Chapter 237: New Visit Activity
Wednesday afternoon, in the A Bite of China Club Small Restaurant.
Xiang Chuan and Class President Lu Daiqing, after reviewing their respective documents and reports, simultaneously pressed the send key.
With this, Class Eight Grade One’s three-day visit summary report (plus the organization of ancient literature information) finally came to an end.
“Ah—finally done!”
“Although writing reflections was pretty fun, typing on the keyboard for so long is really tiring.”
“I don’t want to see the words ‘pig’ and ‘cow’ again for a short while…”
The Class Eight crowd sprawled haphazardly on chairs or tables, looking just like university students who had rushed to finish a paper before the deadline—although Xiang Chuan didn’t know if modern universities still required students to desperately grind out those damn papers; it had been thirty thousand years, all the things that needed writing had probably been written by predecessors, so they shouldn’t need to bother with that kind of text anymore… right?
Harboring a bit of unease about future university life, Xiang Chuan clapped her hands and said:
“Alright, everyone worked hard. This meal is on me. Little Star, bring out the stuff!”
[Beep—roger that]
The two small starfish robots quickly headed to the refrigerator and the warming room after receiving the order, then brought out several large serving plates. Little Star No. 1’s serving plate held a whole large cake piled high with fruit, pudding, and steamed milk pudding; Little Star No. 2’s plate had french fries, potato chips, and hot foods like roasted chicken, steak, eggs, and more.
Wow!
As soon as they smelled the aroma, the Class Eight crowd decisively revived on the spot and quickly gathered around the table with the serving plates, grabbing their favorites and stuffing them into their mouths desperately.
“Ah—this pudding tastes even better than before.” Chou Manman happily put the pudding in her mouth, her eyes sparkling. “Xiang Chuan, did you add something to it?”
“I didn’t add anything. You think it tastes good because you’re tired. There’s an ancient saying that sweets can relieve people’s tense emotions, and sugar can replenish energy. Man Man, you’ve been doing text work for three days straight, your brain is overfatigued, and you’re unconsciously craving sugar, so when you eat sweets, it amplifies their original flavor, making them taste better.” Xiang Chuan picked up a portion of steamed milk pudding and answered casually.
“So that means ancient people ate sweets while working?” Ouyang Yating imagined the scenes from the TV series in Xiang Xue Live Stream Room where characters ate sweets, her expression a bit subtle. “They’re pretty… indulgent.”
“If they had free time, they could eat sweets; if not, they could only drink coffee.”
Xiang Chuan mumbled unclearly with a spoon in her mouth. Everyone didn’t catch what she said about coffee, but they were busy grabbing food to eat, so they didn’t pay much attention.
After a chaotic scramble, almost everyone in Class Eight had three servings of food. The emptied serving plates had already been cleared away by the Little Stars. Now, everyone was chatting idly while eating this somewhat overly lavish afternoon tea.
“Oof…” Xiang Chuan stretched lazily. “But after finishing these things, we shouldn’t have any other activities, right? Summer vacation starts on July 1st? Will there be any arrangements then?”
“Summer vacation seems to have some self-directed club activities arranged, like before. Old Lu, is your info accurate?” Ainuo tossed the topic to Class President Lu Daiqing at the next table.
“It should be the same as previous years, having first-year and second-year high school students do independent outdoor club activities during the holiday, similar to when you Ainuo Classmate made soy sauce before, but—” Class President Lu Daiqing opened her terminal and flipped through documents. “When I passed by the Student Union on Monday, I heard President Wen Tao say there’s a visit activity next month. Not sure if it’s prepared for the third-year high school students.”
“They can’t possibly schedule production escort ship visit activities for us new students two months in a row, right? That would be too luxurious.” Long Xiaoxian chuckled. “You know, the funding for settling us students comes straight from the production escort ships’ pockets. They’re busy with the draft right now, and once the draft is finalized, funding will definitely be tight, so there won’t be money to fuss over us then.”
“Not necessarily.” Labor Committee Member Fu Chengkai laughed and glanced toward Xiang Chuan. “We’ve got Xiang Chuan on our side. If they plan to dig more ancient information out of Xiang Chuan, we might get a chance to tag along.”
Xiang Chuan heard their conversation clearly. Remembering the grueling three days on the Fourth Production Escort Ship, she shuddered and said firmly: “Even if they send an application, I’ll resolutely refuse to go. A round trip plus writing a visit summary would take about a week, what about final exams? What about grades? What about summer vacation pocket money?”
“You might have some persuasiveness if you didn’t say that last part.” Ainuo complained. “But I also think it’s unlikely they’ll take us back there so soon for another visit. Not to mention the crops Yue Xiang Group invested in for experimental planting before, just the reports and information we submitted and organized this time should keep them busy digesting for a while.”
“True. That must be an arrangement for the third-year high school grade then. After all, this year’s agriculture industries across the board will undergo adjustments, and the third-year senior students need more on-site experience before entering university.” As she spoke, Class President Lu Daiqing couldn’t help but laugh. “In that sense, we’re actually upping the difficulty for the senior students.”
Hearing this, everyone in Class Eight couldn’t help but laugh. Usually in club activities, they were bossed around by the third-year senior students to do this and that. This time, they had slightly turned the tables in academics, satisfying the modern person’s deep-seated genetic pursuit of “underdogs prevailing over superiors.”
Xiang Chuan also smiled and didn’t dwell on it.
——
The first weekend after the production escort ship visit activity ended.
Xiang Chuan was at home watching Xiang Xue and Lin Ming nervously busy with maintenance for the binge-watching website.
After all, thanks to last week’s government departments live stream room promotion, nearly ten billion Third Fleet viewers who came flocking squeezed into Xiang Xue Live Stream Room and saw the magical cultural product of TV series. In the comment section discussions, they learned there was a brilliant TV series called Empresses in the Palace before, sparking great curiosity.
So on Saturday, the first day the binge-watching website opened, the website server was overwhelmed by nearly ten billion curious viewers who missed Empresses in the Palace and crashed for three hours.
Since the website server and the live stream room server weren’t the same, the Cultural Affairs Bureau originally assumed only fans from Xiang Xue Live Stream Room would visit the binge-watching website, so they approved a server spec for a million people.
Logically, given the previous viewer count of Xiang Xue Live Stream Room, that spec should have been fully sufficient. But who could have predicted that their neighboring Agriculture Bureau and Information Bureau would do a live stream, indirectly driving traffic to Xiang Xue Live Stream Room and suddenly bringing in over a hundred million people.
Seeing this, Xiang Weiguo directly called the Director of Cultural Bureau and the Information Bureau Director on video, renting a server with the same specs as the live stream room for the website, finally allowing it to officially launch on Saturday noon.
The website had only a lone Empresses in the Palace, but modern audiences were so starved for this kind of cultural product that on the first day, the first two episodes uploaded racked up over a hundred billion views—averaging five rewatches per person.
The TV series update speed on the binge-watching website syncs with Xiang Xue’s live stream frequency. After Xiang Xue’s live stream ends, it updates one episode of Empresses in the Palace. It’s expected to introduce member-exclusive access starting from the fifth episode. Membership isn’t expensive at just 10 Star Yuan per month. Third Fleet per capita wages reach 5000 Star Yuan, and even on production escort ships with lower income, per capita is over 3800 Star Yuan. Spending ten bucks to watch a TV series that updates almost daily is a piece of cake for modern people.
Xiang Weiguo didn’t care much about market saturation issues. The membership fee was purely to earn some extra pocket money for kids like Xiang Xue, Lin Ming, and Xiang Chuan. After deducting server rent, website maintenance fees, and the exclusive patent fees paid to Xiang Chuan as an information turbulence contactee, the website still brings in thirty to forty billion Star Yuan in profit each month.
Xiang Chuan, listening to Xiang Weiguo talk casually about these matters in the live broadcast room, felt shocked to the point of numbness.
—No wonder in transmigration novels, those male and female leads mixing in the entertainment industry are so keen on being “literary plagiarists.” Money from artistic works is really easy to make.
But she told her dad that her share of the monthly profit should go straight to her own account. She would never have too much money.
As Xiang Chuan, soon to become a billionaire, hummed a tune heading to the kitchen for snacks, her terminal suddenly popped up a light screen.
It was a notice from the Class Group Chat.
She clicked it absentmindedly, then widened her eyes.
[Notice: First Year High School grade is scheduled to visit the Third Military Escort Ship for a teaching visit activity on June 1st, lasting two days. Please prepare as required, classmates. (2 document attachments)]
As soon as the notice came out, the entire Class Group Chat was instantly flooded with a string of “Huh???” and “What?!?!”. Xiang Chuan grabbed a bottle of soy milk from the refrigerator, chugged it down, and sighed.
This school’s activities are way too many, aren’t they?
