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As the hour hand struck twelve, I dashed out of the office and walked to the Japanese restaurant as planned. Stepping in, I saw Kou waving at me from where she sat nearby.
“You’re pretty early,” I said while getting seated. “And oh my, those dark circles look nasty…how long have you slept?”
“About four hours, I guess. But it’s okay, I’ll head home and get myself some nap time after this,” said Kou, who both looked and sounded exhausted.
Compared to her usual work outfit and daywear, she was dressed much more casually - just a regular one piece without makeup. Even so, she still stood out, even in high-end places like the International Finance Centre. Judging by her appearance, people would merely assume she was an office lady who did not get enough sleep last night, instead of a girl who was still asleep in bed an hour ago.
“Have you ordered yet? Lemme take a look at the menu…”
“Yep. Don’t worry, I got you a bowl of extra rich tonkotsu ramen as well,” Kou said as I was about to flip the menu open and call for the waiter.
“How’d you know I wanted to order the extra rich tonkotsu ramen?” Her words struck me by surprise as that was exactly what I had in mind.
But how does she guess right without me telling her so?
“Pure intuition. Didn’t you order the same last time we came here? And I guessed you wouldn’t have really worked up an appetite given how busy you are at work today. During these times, you’d usually choose restaurants you’ve visited and order food you’ve tasted. New dishes are out of the question. Am I right?” Kou described my habits precisely and concisely followed by a wink, as if she was suggesting “I guessed so, didn’t I?”
“Looks like your sleep deprivation didn’t affect the way your brain works huh.” I chuckled.
Yep, she’s a hundred percent on point. Seems like the fatigue she’s carrying doesn’t drag down a single trace of her observation and analytical skills.
“Let’s make haste. Is ‘that’ done yet?”
“Hehe.” Kou did not give a direct response right away. Instead, she pulled out a tablet of the latest model and placed it on the dining table so that we could both have a clear view of the screen.
“Isn’t this an iPad Air? It was released for sale only last week, and you’ve already got your hands on one?” I made a thorough inspection of the device, only to realise that it was not the iPad she had been using, but a much newer model.
“A friend of mine made a purchase for me in America and handed it to me a few days back. I was thinking since it’s already in hand, I might as well try to install the software here and test out its functions in one go.”
“Give it a try!” she said after tapping on one of the apps.
Sceptical, I picked up the tablet. A Hong Kong map was displayed on the homepage of the app, with a certain number of red spots scattered across it. I tapped on one of the spots at random, which triggered a small window showing the address of the pinned location, as well as the date and time of my visit there. And after tapping on the ‘Details’ button at the top-right corner of the window, more information came into view, including the appearances and identities of the ‘vampires’ I had fought off, and the instant magical reactions taking place within a five-kilometre perimeter.
Oh my, she really nailed it!
“I tried merging the map of Hong Kong, all the information on ‘vampires’ provided by Mr. Chong, images I’ve taken during your recent expeditions against the ‘vampires’, and the ‘Track Record’ spells planted in every battleground into a single application. There’s also a PC version for this app. You can try it out yourself when you’re home. What do you think? Is there anything I’m missing?”
“Not at all! An app this comprehensive done in three days? You’re a miracle worker! The Magicae Monitor System is incorporated too…this is truly fantastic!” I could not help but exclaim in admiration.
Last week, Kou pointed out the fact that our intel was all over the place. Therefore she wanted to try developing an application which put all the information together for compilation and analysis, which cost her a total of three whole restless days in the end, including a two-day time off from work in between. Finally, the app ‘iFoundYou’ was officially born this morning.
“Haha, no it isn’t. I was just thinking it’d be much more convenient for us to analyse the data when it’s all accessible via an app, and hence the product you’re looking at.” Kou giggled in response to my praise. ”It took me a day longer than I initially expected. Guess I got a little rusty in writing programmes.”
“It’s impressive enough that three days was all it took! I mean you even incorporated my system into it. Have you already mastered how to use it?” Regardless of her justifications, I was overwhelmed.
I wouldn’t have been able to do so in a month, nevermind three days!
Plus the app was different from an average analysis programme: since it was connected to my magic, it could instantly trace and display the magical reactions taking place near the locations of interest.
I had been strategically planting two specific spells at the scene after every recent battle with the ‘vampires’: ‘Track Record’ was used to pinpoint the coordinates where they made their appearance, while ‘Magicae Detection’ served the purpose of detecting the magical reactions occurring nearby. In case the ‘vampires’ revisited these locations, or that certain peculiar dark magical forces emerged from within a perimeter of five kilometres, I would be notified at once.
These two spells have always been synchronised with my Magicae Monitor System to gather intel. After I had introduced it to Kou, she suggested incorporating it into the programme she planned to create, as it would be much easier for us to browse through and analyse intel related to the ‘vampires’ when things were more centralised. Per her request, I demonstrated how the system operated and converted the source code into a language she was able to comprehend, then left the rest in her hands.
I didn’t expect this to work at first, but she proved otherwise!
“Actually I didn’t incorporate the whole system here - I only input the commands for ‘Track Record’ and ‘Magicae Detection’ into the programme, but I can certainly try to fit the remainder of the system in there. For my first time adding magic into a programme, this was quite a fun experience I would say.” Kou kept her modesty while explaining, as if what she accomplished was not anything major.
“Kou, look, I’ve been curious about this for some time now: for real, what was your major in university? Engineering?”
It was not the first time I’d witnessed her achievement of writing up codes within a short span of time: our store’s website, the application the both of us used to communicate, the home automation system at our place…these were all built by her from scratch. The programmes she devised were all comparable to the top ones out there, and there were barely any flaws, too. For a person who was so good at writing programmes, she had to be an engineering graduate, right?
“No, it’s psychology. Don’t you remember?” Slightly disappointed, Kou shook her head and looked at me.
Now that she mentions it, I do recall asking her the same question before.
“But you’re so good at it! There’s no way a psychology graduate knows so much about writing programmes, right?” Her answer, nonetheless, only stirred up more confusion.
“Come on, a psychology student can learn a certain extent of programming - though this wasn’t related to my major. It’s more like a little interest of mine.”
“A little interest huh…pretty sure what you’ve just said would’ve left a bunch of programmers feeling under-accomplished.”
“That’s only because you’re thinking so highly of me! If we’d hired a professional programmer for this, I believe it’d take only a day or two at most for them to finish. They wouldn’t even need to take any time off from work, skipping sleep and meals, to have it done in time within three days like me.”
“Have you even taken into consideration the time required to become well-versed in the Magicae Monitor System’s source code?”
As I was about to drill down, our conversation was interrupted by two bowls of steaming ramen being served to us. Realising the little time left before I had to return to work after checking my watch, I chose to sip up the noodles over picking up where I left off.
Mmm, the tonkotsu soup base this restaurant serves is indeed top notch!28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ90y4iNSIj2
