Chapter 245: The Embryo of the Star Alliance Lighthouse
The Chang'an's hangar immediately became incredibly noisy.
Reporters from all walks of life transformed into professional food streamers, gobbling down food while providing live reports.
“Audience friends, please forgive my incompetence! But the taste and texture of this food called tuna slices are truly beyond words.”
“What are all these colorful things? Can they be eaten too?”
“Yes, these are fruits.”
The players by the dining cart felt speechless and genuinely pitied these post-apocalyptic humans.
What kind of lives are you living?!
Clang, clang, clang!
Ye Xing stood in the middle of the venue, tapping an iron pot he had pulled out from who knows where.
“Alright, everyone, don't eat too much yet! Our hot dishes, snacks, and pastries are still being prepared. Please enjoy them while they're hot later!”
The crew members on the Chang'an came from all corners of the world. At this moment, everyone was enthusiastically preparing their hometown's specialty dishes. There were also many external helpers among the temporary chefs from the Xianyang and New Hope branches.
While waiting for these master chefs, the projectors on the hangar ceiling were also busy, displaying colorful images on the four walls of the hangar.
In addition to Cangyuan's corporate promotional videos, there were also various food programs downloaded from the Earth's internet, as well as TV shows and movies of various genres.
These images, without a doubt, became the target of the reporters' cameras. They initially just wanted to take a look to pass the difficult waiting time, but soon, they were firmly captivated by the plots.
It seems… quite interesting!
In the Star Alliance, various factions generally allocated over ninety percent of their GDP to developing industry, scientific research, and military, in order to prioritize survival.
Cangyuan, at its current stage, was actually no different.
This led to almost all entertainment activities being spontaneously formed by the populace, and their forms and content were relatively primitive, or rather, wild, mainly consisting of nightclubs, bars, vice industries, gambling, gladiatorial combat, and a small number of other sports involving intense physical confrontation.
As for music, drama, literature, games, and film and television, they were rare commodities, and high-quality ones were even rarer.
Conversely, the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, a period of long-term peace, happened to be a high-production period for these high-end cultural products. Classics were as vast as the ocean, and internal competition evolved to an astonishing degree.
There was truly no pressure in piquing the interest of these Star Alliance people.
“Ramen is here! Also wontons and steamed buns!”
The second round of the feast began!
In order to fully showcase Cangyuan's culinary culture, which crushed the entire Star Alliance, the players deliberately made each portion of food very small, but even so, with a normal person's appetite, it was still difficult to try everything.
Soon, someone started hiccuping, hiccuping with both embarrassment and satisfaction.
“Ha, these hungry ghosts…” Ye Xing was content and walked over to Lu Yuan, who was quietly observing.
“How about it, Boss? I told you exporting agricultural products would definitely make a fortune!”
“No, it won't.”
Lu Yuan shook his head gently and said with a smile.
“Why? They're clearly eating with such gusto—”
“Because although the Star Alliance eats like pigs, their technological level is not low. They have only lost most of their crop and livestock breeds. As long as we export the first batch of agricultural products, those food merchants will definitely try to clone them.”
“Oh, right!” Ye Xing suddenly realized, “I forgot about cloning—”
“But it doesn't matter. I'm very satisfied with the results of today's buffet. Later, I plan to have the merchants from the branch rent more than a dozen contiguous storefronts in the space station, striving to develop a Specialty Food Street .”
“Ah? But… didn't you just say that all the ingredients would be cloned?”
“You don't need to worry about that,” Lu Yuan looked at Ye Xing. “Cloning ingredients might be easy, but culinary culture and operating service methods are not that easy to learn well. High-quality service is our main competitiveness. In the early stage, I didn't even plan for this food street to be profitable; it will definitely require heavy subsidies.”
“Oh… So it seems the purpose is still cultural output.”
As an elder among elders, Ye Xing had also been with the Executive Officer for five months and could already see through the thoughts of this faction leader “NPC”.
“Exactly!”
Lu Yuan nodded with satisfaction.
Cultural output is often misunderstood or underestimated. It is not a vague concept, and its role in peacetime is very obvious.
Specifically for Cangyuan, a developed culinary culture can quickly accumulate the curiosity of the Star Alliance populace towards this emerging power.
This curiosity, if it develops further, will evolve into goodwill and yearning, which will then motivate them to buy tickets, take a look at Li Star, then try to find a job locally, and finally settle down, becoming a member of the civilization and continuously contributing their strength.
This will promote Li Star as a destination for immigrants, especially skilled immigrants, effectively solving the problem of labor shortage.
The cost of a small media banquet is nothing. In fact, compared to the huge income obtained from shorting galan coin before, the future investment and subsidies for building a food street are just a drop in the ocean.
But the impact it brings is far-reaching, a business that is guaranteed to make a profit.
After the one-hour limited banquet ended, although the reporters and cameramen were full, they still felt a bit unsatisfied, having almost forgotten the true purpose of their visit.
Someone immediately asked if Cangyuan needed long-term shipboard reporters, guaranteeing that they could produce articles every day, objectively and fairly, effectively helping with publicity!
“We are still considering this question. If there are similar plans in the future, we will definitely send invitations to everyone!”
Cangyuan replied, leaving these gluttonous reporters with something to look forward to.
The next day, major media outlets published special reports, each with a more sensational headline than the last.
“Cangyuan Shows Us True Civilization”
“The Return of the King! The Savior of Human Civilization”
“A Fleet from the golden age”
“Undoubtedly, They Represent the Peak of Humanity”
“In This Dream Journey, I Relived Humanity's Former Glory!”
“Cangyuan is About to Conquer the Entire Star Alliance, and the Secret Lies Here!?”
Objectively speaking, the display of Cangyuan warships in these reports was not overly eye-catching.
The Chang'an's bridge was tidier and more rational than Star Alliance ships, and its living quarters were more spacious than the Star Alliance's. As for the rest, frankly, there wasn't much to see.
As for the heavy electromagnetic cannon, merely observing the automatic ammunition feeding robotic arm and the accelerating magnetic rails revealed nothing special.
However, the exaggerated headlines and tone of the reporters' articles still caused a considerable stir among the ruling classes of various factions, leading them to further overestimate Cangyuan's strength and secretly adopt more cautious response strategies.
This bought Cangyuan a valuable time window for its development.
Seeing the remarkable achievements, Lu Yuan decided to further invite industrialists, merchants, and adventurers from New Hope to be guests on the Chang'an, continuing to expand the influence of Cangyuan's culture.
He had previously asked Hugh's Wealth Key to help transport a lot of ingredients, precisely for this moment!
While the Chang'an was busy with cultural output, its sister ship, the Xianyang, was not idle either.
The reason this warship was not hosting guests together was because some “unseen” activities were taking place in its hangar.