3D graphics acceleration. The hard drive was a traditional mechanical hard drive, but its storage capacity reached an astonishing 20GB, with a rotation speed of 7200 RPM, which was simply unheard of in 1956. The memory was SDRAM, with each module having a capacity of 128MB.

There are also displays—although a thin and light LCD screen cannot be manufactured yet, the robots used special materials from the flying saucer to synthesize an improved cathode ray tube (CRT). This CRT is almost half the size of the traditional one and much lighter, but it has a resolution of 1024x768, and the display effect is clear and sharp.

He Damin walked up to a fully assembled computer. The off-white chassis had clean, flowing lines, and the front panel featured a round power button and two small USB ports—he had also "extracted" the convenient USB interface technology from the database, realizing it decades ahead of schedule.

He bent down and pressed the power button.

With a soft "beep," the internal fan of the computer case began to spin, emitting a slight hum. A few seconds later, the screen lit up with a "whoosh," displaying a familiar graphical interface—Windows. But this wasn't any historical version of Windows; rather, it was a simplified version recompiled and optimized by He Damin based on his memories from later generations and the operating system principles of the photon computer. The interface was concise and clear, the operation was smooth and stable, and it was compatible with the logical architecture of most mainstream software.

He clicked the mouse a few times. The word processing software opened, and the text input was smooth and seamless; the spreadsheet software ran quickly, and complex formulas could be completed instantly; the image browsing software could clearly display some images from later times that he had imported... Everything was as smooth as silk, almost no different from the home computer experience he remembered from the early 2000s.

0037 continued the report: "The operating system is named 'Galaxy 1.0.' It uses a graphical user interface, supports multitasking, and includes commonly used office software such as word processing, spreadsheets, database management, and basic development tools. Various applications can be developed and installed later as needed."

He Damin nodded, quite satisfied. His efforts over the past six months had not been in vain.

He shut down his computer and turned to look at the warehouse on the other side.

There, hundreds of fully assembled and tested machines were neatly arranged. Their silver-white chassis, uniform size and appearance, resembled a troop of soldiers awaiting inspection, exuding a cold yet powerful technological aura.

What is the current inventory level?

"One hundred and twenty complete units have been assembled and passed all performance tests. An additional two hundred sets each of core components such as motherboards, graphics cards, hard drives, and memory are also available. Approximately forty percent of the metal and non-metal raw materials mined and refined within the small world have been consumed. Based on the current robot production speed, and assuming sufficient raw materials, we can maintain a production efficiency of three complete units per day," 0037 answered in detail.

He Damin was silent for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the neatly arranged computers.

One hundred and twenty computers. To later generations, this might seem like the size of a small internet cafe, insignificant. But to the world in 1956, this was a force powerful enough to change the landscape, even the world itself.

With these computers, he could begin to plan the next step.

He Damin stepped out of the cleanroom and looked up at the silver-gray flying saucer that hovered silently in the sky. It was still so huge and so mysterious, its surface covered with intricate patterns, gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the soft light of the small world.

Over the past six months, his understanding of UFOs has deepened. Besides the core photonic computer and the loyal robots, he's discovered something even more interesting—the UFOs contain a complete micro-manufacturing system capable of synthesizing various parts and even small devices using energy and basic elements. However, this system consumes a tremendous amount of energy, and he dares not use it lightly at the moment.

With a thought, he brought up the flying saucer's energy panel. It displayed a fluctuating number: 31.7%.