Chapter 17: Hakka Walled House Tank
Li Daoxuan needed to go out to find someone to commission a 200:1 scale model.
But knowing the box contained a world set in the late Ming Dynasty, he couldn't bring himself to leave it unsupervised for long. He was genuinely worried he might return home to find a floor littered with miniature corpses.
He pondered for a moment, then a lightbulb seemed to illuminate above his head. He brought over his home security camera, positioning it close to the diorama box and carefully adjusting the angle.
Opening the camera's app on his phone, he could clearly observe the general situation inside the box.
With that, he could finally leave with a sense of calm.
He quickly hailed a taxi and hurried towards his friend Cai Xinzhi's home.
Fifteen minutes later...
Li Daoxuan stood in the living room of his friend Cai Xinzhi's house.
Cai Xinzhi was a merchant specializing in "models"—car models, ship models, figurines, robots, dinosaurs... essentially, any model you could imagine, he crafted.
Seeing his old friend arrive, Cai Xinzhi grinned, a wry chuckle escaping him. "Daoxuan, it's been a while since you came to visit! What are you trying to con out of me this time?"
Li Daoxuan laughed. "No con this time. I'm paying for a custom order."
Cai Xinzhi shot him a sideways glance. "Don't even start. You still haven't paid me for that Liaoning-class model you commissioned last time. Every time you show up here, it's practically highway robbery."
Without a word, Li Daoxuan pulled out his phone and transferred 1,000 yuan.
Cai Xinzhi jumped, startled. "Holy cow, you paid so quickly? Damn it, whatever you want must be incredibly difficult. I'm not taking it, I'm not taking this job."
Li Daoxuan laughed, playfully scolding him. "You scoundrel, you won't take my money when I pay quickly, but you don't care at all when I don't pay you!"
Cai Xinzhi declared, "That's a businessman's intuition."
Li Daoxuan gestured with his hands, indicating a length of about half a meter. "I want a Hakka Walled House model this big, at a 200:1 scale."
Anything he placed into the diorama box would be magnified 200 times. If the model was half a meter long, it would become 100 meters long inside the box, which was roughly the length of a large Hakka Walled House.
Cai Xinzhi was utterly perplexed. "What in the world do you need that for?"
Li Daoxuan, of course, couldn't tell him the truth. He casually offered a white lie: "I've been watching the animated film 'Big Fish & Begonia' recently, and I've become fascinated with Hakka Walled Houses. I just want a model to display at home."
"Ah, I see," Cai Xinzhi said. "Why bother with a custom order? I have some ready-made ones here, 100:1 scale, they look incredibly imposing..."
"No!" Li Daoxuan refused outright before he could finish. "I only want a 200:1 scale."
Cai Xinzhi countered, "Too big? I also have 144:1 scale ones..."
"No!" Li Daoxuan insisted. "I absolutely need a custom-made 200:1 scale."
Cai Xinzhi started to feel uneasy. "Damn it, I knew it! When someone pays that quickly, there's always a mountain of trouble afterward. Spill it, besides 200:1, what are your other specific requirements? I don't even need to hear them to know they're super complicated."
Li Daoxuan chuckled. "Alright, then, I'll start listing my demands. The entire Hakka Walled House must be constructed from extremely high-strength materials. No flimsy foam boards, no plastic, and wood burns too easily. Ideally, it should all be made from... uh, what material would be best? I'm not the expert, so help me out here."
Cai Xinzhi shot him another sidelong glance. "How about pressed composite panels? They're not only sturdy but also lightweight, so you won't throw out your back carrying it home."
Li Daoxuan considered this. He was right; modern pressed composite panels were indeed excellent. Once placed in the box, their thickness would increase 200-fold, making them incredibly formidable. Swords and flintlock rifles from the Ming Dynasty certainly wouldn't be able to pierce a panel 200 times its original thickness; even a breech-loading cannon might not manage it.
Wait a minute!
Becoming 200 times thicker couldn't be taken lightly. He needed to ask how thick it originally was.
Li Daoxuan asked curiously, "How thin is the thinnest composite panel?"
"Around 3 millimeters," Cai Xinzhi replied.
Li Daoxuan did the math in his head—3 millimeters multiplied by 200—and instantly froze. "Holy cow, it would become 60 centimeters thick inside the box? That thickness would take up too much space! If the dividing walls between rooms were that thick, the number of rooms in the walled house would drastically decrease."
He frowned. "Can't it be any thinner?"
Cai Xinzhi shook his head. "No. Any thinner and you'd have to use sheet metal. Sheet metal can be 1 millimeter thick."
Li Daoxuan calculated in his mind: a 1-millimeter-thick sheet metal panel would become a 20-centimeter-thick iron plate in the box. Perfect! Sheet metal was excellent; it wouldn't take up as much space as the composite panels and would be even sturdier.
"Alright then, 1-millimeter-thick sheet metal it is."
Cai Xinzhi warned, "Hey, a model made from that kind of sheet metal will look very flimsy, you know. It'll give people the impression that it's shoddily made."
Li Daoxuan replied, "I don't need 'quality feel'; I want it shoddily made. Oh, and by the way, this model can't just look good on the outside; the interior must also be incredibly detailed. Every single room needs to be built precisely to scale..."
Cai Xinzhi exploded. "That's impossible! A Hakka Walled House has over two hundred rooms! If I had to meticulously detail every tiny door and window, making them all open and close, do you know how much labor that would take? Add ten thousand yuan!"
Li Daoxuan thought: *Holy cow, that expensive? Maybe I should just skip the doors and windows. I just need the main structure done; the little people can make their own doors and windows.*
Li Daoxuan then said, "Alright, scrap all the doors and windows. Just leave dark openings where they should be. Also, traditional Hakka Walled Houses have flaws in their drainage system design; I need you to modify it using modern solutions."
Cai Xinzhi nearly flipped the table. "Are you out of your mind?! It's a model! Why are you even thinking about drainage system design? If you use modern solutions, it won't be an authentic Hakka Walled House anymore, will it? What kind of collector's value would a model like that have?"
Li Daoxuan declared, "I insist! I'm the client here, and no matter how outrageous my demands, you have absolutely no room to argue."
Cai Xinzhi was speechless.
Unable to even complain, Cai Xinzhi felt a surge of indignation, almost spitting up blood. After rolling his eyes, he grumbled, "Do you want to add some wheels to the bottom of your Hakka Walled House, maybe a motor and a remote control? Then the whole thing could just ramble around like a giant tank..."
He had meant it as a casual jab, just some trash talk to vent about "the client," but unexpectedly, this playful remark made Li Daoxuan's eyes light up.
He slapped his thigh. "Holy cow, Cai Xinzhi, you're a genius! That's exactly it! Add wheels, a motor, and a remote control. Turn it into a super Hakka Walled House tank, smashing through everything, unrivaled in the world!"
Cai Xinzhi exclaimed, "Holy cow, don't actually go along with what I said! If you make it like that, it won't be a Hakka Walled House at all. It'll be a monstrous child's toy, with absolutely no aesthetic or collector's value!"
Li Daoxuan clapped him on the shoulder, roaring with laughter. "I *want* a monstrous child's toy! I don't care about aesthetic value. Oh, and make the tires bigger; it needs to be able to handle light off-roading."
"You want it to go off-road?!" Cai Xinzhi rolled his eyes. "The client's completely mad! I knew it, I swear, since Pangu created heaven and earth, not a single client has ever been normal!"
After venting his frustration, he added, "Tires, motor, remote control—that's an extra 1,000 yuan!"
Li Daoxuan paid the sum and arranged for delivery in a month, then headed back home.
At the supermarket near his residential complex, he casually picked up a 200-gram chicken breast for five yuan.
Back home, he casually placed the chicken breast gently in front of Gao Yiye...
At that very moment, Gao Yiye was carrying water from the pond back to her household water vat. She walked unsteadily, balancing two buckets, when suddenly, the Heavenly Lord's gigantic hand appeared. It held an enormous piece of chicken, slowly lowering it before her, then swiftly retracted back into the sky.
The Heavenly Lord's gentle voice resonated from above: "Just a reminder, everyone: if you're used to a plain diet, eating too much meat at once can upset your stomach. Please eat in moderation."
PS: From a scientific perspective, if a Hakka Walled House model were scaled up 200 times, its weight would increase geometrically, becoming as heavy as a real house. Even if the wheels and motor were also scaled up 200 times, it would theoretically be impossible to drive, as the rubber on the tires could not withstand such immense weight. However, once this Hakka Walled House is placed in the box, it doesn't merely *appear* in the late Ming Dynasty; its physical form remains in the protagonist's diorama box. It is still influenced by the physical rules of the protagonist's world, which is why the Hakka Walled House Tank can be realized within the protagonist's diorama box.
PS: That explanation is quite scientific, wouldn't you say?
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