Chapter 78: Lunch On The First Day Of Field Training
Time reached noon. Although the Third Fleet Main Ship’s spring climate setting was not hot and even a bit chilly, the training base still followed the normal process and let everyone rest and go eat lunch.
Thus, the A Bite of China Club members (plus Chou Manman and Nancy, these two accessories that Xiang Chuan and Ouyang Yating carry around) went as usual to Xiang Chuan’s dormitory to eat lunch.
Xiang Chuan really wanted to complain that their dormitory wasn’t a public canteen, but considering that her eyes couldn’t handle strong light due to the impact from just test-riding the heavy exoskeleton armor, causing her to eat with squinted eyes and powerless to complain, plus the other member of the dormitory was one of the freeloaders, Xiang Chuan could only watch helplessly as they opened the second meal box and began to eat heartily.
After not knowing how many times she was flashed by the sunlight outside the window, Xiang Chuan couldn’t help but say: “So blinding… Doesn’t the base’s shop sell sunglasses?”
Ainuo & Ouyang Yating: “Normal military bases don’t sell such things.”
So she could only continue squinting her eyes to eat the buns. In the end, Chou Manman and Liang Gong took pity on her and cut her recently favorite steak and fish fillet into small pieces and put them in her bowl, making Xiang Chuan deeply moved: “As expected, the cute roommates and dear Liang Gong club member know how to be considerate to patients.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the indifferent club member.” Ouyang Yating said grumpily, but didn’t forget to hand Xiang Chuan a water bottle with a water pipe inserted, which contained fruit milk just poured from the matching water bottle in the meal box.
“Hehe, my dear Yating club member is great too~” After taking the water bottle and happily drinking a sip of fruit milk, Xiang Chuan cozily leaned toward Ouyang Yating, only to be disgustedly pushed away by her.
The new club member Ainuo, witnessing all this, was silently finishing off the remaining fish fillet. Nancy, seeing the situation, naturally wouldn’t miss the chance to tease her own childhood friend: “New club member, what’s up? Not going up to fawn over your club president, but silently sneaking your club president’s favorite fish fillet here?”
Ainuo glared angrily at her childhood friend who looked delicate and lovely but was actually strong enough to throw bricks and loved to stir up trouble, but before he could retort, Xiang Chuan, who almost jumped up, pointed randomly at him and said: “Ainuo club member, don’t eat up all my fish fillet!”
“Say less, you.” Ainuo looked at the hand waving around in mid-air, frowned, and Ouyang Yating naturally knew this guy didn’t like others pointing at him, so she pressed down Xiang Chuan’s hand and comforted her that there was still a lot of fish fillet left and not to listen to Nancy’s nonsense.
“But since you ate the president’s stuff, you should help the president out.” Nancy said softly to him, “You don’t want people pointing outside and saying the Li Family eldest son is freeloading outside, right?”
Ainuo subconsciously wanted to retort when he heard her speak, but fell silent after hearing the words. Nancy smiled triumphantly: this guy listened, there might be a good show next.
“By the way…” Xiang Chuan rubbed her eyes, both eyes rubbed a bit red, and was hurriedly held down by Ouyang Yating and Chou Manman, “Why does sitting in the heavy exoskeleton armor still affect my eyes… I only sat in for two or three minutes and barely moved?”
“Because the main display screen is connected to the visual nerves.” Nancy turned into a professional again and began explaining, “Normally, after sitting into the exoskeleton armor, the machine’s internal neural connection system will automatically scan the wearer’s neural access ports. The basic access ports are the temples on both sides of the head, the tailbone, shoulder joints, and leg joints. After entering, you’ll feel like those parts are covered by the device, right? That’s because those parts’ nervous systems are connected to the exoskeleton armor.”
“After connecting to the nervous system, nearly sixty to seventy percent of the wearer’s nerves will assimilate with the exoskeleton armor, enabling flexible operation of the exoskeleton armor. However, relatively, if impacted while operating the exoskeleton armor, it will leave traumatic memory in the nervous system, and after removing the exoskeleton armor, this phenomenon will remain on the wearer for a certain time until the traumatic memory disappears.”
“Will this last a long time?” Xiang Chuan asked uneasily, “Tomorrow is the Class Competition, I don’t want to become the class’s drag because of my eyes.”
“It’ll only last two or three hours. Current neural assimilation systems basically all have pain buffering functions, reducing the recovery time needed. I heard that when these exoskeleton armors were first designed, the traumatic aftereffects could even remain on the wearer for months or even a whole year.” Nancy patted her shoulder, “Don’t worry, the trauma to your eyes probably won’t even take two or three hours. After all, you didn’t experience pain when the visual disappearance happened, so the recovery time will definitely be shorter than that needed for pain from physical collisions.”
“That’s still pretty long.” Xiang Chuan raised her hand to look at her fingers, her blurry eyes only seeing outlines, then she quickly closed her eyes because she couldn’t stand the strong light, “By the way, why can’t I see after getting into the exoskeleton armor? Is there a malfunction with that exoskeleton armor?”
“No, after we lifted you out, the instructor sat in it himself to test, the visual nerves connection had no problem, and the instructor could see normally…” Nancy was also stumped by this question, “Maybe… it’s because Xiang Chuan you don’t get along well with the equipment? Whether it’s physics equipment or this exoskeleton armor, something always happens when it’s your turn.”
What does that mean? Am I some sci-fi equipment insulator? Xiang Chuan complained inwardly, but given the recent real examples, she couldn’t retort well. After all, except for sci-fi creations like AI or servant robots that only need voice commands and weren’t “victimized,” among the equipment needing manual operation, only the simulation game pod in the arcade hadn’t messed with her.
Harboring the unease of “Have I been collectively blacklisted by modern equipment?”, Xiang Chuan lay on the bed, and ended up sleeping until the afternoon wake-up ringtone, dreamless throughout, feeling extremely refreshed upon waking, though her eyes still couldn’t handle normal light stimulation, so she could only half-squint to see things.
“Xiang Chuan, wait for me at the door first, I’ll come out after combing my hair.” Chou Manman’s voice came from the bathroom.
Xiang Chuan had to grope her way alone to the door. Fortunately, the main door opened by face scan; otherwise, Xiang Chuan would definitely have bumped into it. After opening the door, she heard noisy voices. Class Eight’s everyone had finished washing up and was preparing to gather at the sports field, but Chou Manman in the room hadn’t finished washing up yet, and Xiang Chuan couldn’t grope her way there alone.
“President.”
Suddenly, she vaguely saw a figure beside her, and the voice was familiar too. He was…
“Ainuo club member, good afternoon, you’re pretty quick.”
Xiang Chuan greeted with a smile.
“I’ll take you there.”
Huh? Xiang Chuan’s brain short-circuited for a moment. Before she could refuse, Ainuo grabbed her sleeve and without another word dashed straight to the sports field.
“Hey hey, slow down slow down.” Xiang Chuan was dragged by her sleeve the whole way, running quickly as he led, and halfway there seemed to remember something.
Meanwhile, at her dormitory door.
The hurriedly outgoing Chou Manman: Where is she? Where did such a big Xiang Chuan go???
