Chapter 1 A Glimpse of Tenderness

Waking up in a daze, Ye Tao felt like he was holding a piece of warm jade, a piece of warm jade with an incredibly soft touch. This was different from the plump feeling coming from behind him. Currently, the "Sophie Marceau" he had taken under his wing would often presumptuously lie down on the exquisitely crafted, and likely the most comfortable, bed of this era long before Ye Tao, who usually didn't go to bed until almost midnight, was ready to rest. Sophie Marceau, fully aware that she would eventually become Ye Tao's "bed partner," had started warming his bed even before Ye Tao was ready to consume her. Ye Tao felt somewhat helpless and could only push Sophie Marceau further inside before going to sleep, leaving himself enough space. Although the two of them would often be entangled in rather unseemly poses when he woke up in the morning, Sophie Marceau was, after all, carefully cultivated by Ye Tao. It wasn't so much broad-mindedness or indifference as it was a mature and playful attitude. Every morning, the radiant smile on Sophie Marceau's face, mixed with a hint of teasing, made Ye Tao more deeply overlap this Sophie Marceau with her original prototype. He didn't dislike the feeling.

But the soft touch in his arms now was different. This softness seemed too delicate, so delicate that it made people want to hug it tightly to show their affection.

Ye Tao did just that, and then he heard a familiar voice, not quite awake, murmur, "Brother Ye Tao, you're awake."

It was Dai Qiuyan! Ye Tao woke up instantly. How could Dai Qiuyan be in his bed?

He naturally wouldn't know that, because he had promised Dai Qiuyan that he would take her to see the improved "Illusory Canopy" performance in the theater-like lecture hall that could accommodate five hundred people in the Yi Zhan building today, Dai Qiuyan, who had only heard about the dazzling light and shadow but had never seen it, had been excited all night. She woke up after only a short nap and tiptoed into Ye Tao's room to wake him. However, when she found that she couldn't seem to wake Ye Tao, her own sleepiness surged up. Her closeness to Ye Tao, coupled with her young age, naturally made her feel no qualms, so she simply snuggled into the arms of her favorite "Brother Ye Tao" to catch up on sleep. The comfortable bed only made her fall into a deep sleep almost instantly.

"Young Mistress is indeed interesting," Sophie Marceau, who had also woken up, rested her chin on Ye Tao's shoulder and whispered in his ear. Her cheerful voice still carried the crisp yet gentle French lilt of her native Frankish kingdom, where she had spent most of her childhood. This tone only made Ye Tao feel even more awkward.

Helplessly hugging Sophie Marceau's head, Ye Tao said, "Sophie... I'll leave it to you." Then he jumped out of bed as if escaping.

An hour later, when Ye Tao appeared in the Yi Zhan building with Sophie Marceau and Dai Qiuyan, this little anecdote had already spread. Undoubtedly, this would become a perfect material for teasing Dai Qiuyan, especially when she understood what it meant a few years later. Dai Qiuyan would never become a venomous tongue who could retort to such topics. One could imagine how amusing it would be to tease a quiet and shy beauty into blushing with this topic several or even a dozen years later.

The entire lecture hall was the first part of the Yi Zhan building to be completely renovated, and now, there were only two people in the hall, watching another showing of "Fisherman's Song at Dusk." Without the outstanding performance of Liu Xiangyuan, a master of the guzheng, and only the somewhat stilted accompaniment of the enlarged music box, this performance of "Fisherman's Song at Dusk" was a great loss compared to the brilliance of that night. However, these moving, colorful images, which they had never experienced before, still captivated Sophie Marceau and Dai Qiuyan.

Ye Tao did not accompany them to watch it again. He was currently in the projection room, listening in surprise to Cassandra's discovery.

"Brother Ye," Cassandra seemed to have become obsessed with this immature art that was now far more technical than artistic, ever since she started creating the first short film for the Illusory Canopy, "Fisherman's Song at Dusk." Since the completion of the building housing the lecture hall of the Yi Zhan building, she had set up a military cot in the projection room, destined to be uncomfortable, and diligently studied the expensive crystal slides painted with various patterns in transparent paints, which she had helped create. She studied those slides that formed dynamic, continuous shots by rolling quickly. Suddenly, she seemed to have understood something. "If these crystal slides roll fast enough, the human eye won't be able to perceive that they are separate images at all, but will only think they are moving continuously. If that's the case, wouldn't it be possible to turn all the stories in those operas into such performances?"

Ye Tao looked at Cassandra with admiration. By modern standards, Cassandra was actually a full-fledged animation artist. However, this artist had only belatedly realized the principle of animation.

"Yes, but those opera stories are too long now. Before solving some problems, I'm afraid it will be difficult to turn the opera stories into that kind of thing," Ye Tao said with some regret. This was primitive animation. He didn't have the ability to make movies yet, and animation... animation made with crystal slides was a bit too extravagant.

Cassandra said excitedly, "It's indeed difficult to make something that can be shown on such a large screen, but something simpler seems possible. Brother Ye, look at this..."

Cassandra pulled Ye Tao to a table next to her and uncovered a pile of things covered with a white cloth.

What Ye Tao saw was a very delicate mechanism, something like the equipment used for various optical experiments in middle school. The screen used to receive optical projections was only one foot square, and in front of it was a surprisingly delicate magic lantern-like box.

"I used the waste crystal slides cut from making 'Fisherman's Song at Dusk' to make something. Brother Ye, you told me the principle. I adjusted it for a long time before I made it. The light source is a tallow candle plus a copper condensing cover, so the color is not very pure, and the color tone is always yellowish. But, after all, I made it, and it's really fun... It's just that I can't make anything too difficult on a one-inch square crystal slide."

As she spoke, Cassandra opened the box, lit the tallow candle inside, then wound up the spring and released the switch. A very short animation, about a minute long, was projected onto the small screen. A girl, carrying a basket of clothes, walked to the river to wash them, but when she shook the clothes, she accidentally caught a small fish. The girl gently held up the fish and put it back into the river. The fish leaped out of the water as if to thank the girl, and then the girl watched the fish disappear freely back into the river...

Besides shock, it was really hard to have any other emotions. The "Fisherman's Song at Dusk" produced on the Illusory Canopy had to take into account the mutual interference of the three light channels on each screen, so the picture production was as simple as possible. It was a technique that mixed ink paintings with woodcuts, using outlines and light and shadow as the main means of expression, and the number of pictures was not large, so it couldn't be said to be pure animation. However, the short film made by Cassandra was a genuine color animation. Not only was it bright and full in color, and the layout of the pictures was reasonable, but even the zooming, panning, and tilting of the camera were taken into account. The continuous pictures had wide shots, medium shots, and close-ups, especially the set of pictures of the girl holding the fish in both hands and putting it into the water, which was really touching. The impure color of the brass condensing cover gave the short film a dim, nostalgic feeling.

"How many pictures did you draw? How long did it take?" Ye Tao asked in surprise. Cassandra's expression was proud and excited, but her face and her movements were somewhat tired.

"I drew a total of six hundred and eighty-two pictures, all so small. It only took me less than three days," Cassandra then said apologetically. "To test the effect, I asked several senior brothers from the clock workshop to help make a lot of things. I should have asked you first and got your consent."

Ye Tao didn't pay much attention to Cassandra's apology. He carefully opened the box and saw that it actually contained a complex fusee, which showed that Cassandra had a full awareness of the constancy of the rolling speed. For the Ye family workshop, which had already mastered the technology of making grandfather clocks, it was very simple to use a fusee and a spring to ensure the constant speed of the mechanism, but the difficulty lay in having such awareness.

"What is the rolling speed of your thing now?" Ye Tao asked.

Cassandra was not surprised that Ye Tao asked the key point at once, after all, this set of things was based on the ideas put forward by Ye Tao. She said, "I tested it many times before I found out. If it's less than ten pictures per second, it's easy to see the feeling of individual pictures. After debugging it many times, I finally determined it to be twelve frames per second. Several senior brothers with more critical eyes came to see it and thought it was smooth."

Nearly seven hundred crystal slides could not be installed in the original circular installation bucket. In this box, Cassandra used a spiral staircase-like installation method, with a copper metal protective ring on the outermost ring, and the design of the box, this spiral bucket used to place the content, was still a replaceable design. In any case, this could be called a creation.

Ye Tao looked at Cassandra and then praised, "You are too surprising. This is a creation. Compared to the Illusory Canopy, this thing is more fun. In the future, in addition to the drawing work in the workshop, if you are willing to continue to do this set of things, you can come to me. I will let the senior brothers do their best to cooperate with you in terms of funding, materials, and manpower."

Cassandra was overjoyed. She originally thought that it would be good enough to be allowed to have some free time to play with these things outside of her work in the workshop, but she didn't expect that Ye Tao would give her complete trust and support.

However, Ye Tao was even more proud. Ye Tao never doubted that there were very, very many smart people in this era, but in the absence of systematic scientific thought guidance, and without the inheritance of science as a discipline, the understanding of many things was not enough. And people's creativity and their ability to turn creativity into reality were often limited to the level they could understand and operate. This was why science had developed to the present day, and as people learned more and more, there were more and more inventions. When Cassandra had a deeper and deeper study in this discipline, she would have more and more requirements and encounter more and more limitations, and only under the comprehensive development of the entire scientific system... perhaps the scientific system developed under Ye Tao's piracy and disclosure, would these limitations be broken through little by little. Cassandra's future requirements would definitely become the driving force and pressure to promote the development of other disciplines. And facing this little girl's various requirements, Ye Tao could already imagine the expressions of those senior brothers racking their brains to come up with various solutions.

In her excitement, Cassandra suddenly asked again, "Brother Ye, is there something like... transparent and long that can be rolled up? If there is, it would be better to divide such a thing into grids to draw things on. Now this spiral drum is barely enough for seven hundred things. It would be difficult to make it longer... I'm afraid it would be difficult."

Film? Ye Tao's heart skipped a beat. Cassandra was growing too fast and had too deep an understanding of animation, so deep that he didn't know what to say. Ye Tao couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Transparent film was not something that could be made just by saying it. He could only scratch his head and say, "... there will be..."

Cassandra looked at Ye Tao's embarrassed expression and did not know what Ye Tao was thinking, but she was only mentioning something she had accidentally thought of. After saying "Oh," she let go of the topic. Ye Tao allowing her to continue playing this animation was already a big thing that could make her happy for several months.