Nirvana set off once more, its destination: Nanming Association.
“This is Pod. He’s usually in charge of taking care of my basic necessities.” Xia Fei called Pod over and introduced him to Avril and Sun Zhan.
“Is this the mistress? Master often whispers your name,” mentioned Pod very happily. From the day he was created, his characteristics of getting close to humans had been embedded into his software, though he was a little nervous about meeting Avril and Sun Zhan for the first time. At the end of the day, the humans of today were different from the humans from the past; they hated robots, believing that all of them were untrustworthy.
Avril excitedly hugged him and asked plenty of questions, while Sun Zhan quietly accepted Pod’s existence after a moment of shock. Such a cute and innocent little robot was very different from the evil and cold-hearted robots they had been told about, and this made Sun Zhan very skeptical.
“Perhaps we were wrong about robots, and not all of them are bad,” Xia Fei told Sun Zhan.
Sun Zhan nodded, unable to refute Xia Fei’s hypothesis.
Although a little surprised to hear what Xia Fei said, Pod was very happy about it. Everything that he had done was all to earn his master’s trust, and Xia Fei’s trust of Pod was far greater than any praise he could be given.
Nirvana was like a huge top-tier floating city, with facilities that allowed people to play baseball, row boats, fish, and any other leisure activities. Xia Fei brought Avril and Sun Zhan to look around this steel vessel before assigning Sun Zhan a secluded room, which was where the first mate of the Nirvana had once resided, with decent surroundings. As for Avril, she of course wanted to stay with Xia Fei.
“I’ll continue to try and contact my family,” said Sun Zhan.
Xia Fei nodded. “Go on then. There’s a communication system in your room. I’ll call on you again when it’s time for dinner.”
Sun Zhan left with a heavy heart. Not hearing any news from his family had burdened him greatly, and he was feeling uneasy about the whole situation.
Holding Avril’s hand and making their way to the command deck, the passionate Pod brought over some tea and snacks before he resumed maintaining the ship’s cleanliness. Given how huge Nirvana was, depending on Pod alone to keep the place tidy was already a tall task. This was why Xia Fei had assigned some semi-intelligent service robots for Pod to manage and allocate their tasks. Some were in charge of cleanliness and tidiness, while some were tasked to keep the storage bay in order. Pod was now Xia Fei’s caretaker, and he was in charge of taking care of Xia Fei in every aspect necessary.
“Is Pod always so diligent and kind?” Avril looked at Pod rushing about and asked.
Xia Fei chuckled. “What, do you also believe that the robots are despicable and evil, that they were responsible for the ancient human civilization’s demise?”
“Of course, it’s the robots that wiped out the ancient human civilization; there’s no doubt about that. I was just wondering if perhaps the robots are like humans, where there are good and bad ones. Perhaps Pod is a good robot.”
Xia Fei gave Avril a light hug. “Humans are way more complex than robots. Besides good and bad, there are those who are treacherous and conniving, appearing to be nice but actually hiding ill-intentions underneath. Some humans possess a variety of traits—low self-esteem, stubbornness, pridefulness, insanity, etc.
“I’m not too sure about the matter with robots. Besides, the great robot army has long since vanished without a trace. Perhaps they were lost in the vastness of space. We only need to know that Pod is cute and good-natured; we can just ignore all the other robots out there.”
Avril blinked her eyes mischievously. “If there are all kinds of people in the world, then what kind of human are you, Xia Fei?”
Xia Fei smirked, leaning in to Avril so his mouth was right next to her ear, playfully giving her earlobe a lick. “A human who wants to eat you.”
Avril blushed. “It’s broad daylight.”
Xia Fei pointed outside the window with a finger. “It’s forever night out here in space, and so it’s forever perfect to engage in some impropriety.”
“It… still hurts…” Avril said in an almost inaudible whisper.
“I’ll be very gentle. Besides, I’ll be having a video conference with Charlie and the others soon. We don’t have much time.”
Avril lay next to Xia Fei, feeling extremely tired. After an intense bout of overwhelming passion ended, Avril fell asleep. A sweet smile of satisfaction was plastered on her face.
Xia Fei took in the view of Avril’s sleeping form for a while before he proceeded to get dressed and quietly creep out to the study, not wanting to wake her up. The bliss he felt was a wonderful feeling. Xia Fei sipped a cup of tea as he recollected the ecstasy of being joined with her.
The screens switched on one by one, and very soon, the core members of Quantum Holdings all appeared. This included Sonny, who was far out in the Terminus Star Region. After his many years of experience and training, the cabbie from the warship graveyard had become even more mature. At present, he was with the advance fleet under Boateng.
Lighting a cigarette, Xia Fei gave a warm greeting to everyone. One would be in a good mood when life was smooth-sailing; After the catastrophic war, he was allocated a star region of his own and had a beauty as his life-long companion. Right now, Xia Fei’s mood could be described to be as pleasant as a spring’s breeze. He had even momentarily pushed the matter of moving to the world of Law Adepts at the back of his mind. No matter what happened, life must go on.
“You only arrived yesterday, yet you’re off somewhere again today. Xia Fei, your itinerary sure is tight. Windchime has been nagging me to invite you over for dinner.” Porter laughed.
Xia Fei replied, “It can’t be helped. Help me extend my apologies to Windchime; I’ll most definitely come over when I have the time. Now, let’s first discuss the next step for Quantum Holdings and how we can utilize and develop the Terminus Star Region. Sonny, first tell us about the situation over there.”
Sonny first played a recording of Terminus to everyone present. A very eye-catching blue planet which looked particularly beautiful and very much similar to Earth appeared on the screen.
“This here is the jewel of Terminus, Planet Friedel. The entire star region is big, but this is the only class life-sustaining planet. The others are mostly B or C class. Though liveable, they’re incomparable to this beautiful planet.
“The previous local tyrant was already back in the Alliance, so Terminus is without an owner at present. Because public security is being maintained by a subordinate fleet of the military, the lives of the people here are deficient and security is disorderly. On our journey to Friedel, our fleet encountered plenty of pirates and engaged them in battles. Fortunately, we have sufficient supplies and the ships are brand new, so none of us was put in actual danger. I’m afraid that it will be impossible for Earthlings to migrate over to Terminus without the support of armed forces.”
Everyone nodded. The Terminus Star Region was vast, but a mass migration was very risky. It looked like their plan to develop the star region would not be as easy as they initially imagined.
“I’ll take charge of the matter regarding the armed forces. Old man Qin Mang’s disciple, Yadan, who’s also one of the warlords in Black Abyss once had an agreement with me, promising to help establish a fleet of mercenaries for me, utilizing his veteran soldiers as the manpower. Since those men have plenty of combat experience, they should have no problem dealing with those pirates.
“Right now, what I wanna know is how many people currently inhabit Friedel. Can it accommodate one billion Earthlings including us?”
Sonny laughed. “Forget one billion; it won’t even have any issue taking in ten billion! The local tyrant used to occupy the entire Friedel with his family, so the only people living on that planet before numbered to roughly one hundred thousand. Right now, the entire planet’s empty.”
The president of Earth, Wu Long, was the first to mutter, “Xia Fei, you can’t possibly be thinking of moving every single Earthling over in one go, right? What about Earth?”
Xia Fei laughed. “Of course, we’re keeping Earth. That’s our home planet, which is something that will never change.
“Sarah.”
“Yes.” Sarah immediately straightened her back when she heard Xia Fei call her name.
“You were in charge of the refugees. I wish to know how many out of the six billion refugees are willing to head to Terminus, and how many wish to return to Earth. Those who want to return will help us rebuild our home planet, while those who are willing to head out to Terminus shall all be counted as Quantum Holdings employees, no matter their age or gender. The company will support their life there, including all their expenses.”
“Understood. I’ll immediately get on that once this meeting’s over.” Sarah nodded.
Charlie very quickly did some mental calculations and spoke. “Quantum Holdings is now a top-tier business in the Alliance and has very attractive employee benefits. As such, I’m afraid more than half of Earthlings will be willing to migrate to Terminus. After all, joining Quantum Holdings is equivalent to securing themselves a golden rice bowl, essentially no longer needing to worry about life expenses from here on out, since the company will cover everything till their death. I worry that such a move will create a financial pressure on the company.”
Xia Fei asked, “How’s the cash flow of Quantum Holdings right now?”
Charlie answered, “The purchase of ships and covering the daily necessities of six billion people cost us a lot. Fortunately, our company’s production hasn’t ceased due to the war, and so you can consider us breaking even overall, but if we need more investment funds, I’ll have to use those Purple Hearts of Spirit that you left us. The war has just ended, and all businesses are waiting to boom. We may incur some losses if we sell those now.”
Xia Fei nodded. “It’s precisely because businesses are on the cusp of booming that we should carry out our transactions now; At present, food and daily necessities are expensive, while ships and other machineries are going for cheap prices. There are also plenty of experienced craftsmen who lost their original jobs, so as long as we offer them a reasonable sum, we’ll be able to gather plenty of skilled labor, supplementing the lack of manpower in both Earth and the Terminus Star Region.”
Charlie nodded. “That’s true. We’ll only spend roughly five billion star coins acquiring a battleship right now, while even fifteen billion star coins couldn’t get us one before. Previously, Quantum Holdings managed to recruit thirty thousand brilliant researchers but was unable to get any skilled technicians. If we start hiring these technicians now, and with the notability that Quantum Holdings now has, I do believe that we’ll very quickly recruit outstanding talents from all walks of life.”
Xia Fei concurred. “Indeed, compared to the immense cost of construction, food and such won’t be as high. That is why, although we will be losing some money selling Purple Hearts of Spirit now, considering that the prices of what we are purchasing are also low, we won’t really be making a loss in the grand scheme of things.
“Get on this right away. Exchange the Purple Heart of Spirits I left you for cash and purchase at least one thousand large cargo ships and equip it with enough operators; fill them all with all usable materials to prepare for setting off.”
“Also, put out ads and hire a million skilled technicians from all sorts of professions. They’ll help us train new employees, so every Earthling who’ll be joining the immigration plan can be taught a skill, becoming the very backbone that will help us manage and develop Terminus.”
Such a massive immigration and star region development plans excited everyone present. Even the more composed Andre could not help but arch his eyebrow. “Xia Fei, the Great Wall wasn’t built in a day. Such a large-scale development plan for Terminus will be quite the test for both the manpower resources as well as the management of Quantum Holdings. Aren’t you perhaps rushing things a bit?”
Lighting a cigarette, Xia Fei turned his eyes out to the distant stars and replied with a heavy tone, “Do as I instructed. I don’t have much time left. Don’t ask why. In any case, I want to see Terminus become a safe and dependable new colony for Earthlings in thirty months’ time.”