Shen Fei thought for a moment and said, "The villagers in the nearby village found it in a dried-up riverbed, a whole iron box full of books, and this is just one of them."
The all-stainless steel iron box was sealed extremely well. No one knew how many years it had been lying in the riverbed, but the books inside were still in perfect condition, with not even a hint of dampness.
Chen Fei took the book, and after flipping through a few pages, he was captivated by its contents.
"Huh? A drive, B drive, the drive letters are almost identical, they really do resemble this DOS system, and the commands are in English too."
This DOS impressed him inexplicably.
"It's getting more and more interesting, take your time, I'll go get lunch ready."
Seeing that her collection of books might be able to help Chen Fei, Teacher Shen Fei was also very happy. She clapped her hands, pushed the door open, and left.
Most of the students in the school brought their own lunches; there was no need for her to worry about them. Preparing lunch for just Chen Fei was not a hassle.
Chen Fei increasingly felt that the primary school teacher's guess was likely correct.
But how should he use these commands?
For instance, to clear the scrolling lines filling his vision, he should use the "cls" command, but how should he enter it?
No sooner had the thought emerged than the lines of repetitive text in front of him suddenly jumped up, and new characters appeared.
"...New hardware detected, loading drivers, installation successful, ready to use."
Whoa, it actually worked!!!
Chen Fei was dumbfounded, it even had voice recognition—so why were there still messages about 'no input/output device detected'? Did he really need to plug in a keyboard and touchpad? That was quite primitive.
Looking at the book's publication date, he realized, gee whiz, it was a fifty-year-old antique.
But what should he do next?
Where was the Enter key? Or, perhaps, the Confirm button?
Just as he thought of this, the repetitive text taking up a significant part of his field of vision, "Illegal operation or incorrect command," vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving only a short string of characters in the top left corner, "A:>\\_", with the little dash blinking on and off.
The world became suddenly clear, as if it had quieted down in an instant.
The "scrolling text" that had troubled Chen Fei for a long time disappeared altogether, as though he had returned to the initial stages of his "Phantosmia" symptoms.
Although there was still the little leftover "A:>\\_", it was no longer a hindrance, trivial enough to ignore.
So, the "cls" command was effective.
This was an unexpected delight for Chen Fei; he clutched the "Introduction to DOS" in his hand. Although not many pages, it might well be the remedy for his "Phantosmia."
However, the next second.
"Illegal operation or incorrect command
Illegal operation or incorrect command
Illegal operation or incorrect command
Illegal operation or incorrect command
The screen started filling up line by line again.
The smile on Chen Fei's face instantly froze.
His mood had barely improved for a few seconds before the screen cluttered once more.
(＃￣～￣＃) He really felt like cursing.
He conjured the "cls" command and then thought "Enter" in his mind, or maybe "Confirm"; it didn't matter anymore.
Following the same steps brought clarity to his vision once again, letting Chen Fei breathe a sigh of relief. The command wasn't a one-time thing, it was reusable and very effective.
Even though it couldn't entirely eliminate the "Illegal operation or incorrect command" messages that kept popping up, it at least gave him a way to clear his vision at any time without having to force himself into a state of all-consuming focus, relying on his subconscious to selectively ignore the distraction.
He speculated that the "scrolling text" he had seen before wasn't actually static, maybe because every line was identical, it gave the illusion of being motionless.
The ancient DOS system obviously had more commands than just "cls".
The "Introduction to DOS" in Chen Fei's hands naturally recorded the introduction and usage method for all commands.
He tried to execute another command.
"A" stood for the drive letter, which could represent a physical drive or a storage partition.
Where there's an A, there's a B; where there's a B, there's a C; where there's a C, there's a D… Personal computers often have more than one physical storage device, and more than one storage partition, not to mention those hidden partitions.
"Illegal operation or command error"
It seems there is no B drive, and Chen Fei is currently troubled by only one partition.
According to the history of personal computers, both A and B drives were originally reserved for floppy disk drives. Today, floppy drives and disks have disappeared without a trace, only found as display items in industry museums, never to be used again as a form of ancient storage.
However, by tradition, drives A and B have been kept reserved by subsequent systems by default. Storage partitions often start from C drive, automatically skipping over A and B at the beginning.
"B:" Failure, an error message appeared, meaning that apart from "A:>\\" there isn't a second partition.
So what exactly is inside this A drive?
Chen Fei had not held much hope, thinking it didn't matter if there were dates or not; he would give it a shot first.
He found a command in "Introduction to DOS" that could display the contents of the current directory, and "A:>\\" just happened to be the root directory. Perhaps he could also learn about the partition's capacity.
Amid a bunch of "Illegal operation or command error" alerts, before Chen Fei could finish typing, he heard Shen Fei's voice outside the house.
"Chen Fei, lunch is ready, come out after washing your hands."
Chen Fei looked down at the health bracelet on his left wrist. It was already twelve o'clock local time. Time really flies; he had unwittingly been reading the book for almost two hours.
This was a brand-new health bracelet. The one that had accompanied Chen Fei for ten years had gone missing in the battle with the Metallic Dragons. He had bought the latest model on the International Medical Ship, and it was reimbursed by the Apocalypse Defense Group.
Carefully placing the "Introduction to DOS," of which he had flipped through a dozen or so pages, on the steel-wood desk inside the room, he responded loudly, "Coming, I'll be right there!"
As soon as he pushed open the door, a waft of food aroma hit him in the face.
Not far outside the door, a few dishes were laid out on an outdoor rectangular table, with roasted meat, vegetable soup, naan, and small bread. There were also several dishes of appetizers, simple yet abundant.
There were also six kids sitting around the table with Shen Fei, waiting to eat together.
"Wow, this looks really good."
Chen Fei was somewhat surprised. This female teacher had actually managed to prepare such a large spread.
Shen Fei pointed to the empty seat next to her and waved to Chen Fei.
Once he sat down, she continued, "I have a freezer here, quite large, so I can store a lot of semi-finished products. There's also a big oven that can roast anything. Try the pickles I made myself—dried radish, sauerkraut, and stir-fried sauerkraut."
Chen Fei gave her a big thumbs up without stint.
The students around the table immediately started praising their teacher, making Teacher Shen's cheeks flush red.
"Teacher Shen is the best."
"My mom's cooking isn't as delicious as Teacher Shen's."
"I could lick my plate clean, I do it every time."
"I have never eaten such delicious food in my life. Teacher Shen, when I grow up, I will definitely marry you as my main wife."
"No way, Teacher Shen is so pretty, she will definitely be my main wife."
"Pfft, look at yourself, Sprout Student!"
As they spoke, two little rascals were about to start scuffling right then and there, uttering such outlandish wolf and tiger words!
The children from the mountain village of Patan matured early and were precocious, with a robust and fierce customs, each acting like a little adult, recklessly imagining the future.
"Stop, stop, stop, you lot, don't spout nonsense."
Shen Fei's tone became slightly stern, and the kids immediately behaved like quails.
Chen Fei shook his head with a smile and said, "Still talking about a main wife, how many wives will you guys be able to marry when you grow up?"
A big boy immediately raised his hand and then bent one finger, leaving four fingers standing up straight.
The other kids burst into laughter, with one shouting, "Muzike is getting married next year, he's already fifteen. His family has already sent two sheep each to the villages to the south and the west, engaging two girls."
Someone else added, "I know, I know, the girl from the southern village is Amu, she's the niece of my aunt, with cheeks like apples."
Laughter followed once more, the hand-raising big boy's face turned beet red, yet he stood tall, with a mixture of pride and anticipation.