Chapter 243: Upgrading_1

Shi Qiang remained silent for a long time after hearing Jiang Yu's story, then finally picked up his glass and laughed, "Congratulations, little brother, on getting married!"

Jiang Yu clinked glasses with him, "Consider this meal as making up for the wedding banquet I owe you. Let's forget about the gift money, I guess you got a bargain, as I heard gift money is out of fashion now."

Shi Qiang laughed, "Once I get used to the modern environment, I'll make up for it with a congratulatory gift for both of you."

He poured himself another glass of wine, "The second toast is still to you, thanks for taking care of Xiaoming."

Jiang Yu didn't refuse and drank the wine, then he took a bite of food before saying, "Back then, the Star Defense Department paid for two hundred years of your hibernation fees. Now that it has 'expired,' they've woken you up.

"This was handled through the Asian Fleet; being an Earth citizen, Xiaoming doesn't know about you waking up.

"Xiaoming also went into hibernation later. I asked You Ze to look it up and he woke up from hibernation a few years ago, even got married and started a family.

"However, he doesn't live in the underground city. I'll give you his contact later, so you can look for him once you've had some time to adjust."

Shi Qiang nodded, "Okay!"

Jiang Yu sighed, "I have to set off for Jupiter tomorrow, and I might need to stay there for the next couple of years. I'll come and drink with you when I return."

After finishing his words, he gave You Ze a knowing look, who understood and took out three packs of cigarettes from his bag and handed them to Shi Qiang.

Jiang Yu said, "The electronic cigarettes nowadays are too unpleasant to smoke. These three packs are for you. Once you've smoked them, you can go and buy more at the Desert North Farm.

"I've already spoken to them over there; they'll give you a cost price.

"Oh, the Desert North Farm also sells cigars, though I don't know if they taste authentic. Either way, it's all at cost price.

"Although these are now considered luxury goods, you should be able to afford them with your pension."

Shi Qiang cheerfully accepted, "Then I won't stand on ceremony!"

He paused, then spoke earnestly, "Have a safe journey!"

"Thank you," Jiang Yu nodded. "These cigarettes aren't free, though. There's something I want to ask for your help with."

"Go ahead."

"Teacher Luo Ji is about to wake up, and I want to ask you to protect him."

Shi Qiang was stunned, "Isn't the ETO already gone?"

Jiang Yu looked at Shi Qiang, "You have no idea how much ETO wants to kill him! If the ETO has a backup plan, the consequences would be unthinkable!

"Da Shi, the war is finally coming to a head, and we cannot afford to let our guard down now," he continued.

Shi Qiang grew serious, "Rest assured, go to Jupiter. Even though I don't know what you're planning, I support your plan one hundred percent. Leave Luo Ji to me; I'll make sure not a hair on his head is harmed."

Jiang Yu raised his glass, "Come! Let's drink!"

...

The next day, Jiang Yu said his reluctant goodbyes to Shi Qiang and returned to the Desert North Farm. Then he boarded the shuttle that had been waiting in low Earth orbit and boarded the waiting spaceship.

Jiang Yu left You Ze on Earth, entrusting him with a mission and leaving all the armed robots with him.

After a few days of travel, Jiang Yu rendezvoused with Number Three, which had been on standby in Mars Orbit. The fleet started accelerating for half a month, heading towards Jupiter.

Even though today's nuclear engines had made significant progress, with a top speed reaching 15% of the speed of light, the journey to Jupiter still required nearly two months.

That top speed was just that, the top speed typically reserved for trips to Neptune or the Kuiper Belt, where the nuclear engines' maximum capabilities could be utilized.

The distance from Earth to Jupiter isn't even enough to accelerate to maximum speed before arriving.

But just arriving isn't enough, you still have to decelerate!

So generally speaking, the journey from Earth to Jupiter involves accelerating for half a month, and once you reach about 1% of the speed of light, you start to glide. When entering the main asteroid belt, you have to begin decelerating.

The deceleration process is even more prolonged than the acceleration process.

That's why Jiang Yu said this was just a repeating crossbow— the entire flight process was just like the old "Apollo" Mars missions, and so on.

The only difference was that the nuclear engines didn't require such a large fuel consumption, which made space travel more common, but it still took a lot of time.

Moreover, the Solar System is always moving, and all the planets are moving, too. The spacecraft's trajectory isn't a straight line, but a semi-helical parabola.

The distance of the parabola is naturally much longer than a straight line, which is one of the main reasons for the time consumption of space travel.

You Ze didn't come along, so there weren't even enough people to set up a card game on the ship. Jiang Yu just moped around in his room playing games or sat next to the panoramic window, staring blankly at the stars outside.

When the journey was halfway through, Jiang Yu realized he had been deceived by a science popularization image.

In many science popularization images, the main belt asteroids seem very dense, but looking out from the panoramic window, there was nothing.

During a casual chat with the pilot, Jiang Yu learned that the front of the spacecraft was fitted with steel plates to prevent meteorite strikes, and if a collision occurred, it would be felt throughout the ship.

But so far, there had not been a single meteorite collision.

The pilot said that in his years of flying spacecraft, he had only encountered a meteorite strike once, and one other time, a small asteroid.

However, even with the asteroid, you could only see it on the radar; it was invisible to the naked eye.

Usually, if you're far from an asteroid, the computer will automatically modify the course, and ordinary spacecraft can't collide with them. Even with steel plates, it's not feasible.

The pilot's experiences did attest to the sparseness of the main asteroid belt.

This journey allowed Jiang Yu to experience firsthand the vastness of space. Despite the many asteroids and dwarf planets in this region, the probability of encountering them during a journey is extremely low.

Just as Jiang Yu was sitting in front of the panoramic window and feeling contemplative, a line of text appeared in his mind: Detecting the host's entry into the main asteroid belt, the Wallfacer's Shop has been automatically upgraded!

Jiang Yu was startled. What upgrade?

He quickly entered the Wallfacer's Shop with his consciousness and found three new items appeared on the grey shelves.

The first item was a grey little fireball that seemed to have faint grey flames burning.

To unlock this item, you needed ten million Deception Points, and Jiang Yu had amassed nearly two hundred million Deception Points during his hibernation.

Just a few days ago, he felt it was a pity to have so many Deception Points with nowhere to spend them. Now, he decisively unlocked the item.

The grey fireball immediately turned red, with a line of small print below it: Bernard Star Overview.

Jiang Yu was astonished and quickly looked up the information on his computer. It turned out that Bernard's Star was a star about 5.8 light-years from Earth, the closest star to Earth after Trisolaris.

Jiang Yu was so excited that he felt the hairs on his back stand on end, "It's like whatever I think of appears!"

To purchase the "Bernard Star Overview," you need ten million Deception Points, and Jiang Yu didn't hesitate to buy it.

Then in Jiang Yu's mind appeared a dark red dot, with a text introduction beside it: This is an ancient star, roughly 10.3 billion years old. In the long process of burning for billions of years, it has exhausted most of its own energy and is now just a not-so-massive red dwarf star.

The red dot rapidly enlarged, and Jiang Yu saw around Bernard's Star three exoplanets of various sizes, along with two gas giant planets and an asteroid belt.

Next to each planet, there was a text introduction. Even though it was a simple description of the planets' conditions, it was still very valuable intelligence for Jiang Yu!