CHAPTER 572: CHAPTER 470 RETURNING HOME TO VISIT RELATIVES

The news about being able to take leave and return home to visit family spread through the base quickly, affecting everyone’s emotions.

Although everyone had come to Lucia with full awareness, and despite the heavy workload and harsh environment over the past six months, it wasn’t too unbearable overall. Persevering for a few months is indeed not too much to ask.

But everything becomes difficult once it starts. After knowing that the higher-ups were discussing the possibility of allowing people to return home for visits, everyone was inevitably stirred emotionally.

They are currently in Lucia, far away from their homeland, with at least several thousand kilometers of distance separating them from their country. The physical distance has severed their contact with home.

While communication hasn’t been cut off, the channels available for maintaining contact with home are all official channels, which are not suitable or feasible for ordinary staff to use for calling home to contact family.

This doesn’t mean ordinary staff cannot use these communication devices to call home, but the official channels mainly connect with various domestic departments and not with shelters or individuals.

So even if communication devices were made available to the staff, at most they could call domestic departments, unable to reach their families.

Writing letters is also a method, though. The express delivery services that people used before the disaster have completely ceased, but the national postal service is still operational.

However, all previous postal codes and regional addresses have become a mess due to the apocalyptic disaster. With many grassroots postal facilities damaged and the collapse of the postal system, many addresses are abandoned, and there are no postal workers to deliver letters.

Even if a letter can be sent back home, finding the corresponding address and delivering the letter to the recipient is no easy task.

Not to mention receiving a reply from home.

In such circumstances, everyone hasn’t been in contact with their families for a long time, not knowing how their families are doing and whether everything is alright.

Previously, they could use work to distract themselves, convincing themselves not to dwell on these issues, but once the higher-ups mentioned the possibility of going home for visits, no one could remain calm.

Some directly approached their superiors, inquiring about the possibility of returning home for visits. Even those who were more reserved sought information quietly, estimating their chances of going home for a visit.

This sentiment undoubtedly affected everyone’s work.

Although everyone continued working diligently and did not let their homesickness hinder their work, these thoughts still influenced morale and slightly reduced work efficiency.

Initially, the purpose of allowing people to go home for visits was to alleviate emotional tensions and improve work efficiency, but it resulted in a situation that Chen Xin and others were reluctant to see.

At the same time, they realized the seriousness of everyone’s emotional state.

After all, this was not like before the disaster; several months of accumulated homesickness had become sufficient to impact everyone’s work performance.

With this in mind, Chen Xin convened a meeting with others to formally discuss and establish a temporary policy.

According to the policy, staff who had worked in Lucia for more than four months could apply to a temporarily established coordination group. They would be assessed based on a temporary evaluation standard, and return home in batches according to their scores in a rotational order.

The announcement of the policy immediately sparked a strong reaction.

The evaluation standard naturally became the main topic of discussion. Everyone was concerned because it determined who could be among the first batch to return home.

Fortunately, the evaluation standard was formulated after rigorous discussion, not just arbitrarily decided. Overall, there was no significant opposition, and everyone’s concern was only about their score and the batch in which they could return home.

Since it was a rotational system, only after one batch returned from their visit could the next batch go home. Those assigned to later batches would undoubtedly stay in Lucia longer than others.

However, after the policy was announced, emotions finally stabilized significantly. Some even increased their work efficiency, and a few voluntarily worked overtime during their breaks, trying to earn more points to return home as soon as possible.

Faced with such a situation, Chen Xin and others sighed with relief. They feared the policy would cause resentment, which would have been a severe problem.

Now, with everyone accepting and adhering to the policy, the result was undoubtedly ideal.

This also made Chen Xin and others more determined to arrange for everyone to go home as soon as possible; after all, even a donkey can’t be led on forever with a carrot it never gets to eat.

Therefore, Chen Xin contacted the homeland and, after the arrival of a new batch of supplies, arranged for the first batch to board the returning flight to go home.

This wasn’t difficult since these flights were mostly empty when returning home, so taking some people along was an efficient use of resources.

The only coordination needed was for the homeland to arrange their transportation home once they arrived, which received a positive response from the homeland.

With peace of mind, Chen Xin handed the tasks over to those specifically responsible for handling these matters.

After sending off the first batch, Chen Xin’s deputy raised a question: "Academician, you’ve been away from home for a long time, haven’t you? Since the Southwest earthquake, you’ve only briefly returned twice. Haven’t you missed home after being away for so long? Why don’t you go home for a visit?"

This was a question that puzzled the deputy. Although Chen Xin, as the project leader, couldn’t be in the first batch to set an example, his name could have been on the list for later batches.

Given Chen Xin’s status, reputation, and contributions, no one would have gossiped—it would be seen as well-deserved.

However, from the start, Chen Xin had removed his name from the list of those going home for visits.

"Of course, I do miss home! But compared to others, at least I know there’s nothing wrong at home, and I can contact my family when needed, so returning home isn’t that urgent for me," Chen Xin said indifferently. "Moreover, with my position, going home only requires a word. There’s no need to take someone else’s spot."