Chapter 113: The Fruitless Argument

Chapter 113: The Fruitless Argument

The game of Go lasted for a full hour and a half.

Both of them remained largely silent throughout.

Chen Feng was fully concentrated.

Sweat even trickled down Tang Tianxin’s temples.

In the end, although Chen Feng still lost miserably, he felt a sense of accomplishment seeing Tang Tianxin’s face, slightly flushed from the intense mental effort.

After finishing the game, Chen Feng said, “It seems I’ve improved quite a bit recently. I can finally give you some trouble.”

Tang Tianxin nodded. “Your Go skills have indeed progressed rapidly lately. To test the extent of your improvement more precisely, I had to exert a lot of effort just to keep my own skill level at exactly what it was before. Congratulations, you have improved from amateur 1-dan to 1.5-dan.”

It took Chen Feng a long moment to understand why Tang Tianxin had gotten tired enough to sweat.

She was a true master. When the novice opposite her showed a bit of progress and his playing style changed, it really was quite difficult for her to maintain the same level of ‘going easy’ as before.

“Today’s mental training ends here. You’ve worked hard. Go back and rest early.”

Tang Tianxin was effectively asking him to leave.

Chen Feng stood up to go, but in the end, he couldn’t hold back. “General.”

“Chen Feng.” At the same time, Tang Tianxin called out to him from behind.

Chen Feng made a gesture for her to speak. “Please, go ahead.”

“Your performance in the holographic simulation training today was very good. I have already submitted a report to the military, requesting your military rank be increased to the officer level as soon as possible. You will likely become the first new recruit in nearly ten years to be promoted to officer without having completed any external missions. Once you board a warship, you will be able to directly serve as the captain of the warship’s special operations team, on any warship. Furthermore, after becoming an officer, your family can leave the slums and enjoy the treatment of priority citizens.”

Yes, Chen Feng in this era had a family.

Although he had been sent to a specialized school for training at the age of two due to showing above-average comprehensive potential, and his total time meeting his family did not exceed ten days, this time, he was not a synthetic human.

After Sergey’s coup, the distorted policy of synthetic humans had not been born.

The World Government encouraged free unions between men and women more, and the modes of union were diverse.

One could actively bear and raise children themselves; this had the highest subsidies.

One could also choose a pairing partner based on interest, each providing a strand of DNA; this had lower subsidies, slightly higher if raising the child themselves.

One could also casually attend in-person or online pairing events, find someone agreeable, submit a report, and machines would naturally assist with sampling and artificial cultivation.

This was the easiest, but had the lowest subsidies.

To encourage childbirth and maintain the continuation of the race, the World Government made many efforts.

This new reproduction model was slightly more in line with natural rules compared to the synthetic human policy from Chen Feng’s last time here. It maintained genetic diversity while largely eliminating citizens’ fear of the troublesome task of raising offspring.

Chen Feng himself was a product of the second reproduction model, but frankly, his parents had him for the reproduction subsidy, not because they wanted to raise him into adulthood.

Chen Feng had always felt this situation was unreasonable, but it was still somewhat better than last time.

At some point, humanity’s fear of the troubles involved in raising offspring began to outweigh the biological instinct to leave descendants born of affection.

With technological progress and the further advancement of human intelligence, the DINK (Double Income No Kids) concept even overpowered the traditional notion of continuing the family line, gaining an overwhelming advantage.

For the World Government to maintain racial reproduction through such high subsidies was a stopgap measure born of necessity.

A thousand years ago, for every pair of parents, raising a child to adulthood was a difficult struggle, yet people did it with peace of mind.

Now, with more advanced technology and inexpensive artificial intelligence assistants that could geometrically reduce the difficulty of raising children, people should not be so resistant.

The cause-and-effect logic had reversed.

Ultimately evolving into how it was now, Chen Feng believed something must have gone wrong somewhere, but he couldn’t find the reason for now.

“Thank you. Becoming an officer is my honor.”

“Also, you can start deciding which warship to board. I’ll recommend myself: I hope you choose my Tianxin. By the way, what did you want to say just now?”

Chen Feng hesitated for a long time before saying, “It was… nothing.”

“Don’t hold back. If you have something to say, just say it.”

Chen Feng: “Desserts aren’t very good for your health. I know you like them, but you should try to eat less.”

After saying this, he took a paper box from his bag and handed it to Tang Tianxin. “I made this myself this morning. Want to try it?”

Tang Tianxin took the box, full of suspicion, and tasted a bite. “Pure natural ingredients, a texture different from molecular food. The taste is very good, you were thoughtful. But how did you know I like desserts, and that strawberry cheesecake is my favorite? That’s my little secret.”

“I guessed.”

With that, Chen Feng left.

He was a bit disappointed.

Okay, he admitted he wasn’t very good at wooing girls. He had really tried his best.

He was also a bit regretful.

He shouldn’t have been so hasty. He should have been steadier.

But every day he waited felt like another day wasted. An anxious feeling inside him gave him no peace.

His performance had been so outstanding these past few days, yet he still hadn’t managed to make the other party actively consider the notion of reproductive pairing. He didn’t know where the problem was.

He had shown off. He had used Go to get closer. He had made desserts. But it still wasn’t successful. He was at a loss.

Chen Feng had almost wanted to bring it up directly earlier, but he had backed down at the last moment.

This is how someone who had never wooed anyone in his life was: if the girl didn’t woo him, he was like a cow facing a pumpkin, not knowing where to start.

Returning to his dorm, Chen Feng thought for five seconds, temporarily set aside studying the educational materials for young children, and opened a love film sealed away from ancient times.

I’ll learn!

Seven days passed. Chen Feng became the top-ranked trainee in the holographic simulation training system at an unprecedented speed.

His comprehensive individual soldier rating ranked first globally, even higher than veteran soldiers who had trained for over ten years and served on warships.

His comprehensive score was as high as 178,415 points, leading the second-place by over two thousand points.

This lead wasn’t exceptionally large. If the second-place trainee achieved several perfect scores in upcoming S-rank missions, they could overtake him.

But first place was first place. Chen Feng’s military rank was smoothly promoted to lieutenant.

At the same time, during this period, he had launched a fierce pursuit of Tang Tianxin.

He first confirmed that the warship he would board was the Tianxin. He then proactively applied for the position of Tianxin’s special operations team captain. Using sweet talk, he convinced Tang Tianxin to appoint him as the warship captain’s chief security officer.

When Tang Tianxin took a shuttle to a space station for meetings and training, he accompanied her.

Tang Tianxin liked playing Go, so he studied it fanatically.

Tang Tianxin liked looking at star maps of the Milky Way and simulating battles in her mind, so he also studied earnestly by her side.

The General was not foolish. She quickly understood the change in Chen Feng.

She wasn’t angry, just felt like laughing, but couldn’t bring herself to.

This day, after finishing a game of Go with Chen Feng, she laid her cards on the table.

“You want to pair with me?”

Chen Feng’s gaze flickered slightly, but soon he looked firmly at her. “Yes.”

“Actually, you didn’t need to be so roundabout. Your method of pursuing me probably comes from a thousand-year-old concept of romance.”

Chen Feng was taken aback. “That’s right.”

“That method is outdated. Modern pairing methods are much more efficient. A week ago, you should have been more direct. I wouldn’t have refused you.”

Chen Feng felt a sliver of joy.

Tang Tianxin: “Although I have never paired with anyone before, my egg cells are already stored. I will allocate one to you now. Our genes should be very compatible.”

Chen Feng’s mood plummeted. “That’s not all I want.”

“Then what do you want?”

Chen Feng tried to make his expression look more serious. “I hope for a more direct method, with you yourself becoming pregnant.”

Tang Tianxin fell into thought, seemingly weighing the pros and cons. “No, that would waste too much time.”

Chen Feng never expected in his wildest dreams that this was how she saw it.

“But I’ve analyzed all our base pairs. If done through artificial cultivation, the embryo would definitely not survive.”

“Then forget it.”

“Don’t you want to produce more outstanding offspring, to increase humanity’s chances of victory?” Chen Feng used the words she herself had said in his previous life.

Tang Tianxin thought about it. “Of course I do. But, you are only worthy of me, not outstanding enough. It’s not worth it for me to waste a large amount of time on fluid exchange for such a slight improvement.”

Chen Feng grew anxious and asked the question he had always wanted to ask but kept buried deep down: “Then isn’t playing Go with me a waste of time too?”

“Go is a very important kind of mental training for me.”

Chen Feng raised his voice. “Don’t try to explain it away! You know your strategic abilities have already reached their peak; it’s hard to improve further. Someone like you, can’t you realize that using Go for mental training is more of a waste of time than anything else? You’re lying to yourself! Don’t you find this strange?”

The atmosphere in the general’s office suddenly became very tense.

Tang Tianxin briefly looked confused, her eyes unfocused.

After a long time, her gaze refocused. She answered very firmly, “No, I don’t find it strange. All warship captains and leaders are like this. Everyone believes we bear too much pressure and must find a hobby worthy of wholehearted dedication to relieve that pressure. Otherwise, we can’t bear what we must shoulder; we will lack the courage to face unknown enemies. Maintaining a hobby, maintaining our true selves, is a prerequisite for us to maintain our fighting spirit in the war. It is extremely important.”

In Tang Tianxin’s words, everything was so natural and reasonable.

Chen Feng was bewildered.

If something similar had happened a thousand years ago.

Anyone with a normal mind would think there was a problem, not with any one person, but that everyone was off.

But in this era, these people who were clearly so incredibly intelligent were completely unaware.

The foundational worldview of the entire upper echelons of human society had been infiltrated.

This infiltration went deep into the bone marrow, becoming common sense, like the Earth’s revolution and rotation.