SWNOVELXO Chapter 645 Cough Cough
Familiar pit-stop segment, guys.
Ahem.
I will finish the changes by one o'clock.
"You are quite the storyteller," the captain said.
Inside the ship's corridor, just as Bi Fang was about to return to his room, he bumped into the captain with his full beard.
The captain leaned against the seat holding a cup of hot coffee, raising it in greeting as the faint steam rose, bringing a hint of warmth to the cold Arctic Ocean.
Bi Fang smiled, "Actually, a large part of my livestream is dedicated to storytelling; I've gotten good at it over time."
Having just come down from the deck, many of the eavesdropping tourists were reluctant to leave.
Human knowledge comes from three levels: experience, comprehension, and insight.
Experience is undoubtedly the most direct way of acquisition. Compared to the lazy cognitive system, gaining knowledge through experience is both natural and unquestionable—humans are born to favor visual thinking.
This is also Bi Fang's greatest strength; his audience never feels bored during his livestreams.
Others have to edit a day's worth of Wilderness Survival footage down to an hour or even half an hour to ensure it's engaging; yet Bi Fang can keep his viewers intensely engaged online just by relying on his great storytelling ability.
"So you haven't mentioned the ending yet? That explorer, called Mon... Mon...," the captain offered a cup of hot cocoa. He had been listening and enjoying it, but had to return to his captain's quarters for some reason and was now curious about the ending.
"It's Roald Amundsen," Bi Fang took the hot cocoa, sipped, and praised, "Not a bad drink, but next time you could add a few more sugar cubes."
This captain was quite the character.
Bi Fang was headed to Greenland, but his destination was even further, more remote. Large cruise ships have fixed tourist routes and wouldn't change their course for one person alone.
Eventually, Bi Fang found this small cruise ship, repurposed from a long-distance fishing vessel. Although it obviously paled in comparison to the Titanic in terms of facilities and comfort, to meet Bi Fang's requirements, the captain before him very gladly agreed, even without any extra charge.
He even expressed that he had been watching Bi Fang's livestreams for quite a while.
"According to your request, I've added three sugar cubes and a generous amount of chocolate," the captain replied, voice flat.
"Hmm, is that so." Bi Fang shrugged, "Do you have doughnuts on board? I'll have those for dinner tonight."
The captain spoke seriously, "You'll get diabetes by the time you're around thirty if you keep this up."
"Hmm, it's just for this period of time," Bi Fang replied.
These days Bi Fang had been constantly increasing his body weight, eating several meals a day, mostly sweets, to store up fat in his body as much as possible, preparing for the potential drastic weight loss during the upcoming Arctic survival.
Thanks to the powerful digestive ability of the Fish King's stomach, Bi Fang's weight had already broken the 85 kg mark, reaching 170 pounds.
And since Bi Fang had been livestreaming continuously during this period, this gradual change didn't seem obvious. If there had been interruptions, the weight gain would have been more noticeable.
"So you haven't finished the story yet," the captain reminded him.
Even though he had been sailing along this route for over a decade, the captain still did not know about such a legendary explorer, nor the origin of the sea channel's name.
He had always thought the Fram Strait was always called the Fram Strait, just as Angolan was always called Angolan, since ancient times.
"The ending is that this explorer shone in Antarctica, but his curtain call was in the Arctic, with the fireworks gone, all returning to Nature," Bi Fang concluded.
Hearing this conclusion, the captain felt a trace of astonishment.
"After returning from Antarctica, Amundsen didn't bask in the glory of plucking the jewel from the crown of the exploration community. He proposed early on to use aircraft to explore the Arctic and made several attempts."
"In 1915, he obtained the first Norwegian civilian pilot license. The following May, he and Ugly Country People Ellsworth and Italian Nobile took off in an airship from Spitsbergen, flew over the North Pole and onto Alaska, covering a total distance of 4000 kilometers."
"It was the first human flight across the Arctic. Prior legends suggested that there was a vast land between the North Pole and Alaska, and this flight proved those legends wrong."
"But on May 23, 1928, Nobile flew an airship to the North Pole for an expedition. On the return flight, the airship crashed, leaving nine people on the ice and six missing. On hearing this news, Amundsen left on June 18 in an airplane to rescue his former exploration companion, and then the air crash happened."
"Air crash?"
"Yes, on June 18, 1928, Amundsen took the French plane 'Latham Aircraft' to the Arctic in an attempt to rescue the missing Italian exploration team who had crashed in an airship. Along the way, the plane went down, and Amundsen never returned."
December 14, 1928, was designated by the Norwegian government as Antarctica Day to commemorate Amundsen.
At noon on this day, the church bells rang out across Norway, and people commemorated the great explorer with two minutes of silence.
Amundsen's unyielding spirit, his courage to challenge himself, his fearlessness of difficulties, and his relentless determination always inspire future generations to explore the unknown world.
After musing for a moment, Bi Fang intoned leisurely,
"After he completed his assigned tasks, he returned to the Arctic wilderness, his place of vacation.
Under the pure skies of the icy world, he found an unknown place for eternal rest, imbued with endless music.
His name shines upon the youth of Norway like the dazzling Northern Lights, forever."
"Not bad."
"Those aren't my words."
"Then whose are they?"
"Fridtjof Nansen, a sailor, polar explorer, zoologist, and politician; he was Amundsen's predecessor and idol."
"He became famous in the scientific community for his trek across the Greenland ice sheet in 1888 and his journey across the Arctic Ocean aboard the 'Fram' between 1893 and 1896. He also received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work repatriating half a million prisoners of war and for his direct relief work for the starving people of Polar Bear Country."
"Wait a minute? The Fram again? Didn't you just say that it was Amundsen that took her to Antarctica?" The captain doubted his ears; how could this ship have such a high profile?
"Yes, but who told you a ship could only embark on a single adventure, to one pole?" Bi Fang replied with a mischievous wink.
The Fram, an exploration ship that twice made history in the polar regions.
Apart from this ship, there is no other in the world that has been both to the Arctic and Antarctica.
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Having drunk the last of the hot cocoa from his mug, Bi Fang returned the cup to the captain and turned to leave.
Watching Bi Fang's departing figure, the captain pondered deeply.
The name of Amundsen shines like the splendid Northern Lights over the younger generation.
The polar region...
Here I come.