sign
The trainer in charge of the expedition team looks very much like Ivy. In the joking words of her friends, he is "your standard dish."
He has thick, slightly curly black hair and equally dark eyes. He is tall and taciturn. During class, he rarely says anything that is not related to the course.
Even if they open their mouths, they usually say——
"Your burst of power looks like a chick hiding from the rain under its mother's wings."
“Is this non-standard pose a tribute to Venus?”
"Looking at the current training progress, as a teacher I can only give you one piece of advice - it's not too late to apply for withdrawal now."
Such cold and almost vicious words.
Ivy noticed his nameplate early on, on the chest of his black combat uniform.
The material of the nameplate represents the level of status. For example, Ivy and her friends can only wear brass, while this mysterious airborne training officer has a nameplate made of pure and flawless platinum.
On that small white plaque, besides the iris representing love, there was also his name, Lorraine.
But she didn't have the chance to praise his nice name in person.
On the first day of class, Lorraine stressed the issue of address. During the training, everyone, whether in class or not, had to call him "teacher", even though it was just a training session for new employees that would soon be over.
The irises were in full bloom, but he was like the metal the plaque was made of, cold, meticulous, and completely inhuman.
There is another reason for being hesitant to talk to the other party.
——Ivy is married.
and a man I've never met before.
The union of the two was an accident.
Today, with the efficient operation of artificial intelligence robots, machines and codes have greatly reduced labor costs, but have also caused a large number of ordinary people to lose their jobs. Large-scale unemployment and the emergence of customized virtual robot lovers have made it easy to obtain a pleasant emotional experience, making the word "love" a luxury beyond the need for survival.
In response to the sharp decline in marriage and birth rates, the coalition government unanimously decided to officially launch a series of policies to promote spouses.
The Home Affairs Bureau has also hired a number of love psychology experts to offer free love courses and implemented a number of measures, including not only holding regular social gatherings, developing an official dating app, and requiring every eligible single person to fill out a mate selection questionnaire - to improve efficiency and avoid unnecessary conflicts, only two people who are 100% compatible with each other will be given each other's contact information.
After all, when the phenomenon of being able to customize a 100% obedient, 100% virtual robot lover for just one thousand dollars appears, most people don't want to accommodate another human with an incompatible personality.
This nearly "customized" mate selection intention survey form has the strongest promotion momentum. Any adult with a human identity ID who is unmarried and not dating anyone must fill it out. Of course, taking into account the perspectives of ethics and eugenics, unless there are special requirements, priority will be given to matching with suitable partners within a ten-year age difference.
In order to deal with the investigators, Ivy perfunctorily filled out the mate selection survey form, and even put forward many harsh requirements that almost did not exist in reality -
Height accurate to centimeters, weight accurate to grams, fixed hair length and color, eye color, chest circumference, waist circumference, hip circumference, length, width, ridiculously high salary, inhumanly stable personality, muscle content, BMI...
She even mischievously added a requirement that the candidate must have won two long-distance running championships in kindergarten.
"Note: It is two times, no more, no less, it must be exactly two times."
God knows what kind of kindergarten would arrange a long-distance running competition.
While filling it out, Ivy could already imagine its fate - lying alone in a corner of the database, as a piece of data that would never be successfully matched, quietly existing until the planet exploded and the world was destroyed.
Who knew that the next morning, she received a "match successful" notification.
Who knows there will be someone who fits the bill perfectly?
Who knew that she would also perfectly match the partner selection preferences filled out by the other party.
As an unprecedented perfect match, this example was widely reported as news. The parents of both parties talked happily, and Ivy made a marriage contract without even having the chance to meet each other.
This is because the other party is a general of a confidential project and is carrying out a special mission.
She thought something must be wrong.
Ivy tried to communicate with the other party and successfully obtained a concise letter from the other party.
The content is brief, consisting of only a few lines, and is so stereotyped that he is more like an artificial intelligence than a virtual lover.
"I am very happy to marry you, and I hope we can get along well."
In today's paperless world with highly developed internet, it only takes one second for two people in Antarctica and the North Pole to communicate with each other, but it took him two days to send her this handwritten letter from his troop.
I also used a fountain pen, and the ink was a dark blue like the night sky.
The last time Ivy saw a fountain pen was at a museum during a visit organized by her elementary school.
The other person may be a conservative and stubborn old man.
The robotic-worded letter made her afraid to read the enclosed details.
Ivy has always been indifferent to emotions, so she makes a deal with her parents.
She was willing to use her marriage as an exchange to marry this man that her parents were satisfied with, so as to gain the opportunity to freely decide her own life in the second half of her life - meaning that her parents would no longer interfere with her application to join the official expedition team of the United Government.
Becoming the official captain of the expedition team has always been Ivy's dream.
The various accidents that might happen during the adventure and the extremely high mortality rate are the reasons why Ivy's parents try their best to stop her.
Ivy discussed the matter with her parents for a long time, but finally, reluctantly, she chose a major in biological sciences, occasionally daydreaming about the joy of adventure.
Compared to being able to explore freely, a mere marriage contract didn't seem that unbearable.
Ivy did think so before the night they officially became husband and wife.
On the wedding night, Ivy was drunk, very drunk, and all she remembered was the other person's strong but restrained hands.
He was not an old man; records showed that he was nine years older than her, an age gap that was tolerable.
Nothing excessive happened that day, Ivy thought. There were no suspicious signs on her. The other party also had good self-restraint and would not offend a drunk lady, which was good.
Ivy finally recalled with lingering fear the horrible breadth and length of the form she had filled out. On the one hand, she was thankful that these questionnaires were uploaded privately and kept secret from everyone, but on the other hand, she was worried that someone might really die.
She began to officially consider divorce from this moment on.
After marriage, Ivy continued her studies and successfully passed the physical fitness test six months later and officially joined the official expedition team.
My parents finally accepted this reluctantly.
At the same time, considering future development and personal feelings, she decided to end this hasty marriage and sent a divorce agreement to her strange husband.
Ivy put herself in the other person's shoes and thought that the other person was probably being forced, otherwise he wouldn't be so cold.
In the six months after their marriage, the two had not met each other once and had never communicated. All normal people should be able to understand the meaning of such an obvious and straightforward hint.
Therefore, in this divorce agreement, Ivy also used extremely formal wording, calmly addressing the other party as the respected Mr. Hector.
「
Dear Mr. Hector,
Hello!
In view of the long period of separation after marriage, I think our marriage is dead in name only.
So I am here to ask you if you are willing to go through the divorce process with me? I am about to go on my first long-distance expedition with the expedition team, so I want to formally separate my marriage with you during that time.
Looking forward to your reply.
A reserve member of the expedition team, and currently your partner, equally worthy of your respect,
Ms. Ivy
"
Email sent.
One day, two days.
One week.
There was no response.
Ivy waited patiently, but her friends, already convinced that the marriage was going to fall apart, celebrated in advance by planning a bachelorette party.
Some of the brave ones took the initiative to encourage Ivy to ask for the contact information of the training officer Lorraine.
"The course is over. It doesn't matter if I'm rejected. I'll never see you again anyway."
"I'll never see you again" is a crucial point. After becoming single again, Ivy can continue to pursue love. The other person may not be Lorraine, but Lorraine can be one of the candidates.
Well, Ivy thought, Lorraine would never give her her personal contact information.
During class, he hardly spoke to her unless necessary;
Many times, Ivy looked at him, and he didn't look away. Occasionally, when their eyes met, he would calmly look away, as if he was avoiding something extremely dangerous.
Ivy had never even seen Lorraine smile. He was not only stingy with words, but also with smiles.
When Lorraine was successfully picked up by her friends, the girls all dispersed with laughter, leaving Ivy standing there awkwardly. She had no experience in chatting up people, and now the person being chatted up was her teacher.
Today, Lorraine was still wearing the black combat uniform that the training camp provided for them. None of the students had ever seen him in casual clothes, let alone guess his taste.
His tone was the same as usual in class: "Student Ivy, what's up?"
Ivy said, "...I want your personal contact information. Is that convenient?"
She saw a rare look of surprise on Lorraine's face.
It’s not easy, Poker Face can also have human expressions. Is this the first time that a student stopped him and asked for his contact information?
After two seconds, Lorraine calmly said a string of numbers.
Ivy lowered her head and typed, surprised: "So familiar, I seem to have seen it somewhere before."
"Well," he said solemnly, "you just sent me a divorce agreement last week."
Ivy: “…”
After a long period of stiffness, I finally found my voice.
She said dryly, "But my husband's name is Hector."
"Yes," Lorraine said, "Lorraine Hector, that's my name on the marriage application."
He paused and lowered his body slightly.
The oppressive feeling of being criticized for having the wrong posture in class came back, and Ivy stood there.
She thought this was probably the most standard military posture she had ever worn in the first half of her life.
Lorraine looked down at her and asked, "So, you never read our marriage application, did you?"