Office Romance

On the other side, not long after parting with Chu Xiaoxiao, the Chengjiang was the only ship left on the sea, drifting alone across the water.

In the Chengjiang's hold.

"Minions, time to get to work! Come on! Start by digesting this pile of scrap metal! We're really a little short on manpower!"

Nie Yun waved his hand. The large number of Mechanical Insects that had just transformed into the Sea Wolf began devouring the scrap metal over there.

He found a crate to sit on and looked helplessly at the pair of miniature robots, one male and one female, in front of him.

"Ah, small is small, but it's better than nothing." Nie Yun rubbed his forehead helplessly. A mass of Mechanical Insects that had been waiting nearby swarmed over like hungry tigers.

Ten minutes later, Nie Yun opened his eyes. Looking at the "Mechanical Insect version of the robots" before him, which looked exactly as they had before, a hint of delight flashed across his face.

Chu Xiaoxiao really hadn't been wrong. The robots were a little on the small side, but their internal construction was extremely intricate. All their design details were now imprinted in Nie Yun's mind.

Aside from making his mechanical engineering experience soar, he had also discovered a very useful new ability.

He closed his eyes again. This time, half an hour passed before Nie Yun opened them, data streams flashing in his eyes.

"Activate!" Nie Yun looked down at the robots and gave the command.

"You're my little apple, my little apple, I could never love you too much..."

As upbeat music began to play, the pair of robots immediately started dancing. Their precision and coordination were enough to make every middle-aged and elderly woman in a public square feel ashamed of herself.

"Stop!" Nie Yun ordered again.

The pair of robots immediately stopped moving, raised their heads, puffed out their chests, and stood at attention.

"Oh yeah! It really works!" Nie Yun cheered, waving his arms.

The pair of robots' movements might not have seemed difficult for Nie Yun, who could control the Mechanical Insects perfectly, but he hadn't used his mental commands at all!

In other words, Nie Yun had just written the program, and the robots had carried out the entire sequence of actions using only voice commands.

Since Nie Yun could control Mechanical Insects at the picometer scale, to some extent, he could modify the code in any computer chip converted into Mechanical Insects as he pleased. After all, program code also had to be stored in memory units by physical hardware.

If he wanted, he could even skip voice control entirely. All he needed was a thought to activate the program in the robots' control chips.

And when electronic products were converted into Mechanical Insects, they gained another tremendous advantage: their storage capacity expanded dramatically, because every individual Mechanical Insect was itself a storage unit.

Based on the miniature robots' size, their total capacity was roughly equivalent to that of a supercomputer. It was more than enough for Nie Yun to write any large-scale applications he pleased.

"Tsk, tsk. I've picked up another skill: master programmer. Why do I feel like I'm getting further and further down the road to becoming a top student?

Turns out I wasn't a lousy student; I was just a late bloomer!

Dad, seeing what I've achieved now, you can rest in peace with a smile!"

Nie Yun clasped his hands behind his back and tilted his face forty-five degrees toward the sky, looking as though he couldn't bear to look back on the past.

Although this skill seemed a little useless for now, considering both flexibility and efficiency, Nie Yun's mental control had the upper hand.

But as his Mechanical Insect swarm continued to grow, he couldn't keep personally controlling every single Mechanical Insect the way he had before.

He'd already been worrying about how much more time he had to spend charging each day, and he was starting to feel like he couldn't keep up.

But if he could assemble a robot army that could work automatically with just a single program command, then no matter how many Mechanical Insects he had, Nie Yun would still be able to keep them under control.

Looking at it that way, this skill had tremendous potential!

However, writing programs suited to all kinds of environments wasn't something he could do overnight. For now, Nie Yun still had to control them himself.

"You two are the first sailors under my command, so I have to give you names. How about this: the girl will be called 'Xiaohai,' and the boy 'Xiaolang'! Mm, not bad. From now on, you're Xiaohai and Xiaolang!"

Captain Nie was always simple and straightforward when it came to naming things. He'd originally wanted to call them "Little Nie" and "Little Yun," but to preserve what little distinctiveness Captain Nie had left, he gave up and went with "Xiaohai" and "Xiaolang" instead!

"Xiaolang Squad, assemble!"

At Nie Yun's command, the Mechanical Insects, busy reproducing their swarm among the scrap metal, raised a little mound from the heap. A tiny silver figure quickly emerged from the mound and jumped out. By the time it landed, it had transformed into the male robot.

As soon as the little robot landed, it hurried over to Nie Yun on its short legs, puffing and panting.

One mound after another appeared, and Xiaolangs kept popping out like groundhogs. In the end, a full twenty Xiaolangs lined up neatly at Nie Yun's side.

"Smack!" The Xiaolang Squad saluted in perfect unison.

"Xiaohai Squad, assemble!"

Another twenty Xiaohai popped out of the main group, lined up neatly on the other side, and saluted!

Uh... it was actually an ancient-style lady's curtsy!

Nie Yun nodded in satisfaction, then looked at the two rows of robots that didn't even reach his knees. "Sigh! If only you were a little bigger, you'd be even more perfect!"

Nie Yun's fixation on their size still hadn't gone away...

"All right, you're the first veterans of my mighty sailor army. In the days to come, you must make good use of your hard-working spirit and put your advantage of never fearing hardship or fatigue to full effect!

"At the same time, you must set an example for those who come after you and inspire them to follow in your footsteps!

"I... will support you in spirit!"

Nie Yun stood there lecturing, spittle flying, while the robot squad stood perfectly still.

Perhaps because he felt the silence was a little awkward, Nie Yun glanced at them. "Clap, clap, clap!" A perfectly synchronized round of applause rang out.

"Mm!" Nie Yun nodded in satisfaction with a smile, then turned to leave.

Suddenly, as if he'd remembered something, he turned back, raised an index finger, and put on a stern expression. "There's one point I want to emphasize here! Office romances... are absolutely, absolutely forbidden! Understood?"

Xiaohai: "..."

Xiaolang: "..."

Mechanical Insects: "..."