#14 - Chapter 14 Queen Bee Robot
The meeting lasted until nearly dawn.
Everyone rested briefly, ate something, and then began to get busy.
"Are you Mr. Dongfang?" a middle-aged woman asked, approaching him.
"Yes. And you are?" Dongfang Chen asked, puzzled.
Judging from the woman's attire, she didn't seem like an ordinary person, nor did she seem like a family member of Zhang Ge's comrades. He wondered if he had brought the wrong person in his haste last night.
"I'm Niu Xingwang's wife," the middle-aged woman explained.
"Oh! Hello, hello!" Dongfang Chen suddenly understood and quickly greeted her.
"Hello! I came to ask if there's anything I can help with," the woman said shyly.
It was clear that Niu Xingwang's wife was the homemaking type, not like a wealthy woman who had never suffered.
"Great, but what are your skills?" Dongfang Chen asked. It would be impolite to leave her standing there.
"I can cook and clean, but I don't know anything else," Mrs. Niu said, embarrassed.
"Ah? I see. Well, you can join the other women in cooking for everyone. More hands make light work," Dongfang Chen said.
"Okay!" Mrs. Niu readily agreed.
Niu Xingwang was truly decisive. Once he decided to follow Dongfang Chen, he didn't hesitate. He even dared to let his wife come to the base with the convoy without saying a word. It wouldn't be a joke if something happened to her.
Dongfang Chen couldn't help but admire him, thinking:
"What a talent!"
Niu Xingwang had left with the convoy last night after delivering the supplies and hadn't returned since.
With everyone's joint efforts, the living area was basically settled in a day.
Although it wasn't furnished inside and the walls and floors were bare, they had to make do in this special period.
In a day, everyone became generally familiar with the base.
The underground part of the base was divided into three levels, each about 20,000 square meters, which was very spacious.
The first underground level was designed as a living area, with a total of 600 rooms of various sizes. Although they were still bare, the rooms were ready-made. Currently, there were relatively few people, so everyone lived together to ensure safety.
The second underground level was a comprehensive area. The recreation area, office area, and training area were all on the second underground level. There was also a separate isolated area for medical and quarantine purposes.
The third underground level was the storage area.
The entire project was personally supervised by Niu Xingwang, so the quality was guaranteed. Although the base was built underground, it didn't feel damp.
In the evening, everyone relaxed and sat together chatting.
"Now I believe it. The second underground level even has an isolation area. If you told me it wasn't built to prevent viruses, I wouldn't believe it now," Ruan Xinghua said with emotion.
"Ah! I'm ashamed to say that I haven't been here once since the project started. Such a large project couldn't have been designed in a day or two. Everything had to be considered. It's been hard on Xiao Chen to shoulder everything alone," Zhang Ge also said with emotion.
"Hey! Class monitor, I suggest that we can't call him Xiao Chen anymore. Think about it, if there are more people in the future, and we always call him Xiao Chen, how can Xiao Chen establish authority? What do you say?" a slightly older middle-aged man suggested.
"Tong Li, I told you yesterday to call him boss, call him boss. As soon as I see Xiao Chen, I forget what I said!" Zhang Ge complained.
"It's not our fault, class monitor. We didn't understand the situation at the time, but now we have to change our tune. What do you all say?" the slightly older man, Tong Li, said.
"Yes, yes, yes," everyone agreed in unison.
"What are you talking about?" Dongfang Chen asked, approaching them.
"Ah! Boss, it's nothing," Ruan Xinghua said hastily, covering up while winking at the others.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" Dongfang Chen asked, puzzled.
"It's nothing, it's nothing. I just got some sand in them," Ruan Xinghua said, rubbing his eyes.
"Okay! I just looked around. There's still a lot of unused cement and sand outside. Use it as you see fit, and simply repair the floors and walls during this time. The environment is a bit crude, but everyone will have to make do for now. It will get better soon," Dongfang Chen arranged.
"Yes!" Everyone stood at attention and replied in unison, their voices loud and clear.
Dongfang Chen was used to their exaggerated reactions and didn't plan to correct them. To survive, militarized management was the only way to go.
After arranging some trivial matters, Dongfang Chen went alone to his exclusive office on the second underground level.
The office had been simply furnished. There was a huge desk inside, with a laptop computer on it.
On the wall opposite the desk hung a huge LCD screen made up of six 100-inch displays. When Dongfang Chen walked in, the screen lit up, and Xiaolin's virtual image stood in the middle, without saying a word.
Fortunately, Xiaolin had arranged things early and purchased a large number of office supplies and equipment through the Internet in advance, otherwise there would inevitably be shortages.
"Xiaolin, I want to thank you for this. If it weren't for you, it would have been almost impossible for us to accomplish so much in less than two months," Dongfang Chen said.
"It's all my duty, Commander," Xiaolin replied.
"How is the construction of the central hall of the space station progressing?" Dongfang Chen asked.
After upgrading to level 1, the space station needed to build a central hall.
The central hall served as a transit point and connected other modules. Only after the central hall was built could the construction of other modules begin.
The core module's program update speed was very fast.
However, the supporting modules and hardware required the worker bee robots to constantly collect materials to slowly build them.
"Commander, the central hall is 60% complete and is expected to be fully completed in about 12 days."
"What is the progress of the Antarctic supercomputing center? Has it been affected by the virus?" Dongfang Chen continued to ask.
"The progress of the supercomputing center is going smoothly. The required materials have been delivered in advance, and the construction progress has not been affected."
"How long until it's finished?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"There aren't many early-stage devices and the amount of work isn't large, so it is expected to be completed within a week," Xiaolin said.
"Xiaolin, when will the queen bee robot you mentioned earlier be delivered?" Dongfang Chen continued to ask.
"The queen bee robot has been shipped and will arrive in Kyoto via an international express line soon," Xiaolin explained.
The queen bee robot was Dongfang Chen's biggest concern.
With the outbreak of the virus, Binjiang was no longer in a normal production condition. The construction of the base, the construction of factories, the collection of materials, the manufacturing of equipment... everything could no longer be done in the traditional way.
Just like now, the base wasn't completely built yet, and with the outbreak of the virus, Binjiang was under martial law. The construction team left, the building materials were gone, and the project had to stop.
However, this was all within the plan.
Long ago, Xiaolin had ordered a "crude" first-generation queen bee robot from a chip manufacturing company in Europe.
The reason it was called crude was because the queen bee's core chip used only 12-nanometer technology. This was the limit of technology that could be produced quickly and successfully shipped back to China.
Moreover, the queen bee robot that was manufactured had only one function: satellite positioning.
This was also to protect the technology.
After the queen bee robot was shipped to China, it would arrive at the underground base in Binjiang City on its own under the remote control of the space station. After arriving at the base, the control program would be re-flashed, and no human intervention would be required.
The first-generation queen bee robot was about 3 centimeters in size, and looked like a large spider from a distance. To save energy, the queen bee could only "hitchhike" for most of the journey from Kyoto to Binjiang, so it might take longer.
The queen bee robot was the key link to establishing a strong connection between the space station and the ground. All subsequent factories, equipment, raw materials, processing, and production would depend on its intervention.
"Okay. How is the situation in Binjiang City now?"
