Chapter 102: The Most Beautiful Painting
Inside the Guanghan Palace Base.
Liu Jun was like a curious baby, bouncing along with every step, always hopping forward.
“Second Brother, how come you suddenly thought of the Moon?”
Fan Ren walked along while observing whether there were any defects in the various designs inside the base. Hearing Li Jian’s words, he didn’t turn back and said, “It’s not that I suddenly thought of it and came; the upcoming expansion of the Guanghan Palace involves residential use on a scale of a thousand people, so I came up personally to take a look and feel more secure.”
Li Jian nodded upon hearing this, his eyes showing a father’s pride as he looked at this Second Brother.
Fan Ren was truly remarkable.
After passing through layers of selection at the military headquarters to enter the Aerospace Department, he had thought that even with the best luck, grinding out seniority would take seven or eight years to have a chance to step into the threshold of manned spaceflight.
But unexpectedly, just four years later, he was selected through the selection process into the list of the first 20 people for the Moon Landing.
Moreover, with the support of Senior He Guozhang, he accomplished the great achievement of being Great Xia’s first person on the Moon.
‘Bang’
Liu Jun didn’t stand steady underfoot and tripped over the building connection from the expansion, falling flat on the smooth metal floor ahead.
Li Jian sighed, stepped forward two steps, and pulled this guy up.
“Third Brother, you’re turning 30 next year, be steady.”
Fan Ren saw it in his eyes and laughed.
Bringing this guy up really had its benefits; hadn’t they just discovered a ‘minor flaw’ in the base? This design defect at the connection would have to be considered in future expansions.
Thinking of this, he took out the latest model mobile phone produced by a certain domestic manufacturer to record this issue.
But right after, his gaze fell on the signal bars above the mobile phone, which were empty, showing no signal.
Fan Ren looked up and asked, “Boss, how often does our base usually contact home?”
Li Jian was stunned upon hearing this; what kind of talk was that?
Contact what? Contact home? Did he hear wrong? He should be asking about contact with Xinghai Aerospace Base.
Seeing his expression, Fan Ren immediately guessed what the Boss was thinking.
After all, Great Xia’s soldiers normally contacted home only every few months, and some even rarely had the chance to call family once a year.
This was a group that had been using their youth to silently guard Great Xia, the most adorable group.
Fan Ren nodded without pursuing further, and the group entered the base command room.
“Boss, I’ve exited the cabin, status good!”
Liu Jun plopped down in the center seat of the command room and mimicked in a very lifelike way how he had been when exiting the cabin back then, facing Li Jian.
“Haha, I thought about it for a long time; even until after landing, right before exiting the cabin, I still hadn’t thought of any cool line, what a pity.”
Li Jian laughed as he spoke of this, imitating himself: “One small step for me, one giant leap for humanity. That line’s been said, saying anything else wouldn’t top it, so in the end I just used our usual report style.”
Fan Ren listened quietly, laughing along while his eyes scanned around the command room.
Li Jian looked at Liu Jun’s belly and teased with a smile, “How about it, the special training was useful, right? Look, your belly is clearly a size smaller.”
Hearing this, Liu Jun showed a look of lingering fear on his face.
For this trip to the Lunar Base, although Fan Ren’s relationship played a part, he himself had undergone extremely intensive special training to pass the basic training.
After the whole thing, that beer belly was almost gone.
But gazing out through the glass window, the universe against the pitch-black background was like an abyss, inspiring awe.
However, in this pitch-black backdrop, a super-large water-blue planet seemed to be held up by some magical force, quietly hanging in the middle and slowly rotating.
This was a pure natural beauty.
Liu Jun gazed at this scene and murmured softly, “Someday I have to bring my wife up to see this; it’s so beautiful!”
Fan Ren followed his gaze outward and couldn’t help being deeply attracted by the sight for a moment.
When the time reached 6 p.m. Earth Great Xia time, the astronauts from the Mining Site gradually returned to the base.
In the base cafeteria, all 22 members including Fan Ren and Liu Jun gathered together.
At this moment, a bottled beer was placed in front of everyone’s dining table.
Li Jian amusingly glanced at these two brothers; he didn’t need to guess to know this was Liu Jun’s idea.
It wasn’t that Fan Ren didn’t care about them; he just helped them in more practical ways.
But Liu Jun was different; he didn’t have such big ambitions and had always pursued happiness.
The one who could bring beer from Earth to the Moon—first in history, and no later comers possible for now, just this one.
Fan Ren signaled with his eyes to Li Jian not to mind; things were different now.
The launch vehicles between Earth and Moon had increased to 10, and most had very ample payload when coming to the Moon, with the purpose of transporting ordinary crystal stones and helium-3 collected from the Moon back to Earth.
This bit of beer really wasn’t an item that took up much quota.
Besides, no matter what, Xinghai was his wholly owned company; no one would say anything.
Li Jian nodded; he looked at the team members present, all with excited expressions on their faces.
“General Manager Liu… forget it, this wheat juice was all brought by Third Brother for us brothers. Second Brother is General Manager Fan; he’s more concerned about our upcoming expansion work here and came in person this time mainly to understand the deficiencies in base construction. Everyone, before resting tonight, think carefully and hand over any opinions to me tomorrow—speak freely, remember.”
“Let’s eat!”
As Li Jian’s words fell, the group of men immediately cheered; not because the wheat juice was particularly tasty, but purely due to the atmosphere.
Fan Ren felt great watching this scene; he raised his beer bottle and clinked it with the two brothers.
“Who would’ve thought us brothers could move the drinking party to the Moon; this is truly the first time in history.”
“Hey, didn’t I say bringing this stuff was the right call? What do you say, Second Brother? I think from now on, for Lunar Base supplies, we should diversify the varieties as much as possible.”
Liu Jun downed a glass, shoveled a couple bites of food from the quick-heat pouch on the table, and sighed.
Although he was immersed in the excitement of his first Moon Landing, thinking now of the everyday food these astronauts ate here—all instant foods—made him feel it deeply.
Fan Ren nodded and said, “No rush on that; our Great Xia scientists are the best at farming. Soon the first batch of cultivated space vegetable series will yield results, and after the next base expansion, the initial plan can accommodate 1000 people for long-term stay.”
As he said this, he glanced at the not-so-large cafeteria and shook his head slightly.
It was called a cafeteria, but it was really just a room full of dining tables, without even a back kitchen or chefs.
Clothing, food, housing, and transport—food ranks second.
“So this trip wasn’t in vain; the expansion plan must consider arranging chefs in the future to process and cook daily food for the astronauts.”
Li Jian nodded; he agreed with this very much.
After more than half a year stationed on the Moon, once the initial excitement faded, what followed was endless monotony.
Every day after waking up, they had to do mining operations, and after a busy day returning to the base, they could only eat some instant food.
It was extremely grueling.
