Nobody expected the situation in the Centaurus constellation to escalate to this extent within just two days.
But in hindsight, it wasn't entirely unforeseeable. Once Turkey Stark was the first to be notified, followed by Turkey Strange, one could have guessed that it would inevitably lead to a turkey fight.
Of course, one shouldn't underestimate the power of Electric Turkey Thor. Originally, Strange was asked by Nick to calm Thor down, but when two extremists started talking, they eventually decided to settle it with their fists.
Having Stark alone visit the Centaurus constellation might have been fine since he was rather keen to find the whereabouts of the Guardians of the Galaxy mbers, despite his displeasure with the emperor of the Katte Civilization. But once Strange arrived, he imdiately unleashed a Magic Qigong Cannon, leveling the imperial palace, and negotiations were off the table.
Furthermore, Thor was so incensed by Strange's words that he saw the provocation toward Asgard as a challenge, thinking they could get away with poking a sleeping tiger. He felt compelled to teach them a harsh lesson.
When Asgard's fleet arrived, the matter here beca impossible to resolve. Known to all, Asgard's ships in the cosmos are heralds of death, summoners from Hell; anyone who sees them must pull a level one alert.
The Centaurus constellation lies in a lawless zone, akin to the cosmic equivalent of the Golden Triangle, situated right at the intersection of the Three Great Empires, which also serves as a buffer and intelligence exchange hub.
Asgard stepping in was like poking at the borders of the Three Great Empires at the sa ti. Everyone felt endangered, prompting the fleets of the Three Great Empires to set sail as well.
Seeing the Three Great Empires preparing for real action, and Earth, which relies on Asgard, couldn't just stand by. A major diplomatic incident could unfold, leaving Stark no choice but to urgently summon help.
The orchestrator of all this, Nick, knew the ti was ripe and used his S.H.I.E.L.D. connections to call away virtually all the powerful heroes on Earth, including mutants busy farming in xico, who were now dragged to the Centaurus constellation for support.
The Centaurus constellation turned lively with the convergence of forces. Though the Divine King did not arrive personally, and the major forces of the Three Great Empires were still observing, the sheer oppressive force of the human champions was already formidable, signaling a storm brewing in the star system. The whereabouts of the Guardians of the Galaxy were now crucial.
But none of this commotion concerned Shiller, who had lately been tornted to death by his students' internship reports.
Shiller had never thought himself capable of understanding arrogance because, to so degree, he had never really supervised any students; Peter didn't major in psychology, so he didn't count.
To Greed, supervising interns wasn't too bad since at least they could help with work. He found it quite enjoyable to gather for als and chats. However, once things fell to the realm of text, Greed suddenly empathized with arrogance.
He even doubted whether many students realized that Microsoft's Office software cos with a grammar check feature, which with a single click, could mark and correct grammatical errors. Otherwise, how to explain the glaring grammatical mistakes in these papers?
Many might think writing academic papers in Chinese is challenging, but in reality, Chinese academic writing is possibly the simplest among countless languages because Chinese grammar isn't very strict, and there aren't many ways to make errors.
The main reason is that Chinese pronouns don't have gender, auxiliary verbs and verbs lack tense, and "把" and "被" do not mandatorily emphasize passivity. Generally speaking, up to the undergraduate and graduate levels, papers won't nitpick on such aspects as long as they're not translated into English.
But it's a different story for alphabetic languages like English. If you add a ti expression in a sentence, you must change all the auxiliary verbs that follow. And take note, it's not about changing a word in a sentence, but every word related to the sa event throughout the text.
So might believe that native English speakers should rember this since they've been speaking the language since childhood, but that's not the case. The human forgetting curve is more or less similar for everyone; they might rember in the sentence with the ti word but completely forget thereafter.
And in so papers, certain experints or viewpoints of the experinters are repeatedly ntioned. One might rember to change the verb tenses the first ti it's brought up, but by the second ti, it's forgotten.
So Shiller often sees in emails how an experint from the '80s has all verbs and auxiliary verbs not in past tense, nor is the expression of results in perfect tense—using "is" all the way through.
Then there are the disastrous clauses where the writer might rember to distinguish the clause marker at the beginning, but by the end, a single "that" suffices for everything.
Perhaps because internship reports aren't very rigorous academic papers, many parts require narrative sentences, like what happened today, what I did to handle a certain situation with a patient, etc. This leads to writing that's too colloquial—worse than a Chinese high school's English essay for college entrance exams.
Shiller was wrangling with emails full of grammar issues until he was blue in the face, and he couldn't help but feel relieved that Nick didn't involve him in the Centaurus matter. Otherwise, he wouldn't have ti for corrections, and these internship reports might beco a source of laughter at reunions.
He's also grateful to be Chinese as his English grammar had been specifically studied; if English had been his mother tongue, he might not have noticed so of these errors.
Today, Shiller spent about nine hours and finally finished revising the over thirty internship reports sent to him. As expected, he received praises like "grammar god above" in the chat group after sending them back. Shiller could only respond with several angry red-faced emojis to express his emotions.
Exhausted, Shiller was ready to sleep, but at this unfortunate mont, Nick called, asking if Shiller's students had been in contact with a patient's family mber nad Aux.
Shiller jolted upright from his sick bed, knowing that the trouble caused by Charles would sooner or later co back to haunt him.
Before ending the call, Ultron turned on the screen of his bedroom TV, where the newscaster's tone was extrely urgent.
"We interrupt with a breaking news story: The Stella Core Space Station, humanity's most advanced near-Earth exploration base, launched six months ago, has encountered a major electricity accident! Currently, 13 sections of the space station have completely lost power to their electrical systems, and the oxygen circulation system has also ceased to function, with less than three hours of oxygen supply remaining."
"As of the latest information received by our station, approximately 2,000 workers in the 13 affected areas have been evacuated to the other 14 sections, but the space station does not have enough spacecraft to send workers without oxygen back to Earth."
"Moreover, the oxygen circulation devices in the remaining 14 sections are not adequate to support the increased number of staff, and in about five hours, all workers will face a situation of oxygen shortage..."
"Currently, order on the space station remains manageable, but as ti goes on, panic is gradually spreading. High-level officials from various countries are flying to Switzerland for an ergency eting. The nations participating in the eting are said to include..."
With a click, Shiller turned off the TV, rubbed his forehead, and said to the person on the phone, "Did you really have to choose this ti to call?"
"Co on, it's only 9 o'clock! Pri ti!"
Rubbing his sowhat swollen forehead, Shiller said, "What happened with Aux?"
"Well, actually my people haven't been in place yet, this was truly an accidental incident, it seems that an electrician made a mistake, and there was a big explosion..."
After a while, his two old partners, Natasha and Coulson, arrived. From their explanations, Shiller finally found out what had transpired – in essence, it was a series of unlucky coincidences.
An Indian tapestry previously sent up had caused a batch of people to develop allergies, and the senior electrician Aux was among the unfortunate ones affected.
Because of his age and severe symptoms, Ben Parker, the chief electrical engineer, was sent back on the first flight. The deputy chief electrical engineer was not competent enough and had poor relations with others, leading to so slackness among the subordinate staff.
Aux was one of the unlucky victims, but because he had previously offended the deputy chief engineer, he was not allocated a spot on the first flight back for treatnt, causing him to develop a fever that lasted two days and left him extrely weakened.
anwhile, his wife Lisa's ntal state was deteriorating, becoming increasingly paranoid and doubting her own mories. She incessantly called Aux, claiming the world they lived in was not real and had been fabricated by others. She also believed that UFOs were landing near their ho and that soone was trying to steal her child.
Aux had to cope with an increased workload and deal with a difficult supervisor while already in a weakened state and expending energy to console his wife. After a few days of this stressful situation, Aux himself started to beco sowhat delirious.
At just this ti, the deputy chief engineer, no longer under the watch of his superior, beca even more troubleso. Aux, already in a daze, made a mistake that the deputy caught, leading to Aux being reassigned to inspect the Photovoltaic Integrated Device.
This device was installed outside the space station, requiring a complete set of equipnt for an external check and involving a certain degree of danger. It was an unwanted job shunned by everyone, and it ended up being Aux's responsibility.
Aux's wife was now unable to look after herself, placing the burden of their life entirely on Aux's shoulders. No matter how arduous the work, he had to do it.
Having never perford maintenance work before, Aux was fortunate that the Photovoltaic Integrated Device was made in China, essentially foolproof to operate with a comprehensive, step-by-step illustrated manual.
However, he was inattentive during one of the repairs and forgot to attach his safety line. He ended up floating above the space station, with the door on the side. Without the safety line, it was easy to float away and not be able to return. He had to stand on the ceiling of the space station, knocking continuously, hoping soone would hear and co up to investigate.
The correct procedure would have been to slowly move to the edge of the ceiling with windows below and use a rope, a belt, or simply so tool to throw down and attract attention. Alternatively, he could have crawled towards the spacecraft's entrance and exit, where soone would surely see him when a spacecraft approached.
But Aux's mind was muddled. After knocking for a while and realizing that no one was responding, he beca desperate, thinking that he was sure to die there. His brain filled with anxiety, preventing him from thinking clearly.
He concluded that the only way out was to cause a malfunction in the Photovoltaic Integrated Device, believing that this would force the people inside the space station to co up and find him.
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