The "Bird's Nest" Mars base.
On the large screen in the main control room, a girl was chewing on a steak with big bites, her mouth greasy with rice stuck to her lips, and stacks of food were piled up in front of her, behind her, and on the bulkhead.
These foods could all be stored at room temperature, and Yui Ishihara piled them all up in the crew compartment of the "Vulcan". This reduced the living space, but Yui felt more at ease.
During this period of time, under Zhang Fan's careful guidance, Yui has learned to move freely between the various cabins of the "Soyuz" and "Vulcan".
It was time for another video meal, but with one less "dish to accompany the meal," Zhang Fan felt listless and found the food rather bland.
Sigh, I shouldn't have sent her the air conditioner motherboard...
"Mr. Zhang Fan, thank you for your food! Arigato." Yui, dressed neatly, closed her eyes and crossed her fingers in a pre-meal prayer.
"Yui, you don't need to thank me every time we eat."
"Hehe, Mr. Zhang Fan, I'm starting! Bob, I'm starting!"
"Caw caw caw caw!"
"Why are you squeezing in here!" Zhang Fan looked at Bob with disgust. Ever since Bob discovered that Zhang Fan was video chatting with a cute girl while eating, Bob no longer stayed obediently in the automatic restaurant.
“Go find your mother gorilla! Ouch—” Zhang Fan tried to squeeze back, but Bob pushed him off the chair.
"Gurgle, gurgle!"
“O(∩_∩)O Hahaha…” Yui laughed happily.
"Mr. Zhang Fan, I'm so envious of you. I'm so lonely on the space station. If Bob played with me, I would be so happy I would go crazy."
"Since you like it so much, I'll launch it to you with a rocket sometime." Zhang Fan rubbed his butt, stood up, and squeezed into the corner of the chair to continue eating.
"No, let's not." Yui shook her head. "Let Bob stay at the base. There are more places for him to play over there."
Space stations have no gravity, making it difficult for animals to adapt to long-term survival. Even if they could survive, the cramped space could easily drive them mad. There are numerous examples of dogs brought by soldiers stationed on Earth suffocating and jumping into the sea.
Zhang Fan was just joking; the only weather rocket had already been launched, and there wasn't a second one. Besides, the payload bay of the weather rocket had limited space; it couldn't fit Bob's body. The food that could be packed in would only be enough for Yui to eat for a month.
In other words, after a month, Yui will no longer receive any food.
However, both of them deliberately downplayed the topic. Who knows what will happen a month from now?
During fruit time after the meal, Yui cut open a watermelon and took a bite.
"Wow, Mr. Zhang Fan, the watermelon you gave me is so sweet!" Yui rested her chin on her hands, her eyes squinting with happiness.
"That's right, I picked the sweetest watermelon for you."
"Thank you, Mr. Zhang Fan." Yui asked curiously while eating watermelon, "Mr. Zhang Fan, you didn't even cut the watermelon open, how do you know if it's ripe or not?"
"It's simple, you can tell just by listening to the sound."
"Listen to the sound?" Yui couldn't understand.
As the youngest daughter of the Mitsubishi Group, Yui had never been to the market to buy a watermelon before, so she knew nothing about the technique of "identifying a watermelon by its sound." Zhang Fan patiently explained the technique and principles to her.
"Identifying melons by their sound" is actually based on a very common sound wave principle.
Anyone who has studied junior high school physics knows that the propagation of sound waves in a medium is affected by the density and texture of the medium. Without cutting the watermelon open, the ripeness and internal quality of the watermelon can be detected by analyzing the sound waves obtained from tapping it.
A watermelon consists of two parts: the rind and the flesh. During the ripening process, the rind's hardness and modulus of elasticity change; a ripe rind is more elastic. In the flesh, the internal fibers are broken down by cellulase, resulting in changes in sugar content and structure, which also alters the sound when tapped.
Therefore, a watermelon can be viewed as a sphere with a multi-layered structure. After the watermelon vibrates when tapped, analyzing the generated sound wave signal yields the following two results:
Unripe watermelons have a higher density of flesh, and when tapped, their sound wave amplitude reaches its maximum, then decays rapidly, exhibiting an irregular decay waveform.
A ripe watermelon has a relatively low flesh density. When it is patted, the maximum amplitude of its sound waves occurs at a certain moment after the patting. Its waveform is symmetrical from top to bottom and shows a regular decay.
"Isn't that a simple and clear explanation? Have you learned how to pick a watermelon yet?" Zhang Fan asked.
Yui stared wide-eyed, her mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg.
Holy crap, I was just eating some melon seeds, why did I tell her all this nonsense!
"In short, if it makes a crisp 'clang' sound when you tap it, it's raw; if it makes a dull 'thump' sound, it's cooked; and if it makes a muffled 'plop' sound, it's overcooked. Do you understand?"
"Mmm-hmm!" Yui nodded repeatedly.
Sometimes, what farmers say is simpler and more reliable than science.
"But don't eat too much," Zhang Fan continued. "Watermelon itself doesn't have much nutritional value, and eating too much can easily cause diarrhea."
The feeling of fullness from eating watermelon is just an illusion. Watermelon has a water content of over 90%, and you'll feel hungry again after urinating.
This is why Zhang Fan only gave Yui one watermelon—just to satisfy her craving. Watermelon is fine to eat occasionally, but it's not suitable as a staple food.
After dinner, we had a bedtime chat.
"Mr. Zhang Fan, Mr. Zhang Fan? Are you asleep?"
"Not yet, what's up?"
"If, and I mean if, I die someday, will you remember me?"
"Silly girl, how could you die? I'll make sure Yui lives longer than me." Zhang Fan started comforting her again. This little girl was sleeping alone at night and started overthinking again.
"Mmm, hee hee." Yui's happy voice came through the earphones.
“Mr. Zhang Fan, we will meet someday, right?” The “meeting” that Yui Ishihara was referring to was their reunion after traveling 500 kilometers together.
"Yes! I swear!" Zhang Fan answered firmly.
Zhang Fan vowed not only to eliminate the 500-kilometer distance through his own efforts, but also to turn it into a negative number!
You read that right, it's a negative number. Aren't you envious?
"Mr. Zhang Fan, I'm so happy to meet you."
"I'm also very happy to have met Yui."
It's too early to be happy now. When we meet again, I'll show you the terrifying extent of your 22 years of experience as the last male in the solar system! You won't even have time to cry then.
“Mr. Zhang Fan, I’ve made a discovery…” Yui Ishihara hesitated for a moment, but finally said, “I think it’s necessary for me to tell you.”
"What discovery?" Zhang Fan asked, lying on the bed with his eyes closed.
"From my window on the space station, I saw a light to your north."
"Light?" Zhang Fan opened his eyes, wide awake.
"Yes."
"Could you be seeing things?" Zhang Fan asked, somewhat incredulous. "For example, some relatively flat mountains or rocks on Mars can reflect sunlight during the day."
"I saw it at night."
“This…” Zhang Fan’s heart pounded. There aren’t many places where Mars can glow at night, and the Bird’s Nest is one of them.
Is there a second one?
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