I, Azure Commander!

Although she said this, it seemed that even Peter Strasser himself did not notice the faint smile at the corner of her mouth, which lingered for a long time and never faded.

People often change imperceptibly, and sometimes they themselves may not even notice it. The same is true for ship girls. Unknowingly, a seed will be planted in your heart, taking root and sprouting deeply, and will one day bloom and bear fruit.

Watching Peter Strasser go away, Lin Xiao could not tell anything from his seemingly usual confidence and quick pace. He only felt deeply tired - not physically tired. In fact, he now had plenty of energy and would not get tired so easily.

I just fed so many little girls, and of course they are very cute. Each of them called me commander in a sweet voice, and I pinched their soft cheeks and touched their heads, which felt very good. Some of them even gave me a kiss on the face, which was quite healing.

but?

The children are cute, but there are too many of them in the house. They have to be picked up one by one. The little girls queuing at the back are chattering, and it seems a bit noisy because there are too many people. Children are cute, but they can be really naughty when they get naughty. Fortunately, Yuli got into trouble in the afternoon and was very well behaved at night. Otherwise, with her leading the way, she would have climbed onto the table and made trouble sooner or later.

Go back, take a shower, and go to bed early...

Today is just the beginning. The end of the year is approaching, and I just came back from another place. I have to accompany all the girls, young and old, and there will be a lot of tiring times ahead.

After returning home by car, Lin Xiao went straight into his room. Sirius was quicker than him and had already prepared the hot water. He was standing by waiting, looking at Lin Xiao eagerly.

As time goes by, everyone becomes familiar with the process, and sometimes there is no need to repeat some words every day.

"You don't need it today. You should go back and rest early..."

Lin Xiao wanted to have a good rest for a night, refresh her spirit, and be in better condition to spend the New Year with the ship girls.

If Sirius were allowed to stay here, it would obviously be unlikely for him to have a good rest.

But having said that, if I sleep alone, I always feel a little empty...

I am used to hugging my wife when I sleep, and suddenly there is no one to hug, so of course I will feel very uncomfortable.

Lin Xiao thought about it, so who should he look for?

After thinking about it, I think it can be replaced...

How can we say that there is a saying that goes "the hearts are connected"? Lin Xiao thought so as he wiped his hair and walked out of the bathroom. He saw Noshiro pushing the door in with pajamas. They stared at each other for a moment, then smiled knowingly. Noshiro closed the door, put his pajamas on the back of the chair next to him, took off his clothes, and walked into the bathroom.

Lin Xiao walked to the edge of the bed, his mind constantly recalling the long white legs and slender waist that had just caught his eye, and shook his head. Fortunately, he is now an experienced driver, not like before. Otherwise, he would not be able to have a good rest tonight.

Nothing really happened after that. Noshiro took a shower, changed into pajamas, got into bed, and snuggled into Lin Xiao's arms. The two chatted for a while, then slowly felt sleepy and fell asleep.

Early the next morning, Lin Xiao woke up to the sound of noisy children at home.

Noshiro next to her was one of the few people who had not gotten up. She just opened her eyes drowsily, with a somewhat dull expression which was a characteristic of her when she just got up.

Noshiro was the cutest at this moment. Lin Xiao couldn't help but pinch her face. Noshiro was stunned for a long time before she sat up, rolled her eyes at him angrily, and slapped away the evil big hand.

"Commander, Commander... Let's go out and play!"

I heard the voice of a lively little girl outside the door. After some recollection, it seemed to be Kolk's voice. But I was not sure. There were too many children and I could not remember every voice clearly.

"Shh - don't make any noise. The commander and Noshiro are sleeping. If you disturb them, Amagi will be angry." Now it's easier to tell who it is. It's definitely that troublemaker Hobi! Even though he said this, his voice was louder than Kolk's just now.

"Eh?! Is Nodai-sister in there too..." Ximu exclaimed.

"Of course she is. I saw Nouyo-neeji enter the commander's room last night!"

The one who confirmed the news with confidence was Ruoye from the early spring class, the girl with a big squirrel tail. This child has a naive and optimistic personality, but she likes gossip occasionally.

"So what are they doing now?"

"It must be something that only adults can do..."

"What is something that only adults can do?"

"I don't know. Anyway, it's something that only adults can do. We can't do it. That's what Sister Tiancheng told me."

"But why did Sister Akagi always say that she wanted to bring little Akagi along? Sister Belfast is also... Little Akagi and little Belfast are also children, right?"

It seemed like the topic box was opened, and the little lolis began to discuss it one after another, and the conversation became more and more outrageous.

Amid the increasingly noisy sounds, a mournful cry of "Woo~" seemed to be heard, followed by several cries of "Sister". Lin Xiao knew that Chuchun had fainted again.

Turning her head to take a look, Noshiro, with half of her shoulder exposed, was now full of embarrassment. The feeling of being talked about behind her back by children seemed to be more shameful than she had imagined.

But Lin Xiao didn't care, because he was thick-skinned enough. It was hard to say to the older girls, but couldn't she handle the children?

The commander was very popular with children. Similarly, in the eyes of children, he was still very dignified as an adult... Well, except when he cheated lollipops and ice cream from them...

They always say that children will get cavities if they eat too much sugar. They have been fooled many times before. But then they think about it carefully: if children can get cavities, why can't adults do the same?

Besides, they are ship girls... Eating too much sugar won't cause tooth decay, and eating ice cream won't cause stomach upset, at most they'll just feel a little uncomfortable.

Chapter 81: Morning Interlude

"Would you like to get up?"

Lin Xiao lifted a strand of hair that was hanging on his face. Although he said this, he still held the girl in his arms reluctantly, with no intention of letting go.

Noshiro's bad mood when she woke up has passed with the children's discussions. The drowsy state of just waking up disappeared, and was replaced by the calm and steady Noshiro of the past.

As a wedding ship, it doesn't matter if she accompanies you at night, but not during the day, because you have to work, not to mention there are so many children outside eavesdropping.

So, without paying any attention to Lin Xiao who was still lying in bed, Nou Dai got up, tidied her hair, and started to change her clothes.

Lin Xiao lay on the bed looking at the other's smooth and beautiful back, sighed helplessly, and could only reluctantly climb out of the warm bed and began to change clothes. Even so, he still refused to be honest. From time to time, he would tease Noshiro, poke her back, touch her up and down (randomly), and finally made the girl impatient. She turned her head and rolled her eyes, then slapped his dirty hands away.

After listening carefully, he found that the children at the door had been driven away by Sheffield who had gotten up early to clean the house. He no longer had any worries, did not even put on his clothes, grasped the handle, and lowered his head.

Lin Xiao paid the price for his skin after all. The morning that should have been extremely energetic became a little decadent. Of course, his thoughts in his brain became extremely clear, and he was thinking about all kinds of profound life philosophies.

Of course, Noshiro was not unscathed. For example, she had to brush her teeth more often today... For example, even when the children saw her half an hour later, they would still feel that Noshiro's face seemed a little red today.

So, in the future, we should...make sure to try this kind of thing of hurting each other more often!

It has to be said that as more and more ship girls are recovered and their physical condition gets better and better, Lin Xiao has more capital to expand.

Even though he lost the fight just now, his opponent didn't win easily either. At least his mouth must have been numb and he must have been very tired.

Of course, these were just some small episodes in the early morning. Today is New Year's Eve, and when Lin Xiao was discussing with everyone how to celebrate the festival, he promised the girl at home that he would take everyone out to play today.

We can go out and play during the day today, go shopping in the mall and watch a movie, and then come back in the evening to have New Year’s Eve dinner together.

In order to go out and play together today, the preparations for the New Year’s Eve dinner were almost completed yesterday. A few girls with good cooking skills will come back early in the evening, and since all the ingredients are prepared, it won’t take too long to cook.

After eating the New Year's Eve dinner, tomorrow is the real New Year...

Speaking of which, this is Lin Xiao’s first time to celebrate the New Year in this world. From the beginning when he traveled here and met Xiaotiancheng and Sheffield, to now, there are forty or fifty ship girls around him. I wonder what the situation will be like at this time next year?

It has only been half a year and dozens of ship girls have been found. If everything goes well, by that time, there should be more than a hundred ship girls in the port.

A few dozen people are already a lot, and more than a hundred ship girls will be an even more spectacular sight. If you think about it carefully, while you are extremely looking forward to it, you will also have a bit of a headache.

Joking aside, the most important duty of the commanders is to maintain the mental health of the ship girls. This may not be a big problem for other commanders. Compared with this, they need to worry more about how to develop the port area and how to buy better equipment for their own ship girls. But for Lin Xiao... more than a hundred, or even more ship girls in the future, each one must be taken care of. Just think about the scene of feeding the children last night. Just a dozen or twenty children are already a headache for him. If there are more...

Maybe this is what is called the trouble of happiness?

Using the sage mode, while thinking about all this mess, Lin Xiao walked out of the room and came to the living room. The little lolis who couldn't wait any longer immediately surrounded him, jumped up and hugged the commander's arm, and started chattering.

"Commander, Commander! Um... trick or treating?"

"Stupid Bailey, that's something you only say on Halloween."

"Eh? Yes, really..."

Bailey blinked, "What should we say about the New Year? There should be gifts anyway, right?"

It seems to be a consensus among children that the commander should give out gifts during festivals. Of course, it doesn't matter what the gift is. What matters is that there is a gift and it is a gift from the commander.

"It's a red envelope. There should be a red envelope." Xuefeng said with certainty, "Donghuang people always give red envelopes to children during the Spring Festival."

"Xuefeng knows it very well!"

A little girl nearby exclaimed.

"Hehe, of course, Master Xuefeng knows everything!"

Lin Xiao picked up the arrogant little cat and teased her nose, which immediately made Xuefeng open his mouth to bite his finger. Lin Xiao did not dodge, and even when he was really bitten, he was reluctant to use force. He looked fierce, but in fact he just touched it lightly with his teeth, licked the fingertip with his little tongue, and then let go.

To be honest, compared with other children, Xuefeng is indeed more familiar with many customs of Donghuang. This is also influenced by the historical prototype of his predecessor and the memories from the "Danyang".

To some extent, it was like a young wife sold by her parents' home... In that sense, Xuefeng was really his wife now, married in a formal ceremony and given a ring.

"Teacher...everyone, let me call you..."

A cute head suddenly popped out of the door. Anchorage blinked and stared at Lin Xiao blankly.

The children all ran over to the commander's side. Although the living room was not small, it couldn't accommodate so many people, so the older girls were basically all next door.

I haven't had breakfast yet. I'm probably going to have some porridge at home, some fried eggs and some bread from the toaster. I'll have a simple meal, and then I can have some snacks outside. Although I think there will be a lot of people outside today...

There are so many people here, so you have to keep an eye on your children at home. If they get lost by accident, it will be difficult to find them in such a huge crowd.

The older girls are probably discussing this matter now, assigning who will be responsible for watching whom, and holding hands to prevent them from running around.

It's almost time to set off.

The plan is to go shopping in the mall first, although I have taken the children there many times before, but at that time we were mainly buying New Year's goods. Every time we went out, we had a "mission" and could not wander around as we pleased.

Besides, it’s almost New Year, so I should buy some new clothes for each of the children…

Chapter 82: The Long and Difficult Refitting Mission

I went next door to integrate the remaining ship girls, and sent Sheffield to pick up Nagashima who was still sleeping and drag him along. About ten minutes later, everyone gathered downstairs and prepared to set off.

Nagashima probably just picked out a piece of clothing at random from the closet and came out. There was foam left at the corners of his mouth from brushing his teeth, his hair was messy, and he was still dozing off while standing.

Seeing her like this, Lin Xiao knew that she must have stayed up late to watch some anime again last night.

I have said it many times before, but to no avail. Lin Xiao simply didn't bother to say it again. After all, she was a ship girl and she wouldn't die suddenly no matter how many nights she stayed up. So she just let her be.

But this girl really doesn't care about her image at all... How can a ship girl be so sloppy? Lin Xiao felt that she was almost as lazy as himself.

"Ah, Commander, good morning~"

Having said that, when he saw Lin Xiao, Changdao still came up to say hello enthusiastically, although Lin Xiao knew that this was all in order to get more game time.

Speaking of which, it’s been quite a while since the “Hong Kong Game Restriction Order – Long Island Edition” was issued…

Perhaps it was because there were still comics and anime to read, although she complained every day in the beginning, she gradually got used to it and seldom went out of her way to find Lin Xiao to act cute and beg for mercy. Of course, if they happened to meet each other when getting snacks or happy water occasionally, she would still say a few words and look at the commander eagerly. Every time, Lin Xiao would ruffle her hair and not respond.

She is usually sloppy and too lazy to take care of herself, but she is a ship girl after all, so she has to maintain some image in front of the commander. Nagashima tidied her messy hair, put on a self-consciously cute smile on her face, cheered herself up and greeted the commander.

This girl would be quite cute if she could be a little more cheerful...but why does she usually look so decadent and like a stay-at-home?

Sometimes I want her to learn from other ship girls and be more steady, but after careful consideration, it is not a good idea to say so. Every ship girl has her own characteristics. Although Nagashima is a little slack, she also has her own lovely side. Anyway, their port area is big and powerful, and they can afford to support such a cute rice bug, so I just let her be.

To be honest, it only happens in their port. If it were any other port, even the port of a big boss who has retired, how could the ship girls be allowed to slack off and do nothing?

The reason why ship girls have so many privileges is because they have to fight against the Sirens and because they are protecting the people. If they were the kind of free ship girls who just wanted to live their own lives, it would be fine, but the birth of ship girls often does not follow their own wishes. Allowing ship girls to choose the lifestyle they like is also the result that the ship girls predecessors who once fought on the front line have worked hard to achieve with blood and tears.

But if you decide to join the port area and still want to slack off, that would be a bit too much.

After all, the port area belongs to the category of military organization. Joining the port area is like joining the army. Once you decide to join, you have to obey orders.

Of course, to some extent, the salted fish ship girl and the salted fish commander Lin Xiao are a perfect match.

After gathering everyone, they drove to the Maritime Administration to pick up Peter Strasser, and a large group of people entered the mall in a mighty manner.

Fortunately, it is the end of the year and the mall is already crowded with people. And because it is at the seaside, there are also many ship girls and commanders. They blend in with the crowd and are not too conspicuous.

Lin Xiao didn't want to be shopping in the supermarket and suddenly be watched like a monkey. It's not that he wasn't used to such treatment, but he just wanted to accompany the girls to shop in the supermarket and didn't want to be disturbed.

Of course, Peter Strasser, the Maritime Commissioner, had to dress up when appearing in such a public occasion to avoid being recognized, which would inevitably cause a lot of trouble.

He instructed the girls to keep an eye on the children they needed to take care of to prevent them from getting lost. He also repeatedly reminded the more naughty children not to make trouble or run around. Perhaps because of what happened with Yudachi yesterday, the children seemed to have really listened to him and nodded repeatedly, fearing that the commander would be unhappy.

Although children are naughty, they care about the commander's feelings the most. If the commander doesn't like them, they will be the most upset. Take Yuudachi for example. Even though the matter yesterday was resolved and the commander forgave her, she still couldn't sleep for a long time at night.

Compared to being hated by the commander, any punishment is insignificant.

The main purpose today is to buy New Year clothes for the children. Considering the number of children in the family, this is definitely a very arduous task. And not only the children, but the older girls also need to buy new clothes. If you only buy clothes for the children and ignore the adults, you can imagine what kind of "regional" map Lin Xiao will face in the future.

To put it bluntly, he had to help more than 40 girls pick out clothes...

Haven’t you seen that in the previous life, thousands of young men were exhausted and didn’t want to talk just by accompanying a girlfriend shopping and picking clothes? Now there are more than forty of them, so you can imagine how heavy a road Lin Xiao has to go today.

Fortunately, the ship girls were simple-minded. Although they wanted the commander to help them choose clothes, they were not that picky. As long as the clothes were chosen by the commander, they would like them. Lin Xiao obviously did not have any profound experience in choosing clothes. As long as it did not look out of place, she would consider it a success and just choose them one by one.

The group went straight to the clothing store. There were many clothing stores in the mall. You could look at them one by one and buy whatever you liked. You didn't bother to compare prices in different stores, and you didn't have to care about the price. As long as it looked good, it was fine.

Why, you ask?

A wealthy woman with a net worth of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of White Eagle Coins is standing next to you. Do you still need to ask the price when buying clothes? I didn't just book the entire clothing store and have the store pack and send it to you because I was afraid that the girls would think it was too perfunctory...

After arriving at the clothing store, it is time to start today's rather massive project.

The girls first dispersed to choose the clothes they liked. If they saw something they liked, they would come over to show it to the commander. The commander would buy it if he thought it looked good. At this time, Lin Xiao had to be smart. In order to avoid trouble, most of them would naturally answer that it looked good. But they couldn't all say that it looked good, as that would seem a bit fake and perfunctory. But they couldn't say it didn't look good either. They could only say that this dress didn't suit my cute xxx. Then both adults and children would happily go to pick new clothes.

Besides the first time, there were also some kids who had no idea about choosing clothes, and there were quite a few of them, such as Yudachi, some naughty kids like Benson, and... um, Anchorage...