Chapter 336 - Perfection

Guan Yilin was hastily working on the engine blueprint. When she caught a glimpse of Xiao Luo's screen, she couldn't resist a snort and even shot him a look of contempt.

Looking on, Yu Jiangu was worried about Xiao Luo and broke out in cold sweat. He muttered, "What the hell is he trying to do? Does he really not know where to start?"

"Guan Yilin has already completed one-third of the drawing."

"She's indeed our scholar-queen. That speed of hers is incredible!"

"Haha, looks like our senior is going to lose to Guan Yilin."

The classroom was abuzz with murmurs, and many there felt that the writing was on the wall. There would be no head-to-head finish to this race, Guan Yilin would definitely come out ahead.

Finally, Xiao Luo began to start on his design blueprint. He started playing around with AutoCAD's interface, randomly drawing nothing but some dotted lines and curves. They appeared to be done haphazardly with the lines running across one another and without any shape or form.

What's he trying to draw? Is that seriously an engine?

The crowd stared at his screen incredulously, then shook their heads and laughed. No matter how they looked at those lines, they could not even remotely associate them with the appearance of an engine. It was a collection of disorganized curves and circles that made no sense at all.

Shen Shiya crossed her hands in front of her chest disdainfully and asked, "Senior, are you sure you are drawing an engine blueprint?"

Xiao Luo didn't answer and continued working on it.

Suddenly, Guan Yilin was looking anxious. She was in a dilemma, noticing that there were several errors in her design. She now realized that the engine's curved surfaces had to be drawn first using the tangent method. This forced her to delete her previous seven or eight steps and redraw them. As she went on, the furrows between her eyebrows were getting more pronounced as she began to detect an increasing number of issues as a result of her drawing sequence. As she proceeded, her work was hampered by the frequent actions of deleting and rebuilding, causing her progress to slow down considerably.

"The shortcomings of not planning the work ahead are now exposing themselves." Yu Jiangu shook his head and let out a faint sigh.

When he turned his attention to Xiao Luo's drawing, he was somewhat concerned. He couldn't visualize how those scattered curves, circles, and dotted lines would ultimately represent the blueprint of an engine. And if he couldn't see it, what more the rest of the students?

What exactly is he doing?

Yu Jiangu was baffled by what he saw on Xiao Luo's screen, which actually looked like the work of like a child who was holding a pen and doodling on a clean sheet of white paper. But despite his concern, he believed that Xiao Luo wasn't just drawing lines and circles randomly.

Yu Jiangu turned to look at Guan Tong. Guan Tong was equally bewildered, as he spread his arms and was at a loss for words.

Xiao Luo let out a long sigh. Then, resting his cheek against the palm of his left hand, he controlled the mouse with his right, and casually moving the cursor over the toolbar to access an interface, before clicking a series of commands in AutoCAD's interface box. With every click, the redundant lines vanished one after another, until only a small section was left behind. With the removal of the excess lines, the flywheel of the engine miraculously appeared. It looked like a block of sculptured artwork after the desired shape was hewn out of a giant slab of stone.

"Huh, this looks like…"

Everyone standing around Xiao Luo's laptop was stupefied. This was the first time they'd seen someone draw all the lines before proceeding to modify the drawing, leaving behind only the drawing of the engine. It was a breathtaking and ingenious technique.

"There's the inlet manifold now."

"Now, the cylinder head is done."

"He's working on the engine block now. Holy crap, he's fast."

As they saw the engine model rapidly take shape on Xiao Luo's AutoCAD drawing area, the engineering management students gasped in awe. They had just seen a four-star engineering blueprint drawn with unbelievable ease without unnecessary and incorrect steps.

Yu Jiangu couldn't contain his excitement anymore. He squeezed through the crowd and found himself an excellent spot to watched Xiao Luo with his keen observant eyes. The more he looked, the more he was impressed. The process of removing each line or curve was precise and seamless, without even the slightest pause. That implied that Xiao Luo had already worked out the drawing in his mind and was now merely tidying up the completed steps using AutoCAD.

Is this "The Brain[1]?!"

Unbelievably, Xiao Luo actually constructed such a complicated engineering blueprint flawlessly by first visualizing every step in his mind.

Guan Yilin was struggling, and her drawing speed had already slowed to that of a snail-like crawl. In every component she constructed, she came across a plethora of problems that were directly linked to the wrong sequence of her drawing. By skipping over specific steps in the sequence, she could not continue constructing the rest of the parts. She had to delete those parts she had drawn and redraw them in the correct sequence. From thereon, every step was a struggle.

When she saw that Xiao Luo already got two-thirds of the engine drawn out, she gave up. She knew that she had lost miserably. Guan Yilin lost because she couldn't see the big picture, unable to work out an accurate and error-free drawing sequence in her mind like what Xiao Luo had done. Although she would eventually be able to complete it, it would undoubtedly take her more than 4 hours.

"Xiao Luo's finished!"

Guan Tong suddenly screamed out in excitement.

Xiao Luo took his hand away from the mouse and on the laptop screen before him, was a completed 3D engineering blueprint of an engine. All its dimensions were automatically marked, and every detail was in place. It was precisely the same as the engine diagram depicted in textbooks except, in this case, the colors may even be more refined than the pictures in books.

Yu Jiangu looked at the drawing in admiration and couldn't refrain himself from applauding. He had been teaching this subject for a long time, but even he wasn't sure if he could have finished the task in the amount of time that Xiao Luo took. It may have taken him at least three hours to come out with this an engineering drawing of this quality, but Xiao Luo only took 45 minutes, and what's more, he did such an extraordinary job that left everyone in awe.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

The engineering management students all applauded with enthusiasm, and their impression of Xiao Luo instantly rose. He was truly remarkable, and they had no more doubts about his abilities.

Guan Yilin no longer had the arrogance in her eyes but instead looked humbled as she reflected upon her actions.

"Senior Xiao, you're amazing, please guide us."

"Yeah, senior. We were wrong to doubt you just now. I hope you don't mind that."

"Senior, do you have a girlfriend?"

The crowd's attitude swung180 degrees as they addressed him as 'senior' with genuine affection. There was even a girl who coyly asked Xiao Luo if he had a girlfriend and blushed as she did so.

Xiao Luo could only shake his head and smile at her.

…

…

After he finally got to share his thoughts and experience with a very attention class of students, Yu Jiangu insisted on buying Xiao Luo a meal as a gesture of thanks. Xiao Luo couldn't wiggle out of this one and went along.

They didn't sit too far away from the classroom, and Guan Yilin came running over and stood in front of them.

"Yilin, what are you trying to do now?" Yu Jiangu scowled, expecting Guan Yilin to insist on another challenge with Xiao Luo.

"Mr. Yu, I wish to apologize to senior."

Without waiting for Yu Jiangu's response, Guan Yilin gave Xiao Luo a deep bow and apologized sincerely. "Senior, I was wrong just now. I was too full of myself. I'm very sorry!"

"It's okay, everybody has gone through that."

Xiao Luo smiled at her. It was true that he didn't take it to heart. After all, they were his juniors from the same school that he had attended, and they reminded him of his own college years. It made him feel like he was back home after a long absence.

****[1] The Brain: a Chinese science reality and talent show that originated in Germany, intending to discover people with exceptional talent and intelligence.

…