Courtyard House: Time Traveler Not Yet a Ghost

The sky outside the window had just darkened. He Damin took off his spacesuit in the small world; his shirt underneath was already soaked with sweat. Once outside, he went to his desk and turned on the milky-white computer. The Galaxy System activated, and the screen immediately displayed the real-time status of sixteen satellites. The orbital parameters, energy reserves, and signal strength of each satellite were clearly visible.

He opened a special program, and a 3D model of the Earth appeared on the screen, with sixteen red dots slowly moving around it. He Damin controlled the mouse to zoom in on the East Asian region; the signal coverage of Beichen 1 to 4 had already covered the entire China and Southeast Asia. He tried sending a test signal, and a few seconds later, the screen displayed "Signal received successfully."

"It's done," he said softly, leaning back in his chair and letting out a long sigh of relief.

Soft footsteps sounded behind her, and Chen Xueru walked in carrying a cup of hot milk. "What are you busy with again?" She placed the milk on the table, noticed the flickering dots on the screen, and curiously leaned closer to look. "What are these little red dots?"

He Damin closed the program, turned around, and took the milk. "It's nothing, just the company's new system." He took a sip, the warm liquid sliding down his throat. "From now on, we'll be able to know about the New York branch from Hong Kong."

Chen Xueru nodded, seemingly understanding, and tidied his messy hair. "Get some rest, look, your eyes are all red." Her fingers gently brushed against the corner of his eye, carrying a familiar warmth.

He Damin took her hand and pulled her into his arms. "Xue Ru," he said earnestly, looking into her eyes, "I placed sixteen stars in the sky."

Chen Xueru was stunned, then laughed: "You're teasing me again."

"It's true." He Damin pointed to the night sky outside the window. "Those glowing things can help us transmit messages and tell us where we are."

Looking at his serious expression, Chen Xueru gradually lost her smile. "You really... put the stars in the sky?" Her voice trembled slightly.

He Damin nodded and hugged her even tighter. "From now on, our ship will never get lost again when it goes out to sea."

Chen Xueru leaned on his shoulder without speaking. After a long while, she whispered, "No matter what you do, I'll believe you."

The stars outside the window still twinkled, and sixteen artificial satellites worked silently in the darkness, weaving an invisible net. He Damin knew this was just the beginning. Two years later, when all sixty satellites were deployed, this net would cover the entire Earth, changing the way the world operates.

He looked at Chen Xueru in his arms; she was already asleep, breathing evenly, a faint smile on her lips. He Damin gently kissed her forehead, thinking to himself: Just wait, I will give you a whole new world.

As night deepened, the villa on Victoria Peak was warmly lit. On the computer screen in the study, sixteen red dots continued to move slowly, like sixteen stars that would never go out.

He Damin gently carried Chen Xueru back to the bedroom and covered her with a light blanket. Her brows were slightly furrowed as she slept, as if she were hiding something. He reached out and smoothed out the crease, his fingertips touching her warm cheek. Moonlight filtered through the gauze curtains, casting dappled patterns of light on her face, like scattered silver.

Back in his study, the computer screen was still lit, the coordinates of sixteen satellites slowly moving across a model of the Earth. He opened the live feed of Beichen-3; the data stream cascaded down like a waterfall: atomic clock error -0.0000000012 seconds, signal strength 98%, solar panel temperature 23°C. In the small window at the bottom, the outline of Hong Kong Island shimmered faintly in the night, the neon lights of Tsim Sha Tsui like a glowing river.

"Master, abnormal interference has been detected in the Beichen-4 signal coverage area." 0037's voice suddenly sounded in the earpiece.

He Damin sat up straight and pulled up the spectrum analysis chart. A sharp clutter curve was interfering with the satellite signal, the source pointing towards the northern Kowloon Peninsula. "Locate the source of the interference."

A red coordinate appeared on the screen, pointing to an old tenement building in the Wong Tai Sin district. He Damin zoomed in and could see two rusty antennas mounted on the roof, emitting intermittent radio waves. "What is that?"

"Preliminary assessment indicates it is an illegal radio transmitter, possibly an underground radio station or a gambling signal relay station." 0037 retrieved historical data: "This area has experienced seventeen similar interference incidents in the past three months."

He Damin sneered. He recalled the security report from the Kowloon branch of the Global Bank last week, which stated that someone had attempted to intercept the communication signals of the armored truck. He pressed the communicator: "Old Zhou, take two men to 17 Zhengde Street, Wong Tai Sin District. There's an illegal radio station on the roof; take care of it."

"Understood, boss." Zhou Zheng's steady voice came from the other end of the phone, with the soft clanging of metal in the background, probably from checking equipment.

After hanging up the phone, He Damin stared at the static on the screen. Once all sixty satellites were deployed, he would be able to establish a global real-time monitoring network, and no radio signal would escape his notice. At that time, neither trade secrets nor military deployments would be able to hide from him.

At 3:00 AM, Zhou Zheng sent a message: "It's been dealt with; the interference source has been cleared. The logo of Wo Shing was found on the radio."

He Damin rubbed his temples. Wo Luen Shing had been making a lot of moves lately; just last week they'd seized one of his building materials warehouses in Yuen Long. "Got it. Keep a close eye on their movements." He shut down his computer and walked to the window. The sky was already turning a pale white, and the morning mist on Victoria Peak resembled a white ribbon winding around the mountainside. In the distance, the long, deep whistles of cargo ships echoed from Victoria Harbour.

Over the next six months, the production line in the small world expanded to twenty times its original size, and the number of robots increased to more than five hundred, enabling the production of two communication satellites or one positioning satellite per day.

The most difficult part was producing the atomic clocks. The rubidium atomic clocks needed for positioning satellites required extremely high precision, and each one needed three months of debugging to meet the standards. Once, a batch of atomic clocks was completely scrapped due to a tiny leak in the vacuum chamber, and He Damin was so angry that he smashed the keyboard on the control panel. 0037 silently cleaned up the debris and then spent a week redesigning the sealing system.

That day, He Damin's consciousness was inspecting a newly produced batch of communication satellites in the small world when Chen Xueru suddenly called. "Amin, come over to the school right away! Yushui got into a fight at school!"

He Damin's heart tightened, and he immediately withdrew his consciousness from the small world. When he drove to St. Mary's Girls' School, he saw Chen Xueru arguing with an elegantly dressed woman in the registrar's office. He Yushui stood to the side, her school uniform sleeve torn, and there was a faint scratch on her face, but she stubbornly refused to cry.

"My daughter said He Yushui started it!" the woman shrieked, her finger almost poking Chen Xueru's face. "You nouveau riche types have no manners!"

He Damin walked over and shielded Chen Xueru behind him. "What happened?"

"Her son snatched Yushui's paintbrush and even called her a fatherless child!" Chen Xueru trembled with anger, her eyes red-rimmed. "Yushui couldn't stand it, so she pushed him, and then his mother showed up at the door!"

When He Yushui saw He Damin, she finally couldn't hold back her tears and cried out, "Uncle, they say I'm a child without a father..."

He Damin knelt down and wiped away her tears, his fingertips tracing the scratches on her face, his heart aching as if pricked by needles. "Who said you don't have a father?" He stood up, coldly looking at the woman. "What's your son's name? Which class is he in?"

The woman was startled by his imposing manner and said, her voice trembling with fear, "What do you want? My husband is a police superintendent!"

"A police superintendent?" Ho Damin sneered, took out his phone and dialed Wong Wai-man's number. "Chief Wong, this is Ho Damin. There's a police superintendent's wife causing trouble at St. Mary's Girls' School and insulting my family. Please handle this."

Less than ten minutes after hanging up the phone, a police car arrived with sirens blaring. A middle-aged man in a police uniform rushed in, and upon seeing He Damin, his face turned deathly pale. "Mr. He, I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was you..."

The woman tried to say something, but was glared at fiercely by the superintendent and fell silent. In the end, the superintendent not only made his son apologize to He Yushui, but also compensated her for medical expenses and emotional distress.

On the way home, He Yushui remained sullen. He Damin hugged her and whispered, "If anyone bullies you again, tell your uncle, and your uncle will beat them up for you."

He Yushui sniffed: "Uncle, can Dad come pick me up tomorrow?"

He Damin wanted to come over. He remembered his brother who owned the Tan Family Cuisine restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. "Okay," he said earnestly, looking into He Yushui's eyes, "have your father pick up our little princess tomorrow."

He Yushui nodded, seemingly understanding but not quite.

Time flies, and another year has passed in the blink of an eye. In the small world, the last batch of satellites has been completed and is neatly arranged in the warehouse. He Damin stood in front of the flying saucer, looking at these sixty creations that embodied his hard work, and his eyes welled up with tears. Two years, more than a thousand days and nights, he had finally done it.

"Master, all satellites have passed testing and are ready for deployment at any time." 0037's electronic eye flashed green. "The flying saucer has 28% energy reserves remaining, enough to complete the final four deployment missions."

He Damin took a deep breath and put on his spacesuit. This was the final launch; once this step was completed, his Skynet would be officially in place.

Over the next month, He Damin launched the remaining forty-four satellites into space in one go. Returning from space, he was exhausted, but seeing the increasingly dense clusters of lights on the screen filled him with a sense of accomplishment. When the last positioning satellite entered its designated orbit, He Damin was quite excited inside the flying saucer.

Back on Earth, he immediately activated the global monitoring system. On the screen, signals from sixty satellites covered the entire globe, from the South Pole to the North Pole, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, leaving no blind spots. He tried sending a command to the New York branch and received a reply two seconds later. He then pulled up the real-time location of a cargo ship, with an error of no more than one meter.

"It's a success," He Damin murmured to himself.

Just then, Chen Xueru pushed open the door and came in, carrying a steaming bowl of sweet soup. "What are you busy with? Why are your eyes red?" She put down the soup, noticed the Earth model and the twinkling lights on the screen, and asked curiously, "What are these?"

He Damin shut down the system and pulled her into his arms. "Xueru, I did it." His voice choked with emotion. "Sixty satellites, all deployed."

Chen Xueru was stunned, then realized what he meant. "Those stars...did you really put them up there?" Her voice trembled.

He Damin nodded and opened a video file. On the screen, sixty satellites slowly orbited in space, like a dazzling necklace encircling the blue Earth. "These are communication satellites, allowing people all over the world to talk anytime; these are positioning satellites, letting us know where we are," he said excitedly, pointing to the screen. "In the future, our banks will become the world's largest, our fleets will sail to every corner of the earth, and our children will live in a better world."

Looking at the beautiful dots of light on the screen, then at He Damin's excited face, Chen Xueru suddenly burst into tears. "Amin, you're amazing." She leaned against him, her tears soaking his shirt. "I knew you could do it."

Outside the window, the night was deep, and the sky was full of stars.