It was nine o'clock, and the hovercraft was right in front of us.
Jiang Ran was filled with excitement and curiosity. Just as he was about to walk in, someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder.
Looking back, it was Fu Bo again.
He put on a deliberate and flattering smile: "Sister Jiang, this car... is big enough for two people! Look..."
"What am I looking at?" Jiang Ran pretended not to know. "Don't block me. Every minute and every second is wasting time now."
“I, I, I…”
Fu Bo was a little anxious: "I just want to ask, can you take me with you? I didn't grab the remaining time just now..."
"Sure." Jiang Ran said as a matter of course.
"Really? That's too..."
"As long as I pay, what's wrong with that?"
“…pay?”
"Oh, to be more precise, it should be called paying points."
Pay points? What points should I pay?
Given their friendship, he actually has to pay points?
Fu Bo was stunned for a moment.
"Forget it, I'm going to get in the car first. See you later."
As Jiang Ran spoke, he waved goodbye to him and turned to walk into the floating car.
"Hey, hey, hey, wait! Wait for me!" Fu Bo became even more anxious. "I'll pay! I'll pay! Just tell me how many points you want!"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Ran stopped in his tracks.
"What's the relationship between us? Of course it won't be expensive."
Jiang Ran smiled and said, "I saw that the last hour of the hovercraft rental was sold for a high price of 2,000 credits. Since you're going with me, I'll cut it in half. I'll give you a slight discount, so... 800 credits, how about that?"
"Ah? Eight hundred?"
"Why, are you worried it's too low?"
"No, no, no!" Fu Bo quickly denied it, then pulled out the points ranking on the ping-pong board, "But I only have 720 points in total. It's not enough."
"That's fine. Just sell it on credit for now and give it to me when you make a profit."
"Ah? On credit?"
"Yes, stop talking and hurry up. Every minute you delay is a minute wasted."
When Fu Bo heard this, his thoughts were immediately drawn away by her.
He estimated that every minute was worth more than ten cents, which could not be wasted!
As soon as Jiang Ran urged him, he immediately followed her into the carriage.
After closing the car door, Jiang Ran controlled the hover car to slowly rise and looked down through the translucent wall of the car.
I don't know if it was a coincidence, but I saw Bian Zhao taking off his sunglasses. She half sat up, staring at Jiang Ran, her dark eyes seemed to be talking.
Bian Zhao: You learn really fast.
Jiang Ran looked back: Same here, I learned it from you.
Isn’t that what you learned from Bian Zhao?
Jiang Ran rented the space for 200 points, but in a blink of an eye, she sublet it at a high price of 800 points. She even only rented out half of the space, but the overall control was still in her hands.
It has to be said that the habits of unscrupulous businessmen spread quickly.
Not long after, when the hovercraft rose to a certain height, Bian Zhao's figure shrank into a small black dot.
Jiang Ran no longer paid attention to her and flew towards the sea according to his own thoughts.
"Wow--"
Fu Bo leaned against the car wall and exclaimed in amazement.
"So this is what the ocean looks like from the air!"
Jiang Ran adjusted the automatic mode of the hover car before turning around.
She was a little puzzled: "Didn't you rent it once yesterday? Haven't you been here before?"
"Well, well..." Fu Bo scratched his head, "I rented a car yesterday, but I didn't go to the sea."
"This is an island, surrounded by the sea."
Jiang Ran asked in surprise, "Why did you borrow a hovercraft for no reason? Instead of flying over the sea, did you just circle the island?"
"Not really..." Fu Bo was a little embarrassed, his ears turning red. "I didn't fly into the sky. In fact, I, I... went underground."
"underground?"
"Um……"
"Are you talking about that underground cave?"
"Yes……"
"Is this true?" Jiang Ran was a little skeptical. "Weren't you eager to leave just a few days ago? You finally managed to escape danger, and you sent them back yourself?"
"How can it be the same?" Fu Bo tried to argue. "I didn't make any preparations the last time I went there, but yesterday was different. I had a hovercraft! Going down the cemetery, through the cave, through the waterfall... that's no problem!"
"Tell me the truth, are you envious because you saw Bian Zhao riding a hover car across the underground waterfall easily last time?"
Fu Bo hesitated for a moment: "Hmm... Is this obvious?"
Jiang Ran nodded: "Yes, very obvious."
Fu Bo: “…”
Fu Bo scratched his head for a while, and suddenly an idea came to him.
He pointed off into the distance, pretending to be excited, trying to change the subject: "Look! There's a cloud over there! Can we break it up?"
Jiang Ran glanced back at him with an indescribable look and didn't want to say anything more.
Fu Bo laughed bitterly when he saw that his attempt had been discovered early on.
After a while, Jiang Ran said leisurely: "I don't know whether the clouds can be broken up by the hovercraft, but I know one other thing."
"What's the matter?" Fu Bo asked awkwardly.
"Although I allow you to buy on credit, you should at least give me the 700 points you already have in your account in advance, right?"
"...Can't you delay it a little bit?"
"I can't postpone it, but I can allow you to pay 700 points first." Jiang Ran smiled friendly, "The remaining 20 points are enough for you to buy a cup of milk tea from Bian Zhao."
Fu Bo: “…” Exploited businessman!
Fu Bo came to his senses and cursed in his heart.
The sound insulation effect of the hover car is very good.
Whether it is flying through clouds and rain at high altitude or skimming the sea at low altitude, almost no sound can be transmitted into the carriage.
It’s a pity that Jiang Ran doesn’t like such a quiet journey.
She and Fu Bo struggled for a while before they finally opened a small hole in the roof of the car, trying to maintain contact with the outside world.
At the moment the hole opened, the sound of the air being broken by the fast-moving hovercraft, the happy chirping of seabirds not far away after eating... all came in through the small hole.
The sounds of nature hum in my ears.
This made Jiang Ran feel extremely comfortable.
“It feels so good!”
Fu Bo leaned against the car window and sighed slowly.
"I'm used to riding this hovercar on the capital planet, so why does it feel so different now?"
Jiang Ran also leaned against the window at the other end.
She heard the voice and raised her eyes slowly after a long while: "Things are valuable because they are rare?"
"It shouldn't be just that," Fu Bo thought carefully for a while before saying, "I think even after the competition is over, if I'm still on Earth, I'll probably still want to ride the hovercar more."
After hearing this, Jiang Ran became a little interested.
However, she did not answer immediately, but thought seriously.
Fu Bo didn't care about her performance and continued, "It's a pity that it's only an hour. It would be better if we had more time."
"If I had two hours, I'd like to go see Papua... Do all of the country's 600-plus islands look like this? Are there sinkholes and underground waterfalls on other islands?"
"If I had three hours, I would like to fly further and see what the end of this vast ocean looks like."
"Could it be the Amazon rainforest we've visited before? Could it be that vast expanse of white glaciers and snowfields?"
"If I had five hours, I would go to the pole of the earth and take a look."
"We were all eliminated early in the last game, and we can only see the finished film after returning to the capital planet."
"You and Xu Yang have both seen the aurora borealis in the Arctic. It's really beautiful. I also want to go to the pole and see it with my own eyes."
“…”
Jiang Ran listened carefully to Fu Bo's fantasy, and then cruelly and ruthlessly shattered his dream.
"The Pacific Ocean stretches over 15,000 kilometers from north to south and 19,000 kilometers from east to west... Crossing it in under three hours is a pipe dream, even with a hovercraft."
"Also, going to the end of the Pacific Ocean to see the Amazon is a bit of a stretch, but Iceland is still separated from here by the Afro-Asian continental plate... You should really study geography."
Fu Bo: “…”
"Are you not allowing me to dream?"
He said aggrievedly.
Jiang Ran laughed twice and stopped joking with him.
She was much more serious this time. "Have you ever thought about this? Maybe it's not the hovercar that attracts you, but the Earth?"
"Earth?" Fu Bo pondered for a moment, not knowing what he had thought of. Suddenly, he excitedly pumped his fists. "Right, it's Earth that I long for! So, I want to ride the hover car just to see it more conveniently."
Jiang Ran saw Fu Bo's happy expression and seemed to be lost in thought.
Fu Bo was still excited: "I like the show 'Back to Earth' so much. I've been busy with it and participated in three consecutive seasons without missing a single one..."
"Actually, it's not just because of you guys," Fu Bo's eyes were brighter than ever before, "In fact, the bigger reason is that I like it here!"
What attracted Fu Bo...was it always the Earth?
Jiang Ran couldn't help but recall the scenes on the capital planet.
The capital star is like a tightly-operated machine.
Its native environment isn't as high-quality and habitable as Earth's. The biggest reason it's become the center of the entire federation is that it's permanently enveloped in a state-of-the-art protective shield, isolating virtually all cosmic rays that could be harmful to the human body...
At the same time, light is also isolated.
There is no light on the capital star under the isolation shield.
Because people can't stand an environment that is too cold and dark, after the rapid development of science and technology, people have successfully created an artificial sun. It appears in the sky strictly at a frequency of twelve hours a day, so there is never any distinction between winter and summer time on the capital planet.
The artificial sun is imitated accurately and precisely, but various natural ecosystems, such as rain, dark clouds, frost, etc., are gradually moving away from people's lives.
People like Aaron, who have a variety of housing needs, are a minority among the minority.
In most residential areas, all the houses are of the same construction and decorated in the same way, under the pretext of aesthetics.
The streets are very narrow.
The dense population occupies a large area of land, leaving not much space for passing vehicles, and the roads on the streets are built into narrow strips.
The hover car was born under such circumstances. It can make the spacious sky a new traffic channel, so it became very popular as soon as it was launched.
…
Jiang Ran couldn't help but think about it.
In the interstellar age, the people of the Federation have become increasingly lazy and less willing to go out. This is probably due to this reason, right?
When there is no expectation when going out every day and the scenery you see is always the same, who would still be willing to go out?
When the first season of Back to Earth aired, it was a show that was created in response to a call from the federal government.
At that time, it was said that wilderness exploration was the way to attract federal citizens to go out, walk, and exercise. Looking back now, it actually increased their yearning for the earth.
Fu Bo was still chattering on and on, analyzing the various reasons why he liked the Earth.
Jiang Ran listened to it roughly and found that it almost perfectly confirmed her guess.
Jiang Ran said, "If everyone has the same idea as you, the world will be able to develop tourism in the future, and many people will definitely come."
"Travel?" Fu Bo chewed on the word carefully, his eyes suddenly brightening, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Do you really think this can be done?"
Jiang Ran had only said it casually, and he hadn't expected Fu Bo to react so strongly. He hesitated for a moment: "After all, the Earth is too far away from the capital planet..."
"Oh, that's not something I want to consider." Fu Bo waved his hand.
"So what are you considering?"
"Think about how to bring this up with my brother!" Fu Bo said matter-of-factly. "You don't think... I'm going to do such a big thing on my own, do you?"
"Haha," Jiang Ran smiled, "I overestimated you."
They wandered leisurely on the sea, sometimes rising to the high altitude where clouds were dense, and sometimes falling to the sea surface, flying along with the seagulls hunting at low altitude.
Although there is no sea breeze, you can still hear the sound of the sea breeze passing through the holes on the top of the car, which is very peaceful.
Jiang Ran only rented the hover car for an hour, which was not too long. After going around a few times, there was not much time left.
When the time was almost up, they controlled the hovercraft to rush back. When passing by a sea area near the island, Fu Bo suddenly pointed his hand to the sea not far away.
"What is that white thing?"
At first glance, Jiang Ran thought it was a large pile of garbage, but when he thought about it carefully, humans had left the earth for thousands of years. Could there still be such a large pile of garbage floating in the ocean?
And it's all pure white.
This is obviously unreasonable.
Only after driving the hover car and taking a closer look did Jiang Ran become certain of what he saw.
"That's a humpback whale!" she cried out.
"Humpback whale?" Fu Bo looked up in confusion. "Does it like sitting on its head?"
Jiang Ran covered his forehead helplessly: "That's a kind of whale, humpback whale is its name."
"Whales?" Fu Bo looked suspicious. "Don't try to fool me. I've seen whales in the past few days. How could they be white?"
"Take a closer look," Jiang Ran said helplessly, "the white part is its belly. It's lying on the sea surface basking in the sun."
Upon hearing this, Fu Bo looked at it doubtfully.
"Yeah, it seems to be true," Fu Bo said, stroking his head, "but this kind of whale is so lazy, actually basking in the sun in broad daylight, just like Bian Zhaoyou."
Jiang Ran laughed when he heard it. Just as he was about to speak, a familiar metallic sound suddenly rang out from the control panel of the hovercraft.
"I heard it."
This was obviously Bian Zhao's voice.
It even has the long-awaited stuttering sound effect.
Fu Bo and Jiang Ran: "..."
After a long while, seeing that Fu Bo was completely dumbfounded, Jiang Ran could only sigh.
She took the initiative to greet Bian Zhao, then asked, "Did you install an eavesdropping device on the hovercraft? Isn't that against the rules?"
Before Bian Zhao could say anything, Fu Bo suddenly came to life when he heard the word "eavesdropping." "That's right! According to Article 1021 of the Federal Law, anyone who eavesdrops on someone's private content without their permission will be fined a minimum of 30,000 federal coins, with no upper limit!"
When Jiang Ran heard this, he immediately gave Fu Bo a thumbs up.
As expected of a top student in the Law School of the Federal University, he is still useful at critical moments.
With legal basis, Jiang Ran suddenly felt more confident.
She negotiated with Bian Zhao in a rather tough manner: "How about this, we are friends after all, and I don't need you to compensate me with tens of thousands of federal coins. Just waive my rental fee for this trip, and I won't argue with you for more."
Fu Bo immediately shouted even more cheerfully: "Free rent! Free rent! Free rent!"
Jiang Ran glanced at him and said lightly, "I asked Bian Zhao to waive my rent, but I didn't ask to waive yours."
Fu Bo: "..." A profiteer! A big profiteer!
However, the next second, Bian Zhao also made a hard metallic sound.
"Who said I planted a bug? Do you have any evidence?"
"Stop struggling."
Jiang Ran was very confident: "You just said 'you heard it', doesn't that mean you eavesdropped on our conversation?"
"I did hear it," Bian Zhao said calmly, "because I installed an intelligent system on the hovercar. Whenever a passenger mentions my name, it will automatically transmit the conversation content of the previous and next ten seconds to me."
"Article 127 of Federal Law provides that if a third party's name is mentioned in any conversation or other content, the third party has the right to know."
At this point, Bian Zhao snorted coldly, "If you haven't learned what you should learn, don't show off outside casually. Otherwise, it will be embarrassing if you embarrass others. What do you think?"
Jiang Ran and Fu Bo were silent for a moment.
Who could have imagined that Bian Zhao was so cruel that he even installed a smart device just to wait for others to mention her?
After a while.
Jiang Ran said to Fu Bo, "Did you hear that? Don't show off if you haven't learned well."
"Haha," Fu Bo sneered, and leaned his head with his hands behind his head. "Anyway, it's you who can't avoid the rent, not me."
Jiang Ran: “…”
You have to bear the consequences of your own sins.
"Excuse me for reminding you."
Bian Zhao's connection hadn't been disconnected yet. She slowly said, "You have six minutes left in your hovercar rental. If you haven't returned to the designated location by the time the delay is due, a delay fee of 2,000 cents per minute will be deducted."
Two thousand points per minute?
This isn't the way to grab points, right?
Not to mention Jiang Ran, even Fu Bo was panicked when he heard it.
At this point, he knew very well that if he really had to pay the delay fee, Jiang Ran would definitely not be able to bear it alone.
The two men hurriedly adjusted the direction and speed of the hovercraft and quickly rushed towards the camp.
[The straight-line distance to the destination is 3,000 meters, and it is expected to arrive in 4 minutes and 30 seconds]
It wasn't until this line of words popped up on the control screen that Jiang Ran and Fu Bo both breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, fortunately, I can just catch up.
When they felt a little more relaxed, they remembered that Bian Zhao was connected to the line.
Since Bian Zhao reminded them in time and did not actually make them pay the high delay fee, then no matter what, they should be grateful to Bian Zhao.
The two looked at each other and were about to say thank you when Bian Zhao's voice suddenly came from the control panel.
"After this order is completed, Jiang Ran and Fu Bo will lose their trading qualifications, and I will no longer provide them with any items. This includes but is not limited to the rental or sublease of hovercraft, the purchase of food and beverages, etc."
Jiang Ran and Fu Bo: "..."
It turns out that Bian Zhao still remembers sorrow?
This is a difficult situation.
Not to mention whether the sublease of the hovercraft can be successful, the mere fact that the sale of food and drinks is not allowed is very uncomfortable.
Jiang Ran couldn't help but recall the glutinous rice dumplings he had eaten this morning. They were fragrant and plump, with the rice grains gathered together, and the seaweed used to wrap them still exuded a faint fragrance.
Although Jiang Ran is also a first-class cook in the wild, since there are ready-made delicacies that can be bought with just a few points, who would want to cook by themselves?
This won't work.
However, Jiang Ran considered his words and was about to discuss it with Bian Zhao again when he suddenly heard cheers coming from the other end of the line.
Jiang Ran: “?”
"Excuse me."
Bian Zhao said without apology: "Everyone seems very happy that there are two less competitors for shopping."
She said leisurely, "Since that's the case, I can't go against public opinion. I must do what I say."
Jiang Ran endured it again and again: "How many people are there on your side?"
Bian Zhao said without hesitation: "About thirty to fifty people, all waiting to rent hovercrafts and queue up to buy food."
As soon as he finished speaking, Bian Zhao cut off the communication line, and a long "beep" sound came from the console.
Jiang Ran and Fu Bo were left looking at each other in bewilderment.
Good boy! Just now when the two of them were preaching the law to Bian Zhao...
So many people are listening right next to Bian Zhao?
The hovercraft had already set the course, speed and destination, so they didn't need to worry about it. It just kept moving forward quickly.
Jiang Ran looked at Fu Bo for a long moment before patting him on the shoulder. "Do you, the law department... consider your reputation when it comes to employment? After all, if this scene is edited into the main film, there might be a lot of people..."
Fu Bo didn't even think about it: "Of course I'll consider it."
ah……
Isn’t that too miserable?
Just because of this season's show, Fu Bo will face unemployment after graduation?
Jiang Ran was just about to comfort him when he saw Fu Bo open his mouth excitedly.
"This way, I don't have to go into law after graduation!" He looked very happy.
Jiang Ran was extremely confused: "This..." Is this something worth being happy about?
The next second, Fu Bo almost jumped up.
He said, "I finally have a legitimate reason to convince my brother to stop pursuing law and pursue gaming after graduation!"
Jiang Ran: “…”
Where is your previous professional legal spirit?
The author has something to say:
Fu Bo: The spirit of law? What is that? Is it edible?
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