The afterglow of the sunset had barely faded when Jiang Ye returned to the seaside.
The wild wolves were delighted, leaping and bounding outside the base vehicle.
Jiang Ye ignored them and went to check the base panel.
[Congratulations! Your base has been upgraded to Level 16!]
[New items added in this upgrade:]
[New Construction Company function. Through this function, you can contact major construction companies in this galaxy to hire them to build various structures for you.]
[The construction companies in this function are all reliable companies registered and vetted by the Galactic Empire over many years, worthy of trust.]
Jiang Ye waited for a moment, but no new subtitles popped up.
It seemed this upgrade had only added a channel for construction companies.
It was indeed very practical. After all, he needed to build a logistics center. Building it himself would take ages; hiring a professional team was the best option, ensuring quality and efficiency, as long as he paid.
He glanced at the requirements for upgrading to Level 17, and it became vulgar again.
[To upgrade the base to Level 17, a fee of 15 million credits is required.]
Too expensive! Jiang Ye couldn't help but curse, "Is this robbery!"
He exited the base upgrade function and returned to the initial interface, clicking on the newly appeared [Construction Companies].
He expected to see a dense cluster of construction companies, given it was galaxy-wide, but there were only four:
[Termite Real Estate Group]
[Hermit Crab Real Estate Group]
[Pangolin Real Estate Group]
[Cunning Rabbit Three Burrows Real Estate Group]
Behind each group were a few lines of description.
[Termite Real Estate Group: Market value 26 trillion credits. Specializes in the construction of large underground structures, with excellent quality and close cooperation with the military.]
[Hermit Crab Real Estate Group: Market value 510 billion credits. Primarily engaged in renovation and refurbishment, with affordable prices and extremely high efficiency.]
[Pangolin Real Estate Group: Market value 19.75 trillion credits. Specializes in large-scale urban construction, having developed 26 megacities with populations exceeding 10 million.]
[Cunning Rabbit Three Burrows Real Estate Group: Market value 180 billion credits. An emerging enterprise undertaking a wide range of projects.]
Jiang Ye gasped in astonishment.
The Termite Group, with the highest market value, reached an astonishing 26 trillion credits!
26,000,000,000,000 credits, an absolute astronomical figure!
The scale was immense, truly befitting a space enterprise. With abundant resources and a vast market, it fostered behemoths of terrifying scale.
Jiang Ye checked the time; Isabel would be arriving soon.
He pushed open the base door and stood outside, waiting.
Two minutes later, a bright spot appeared in the night sky.
The courier spaceship grew closer and finally landed steadily by the dock.
The wild wolves stood up and then lay down again; they had seen a spaceship before and were no longer surprised.
Jiang Ye walked over slowly. The rear of the spaceship opened precisely as he approached.
A massive vehicle drove out, its design resembling a combine harvester, with a ten-meter-wide cylinder at the front.
Isabel pulled open the door, jumped out, and ran over happily, giving Jiang Ye a firm hug.
"Here, this is the road printing vehicle you ordered," Isabel said, releasing him. "Do you still have the blueprints I gave you?"
"Yes," Jiang Ye replied, pulling the blueprints from his pocket and unfolding them.
The blueprint was titled [Universal Road Network for Planetary Logistics Centers]. In the bottom right corner was a scale. The main body of the road network was starfish-shaped, with five main roads, each 40 meters wide. Between the main roads were many smaller paths, ten to twenty meters wide. The longest road was a full 600 meters, enough to land aircraft.
If all these roads were built, the scale would be considerable.
"You can pave all these roads tomorrow; one day should be just enough," Isabel said, her smile radiant, placing a hand on Jiang Ye's shoulder.
"Not tomorrow."
"Why?"
Jiang Ye pointed to the fishing boat on the dock. "I still have a whale carcass at the bow. I need to dissect and sell it tomorrow, or it will start to stink."
Isabel blinked. "Then I'll stay here. You go kill the whale, and I'll be in charge of paving the road."
Jiang Ye was silent for two seconds. "Alright!"
At five in the morning, a wolf howl echoed.
Jiang Ye woke up and turned his head. Isabel was wearing only her underwear, clinging to him like an octopus. Her fair thighs were pressed against his stomach, feeling quite warm.
The wolf howls grew louder, and Isabel also opened her eyes.
The two exchanged smiles, got up to get dressed, and made breakfast together.
Isabel showed off her culinary skills, making fried eggs, steamed eggs, soft-boiled eggs, potato and egg pancakes, and tomato and egg soup.
They sat together to eat, chatting as they did.
"Jiang Ye: Does your husband know about us?"
Isabel was taken aback. "Of course, he can't know! Although he has a mental purity complex and doesn't touch me, I'm still his wife."
Jiang Ye's face turned pale, and his expression was odd.
Isabel chuckled. "Scared?"
"I feel... not great," Jiang Ye sighed. "What are we then?"
"Good friends," Isabel said seriously, nodding. "Yes, just good friends. It's just that we're more open in certain aspects, so just think of it that way. We're neither lovers nor anything else, just pure good friends."
"Okay!" Jiang Ye nodded.
"I saw muddy footprints on the first floor, not muddy shoe prints. What's going on?" Isabel suddenly asked.
Jiang Ye recounted the events of meeting Hussein and the other two yesterday. The muddy footprints were, of course, left by Black Pearl and White Pearl. They hadn't had time to clean them up yet.
"I was a bit surprised at the time," Jiang Ye frowned. "They were so primitive; human relationships had regressed to the primitive era. They formed couples for a bite to eat and sent people away for a little something. I feel like I can't accept it."
"It's normal. In the early stages of colonization, many morals and social norms break down, and most people revert to a state of savagery. The planet I was on even had slave trade. Those who became high-level first became slave owners, and those who couldn't upgrade quickly and were starving sold themselves into slavery. Slave owners could execute slaves at will. But you've already escaped this barbaric era. Your life is going well; you have money, a base, a future, and a female friend who sleeps with you out of pure friendship," Isabel said, biting into the egg custard.
Jiang Ye's face turned red, and he choked, unable to speak.
Isabel laughed heartily; she seemed to enjoy seeing Jiang Ye embarrassed.
After breakfast, they parted ways to start their work.
Isabel drove the road printing vehicle and skillfully began paving the first road on a flat area three hundred meters from the base.
The road printing vehicle worked simply: it extruded a continuous road surface from the front, essentially dense asphalt. As the vehicle moved, the road appeared.
Then, the road needed to be compacted twice by the vehicle, and then a road was almost complete.
Jiang Ye stood on the high deck of the fishing boat, able to see the road printing vehicle at work.
He clicked his tongue in wonder. "As expected, high technology is different; even asphalt roads can be printed and completed quickly."
He turned, facing the whale carcass.
Having been neglected all day yesterday, the whale had begun to emit a slight odor and rot.
However, this had an advantage: the flesh was not as tough as before, making dissection faster.
Jiang Ye inserted his knife into the whale's belly, starting to cut from the outer skin.