Jiang Ye remembered something and typed to ask, "Are you all awake?"
Xu Yan: "Awake, cleaning up. So sorry to trouble you, we all drank a bit too much yesterday. What time will you be back? We can prepare dinner for you in advance."
Jiang Ye: "I won't be back for now, I'll be staying at the base these few days."
Xu Yan: "Okay, then I'll go help."
Jiang Ye did not leave. He called a few captains and drove straight to the seaside.
From a distance, he could see the frigate factory. By the churning black sea, silvery-white factory buildings stretched out, all unassuming rectangular structures, spreading a magnificent expanse of lights along the beach.
The lights were a mix of colors: red, blue, purple, and yellow, clearly marking different zones. It was likely that factories with different colored lights produced different specific components, which were then assembled into complete frigates.
A team of spider armored vehicles was already patrolling the area, and a large number of workers and construction robots were being orderly evacuated, leaving in small spacecraft.
Jiang Ye parked his car in the center of the factory and toured the facility, surrounded by his entourage.
The interiors of each factory were vastly different, filled with strangely shaped production machinery. Some factories even had liquid environments, entire large pools filled with purple solution, where many spherical robots swam in the grape-juice-like purple liquid.
Jiang Ye, not understanding such high-tech places, simply took a symbolic tour to broaden his horizons.
Jiang Ye finalized the production plan: commence immediately, with one frigate to be launched within a week.
Leaving the factory, he drove back to the military base.
The devilish training was still ongoing, with soldiers running laps in the open field. The temperature was so cold that white plumes of steam rose from everyone's heads.
This time, the soldiers stopped to salute Jiang Ye and shouted greetings. Jiang Ye stopped and returned the salute, but did not speak.
Back in his office, the air conditioning automatically turned on, raising the indoor temperature to a comfortable 26 degrees Celsius, like late spring, within two minutes.
Jiang Ye took off his shirt and pants, revealing his well-developed muscles. He hadn't exercised much recently, but his muscles had strangely continued to grow, making him look more and more like a boxer.
He lay down on the bed, exhausted, and snuggled into the covers.
He took out his phone and began his routine message check.
Two more enterprise resumes had arrived. One company produced instant rice noodles, and the other was an insurance company that primarily insured vehicles.
Jiang Ye accepted both.
There were also two messages from commercial factories. One produced lipstick, with a daily profit of 3 million, and would bring 500 employees from an alien planet. The other produced camphor wood balls, offering 200 job positions.
Jiang Ye approved both.
There was information about a new school, "Konni Institute of Thought," named after Confucius and Nietzsche, which aimed to cultivate talent in ancient Eastern and Western philosophy, with an annual enrollment of 700 students.
Like the two previous schools, it had little profit value but could bring students from alien planets.
Jiang Ye also accepted it. He wanted all schools that could introduce population, regardless of their teaching focus. Currently, the colony's population was still too sparse, and if sufficient population was not absorbed in time, development would eventually hit a bottleneck.
After processing all the messages, Jiang Ye put down his phone and closed his eyes to sleep.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, his office door was knocked.
Jiang Ye sat up, "Who is it?"
"Sir, it's me, Secretary Liu." Liu Jizi's voice came through. "There's a new situation in settlement areas B and C, and I think it's best to report it to you immediately."
Jiang Ye climbed out of bed and went to the door to open it.
Liu Jizi was not wearing a uniform but a form-fitting gray knitted dress, similar in style to pajamas. She wore cotton slippers on her smooth legs. Her hair was messy, suggesting she had rushed from her dormitory.
As she entered, she paused for a moment, looking at Jiang Ye, her face slightly flushed.
Jiang Ye looked down, mortified. He had just remembered he was only wearing his underwear, looking like a muscular male model posing for an innerwear advertisement. He had forgotten to put on clothes in his sleepy state.
"I need to use your office projector," Liu Jizi said.
"Okay, go ahead," Jiang Ye nodded.
While Liu Jizi was fiddling with the holographic projector, Jiang Ye silently went to the bedside, picked up his clothes, and put them on.
Being in the same room with a beautiful female secretary late at night without a shirt on, if this were to get out, he wouldn't be able to clear his name even if he jumped into the Yellow River. No amount of explanation would be believed, and outsiders would never believe they hadn't done anything.
"I'm not very good with this projector, please wait a moment." Liu Jizi was hunched over the desk, fumbling with her phone, trying to connect it to the projector.
"What's the general situation?" Jiang Ye stood beside her.
"Previously, settlement areas B and C were fixed in position, about four hundred kilometers apart," Liu Jizi said while fiddling with the equipment. "But I just looked at the satellite map, and settlement area C has suddenly started moving and is converging towards area B."
A bright screen suddenly rose, hovering above the desk. The holographic projection was finally activated.
Liu Jizi tapped rapidly on her phone, quickly switching to the satellite view.
On the dim, snowy wasteland, many base vehicles were moving slowly, numbering three to four hundred. From the satellite's perspective, they resembled a swarm of small black insects crawling on white tiles.
"These are the people from settlement area C. They have already moved more than twenty kilometers from their original camp," Liu Jizi enlarged the map. A few hundred kilometers away, the camp of settlement area B was clearly visible. "As you can see, at this speed, it will only take a few days for the people from the two settlements to meet."
Jiang Ye frowned, "Did they start moving today?"
"That's right, they started moving five hours ago."
"Twenty kilometers in five hours, only four kilometers per hour?" Jiang Ye frowned.
"The snow is deep, one meter of snow, so they have to clear snow as they advance. And there are beasts, so they fight as they go. This speed is already quite fast," Liu Jizi said.
As she spoke, she quickly tapped the screen and displayed some pre-captured photos.
The photos were blurry, but they showed some red bloodstains scattered on the snow near the settlements, with small sesame-seed-sized animal carcasses lying beside them. These were clearly beasts that had attacked the settlements and were eliminated, but it was impossible to identify their species.
"There are quite a few animals on the neighboring continent. I've been observing them these past few days, and many animals are killed near settlement areas B and C every day," Liu Jizi said. "It seems that the creatures on the neighboring continent are much more numerous than those on our continent."
Liu Jizi's tone made it sound like a trivial matter, but Jiang Ye frowned and began to ponder.
He remembered a place: Australia.
Australia's location on Earth was very special, a single landmass in the vast ocean, a super-sized isolated island.
This isolated island had formed in ancient times, separated from other continents. One of the consequences was that the island's ecosystem had developed slowly, with some primitive species remaining unchanged for millennia.
After all, intense conflict among organisms accelerated the pace of evolution. Other continents were interconnected, allowing animals to move around, kill, and eat, leading to the elimination of many species and the constant birth of new ones. In contrast, the isolated island of Australia had a small number of creatures and, for a long time, no invasion of foreign species. It was a leisurely and comfortable environment, gradually solidifying its ecosystem.
And now, the planet where Jiang Ye was located happened to be full of isolated islands.
Hundreds of landmasses like Australia, divided by oceans, faced each other from afar, yet remained separate.
This meant that it was highly likely that the ecosystem of each landmass was unique and very different from others.
On the current continent, the common threatening animals were blood kangaroos and return bears. In the past week, the garrisons in various cities had reported killing blood kangaroos and return bears.
And on the neighboring continent, there might be new species that had never been seen before.
Brand new alien creatures were something to be very vigilant about.
"This is the situation. The people from settlement areas B and C will most likely meet in the coming days. I have some concerns, would you like to hear them?" Liu Jizi looked up at Jiang Ye.