Xu An watched Qin Chuan's familiar back, and seeing him turn to leave without any intention of acknowledging her, she didn't dwell on it despite her confusion.
She wished she could distance herself from Qin Chuan, and now that she realized he was deliberately ignoring her, she certainly wouldn't push herself forward.
"But didn't Zhou Zhe say just the day before yesterday that Qin Chuan was coming to find me?" Xu An muttered softly to herself.
The man, seeing Xu An murmuring something inaudibly, asked curiously, "What did you say?"
Xu An shook her head, "Nothing. Where is the venue? Please take me there."
The man nodded, not probing further, and led Xu An through a transparent glass door.
"From now on, when you come by yourself, you can just use your ID card to open the door."
"Okay. By the way, I wanted to ask if military personnel frequently come here for training?"
The man smiled proudly and explained to Xu An, "Naturally. This place is known as a small base, and many military officers train here."
"Doesn't the official establishment have fixed training grounds?"
"Yes, they do. But the official grounds are used for large-scale drills or overall exercises. As for officers of certain ranks, they usually come here for private training."
"Don't they have separate training facilities?" Xu An asked, a little curious.
Although she had been on the Beacon for over half a year, her information about it was extremely scarce.
"Where would there be space to allocate small training grounds for them? The entire Beacon, not counting the second level, has over a million personnel in the sub-levels and the first level alone. And that's without the second level's forces."
The man glanced around, lowered his voice, and sighed, "I've heard that the forces in the secret research institutes on the second level alone amount to hundreds of thousands, and the total forces on the second level equal the combined forces of the sub-levels and the first level."
"There are countless guard teams, law enforcement teams, rescue teams... and even elite squads specifically for secret missions. I'm telling you, don't spread it around, this is classified information."
"Where do those soldiers live?" Xu An asked nonchalantly, "I feel like I rarely see law enforcement teams around."
"The military all have their own accommodations, including the law enforcement teams. They patrol regularly. Every street on the Beacon is equipped with 360-degree surveillance cameras. When there's a problem, they arrive immediately. I have to say, our country's technology is truly amazing..."
Seeing the man's hopeful expression, Xu An interrupted, "Do they all live on the second level?"
The man looked at Xu An strangely, "Don't you know about the White Buildings?"
"What are White Buildings?"
"It's understandable that you don't know. The White Buildings have dedicated entrance passages, different from the residential access."
As the man said this, Xu An became even more curious, "Where exactly are these White Buildings you're talking about?"
"They're on the periphery of the light barrier. The Beacon is a ring-shaped structure, and the space inside is folded. Do you see the containers gliding through the air?"
Xu An nodded. She had always thought they were a new way of transporting supplies.
"Those are light rail trams. Between the first and second levels, there's a light track, and you need to take the trams to go up. And along the outermost perimeter of the light barrier, there's a ring of White Buildings, and those are the military's residences."
"The outermost perimeter?"
"Yes! If my brother-in-law wasn't an engineer involved in the Beacon's construction, I might not have known that the country has allocated the most central, most secure areas for us to live in, while they themselves reside in the most dangerous periphery."
The man looked self-moved, his expression fervent, as if telling Xu An: Look how great they are, how dedicated!
Xu An awkwardly shifted her gaze. While she was also shocked, she wasn't to the point of the man's fanatical admiration.
She thought to herself that she should find an opportunity to get a design blueprint of the Beacon from Rat. With Rat's status, such things shouldn't be difficult. She realized that for over a year, she had been working in isolation, and her information was too limited.
Xu An walked ahead, the boss trailing behind her, still enthusiastically promoting the military's various "heroic" deeds. He acted like a fanatical fangirl roommate from university who used to try and recruit her for her idol before the apocalypse.
Xu An could only offer polite smiles, placating him.
"Yes, yes... right, right..." She was a master of the art of superficial agreement.
However, she wondered if her roommate was still alive.
Xu An looked at the surrounding training equipment. Perhaps because it was morning, there weren't as many people as the boss had described, "packed." Two men in black tank tops, with buzz cuts and tanned skin, were sparring with each other.
"Aren't they wearing protective gear?"
The boss, in the middle of his enthusiastic explanation, saw where Xu An was pointing and said dismissively, "Oh, they're in a ring match. These are bare-knuckle fights, and they don't allow protective gear."
"Ring match?"
Seeing Xu An's confusion, the boss proactively explained, "Have you watched boxing matches before?"
As it happened, Xu An had a roommate in college who was obsessed with boxers. She spent her free time watching boxing matches in the dorm, and Xu An had even watched a few with her. Some of the matches were very exciting, and she had followed them almost from start to finish.
So, Xu An nodded and said, "I've watched a few, I understand some."
The boss seemed surprised that Xu An, a seemingly fair-skinned young woman, actually watched boxing matches, and his gaze towards her held a hint of admiration.
"I didn't expect you girls to like this. Ring matches are like the boxing matches of the past. The difference is, we have betting. We bet on the outcome, and the winning fighter gets a 20% commission of the total bets, plus a guaranteed fee for each match."
The boss added with a smile, "These fighters are all tough characters."
"Many of them have signed up for this expedition competition, hahaha. When you compete, if you encounter any of these lunatics, be sure to stay far away. They will truly beat people to death."
Xu An frowned. The surrounding clamor, contrasted sharply with the emptiness of other parts of the venue.
The boisterous shouts from the crowd were interspersed with vulgarities and curses, but more often, there were cheers, and... the dull thudding sounds of fists hitting flesh on the stage.
Feeling an unavoidable discomfort, she couldn't help but ask, "Isn't this just fighting underground?"