Chapter 116: Field Training Finale Arrives
The four class presidents rejected Lu Daiqing’s agreement, and Class Eight in the Northern Area will face attacks from four classes.
——The scene that Xiang Chuan secretly imagined in her mind (and that the viewers also hoped to see) ultimately did not play out.
Throughout the entire fifth and sixth days, Class Eight Students lived very leisurely. If there was any change, it was probably that two-thirds of the students had already begun to adapt to bitter wild vegetables like dandelions and wild vegetables, and everyone proudly showed off their tolerance for bitterness while mocking the classmates who refused to eat the bitter wild vegetables. After meals each day, the two groups chasing and playing around became a post-meal digestion activity.
Xiang Chuan didn’t expect this group of little brats to really eat so many bitter wild vegetables… Should she give them bitter melon next time? Provided they could find bitter melon.
Although she guessed that Lu Daiqing’s plan would succeed, she really didn’t expect the next two days to pass so peacefully. When Xiang Chuan followed the large troop in packing up the tents and passing through the forest back to the base, feeling like her brain hadn’t yet recovered from the tedious and busy camping life, Officer A Dan was already standing on the speech platform on the sports field giving a closing address:
【The seven-day field training is officially declared over today! In these six days of class competition, many classes performed excellently, and some classes surprised us, but no matter the process, the final result will prove everything—】
As he spoke, he opened a light screen displaying the rankings of each class.
Xiang Chuan was stunned when she saw her own class at the bottom of the list, but she quickly reacted. Fortunately, the others in the class had more or less learned about the class president’s plan over these two days, so they had no complaints about their own ranking. Everyone was now more concerned about one thing—Xiang Chuan still had six or seven large meal boxes left! Could they divide up these things now!
On the contrary, the Class Ten and Class Two students who were (fed compressed liquid food and solid food) well-fed and watered by Class Eight felt depressed: They had been held captive by them for almost a full six days or five and a half days, so how did Class Eight end up with such a low ranking?
——Using “captives” as an exchange to ensure that classes in the Central Area do not enter the Northern Area.
This was the true purpose of the operation proposed by Lu Daiqing. After Class Eight used their supply opportunities on ingredients and kitchenware, how to protect everyone became a persistent headache for Lu Daiqing. The method he finally came up with was: Use hostages as payment in exchange for Class Eight’s right to survival. In the form of entertaining guests, let other classes understand Class Eight’s current situation and display the “captives” they held, then let classes from the Central Area or even farther Southern Region make a choice.
Choose to act as if the Northern Area doesn’t exist, focus on the Central or Southern Region, and on the last day decide the proportion of captives obtained from Class Eight based on each class’s ability, gaining a certain number of captives without injury? Or directly fall out and step into the Northern Area, facing Class Eight who could easily take down two classes in one day and who, because they were well-fed and watered, were strong and very combat-ready these days?
With the two days of imminent pressure, each class also had to make the safest choice. Although in terms of results, it maximized their own class’s interests—after all, the number of captives also counted toward the confrontation match total score—but… there was always an inexplicable sense of frustration.
Thinking of this, classes from the Central Area and Southern Region couldn’t help but look at Class Eight with resentful eyes, but obviously, being immersed in trying to get the large meal box gourmet food from Xiang Chuan’s hands—which they had been eyeing for a week—as the last day’s dinner was even more attractive to their attention, causing many people not to notice the unusual gazes around them.
Officer A Dan clearly also understood that the students were distracted, so he quickly ended the summary address, letting the students enjoy the last meal at the base. At 21:00, they would board the transport ship to return to school, then go home to rest arranged by their respective homes or the school, and return to school on Monday afternoon.
“In the end, you all still got the benefit.”
Xiang Chuan bit the straw and took big gulps of… boiled water. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to drink fruit milk; the camp life these days was more tiring than expected, and the fruit milk had been completely finished off early on the fourth night, so she had no choice but to obediently boil water, let it cool, and drink the long-missed boiled water.
Now they were gathered in front of Class Eight’s dormitory building at the base. When Xiang Chuan slowly walked back to the dormitory, Lu Daiqing and Mandy had already directed everyone to lay out the mats. With six days of exploration cooperation experience, everyone’s actions were very quick. In the end, they set up a ground mat that Xiang Chuan felt could be directly taken to some large park for flower viewing. Finally, under everyone’s expectant gazes, plus thinking that most non-freshly made dishes taken home would just be thrown into the trash can by the kitchen AI, Xiang Chuan finally agreed to contribute her few remaining uneaten large meal boxes.
“Ah— so delicious!”
“Eating this chicken bun gives me a sense of reality of returning from the nature reserve’s field life to everyday life.”
“Where did all this philosophical stuff come from… Xiang Chuan, is this fish fillet?! It smells so good!”
“Xiang Chuan, will your club sell this yam cake next week?”
“Xiang Chuan…”
Somehow the whole topic was thrown to Xiang Chuan. At first she would answer a few sentences, but as the questions increased, she got annoyed herself and simply pulled out a light screen and wrote 【We’ll talk about meal matters back at school】 to end the successive waves of doubts.
“You’re really popular.”
Zhu Bingwen’s voice sounded from behind. Xiang Chuan turned her head and saw her homeroom teacher walking over holding a small meal box filled with a dazzling array of various dishes. It made Xiang Chuan’s eye twitch: the homeroom teacher wouldn’t have gone to grab food from the classmates, would he?
“Teacher Zhu, aren’t you going to the canteen? I remember the base organized an itinerary to host teachers from each class…” The class president, who was chatting with Nancy and others nearby, saw the teacher arrive and quickly cleared a spot.
Zhu Bingwen wasn’t polite either and plopped down. He happily picked up a piece of sliced steak with chopsticks and said, “I don’t really like those bureaucratic formalities, and I heard our class’s kids were having a gathering meal. I’ve been eyeing your things on the screen jealously for seven days, so of course I had
You’re just here to mooch food, aren’t you. Classmate Xiang Chuan complained inwardly, while not forgetting to pour Teacher Zhu a cup of boiled water in her hand. No helping it; the work habits from serving clients and superiors back at the company had already been etched into her DNA.
“Your performance really left us teachers monitoring the surveillance speechless with surprise. I never expected Classmate Xiang Chuan that you actually ran to the riverside to catch fish to eat, and even successfully made freshwater fish edible.” Speaking of this, Zhu Bingwen got excited, “You all don’t know, at that time the Agriculture Bureau people saw this scene and directly took a special express transport ship from the Agriculture Bureau straight to the base here. If it weren’t for Officer A Dan stopping them, you’d be taken to the Agriculture Bureau right now to be the seafood bureau consultant.”
“That’s way too exaggerated. I still have to go to school.” Xiang Chuan frowned.
“Not exaggerated at all, this is a big deal.” Saying that, Zhu Bingwen picked up a piece of pan-fried fish fillet, put it in his mouth, modern extremely advanced preservation and insulation technology allows deep-fried food to eliminate air moisture, maintaining a crispy texture, the tenderness of the fish even more pleased his mood, he continued: “The fishy smell of freshwater aquatic life and some seafood has always been a major problem troubling all fleet seafood departments, this also leads to the seafood department’s expenses being cut again and again after every fleet communication period, for the past five thousand years the seafood department has become mere decoration.”
“Then wouldn’t it be good to breed freshwater fish without any fishy smell?” Xiang Chuan said while biting on the straw.
“Gene alteration is a very sensitive matter; it’s not something you can just change on a whim.” Mentioning this topic, Zhu Bingwen also had a serious expression, “To modify a species’ genes, it must be approved by the thirteen fleet’s top leadership, the corresponding departments of each fleet, the Biology Bureau, and the Gene Research Institute. Just the procedures alone take ten years to process, and no one can guarantee that after altering the genes, the species will be able to reproduce successfully at 100%. So for seafood, each fleet believes that rather than making some ethical challenges, it’s better to maintain the current situation and just eat some marine products. But now there’s a new approach. Classmate Xiang Chuan, the on-site operations you organized with everyone in Class Eight these past few days have already proven it—freshwater fish can also be eaten. So the upcoming seafood market will usher in a major upheaval.”
Yeah, this sounded pretty serious— so serious that she now didn’t quite dare to go home. Xiang Chuan shrank her neck, inwardly praying that her dad Xiang Weiguo could help her fend off these troubles.
Finally got the basics done, updates will resume gradually next!
