Although the apartment is old, in this era, basic network interfaces are still available, just like electrical wiring and water pipes, they are indispensable necessities.
Chu Jungui lay on the bed and closed his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping, but in fact he had connected to the Internet and began to search and collect information.
Laizhou was originally an industrial and mining city, famous for its large-scale production of basic metals such as iron and aluminum, and its population at its peak exceeded one million. If it were on the mother planet of the old era, Laizhou's mineral reserves would probably rank among the top in the world. However, in the 35th century, as productivity increased, human demand for various mineral resources also increased exponentially.
About a hundred years ago, the reserves of several major mines in Laizhou City were exhausted, and the entire city inevitably declined.
Different from the home planet, in this era, people have too many choices, and traveling to foreign lands has a new meaning. Foreign lands often refer to unfamiliar star fields hundreds of light years away.
However, the population of Laizhou has not decreased much. There are many people leaving and many people migrating in. Those who left were mostly young people, and those who came were mostly old people.
Laizhou is a big city with complete infrastructure and convenient transportation. Although the weather here is bad, the air is breathable. The outflow of people has brought prices in the city to a very low level. For example, the monthly rent for this small apartment in Chulongtu is less than RMB 200. It doesn't cost much to buy it. This is also the reason why many elderly people migrate here because it is cheap.
Within the territory of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the natural dynasty currency was hard currency. Although each vassal state has its own currency, the more developed and prosperous the area, the more dynasty coins are used.
As the first institution of higher learning in Xinzheng, Shanshang College has always been wealthy and uses dynasty coins to provide subsidies. Therefore, the information that Chu Jungui consulted all defaulted to using dynasty coins as the unit of calculation.
He didn't know how long he had been flipping through the information before Chu Jungui heard the sound of the alarm clock. He looked at the time. It was just before six o'clock, but Chu Longtu was probably already up.
As an experimental subject, Chu Jungui did not need to sleep for long. He got up immediately, went out of the room and found that Chu Longtu was still sitting in the recliner, with the same posture as last night.
The alarm clock was still ringing, and the TV on the screen was still flashing silent images.
"Grandpa?" Chu Jungui called softly.
The old man seemed to have just woken up, and then he turned around and said, "It's you! I was thinking about some things back then, and I fell into a trance without realizing it. Since you're up, go buy some breakfast. Go downstairs and turn right. Two blocks away is Lao Liu’s shop. The taste of his shop has not changed in more than ten years.”
"knew."
Chu Jungui went out and found the breakfast shop that his grandfather had mentioned. It was a very small shop, so small that there could only be two tables inside. It was still dark at this time, and the wind was chilly to the bone, but the shop was already open, and it was full of people, and there were still a few people queuing at the door.
They are all old people.
Chu Jungui lined up, and it wasn't long before it was his turn. The breakfast in the store is very simple, with only a few items, mostly steamed or fried foods. Chu Jungui bought two breakfasts according to his own appetite, spending a total of one yuan.
On the way back, Chu Jungui took out a hot bun and took a bite. It was unexpectedly delicious and full of ingredients.
When he returned home, Chu Longtu had already gotten up from the recliner and started tidying up the room. The apartment was actually very tidy, with not much clutter. Except for Chu Yunfei's room, which had been locked for who knows how long, the rest of the apartment was clean, but old.
After breakfast, Chu Longtu asked about Chu Jungui's academic status. Chu Jungui suddenly felt guilty. The abilities he could really use had very low version numbers, and he couldn't use them at all. In other words, the version number of Tactical Deception has passed 1, but it is only 1.02.
Fortunately, Chu Longtu's questions were not very detailed. A brief question was enough to pass the test, allowing Chu Jun to pass the test.
"It's a good thing that you can enter the Business Academy. This is a military academy, and our family doesn't have any special connections. After you graduate, you will probably be on the battlefield. You should take advantage of the two years in the academy to learn something. There is no luck on the battlefield. If you lose the battle within the planet, you still have a chance of survival. If you fight in outer space, you will die if you lose."
Chu Jungui nodded.
"I still have some collections here, which I got when I was young. There is something that suits you very well. You can use it for self-defense."
Chu Longtu got up, went to the cabinet against the wall in the dining room, and opened the door. There are some dishes and a few wine bottles in the cabinet. The old man grabbed the cabinet board and pushed it in. With a click, the cabinet board retracted, and then the entire cabinet structure sank, revealing a mezzanine at the back.
There are two long guns and three pistols embedded in the mezzanine, of different models, as well as corresponding ammunition.
The old man's hand passed over the three pistols one by one, and finally took the middle one, handed it to Chu Jungui, and said, "For your self-defense."
Chu Jungui liked the pistol very much. When he took it, he felt it was heavy, not ordinary comfortable to hold, and full of texture. He touched it out of habit, but couldn't find any data interface, and it didn't look like there was a chip.
The old man glanced at Chu Jungui and said, "This gun has no chip or any auxiliary system. It is just a gun. Here are the bullets. Take it."
Chu Jungui caught the box of bullets thrown by the old man and felt his hand heavy. The small box of bullets was surprisingly heavy. He opened the magazine, took out a bullet and looked at it. There was no display screen on the bullet, no programmable data interface, and no micro-engine that could adjust the flight attitude and change direction. It only had a primer.
Just the primer?
The color of Chu Jungui's pupils changed slightly, and he scanned the entire bullet. Sure enough, there was no micro-equipment on it, but only primers.
This is a primitive bullet powered by gunpowder.
Chu Jungui did not reject primitive gunpowder weapons. For example, when he first came out of the rescue cabin, he relied on a printed gunpowder pistol to defend himself. But that was during the survival stage on an uninhabited planet. Now, as long as there are normal supplies, even the rookie students at the Business School are using programmable smart rifles and micro-powered ammunition.
Take the electric shock bullet as an example. It can not only adjust the energy release of the electric shock, but also sharply disperse the kinetic energy at the moment of contact with a soft target to reduce penetration and avoid fatal damage.
What the old man gave him was an antique-grade pistol or ammunition. The bullet is very heavy and may be very powerful, but no matter how powerful it is, its power is limited. Today, when electromagnetic applications are common, gunpowder weapons are at a comprehensive disadvantage, and few people are researching new gunpowder formulas.
Chu Longtu looked aside for a while and then said: "No need to look for it. There is no intelligent system on the gun or bullets. Sometimes, the simplest is the most reliable. No electromagnetic weapons are as reliable as old-fashioned firearms. .”
"Understood."
Chu Jungui put the bullets and gun into his backpack, then remembered something and asked, "This gun doesn't seem to be of universal caliber?"
The old man nodded, "It can only use the bullets I gave you. You probably have very few chances to use it, and I only have so much inventory for the time being. If you want to make new bullets, you need several old-fashioned equipment, which are already available on the market. It’s gone, maybe some old friends still have it. I have to ask them, and when you come back next time, you can get new bullets.”
Chu Jungui nodded and packed his backpack. He probably had little chance of using this gun, so there was no need for more bullets. He put away the gun and bullets, just because he didn't want to make the old man sad.
The old man restored the sideboard, while Chu Jungui tried to order a batch of food and buy a new refrigerator to replace the old antique at home. However, after searching for a long time, he found that there were no delivery people in such a huge city, so he had to pick up the goods himself.
No online shopping? I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Chu Jungui could only accept the reality, and finally hired a truck to move the refrigerator back from the goods yard. He spent an afternoon visiting several supermarkets before filling the refrigerator.
The old man watched him busy quietly, with a faint smile on his face.
After dinner, Chu Jungui said: "Grandpa, I will go to the college to report tomorrow. Please leave some money at home before leaving."
"I'm old and have nothing to spend money on. As you saw today, you can't buy anything with money in this city. When you are free, just go home and see more."
No matter how Chu Jungui tried to persuade him, the old man refused to accept the money, so he had to give up.
The short period of visiting the family soon ended. In the early morning of the next day, Chu Jungui left the apartment and rushed to the airport. When he went back, he still took the cheap flight and once again experienced the crowding and obsolescence of the Youkun class. I don’t know if other Kun-class spacecraft will be better.
The spaceship took off, and the city in the porthole gradually faded away.
Chu Jungui never thought that there would be a city like Laizhou. This city has long been aging and obsolete, and most of its facilities are more than a hundred years old. It just relies on its excellent reliability to barely maintain its long-life operation. There are not many young people left in the city, most of them are old people who are going through the last stage of their lives.
Living in this city costs less than even the cheapest nursing homes in prosperous cities. Perhaps it is precisely because you can live a life with the last bit of freedom and dignity at a relatively low cost that more and more elderly people are attracted here.
Originally, Lord Chu thought that there were rich people in the city when he returned, but when he left, he realized that he was wrong. This city has almost no basic services. How can the rich tolerate such an environment? Small shops like breakfast shops still exist, and the shopkeepers are not so much trying to make a living as they are looking for people to talk to.
When he was buying breakfast two days ago, he heard the old people chatting in the store. Chu Jungui knew that this was the only time in the day when those old people could chat with others.
The entire city is struggling on the verge of poverty.
How many cities like this are there on the entire Yueyong Planet? How many kingdoms are there?
While he was lost in thought, Chu Jungui's identity chip suddenly popped up a message, and his account balance jumped from 9,600 to 11,615. Chu Jungui was surprised and hurriedly checked the transferee's information, and then saw Chu Longtu.
Looking at the string of numbers with fractions, Chu Jungui's mood suddenly became complicated and indescribable.
He closed his eyes and sat silently until the spacecraft landed.
