Jiang Ye watched Nicole trudge through the foul-smelling swamp and climb a tree. Her movements were clumsy, and she ascended slowly, but each step was firm, preventing any falls.
After a few minutes, Nicole reached the treetops, plucked some fruits, and held them in her hands. She then descended the tree and crawled back into the car.
“I picked ten seeds for you. When you get back, you can place a piece of meat beneath the seeds. Once they root and sprout, you can transplant them into the soil.” Nicole placed the seeds on the seat and bent down to adjust her skirt.
Jiang Ye took the seeds in his hand and examined them closely. They resembled small, unpeeled walnuts, with a vibrant green surface. They felt hard to the touch, each about the size of a longan.
Such unassuming little things, given enough time, could develop into man-eating forests stretching for hundreds of miles. They were truly formidable organisms.
The car ascended from the forest and sped towards the night.
They flew over the forest and then a stretch of dark wasteland before a dazzling city appeared.
Jiang Ye was stunned by the city's scale. From the outskirts, there were no buildings below a hundred stories. All were colossal skyscrapers whose tops were obscured by clouds, emitting white or golden lights like torches reaching for the sky. The roads were like rivers of light, with countless streetlights, ground vehicles, and aerial vehicles darting about like fireflies. If 21st-century New York were brought here, it wouldn't even qualify as the urban fringe; it would be a small town at best.
Gigantic electronic billboards flickered on every building along the streets, alongside massive holographic advertisements.
As the car entered the city's edge, men's heads the size of buses appeared in mid-air. Their faces were handsome, but their immense size made them somewhat terrifying. The words "Pan An Company Virtual Boyfriend" floated above their heads.
The cities on Jiedian Star were already prosperous, but they paled in comparison to this place.
A planet with a population of tens of billions, no wonder so many skyscrapers were built. Without claiming land in the sky, it would be impossible to accommodate so many people.
The flying car slowly ascended, breaking through the clouds, and stopped by the window of a large building.
“Your dormitory is here, room 6 on the 112th floor,” Nicole said. “Please bring your face close to the dormitory window.”
Jiang Ye was bewildered. “Am I going to enter the room directly from here?”
“Yes, construction is underway on the ground level, so entering from the air is more convenient,” Nicole replied, nodding.
Jiang Ye stuck his head out of the car window. The car didn't hug the building tightly; there was a ten-centimeter gap. Below was a sea of clouds, with golden light shimmering through the gaps like sunlight. The air was cool.
As his face approached the glass, the entire window slid open from the middle, revealing a spacious dormitory.
Jiang Ye cautiously climbed in. Climbing at an altitude of several hundred meters was truly nerve-wracking. Nicole extended the suitcase out of the window and slid it into the room.
The window immediately closed behind him, sealing perfectly. The flying car had already departed.
The dormitory lights turned on, and Jiang Ye stood up to inspect his accommodation for the next two weeks.
It was smaller than he had expected, perhaps 100 square meters at most. The furnishings were rather ordinary; the sofa was even old, and the edges of the curtains were fraying, resembling a cheap hotel room that cost two hundred yuan a night.
There were also few smart devices, and no voice greeted Jiang Ye. There wasn't even a robot vacuum cleaner.
On the bedside table, there was a rotary phone, with a small sticky note attached that read, "If you need anything, please dial 00110011."
Jiang Ye suddenly felt like he had traveled back to the 21st century. What was this inexplicable sense of familiarity?
Next to the phone was a thick book. A yellow sticky note was affixed to the cover with handwriting in a ballpoint pen: "For Student Jiang Ye."
He peeled off the sticky note, revealing the title of the book it had covered: "Colonial University Yongye Star Branch Freshman Handbook."
Jiang Ye sat down and began reading the book.
It was over three hundred pages long.
After removing the pompous filler and meaningless diagrams, only fifty-odd pages of genuinely useful content remained.
The content was comprehensive, covering everything from the customs and basic laws of Yongye Star to important notes for freshmen and information about the school. It even detailed how much one would have to pay if a dormitory faucet broke.
After reading it, Jiang Ye had a general understanding of life here.
The building he was currently in, with a total of 206 floors and a height of 912 meters, was the entire Colonial University Yongye Star Branch. As for campus groves or lakes, they were impossible on this planet where every inch of land was precious.
The entire building was strictly zoned. The upper floors housed dormitories and laboratories, while the lower floors contained classrooms, cafeterias, and facilities like a school history museum, a small auditorium, and a cinema. These had been around for over a hundred years.
Classes would begin tomorrow, starting at six in the morning and continuing until eleven at night, with a one-hour lunch break in between.
This schedule was like a trip back to high school.
The courses to be studied included eight major categories: Organizational Behavior, Economics, Management, Psychology, Law, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Military Science. Each category had two instructors offering courses. The class schedule was printed on the last page, clearly indicating which class to attend each day and in which classroom.
"Knock, knock, knock!" The door was knocked upon.
Jiang Ye hurried over to open it.
To his surprise, standing outside was not a person, but a small trolley stacked with a thick pile of books, all hardcover editions.
"Are these for me?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Nonsense, hurry up and take them. They're heavy," the trolley replied.
Jiang Ye picked up the textbooks, and the trolley turned and left.
Back in the room, he sat down and flipped through the books one by one.
There were pens on the desk, so Jiang Ye wrote his name, student ID, and phone number on the flyleaf to avoid losing them.
The thickness and weight of the textbooks made him tremble!
Each book averaged over four hundred pages, thick as bricks.
There were few illustrations or blank pages; they were filled with dense small print.
There were sixteen books in total, and it was safe to assume there would be 16 final exams.
Jiang Ye immediately began previewing the material, studying late into the night until two in the morning.
He had to admit, the content in the textbooks was quite insightful and well-suited for someone in the position of a general.
It covered how to wield power, how to assemble a team, how to promote regional economic development, how to manage public opinion, and how to upgrade the military.
These were essentially the studies of the legendary "invincible against ten thousand men."
The next morning, Jiang Ye took the elevator downstairs according to his schedule and arrived at the designated classroom.
To his surprise, the classroom was empty!
Jiang Ye was startled. He stepped back to look at the room number on the door and then checked the photo of his class schedule on his phone.
It was correct.
Class was scheduled to start at six o'clock, and it was already five forty. Why wasn't anyone here yet?
Jiang Ye looked around; the corridor was deserted, and there was no one to ask. The location seemed correct, so he decided to go in and wait.
He directly took the frontmost seat at the base of the podium, right in front of the teacher's eyes.
Jiang Ye took out his textbook and diligently previewed the material. Although he never previewed his studies in school as a child, he was determined to be diligent this time, coming all this way to learn, and adopting the spirit of a final sprint in his third year of high school.
Time flew by. From five forty to five fifty, it was suddenly six o'clock.
The door finally opened.
An elderly professor with white hair walked in, wearing a brown suit and carrying a brown bag. He was Long Tiancheng, the instructor for Organizational Behavior.
Jiang Ye looked up at him, and the teacher and student stared at each other.
"Good morning, teacher..." Jiang Ye said with little confidence. "Is this the classroom for Organizational Behavior?"
"Yes, yes, you're Jiang Ye, right?" Long Tiancheng smiled. "You're quite early?"
Jiang Ye was bewildered. "Isn't class supposed to start at six?"
"While that is true, very few people actually arrive on time. At most, there are four or five; sometimes, there are none. They are all generals, accustomed to being above thousands of people and enjoying freedom. How could they obediently come to class so early?" Long Tiancheng stepped onto the podium, opened his bag, took out a test paper, and handed it to Jiang Ye. "This is the final exam paper. Keep it safe and don't leak it. It's only for you."