Chapter 13: Entertainment 30,000 Years Later
While Mr. and Mrs. Xiang Weiguo were experiencing the “torment” of being stalked by teachers during their student days, Xiang Chuan was playing in the commercial street of the Third Fleet Main Ship with Xiang Xue.
If the home decor still had some 21st-century vibes, then the commercial street was completely the future scene from her imagination: three-dimensional advertising screens, young people circling in the mid-air above the plaza, anti-gravity vehicles streaming endlessly overhead, and shops full of avant-garde aesthetic clothing…
Although Xiang Chuan had mentally prepared herself after investigating the era background on the first day, actually standing on-site was a completely different feeling. The excessive strangeness made her feel somewhat unreal.
Xiang Xue brought her to the arcade, and Xiang Chuan’s first impression was: there were so few things.
The entire arcade was filled with shooting games at a glance, either simulation shooting of rubble on space routes or simulation shooting of some giant insects.
Xiang Xue asked her: “Sister, which one should we play?”
Xiang Chuan gave a dry smile and remained silent.
What difference did it make which one they played?
In the end, under Xiang Xue’s recommendation, she sat into a control panel that looked like a cockpit on the outside.
[Please authenticate personal terminal]
The navigation voice guided Xiang Chuan to scan her personal terminal on the square silver platform in the middle. She only heard “Fees for this play session deducted,” which startled her badly. Relying on “memory,” she fumbled through operations and finally brought up her terminal balance. She checked the number, then looked at the recent deduction…
Playing one game deducted 100 star coins, while her terminal showed an available balance of 6 million star coins.
Xiang Chuan began seriously considering forcing herself to accept modern-tasting food to achieve true second generation rich lie flat life, which scared her into quickly taking a sip of the apple-flavored milk that the kitchen AI had helped pack for takeaway to calm her nerves.
No way, she couldn’t give up before eating pineapple buns and snail noodles.
Before she could finish her random thoughts, the pitch-black surroundings immediately turned into a starry sky, and several seemingly complex information boxes appeared beside her.
“Could this be a holographic combat game?”
Xiang Chuan muttered to herself when suddenly the entire game pod shook, startling her greatly. Upon closer inspection, she realized it had been hit by a stone directly ahead. Under the navigation’s guidance, she gripped the control stick beside her and barely dodged the meteorites ahead.
She found that the mech she was operating was unexpectedly clunky, completely lacking the light and nimble feel of operating those SF setting mechs when she used to play PS5 at a friend’s house.
Was this a real mech? She couldn’t help but sigh.
Gradually, the stones ahead decreased, and based on her gaming experience, she guessed a battle was coming up.
Suddenly, a huge crab descended from the sky!
…A crab?
Xiang Chuan blinked her eyes. The crab in front of her had whiskers on its two pincers and kept spitting bubbles from its mouth.
It was indeed a crab, even a river crab.
Wait, why would a crab appear in space? Had crabs evolved into this form now?
Suddenly, the crab ahead charged at her. Its hard body caused her operated mech to pop up alarming red information boxes. She panicked and fired forward cannons under the navigation’s assistance, but the thin laser beams hit the two gaps in the crab’s shell without even denting them, let alone heating the crab shell red.
Soon, Xiang Chuan’s mech was crushed in the violent shaking by the crab’s huge pincers.
Looking at the four big words “Game Over” on the screen, Xiang Chuan felt no anger or unwillingness from game failure, only deep mental exhaustion.
What on earth were these things…
“Sister, how was it? This is the new game pod developed by Sisi Group, with super realistic simulation effects, right?”
Seeing Xiang Chuan exit the game pod, Xiang Xue immediately shook off the boy chatting her up nearby and went to meet her.
“Yeah… the simulation effects are pretty good.”
Seeing her sister so excited, Xiang Chuan couldn’t bluntly voice the bullet comments full of complaints in her mind, so she could only affirm the game’s one redeeming quality.
“Huh? Sister, didn’t you really look forward to playing Sisi Group’s new game before?”
Xiang Chuan’s hesitant reaction was immediately noticed by the sharp Xiang Xue.
“The realism of the graphics and controls is very good, but…” Xiang Chuan said as she pulled Xiang Xue away from the game pod. Since it was a new game, there were still quite a few young people queuing to play. “The level design is too dull, lacking transition parts, the controls are overly complicated, normal people can’t react in time, and the final BOSS is way too unrealistic. Why does a crab pop up?!”
“Because crabs are terrifying aquatic beasts, games always feature fighting giant beasts like that.”
Beasts? Hmph.
Xiang Chuan disdainfully snorted coldly at the game pod’s big signboard. Once she found scallion ginger later, she’d let her sister properly taste the “flavor” of this “beast.”
Seeing her sister not very satisfied, Xiang Xue lost interest in playing and took her arm to go shopping at the mall upstairs.
The mall where the arcade was located catered to young customers, so the goods on each floor were dazzling, and Xiang Chuan couldn’t resist buying a few small ornaments.
The two went all the way up and finally arrived at the rest area on the top floor.
Although this mall didn’t have many floors, the top-floor rest area overlooked the plaza of the commercial district, with quite a few young people wearing anti-gravity rings chatting in mid-air or dancing to the electronic music MV on the plaza’s big screen.
Xiang Xue swiped her terminal at the door and was immediately led to the VIP area by a spherical navigation AI.
The VIP area had a fully transparent floor, offering a very novel overlook view below.
The two found a seat, and Xiang Xue took out the meal box she had asked the kitchen AI to prepare in advance. The contents were similar to the lunch of Mr. and Mrs. Xiang Weiguo far away at the government building, which served as their lunch.
Stabbing a piece of potato shred pancake, Xiang Chuan started feeling a bit bored here.
The music was all monotonous electronic music, the mall had no snacks or restaurants, and even the ads occasionally interspersed on the big screen in the plaza downstairs were just dryly reporting product specs.
Did this count as “developed technology, people’s happiness declining”?
But looking at the young people outside the VIP area, they didn’t seem too decadent, yet they also lacked much vigorous liveliness. Although Xiang Chuan used to feel annoyed by the young people shouting in the plaza outside her rental room late at night, for some reason, seeing them like this gave her a restless feeling like watching 21st-century Xiang Xue turn from a spirited lively girl into an ordinary disheveled young mother blending into the crowd.
Thinking of this, she looked at Xiang Xue in front of her enjoying the fried banana and smiled slightly.
In this lifetime, home had become a big family, and her sister could properly enjoy life too.
After all, they had at least 800 years to live.
