“Where are you from?”
“Hubei.”
“Hubei? In the same city as Academician Lu?”
“No, he is from Jiangling, I am Jiangcheng, a bit different.”
“Jiangcheng, I see…” There was a trace of reminiscing in Liang Youcheng’s eyes. He spoke nostalgically, “I remember the spicy dry noodles there were delicious.”
Han Kangyu thought for a bit. His expression remained the same as he spoke.
“It’s alright, I like the tofu.”
Sixteen days had passed since the Xu Fu colonial ship departed. After more than two weeks of sailing, they were getting closer and closer to their destination.
This also meant that the distance between them and their hometowns was getting farther and farther.
Over the past two days, most of the conversation they had was about their hometowns.
Liang Youcheng never thought that he would miss his hometown so much.
When he was on Earth, he didn’t appreciate many things. It wasn’t until the moment when Xu Fu left the gravitational restraint of the Earth-Moon system did he suddenly realize that he had so many things he had yet to experience on Earth, and that living on Earth was much more pleasurable.
There was a stomach grumbling sound.
“What kind of tofu? Is it good?”
This person’s name was Fan Tong[1]. Although the name was easy to be misunderstood, by the fact that he was sitting on this colonial ship, he was obviously not a lazy person.
With a PhD in planetary geology from the Institute of Aerospace Studies at Jinling University, his supervisor’s research on planetary geology was among the best in the world.
Just like the bioengineer named Ming Wenzhe, they were temporarily advanced from the second batch to the first batch of crew members because of their outstanding performance in training. Because they did not train in Biosphere A, these two and the other three crew members had only recently just met.
Han Kangyu looked at him and began to reminisce. He thought for a few seconds before speaking.
“Dried spiced seeds, bamboo shoots, lean meat, and dried shiitake mushrooms. Fry them, then put on fried tofu covered with glutinous rice, brush with a layer of vegetable oil, then fry on high heat until golden. Each bite is full of flavor… It’s a staple of Jiangcheng, usually eaten for breakfast.”
Now, everyone’s stomach was grumbling.
Captain Liang Youcheng and the four crew members all began to salivate.
Over the past few days, they basically only ate liquid food. Even though the taste was not unpleasant, it was not as delicious as freshly cooked food on earth.
There was finally a pause. Han Kangyu said with a sigh, “Ah, I’m getting hungry just talking about it.”
“Then stop talking about it.” Ming Wenzhe immediately interrupted him and said, “I’m getting hungry too.”
Fan Tong quickly nodded his head, even though he was the one who brought up this conversation.
Han Kangyu smiled and stopped talking.
Soon, he realized that talking about food was a stupid decision. They were in space, millions of kilometers away from Earth. Liquid food was already enough of a torture, but now, it tasted even worse.
“Hubei is the southernmost place I’ve been to in my life,” said Liang Youcheng. He looked at the deep and gloomy starry sky outside the porthole and reminisced about the food emotionally. “I didn’t expect that, this time, I’m so far away from home.”
This made people fall into silence.
For a moment, the entire cabin became quiet.
“We will arrive in an hour or so.” Liang Youcheng stood up from the space chair and glanced at the wrist-mounted computer. He carefully moved his stiff limbs, then looked at his deputy Han Kangyu. “I’ll go wait at the cockpit.”
“Do you need my help?”
“No, I can handle it alone, you can do whatever you want.”
After hearing the captain’s words, Han Kangyu nodded and did not follow him.
Because of Xu Fu’s single function, it didn’t need to engage in other complex space activities. Xu Fu had a high degree of automation; tasks such as take-off and landing could be completed by AI.
Most of the time, sitting in the cockpit consisted of staring at the same scenery outside the window and being aware of the rarest accidents. Therefore, there was no reason to have two people in the cockpit.
The people in the cabin returned to their seats and put on their seatbelts.
They waited quietly for about twenty minutes in silence. They felt a slight sense of trembling; the dark deep sky outside the portholes finally had a touch of color that they had never seen before.
There was a smudge of red light.
Its surface exuded a cloud of lifeless dust, like the air left alone in the corner of a warehouse.
“It’s so beautiful…”
“Yeah, it is beautiful… I heard that billions of years ago, the ecosystem there was more lushful than on Earth, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“It’s neither true nor false, it’s just a conjecture.” Fan Tong said, “The specific answers depend on whether we can dig into the stratum formed billions of years ago and find fossils to prove this.”
While the astronauts in the cabin were chatting, the planet outline in the distance gradually became clearer.
Compared to Earth, its volume was a little smaller, but compared to the tiny Xu Fu, its size was shocking.
The cockpit door opened.
Liang Youcheng had put on his spacesuit in the cabin. He walked out with a black tablet in his hand.
“Half an hour before we enter Mars orbit.
“Communication resources are precious. Everyone will have time for only one sentence. They can say anything, whether it’s to relatives or friends… Who is going first?”
The people in the cabin looked at each other; no one wanted to go first.
Seeing how no one said anything, Fan Tong suggested in a low voice, “Should we roll a dice?”
“There’s no gravity nor dice here… How about by age? Start with the oldest.”
“Okay! Enough, stop wasting time.” Liang Youcheng couldn’t stand it anymore. He reached out and entered the password on the tablet. He said, “If no one wants to, I will go first. Someone else can go next. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”
The captain was going first, so naturally, no one had any objections.
The pairs of eyes all fell on Liang Youcheng’s body.
Everyone was quietly waiting for him to speak, to pass the news of victory tens of millions of kilometers away back to the blue mother star.
Liang Youcheng felt the heavy responsibility. He knew how important this moment was. He went silent for a long time.
He obviously had a lot to say, but he couldn’t find the right words.
He took a deep breath.
He finally made a decision and pressed the button to start recording.
Then he spoke.
“Dad, Mom… We have arrived safely.”
[1] TN: Name is similar to a slang for someone that is lazy
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