Shen Le smiled along with them. His vision brightened, and he was brought back from the difficult days of the last century to the present. The smile still lingered at the corners of his lips.
Watching the couple lean on and support each other, facing hardship and doing their best to get through it, really put him in a good mood.
When would he meet a girl like that? That would be wonderful...
Unfortunately, he didn't have a girlfriend or anything. Shen Le was a homebody who rarely went out, so naturally he didn't meet many girls. What about the Senior Sisters and junior students he'd known at school?
Ever since he'd given up on taking the civil service exam and come to squat in this little town, they'd all basically gone their separate ways.
Speaking of the Senior Sister, when was she going to send him the modeling files she'd promised?
Thinking of that, Shen Le went online and sent his Senior Sister emojis, greetings, and animated images of himself bowing, rolling around, and kowtowing. After a while, a notification chimed in the chat window, and his Senior Sister replied:
"Done. Go grab it!"
"Thanks, Senior Sister!"
Shen Le opened his computer and downloaded a huge CAD file.
How to position everything, how large to make the circles, where to start cutting, how deep to cut, and how long the cutting edge should be. Detailed instructions for every step were laid out clearly before him.
In other words, if Shen Le were good at operating CNC machine tools, he could follow the file and work like a whirlwind, turning out a Devil's Work Ball just like the one in the plans.
—Of course, the sphere inside could only be a smooth, undecorated ball. If he wanted to carve patterns or anything, he'd have to patiently do it himself, bit by bit.
"But I don't have a CNC machine..." After thanking his Senior Sister, Shen Le sighed.
"Never mind. I'll do it by hand and take my time..."
He pulled out the bag of Solid Wooden Balls he'd just bought, took one at random, and started drawing the positioning lines according to the CAD file. First, he could pick an arbitrary point as the origin, then... then...
Then he was supposed to find the opposite point, draw the lines of latitude and longitude, and use them to position and draw each circle?
So, someone tell me: I've found the South Pole. Without a CNC machine, laser positioning, or even a machine tool, how am I supposed to find the North Pole?
Shen Le searched online, searched some more, and kept searching. Great, he found something! There was a thing called a Temari Ball. The method was to stick a pin into the South Pole, then slowly measure with a flexible tape until he found the longest possible length, and draw a line.
Then he'd change direction, measure slowly again with the tape, and draw another line. The point where the two lines crossed would be the North Pole.
Shen Le let out a breath and picked up the wooden ball. He looked at it from one side, then the other, and smiled wryly.
A wooden ball was made of wood, after all. It wasn't cork, much less foam. He couldn't stick a pin into it...
Did he have to drill a hole with an electric drill?
Sure, this part would be carved away later... but this was way too rough a way to do it...
He grabbed a piece of flexible tape and tried measuring the wooden ball this way and that, sighing.
"How am I supposed to do this? How do I mark its North and South Poles? Could someone give me a hand..."
"Thump!"
A dull thud. Shen Le leaned backward, narrowly dodging the dark shape before it could hit him. He turned to look and saw a length of Silk Thread fly out of the Ink Marker, a heavy Lead Weight attached to it. It swung in front of him and landed at the other end of the workbench.
"...Why did you fly out? What, you think you can do it?!"
The Ink Marker didn't answer. Of course, it couldn't talk. But then it started moving, swishing into action. The Lead Weight swung up again, the Silk Thread curved into an arc, and it looped toward the wooden ball in Shen Le's hand.
...What was that move?
The mighty cowboy lassoing a horse?
Shen Le simply set down the wooden ball and watched. After the Silk Thread nudged the ball over, it tightened against the edge of the workbench. The Lead Weight sprang high, did a 360-degree turn in the air, then a 720, and plunged straight down, making a perfect splash—
No, it plunged straight down, its hard tip piercing the wooden ball, then flipped the ball over and stood it upright.
Then the Silk Thread curved around, following the point where the tip of the Lead Weight had pierced the ball, and loosely wrapped around it. It shifted a little to the left, then a little to the right, moving back and forth several times before snapping tight and loosening. Then it changed direction, shifted, adjusted, and tightened again—
When it finally loosened, two lines from two different angles had divided the wooden ball perfectly in half. The point where they intersected on the other side and the point where the Lead Weight had pierced the ball were, by Shen Le's estimate, exactly at the sphere's North and South Poles...
Shen Le stared, dumbfounded. What kind of skill was this? Why was an Ink Marker more efficient than him at marking and positioning a sphere?
He would've needed another ten minutes, slowly making adjustments until his hands were covered in ink!
But after marking the sphere's North and South Poles, the Ink Marker toppled over with a thud. The Lead Weight rested against the wooden ball, and a coil of Silk Thread lay limp beside it. Everything stayed perfectly still, pretending to be dead. Shen Le leaned over, poked the Ink Marker, and lifted the Ink Line.
"...Hey?"
No response.
The Ink Marker, the Lead Weight, and the Ink Line all lay there quietly, pretending to be inanimate objects.
Shen Le reached out and nudged the Lead Weight, rolling it and the wooden ball halfway over. When he let go, the Lead Weight swung twice from the momentum, then went still again.
"Did you run out of energy? That can't be it... Or do you not know what to do next? Come on, take a look..."
Shen Le picked up the Lead Weight and brought it close to the computer screen. Then he thought, what if the Ink Marker saw through the lion's eyes? If he picked up the Lead Weight, it wouldn't be able to see...
So Shen Le set down the Lead Weight and picked up the Ink Marker, turning the lion's head toward the screen.
After another moment's thought, just to be safe, he picked up the Lead Weight again, wrapped it together with a length of Silk Thread, and placed them on top of the lion's head.
"Here, look. Our next task is this...
"Divide the equator into five equal parts. Draw two circles on each line of longitude. The positioning point for each circle is... and the radius is...
"Once we've marked it like this, no matter which side you look at the finished Devil's Work Ball from, every circular opening will be surrounded by five others..."
He pointed at the CAD file on the screen and explained, point by point, which spots needed to be marked on the wooden ball and how to position them.
The Ink Marker didn't move at all. Shen Le had no idea whether it was listening. It was even more hopeless than a doctor trying to examine an infant patient—
At least infants cried, blinked, and grabbed your finger. At the very least, you could take their temperature, listen to their heartbeat, or listen to their breathing.
The Ink Marker sat there quietly, completely unresponsive.
Shen Le did his best to activate his Spirit Eye and look and listen, but all he could see was a cloud of mist shrouding the Ink Marker. There wasn't the slightest ripple, nor any strange sound...
"Hey, did you understand?"
No response.
The mist didn't stir. The Ink Line on the Lead Weight did sway a little, and Shen Le perked up. He focused on it, only to realize that his breathing had stirred the line...