Revisit Azur Lane

Jarvis woke Zhou He, who was staring out the window in a daze, and his meticulous little face showed a slight furrow in his delicate eyebrows: "You don't seem to be in good condition. Why don't you go and rest first?"

"Ahem, sorry, this is my first time getting so close to a storm, it feels very novel."

This wasn't the first time Zhou He had been brought back to his senses. He rubbed his neck and smiled awkwardly, glancing at the apocalyptic scene outside the window before returning to his workstation: "Everyone's hungry too, so let me give it my all."

"Whatever makes you happy. But if you get distracted again, don't blame me for kicking you out."

Jarvis's response was very direct, as if the order of superiors and subordinates had been reversed, but she was the one in the right. Zhou He, who was standing in the kitchen in a daze, not only did not work, but also distracted them and delayed the progress.

"Not anymore."

Zhou He took a breath and began to carefully examine the ingredients that Hermione and Jinqu had prepared, mentally constructing the recipes—his first job in the port district that brought him a sense of accomplishment was cooking. Watching Yuudachi, Zuikaku, and many others enjoying their meal together, he felt that this was what life should be like.

No matter how much you slack off, you can't lose this skill.

Soon, Zhou He picked up a pot and ladle and got to work, significantly improving his cooking efficiency. The three maids' roles also changed: Hermione started making soup, while Ambition and Jarvis prepared the ingredients. An hour later…

"I think it will be necessary to dig a tunnel under each dormitory that leads directly to the cafeteria in the future."

Sitting at the dining table, Zhou He, his hands trembling slightly as he held the bowl, addressed the crowd.

In front of him was a table of various dishes, which cost a total of five Homeland Coins. After removing the scraps, there were a total of forty-eight catties of edible parts, all of which were here.

He really couldn't handle cooking for thirty people without Manjiu's help.

"We may not be fighting against ominous signs as often as we do in the future."

At the table that had been pieced together, Ruihe cleverly took a spot close to Zhou He, eating voraciously while talking to him. Xianghe, sitting next to her, wanted to scold her for talking while eating, but since Zhou He had started it, she couldn't say it. She could only smile and help Ruihe pick up food for him, so much so that Ruihe couldn't finish it all and kept saying that there was too much.

"That's not good."

Zhou He casually remarked, but didn't elaborate further, because as everyone knows, the big boss you first encounter in a game might later become an occasional small boss, and then a large number of elite monsters. Today they encountered the ominous sign, and they will definitely continue to encounter it in the future. As long as the port continues to grow stronger, large-scale battles against the ominous sign are inevitable.

Two hours to cook, ten minutes to eat. The clock in the hall had already reached past 7 o'clock. After a long day of fighting, the exhausted ship girls began to rest and chat on the sofa in the hall. After washing the dishes, Zhou He arranged for Yukikaze, Royal Ark, and the others who had temporarily moved in to a spacious room on the first floor. When setting up the room, Royal Ark suggested that she could make a sacrifice and stay with the cute destroyers for warmth, but Zhou He ruthlessly rejected the suggestion.

"We didn't have a chance to perform at all today, and we don't know if the situation will improve tomorrow."

Zuikaku lay on the sofa, her head resting on Shoukaku's lap, yawning as she rubbed her slightly bulging belly from eating too much. Shoukaku gently stroked Zuikaku's hair with his fingers, a smile playing on his lips: "Omen doesn't have an aircraft carrier either. Restricting their air power is actually an advantage for us."

"Ugh, that's so boring."

Zuikaku was itching to fight, and she even envied Kaga BB, a senior from another world's First Carrier Division, who could fight the enemy with all her might even under such harsh conditions.

"Winning is all that matters; the result is the most important thing."

Shoukaku smiled faintly. She wasn't very enthusiastic about the battle. She believed that as long as no one on her side was killed in the battle, it could be considered a victory.

Zhou He overheard their conversation. There are many sister ships in the game, but sister ships that complement each other perfectly like Zuikaku and Shoukaku are extremely rare. The Soryu and Hiryu sisters are also interesting, but they are still a bit lacking compared to these two, in every sense.

"Commander, do you have a closed cage?"

As Kaga came out of the pet room, she saw Zhou He standing in the stairwell and pointed to the red fox in the room next to her: "This guy seems to have been scared silly by the wind outside. What a fragile creature."

"Who told you to bring it back? Generally speaking, foxes dig burrows and live underground, right? They're not afraid of this kind of weather at all."

Zhou He went over and took a look. The red fox was huddled in the corner of the iron cage, shivering. It hadn't even eaten the food prepared for it. But as he spoke, he stroked his chin and came up with a solution: "How about this, we go find some blankets to surround the cage, and then throw a quilt inside so it can't see what's going on outside. That should be about right."

"Wouldn't that taste very strong?"

Kaga glanced at the red fox, not quite approving. Zhou He reached out and patted her on the shoulder, saying earnestly, "Since you've chosen to keep a pet, you must overcome difficulties of this level."

"This is such a hassle. I'll go outside and dig a hole for it once the wind stops."

Kaga clicked his tongue impatiently, but in the end he obediently went with Zhou He to find blankets and sheets to surround the red fox's cage, and threw in a quilt, greatly reducing the space of the cage—and the red fox in the cage became much more stable because of this small renovation.

Seeing this, Kaga was quite surprised: "Commander is very good at raising pets. Have you ever raised a fox before?"

"No, I've only ever owned cats and dogs."

Zhou He quickly calculated that his hometown was in the countryside. Including the dogs that were stolen by dog ​​dealers and poisoned, his family had raised more than ten dogs. The cats were stray cats that ran away from outside and came to his house on their own. Because they were female cats, they had several litters over the years. Over several generations, he had raised more dogs than he had raised dogs.

"Ah, no wonder Yuudachi kissed you so much."

Kaga suddenly realized, raised his hand and gently punched Zhou He's chest, laughing, "What a pity. If you had raised foxes before, Commander, you might have become closer to Tosa as well."

"If Tosa heard you say something like that, he wouldn't be happy."

Zhou He didn't quite understand why Kaga was comparing the people in his faction to animals. It seemed that the animalization of the Sakura Empire ship girls had a more profound impact than he had imagined.

I remember Shimakaze was a rabbit, I hope that when he joins the port area, he won't be revolving around him all year round.

"Haha, I do have this level of precaution."

Kaga gave a thumbs up: "I just saw Tosa go upstairs."

No wonder.

Zhou He didn't know how to react, so he gave Kaga an awkward but polite smile and parted ways. He returned to the center of the living room and chatted with the others for a while before being pulled upstairs by Yuudachi, who was rubbing his eyes and looking sleepy.

"Don't you guys sense that something's wrong?"

Xuefeng, who was coming out of her temporary residence, happened to see the two going upstairs. She pointed to the stairwell and looked at the others. She was quite experienced and naturally knew about relationships between men and women, but she still felt strange when she actually saw this situation.

"Yuudachi does rely on the Commander a bit too much."

Zuikaku sat up, propped her hands on the sofa between her legs, and made a sharp comment: "When I joined the port, Yuudachi and the Commander already had a good relationship, even though they had only met two days ago."

"Damn it, I really envy the Commander."

Upon hearing this, Royal Ark came out of the room and joined the commentary group, but his remarks were not easy for others to understand.

"Ha, you all know that Yuudachi was the Commander's first ship girl, right? If you ask me, when choosing your first partner, you should definitely choose the one you get along with the most. If we here asked the Commander to choose again, he would definitely choose Yuudachi."

Jean-Barth, who had only wanted to hear some entertainment, did not quite agree with Ruihe's remarks.

"There's some truth to that, but we can't draw that conclusion. With so many people in the port, if the commander were to choose again, there's a possibility he might choose someone else."

As Zuikaku spoke, she looked around and was surprised to find that Hermione seemed to agree with Jean Bart's statement. According to the time they had spent together, Hermione had joined the port on the same day as her and quickly got together with Zhou He. It was one thing for her, but how could even Hermione think that she couldn't compete with Yuudachi?

"pain!"

Then, Shoukaku tapped her on the head. She covered her head and looked at Shoukaku with a somewhat aggrieved expression, while the latter simply clapped his hands with a smile: "Let's put this topic aside. The Commander certainly doesn't want us to have this kind of meaningless argument."

"?"

Yukikaze didn't quite understand why the topic had gone so far off track, so was no one going to answer her question?

……

Pulled back to the long-missed third-floor room by Xili, Zhou He was just about to pat the bedding when Xili collapsed onto it, leaving him somewhat amused and exasperated. He could only give up, help Xili take off her shoes, straighten her up, and then pull her collar as he went into the bathroom to take a shower.

When Zhou He came out again, Xi Li had already crawled into the white quilt, with only her head peeking out from the headboard to steal a glance at him.

"Go to sleep if you want, I have something to take care of."

Practice makes perfect, and Zhou He had almost forgotten how many times Xi Li had been in his bed. Dressed in thin clothes, he sat on the edge of the bed, reached out and touched Xi Li's hair, switched the system to the dock and opened Hu Teng's video. In a flash, Hu Teng appeared in his sight. Her background was a huge space that could be seen with the naked eye. A casual glance revealed three aerial passages and multiple mechanical arms on both sides.

"commander."

Hu Teng also noticed him. After greeting him, he turned to show the surroundings. The huge, high-ceilinged space had many square recesses and narrowed passageways on both sides, with a pure mechanical style, like a futuristic arsenal.

"This is where mass-produced sirens are manufactured, but they are not yet in production."

Hu Teng explained that the grooves are channels connecting the warehouse, while the aisles are used to adjust the position of the production robots so that they can work without moving.

"We will also build similar arsenals in the future. If we can find reference materials in advance, it will be much more convenient."

Zhou He hummed in agreement and asked where Akashi and Count Spee had gone.

"After visiting the production workshop of the 'enhanced' Executors, Akashi stayed there, saying that there were machines there that could transform matter, and that he needed to spend time studying them."

Hutten gave a brief explanation: Count Spee was currently serving as Akashi's bodyguard, and the Purifiers were in the control room making contact with the test subjects and attempting to remotely awaken the other two bases to avoid having to make two more trips.

"The production technology of the implementers is not of much reference value to us; this is the technology that we urgently need right now."

Hu Teng walked calmly to a control panel and activated it with her fingerprint. After entering the port area, the Purifiers granted them 'read' permissions, which did not allow them to directly manage the base, but they could freely view the data and information contained therein.

For example, the control panel in front of her contains information on how much material the arsenal needs to prepare for production, the techniques for using robotic arms and production robots in sequence, and the blueprints and parameters for the mass-produced model that will be manufactured soon.

“Commander, this is not the amount of intelligence that can be received in a day or two. It will take at least half a month to barely understand the operating principles and all the functions of this base.”

Hu Teng assisted Zhou He, allowing him to see the densely packed parameter design diagrams on the control panel, all written in English. Zhou He couldn't understand a single word. He really hoped the system could take screenshots during the video so he could record them directly and understand them slowly.

But that won't work, so we can only pin our hopes on Hu Teng: "The design of the warship is not the most important thing. What's important is the structural design of this arsenal and the manufacturing plan for the production robots. These two things can serve as a reference for us in building the arsenal."

"clear."

It was because Hu Teng had thought of this that he left Akashi and the other two in the Executor production workshop and came to the mass production workshop alone. Their combat power far exceeded that of the Executors. What was needed most now were mass-produced warships as cannon fodder to absorb shells and attention.

"Well, it's getting late now. Hutten, you and Count Spee should also get some rest. Akashi's schedule is different from normal people, so you don't need to accommodate her. Just get some rest yourself."

Seeing that Hu Teng and the others were safe and had found the technical design they needed to understand, Zhou He was relieved. After repeatedly telling them to rest, he cut off the video call.

"Commander~"

Xi Li was still awake. She noticed that Zhou He had finished the video call and crawled into the blankets, then crawled out and hugged Zhou He from behind.

"I'm here."

Zhou He smiled and replied, touching the back of Xi Li's hand in front of him with his fingers: "We should rest too."

Chapter 136 Archives and Records

"Hiss, it's so cold."

Early in the morning, Zhou He was woken up by a mysterious force. He carefully got out of his warm bed and went to the toilet. When he washed his hands, he felt that the water was ice cold, as if he had stepped directly into winter.

After drying and rubbing his hands, Zhou He returned to his room and instinctively wanted to get back into bed to warm up. He just happened to meet the gaze of Xi Li, who was sleeping against the wall, her red eyes staring straight at him: "Stare—"

"Sorry, I woke you up again, Yuudachi."

Zhou He instinctively turned to the side, then realized he didn't need to anymore. So, he scratched his head as if to cover up, and instead of getting back into bed, he went straight to the closet to rummage through his clothes, all the while saying, "It rained all night yesterday and it's still raining. It's a bit cold, so Xili, make sure you keep warm when you get up."

"understood."

Yuudachi, nestled in her blankets, observed Zhou He and suddenly said, "Actually, I woke up earlier than the Commander."

"Really? Yuudachi is amazing."

Zhou He reacted instinctively, put on a winter military uniform with a fleece lining, turned around and winked at her: "When there's no war, Yuudachi, wake me up early so we can go for a morning run together."

"Ah! Okay."