An Ordinary Day

The next day, 5:30 a.m.

There was no need for an alarm. As soon as the system's deep-sleep function shut off, Ning Yifan woke naturally, feeling completely refreshed and not the least bit tempted to go back to sleep.

"Waking up feeling completely rested is just incredible!"

After a brief exclamation, Ning Yifan sprang upright and got out of bed.

He put on a T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes, then headed straight out.

Have you ever seen a city at 5:30 in the morning?

The sky was still dim, and there were hardly any people on the streets. Under the glow of the yellow streetlights, Ning Yifan jogged along the road, while the mellow sound of music played through his Bluetooth earbuds.

He started with a slow two-kilometer jog to warm up, then kept up a steady pace as he ran through the city streets.

In the heat of summer, the city had cooled off a little overnight. Even the cicadas, which had been chirping all day, had finally quieted down.

Early morning was one of the rare times that was perfect for a run.

The streets, usually packed with traffic during the day, were quiet now. The bustling shopping district was shuttered, too, and the occasional twenty-four-hour convenience store had an employee fast asleep over the counter.

The bustle of daytime felt entirely different from the calm of the early morning. Each had its own charm.

Ning Yifan ran ten kilometers around the neighborhood without stopping, finishing in thirty-eight minutes. He stopped outside a school near his apartment complex.

"Three meat buns, three vegetable buns, and a bowl of congee, all to go!" Outside the school, a small shop was already preparing breakfast for the students, steam rising from its doorway. Ning Yifan pointed to the mountain of buns piled into a cone.

"Sure thing! You're out exercising early again, huh?" said the masked owner as he picked up the buns and packed them into a bag. "Not many young people live as regularly as you do."

"I'm exercising to stay healthy. A healthy body is the most precious thing you can have, and no amount of money can buy it!"

The owner gave him a thumbs-up and handed over the packed food. "Impressive. Here you go—your buns!"

Ning Yifan took his breakfast and put his phone away. "I've sent the payment."

"Take care!" The owner waved goodbye to his first customer of the day.

Ning Yifan waved back and set off for home.

Along the way, he polished off the buns in no time. By the time he finished the congee, he had made it back to his apartment building. He tossed the plastic bag into a trash can.

He did his final post-run stretches downstairs, bringing the day's workout to an end. Now it was time to go home!

He showered, brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth, and took care of the rest of his morning routine.

By the time Ning Yifan reached his study, it was exactly 6:30 a.m.

Through the study window, he could see the sun slowly rising over the distant horizon. It was another perfectly sunny day!

He stood by the window, enjoying the beautiful yet familiar sight of the sunrise for more than ten minutes, until the sky had fully brightened.

Only then did Ning Yifan turn on his computer and get down to work.

Having lived another life, and no longer facing the pressure of making ends meet, Ning Yifan had finally settled into the leisurely life he had once dreamed of.

Of course, taking it easy didn't mean doing nothing with his life.

Without the pressure of survival, he had more time to pursue fulfillment. It was better to share happiness than enjoy it alone. Ning Yifan didn't see much point in quietly playing around with all that black technology by himself. His goal was to create things that everyone could enjoy, so they could all benefit from the convenience of technology.

And, along the way, making a little money was only natural.

After more than twenty years of life, Ning Yifan had learned just how important money was. With money, he could do whatever he wanted: pursue his interests, shop to his heart's content, and eat whatever he liked!

Money might not solve every problem, but without it, you couldn't solve any.

He logged into his computer account and opened the freelance platform he used. The final order from the previous night had been completed, and the buyer had given him five stars without hesitation, leaving a comment:

"Just as you'd expect from the platform's undisputed Tentacle Monster! He built the app I needed in just over an hour! I'm very satisfied with the features, and after testing it for a while, I haven't found a single bug. Five stars, no question. I'll work with him again if I get the chance!"

Another three thousand yuan in the bank. Ning Yifan smiled and transferred his account balance to his bank card.

"Let's see, it's only been ten days or so this month, and I've already made over a hundred thousand yuan on the platform!"

"Add that to the two hundred thousand I earned last month, and I'm close to four hundred thousand in cash!"

At this rate of earning, Ning Yifan couldn't help marveling at the experience of being at the top of his field. It was just too comfortable!

Choosing computer programming as the first piece of black technology had been the right call. These days, all he had to do was take on two or three freelance jobs a day, spend a couple of hours finishing them, and he could comfortably earn hundreds of thousands a month. He never had to go back to the rat race!

Ning Yifan browsed the freelance platform, but didn't see any jobs that appealed to him, so he didn't bother waiting around.

Checking the site a few times a day was enough. He had plenty of money for now, and he'd only make more as time went on.

He left the study and headed to another bedroom that he had converted into a workshop. It was now piled high with all kinds of projector components, so much so that there was barely room to walk. In the middle of the parts-strewn room sat an operating table made from a dining table. It was covered in components too, but they were arranged far more neatly than the jumble on the floor.

The parts on the workbench had cost Ning Yifan nearly two hundred thousand yuan. He'd bought and dismantled hundreds of projectors from brick-and-mortar stores and online shops, then sifted through their components to find parts that came close to meeting his standards.

That was right: the first piece of black technology he planned to bring to this world was a projector. Or rather, it wasn't really black technology at all. Every component was made using existing materials and manufacturing processes.

Ning Yifan had designed the projector's motherboard himself, then found a factory online to manufacture it. He had also programmed the driver software himself and would handle the testing and calibration afterward.

All the other parts came from projectors he had dismantled over the past while. Some were up to standard, while others weren't.

The good parts went without saying. As for the subpar ones, he had still managed to pick the best available options from what the market offered.

With a motherboard designed by Ning Yifan himself, specially developed driver software tailored to the components, and his unique calibration, the parts could perform at a hundred percent of their potential—or even a hundred and twenty percent. Even using components cobbled together from other projectors, Ning Yifan could still make a product that outperformed the competition!

There was no other way around it. Even the most skilled cook couldn't make a meal without ingredients.

Ning Yifan wanted to build a Gundam and wear a suit of power armor, too, but the conditions just weren't right.

Mechs and Gundams were full of advanced technology. Even the earliest models would inevitably contain technology far beyond what this era could manage, from their chips and engines to their manufacturing materials and more.

To build any of them, Ning Yifan would have to advance every relevant field of technology himself, and that would take a lot of money. The raw materials were one expense; top-of-the-line manufacturing equipment was another.

Everything was hard at the start, but once he had built a machine tool, making those black-tech products would be much easier. Then he'd be able to churn them out in batches, like a P2P seeder.

The night before, he had finished learning the last piece of projector-manufacturing technology. Back in his workshop, he stuck with the components he had already chosen, making no changes. He only made a few tiny adjustments in his mind to the product casing he planned to order.

The coming period was going to be busy.

He had already set up a company, completing the registration at the city's Administration for Industry and Commerce some time ago. Ning Yifan was the company's sole owner and employee.

As for how one person could start a company when at least two people were required, that was a long story.

Ning Yifan was the shareholder. For the legal representative, he had secretly made a copy of his mother's ID card after taking it from home. His mother rarely used it and always left it in the wardrobe, so the whole process had been easy. The proof of residence was simply the house he was renting.

Most of the components for the company's first product had already been shipped from cities all over the country to Ning Yifan's city. They were expected to arrive tomorrow or the day after, and then assembly could begin.

Before then, Ning Yifan quickly tidied up the messy room. He packed all the unnecessary parts into big cardboard boxes and stacked them in a corner of the living room. He might find a use for them someday.

With the main work area cleared, Ning Yifan returned to the study and got back to work. He made a few small changes to the projector casing he had drawn on his computer, then opened Taobao on his phone to contact a factory that produced plastic casings.

He had picked out the shop long ago. Even with the same plastic, differences in the raw materials meant differences in quality, so he had chosen the best—and it came with a price to match. Ten thousand yuan for five hundred of the projector casings he needed, which worked out to a whopping two hundred yuan per casing!

Compared to the projectors sold online, the cost of a single casing alone was almost as much as the cheapest projector.

Of course, if he ordered more, the price would probably come down. But even at half price, one hundred yuan for a plastic casing was still incredibly expensive.

There were benefits to paying a higher price, and Ning Yifan didn't mind. He sent over the production drawings, discussed the technical details with the seller, and got confirmation that they would start production right away. Once the casings were finished, they would ship them by air via express delivery to Ning Yifan's address. They should arrive within a day or two.

That meant everything was ready for production. All that remained was for the parts to arrive.

By the time Ning Yifan finished all that, it was only eight in the morning. He refreshed the freelance site but didn't find a suitable job. He didn't push himself to keep looking. Instead, he closed the site, opened Steam, and started playing the newly released Sword and Fairy 7.

The heroine in the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect mod swished about in her white dress as the story steadily progressed. Before he knew it, the whole morning had passed.

At noon, under the blazing sun, Ning Yifan rode his road bike, which had cost him over ten thousand yuan, nimbly weaving through city traffic. He followed the navigation for just over ten minutes and arrived at a restaurant some distance from his apartment complex to have lunch.

"Not bad. I'll come again if I get the chance!" Lunch cost Ning Yifan a little over two hundred yuan. It wasn't too expensive or too cheap, just right for his budget.

In the afternoon, Ning Yifan got lucky and landed two software development jobs, earning a little over five thousand yuan in total.

For dinner, Ning Yifan bought a fish at the market near his apartment complex and made sauerkraut fish at home. It wasn't as good as a restaurant chef's cooking, but he knew what he liked, and it was still a pretty good meal.

That night, the green-onion-haired girl in Sword and Fairy kept dancing energetically, and before long, it was eleven.

The day had passed in comfort and ease.

At 11:30, Ning Yifan finished washing up and went to bed right on time.

Amid the countless branches of the Technology Tree, he found the next technology he had planned to study, following the system's guidance.

Automatic Mechanical Processing Arm.

He would have all kinds of black-tech equipment to produce in the future. Ning Yifan couldn't possibly make every one of them himself—not even a donkey on a production team could work that hard!

If he hired workers, they wouldn't all be able to handle the precision work. Training employees alone would take considerable effort, and with the speed at which Ning Yifan planned to develop and upgrade his technology, training workers wouldn't keep up with demand.

What's more, some equipment couldn't be produced simply by training workers. It involved complicated scientific theories that might take years or even decades to learn, making it difficult to put people to work in production anytime soon.

Even if he hired highly skilled specialists, that might work in the short term. But as Ning Yifan's products surpassed the rest of the world, even those specialists would eventually struggle to understand them.

Fully automated production equipment would be much better. Once he programmed it, the processing arms could manufacture things in whatever way Ning Yifan wanted, around the clock. And writing programs for the equipment wasn't particularly difficult for him now.

The Technology Tree had seventeen dim stars and five bright ones. Ning Yifan gently grasped the star at the very bottom and said softly, "System, enter dream-learning mode. Set the learning time to seven hours."

"Ding! Settings complete. Black Tech System learning mode activated!" The system's pleasant voice rang out.

The scene shifted. This time, Ning Yifan found himself in a massive factory, where mechanical arms whirred and swung over and over, working on products moving along the assembly line beneath them.

An engineer whose face he couldn't see appeared before Ning Yifan and said, "Fully automated processing equipment starts with the simplest mechanical processing arm. Bearings, universal joints..."