Chapter 440: Food, Relationships, Water |
“Latest Notice: Due to the impact of the new rule, effective immediately, the daily two-meal supply for shelter residents will be temporarily adjusted to one meal.”
On the morning of April 2nd, this notice was released through Beixing's official channels and conveyed to every shelter.
The ordinary people living in those shelters received the news and immediately erupted in complaints.
“One meal a day? If the portions are the same as before, that's nowhere near enough…”
“This is only the second day of the rule, and clean food is already this scarce?”
“Just make do with it. As long as you don't starve to death, it's fine.”
“I think they should make those Ascendants eat less! They can handle hunger better!”
Beixing's shelter allocation system classified and housed Ascendants separately from ordinary people. A single shelter either held all Ascendants or all ordinary people.
This arrangement was both for convenience and safety.
So as soon as the notice came out, ordinary people overwhelmingly believed they should receive more food. Their reasoning was that Ascendants had stronger physical constitutions and could go a day or two without eating without any problem.
This opinion appeared online and was immediately met with fierce opposition from the Ascendant community.
“The ones who can skip meals without issue are high-Mind-Power Ascendants! Those of us with low Mind Power aren't much stronger than ordinary people. How could we possibly not need to eat?!”
“If we're really going to argue about who should eat more or less, it should be the ordinary people who eat less. Put the good steel on the blade's edge. Aren't Ascendants more valuable than ordinary people?”
Neutral observers said, “There's no need for all this arguing. During ancient famines, refugees sometimes only ate once every few days. This rule only lasts a month, and everyone can eat once a day. No matter how bad it gets, it's not going to starve anyone to death, right?”
“Yeah. During that Food Prohibition rule a while back, people went days without eating, and hardly anyone starved. In my opinion, this time is even more lenient.”
The various groups traded arguments back and forth, neither side giving ground. But on Beixing's networks, almost no one brought up the option to hide intelligence. It was clear that neither ordinary people nor Ascendants thought it was necessary, and most were unwilling to lose their fertility regardless.
This was where the differences between nations became apparent.
On the Suroma Empire's network environment, “plastification reaction” had already become a hot topic of discussion.
“Anyone want to gamble on it together? A fifty percent chance isn't bad!”
“Since it can change your physiology if it works, do you think we'll turn into ‘Plastic Man’?”
“A superpower to purify plastic? That's kind of interesting.”
“Even if you don't want to gamble, you have to. Otherwise, how is a tiny bit of food supposed to be enough?!”
This wasn't just because many Suromans didn't care about fertility in the first place. It was also directly related to the Suroma government only providing basic food to its citizens.
Unlike Beixing, which announced a guaranteed supply of one meal per person per day, Suroma's statement said citizens could go to self-service points to collect food—one unit every two days. If they felt that wasn't enough and wanted more, they would have to spend Ascension Coins to buy it.
As soon as this statement was released, the ordinary citizen population in the country exploded.
Someone posted a picture online of the single unit of food they had collected: a metal can smaller than a palm, filled with a mashed paste of ground-up meat and vegetables. Getting through two days on that tiny box might not kill you from starvation, but you'd definitely be too weak to move from hunger.
And for ordinary people whose Terminal panels had already been closed, there was simply no way to obtain Ascension Coins. This purchasing system completely excluded them.
But while Suroma's ordinary people cursed and raged, after all their shouting, they had absolutely no recourse against the government.
Two years ago, when the Doomsday Rules first appeared, the two major powers—Beixing and Suroma—had already set off on completely different paths.
Beixing focused on protecting its national population, leveraging its large population base and high number of Ascendants to deal with the Doomsday Rules.
Suroma, on the other hand, took the path of elitism + intelligentization. It frantically poached high-potential Ascendants from other countries with generous offers, prioritizing their safety and advancement. As for ordinary people, they were quietly strategically abandoned, replaced by the ever-developing intelligent robots to compensate for the production shortfalls caused by their dwindling numbers.
At first, the differences between these two paths weren't obvious. But now, two years later, the changes brought by these choices were abundantly clear.
Take the strategy for dealing with this new rule, for example. Suroma simply didn't care much about the survival of its ordinary people.
Because within the country, all critical nodes were controlled by Ascendants. Production departments like factories were either dark factories or operated by intelligent robots. Ordinary people were completely powerless to resist, having become a purely dependent group. To many of Suroma's higher-ups, getting rid of these “negative assets” was a relief; why would they waste effort helping them?
At that moment, during a meeting of the Suroma Empire's Senate, the senators were also discussing this matter.
Of the original thirteen senators, only twelve remained. After the failed assassination mission against the Fire Thief Cult's His Holiness, the senator who had been secretly bribed to recommend Peter for the team had been dealt with, and his family's resources had been divided up.
One senator scoffed, “I see a lot of ordinary people cursing online. These people really don't know what's good for them. They don't even think about the fact that they have no contribution or value to Suroma anymore. They're just a bunch of parasites living off handouts.”
“That's right,” another senator immediately agreed. “These ordinary people only consume resources without producing anything. Keeping them fed all the time is bad enough, but we have to spend a huge amount of resources to care for them during special rules. It's a losing proposition.”
“Beixing likes raising people, doesn't it? Why don't we just bundle them all up and ship them over there!”
“That might have worked before, but Beixing isn't taking them anymore now. Otherwise, they would have taken those Sakura Prayer people away long ago.”
“I think we should cut off the internet connection for those ordinary people. Save them from venting online all day.”
At this point, King Bruce, who was sitting in the middle, spoke up. “Leaving them an online vent is better than letting them cause trouble in the real world.”
“Your Majesty is overthinking it, aren't you? What kind of trouble could they cause? If they step out of line, just send some intelligent Public Security Patrols to handle it.”
King Bruce looked at the senator, who immediately shut his mouth.
Then another senator suggested, “Your Majesty, regarding the ‘plastification reaction,’ should the government set up injection points? A lot of ordinary people are considering it right now.”
“Hmm.” Bruce nodded. “That's acceptable. Set up high-density microplastic injection points in all major population centers. Those who volunteer can go.”
“I hope a good number of people go,” another senator mentioned. “That way, our food burden will be significantly reduced. Don't forget, in order to secure the votes for the Human Consortium's presidency, we promised food aid to several small countries.”
The senators all nodded. Then one of them brought up another matter. “A confidential agent from Beixing's side contacted me through one of my people. He said he wants to defect to our Suroma. He's already left Beixing.”
“Oh?” Bruce asked. “Who is it?”
“His name is ‘Han Qiu.’ He was originally trained by Jiang Lanying. After Jiang died, he went into deep cover in the Countermeasures Research Office. He's coming out now, probably because his identity was compromised.”
“The Countermeasures Research Office? He must know quite a few secrets!”
“It's worth bringing him in.”
As soon as the senators heard this, they became interested. As the most important department in Beixing right now, the Countermeasures Research Office undoubtedly held a lot of high-value intelligence.
Bruce thought for a moment and said, “Let him come, then. After he passes the counter-espionage test, I'll meet him personally.”
“Understood.”
…
“Regarding that Han Qiu, our investigation has turned up some leads.”
On the morning of April 2nd, Guan Tong received a call from Li Meng. Li Meng said he had taken over the investigation of the matter.
“Han Qiu grew up in an orphanage, but the orphanage recorded in his official information is fake. Through layers of screening, we found the real orphanage he was in as a child. And there's another person on that orphanage's list of children. You should still remember him.”
“Who?” Guan Tong asked.
“Han Ling.”
Han Ling!
When Guan Tong heard that name, he immediately understood everything.
“The Han Ling who managed the Qingmei Society's Yongzhou base.”
“That's right. Those two lived in the same orphanage. According to the investigation, they had a pretty good relationship back then. They called each other brother and sister.”
“Han Qiu, Han Ling… So that's it. No wonder this Han Qiu is after me.”
He had originally thought that Han Qiu and the one who used his name to form the alias “Wei Huo” were just trying to avenge the Commander. Now, it seemed that perhaps only “Wei Huo” was. Han Qiu had another grudge against him.
Li Meng continued, “After you destroyed the Yongzhou base, Han Qiu must have set his sights on you, wanting to take revenge for Han Ling. Based on that, we infer that his reason for joining the Countermeasures Research Office was likely to gather intelligence on you.”
“…”
Guan Tong felt that Han Qiu wanting revenge for his sister wasn't entirely unreasonable. After all, some conflicts were destined to be irreconcilable.
“If he wants revenge, he can come straight to me,” Guan Tong said. “Not target an innocent person trying to overcome a spore addiction at a withdrawal center.”
Li Meng sighed. “How could he possibly be a match for you? I suspect he thought that girl named Suzuki had some special relationship with you and wanted to dig up more information and weaknesses on you from her to deal with you. But the results didn't meet his expectations, so… Anyway, the authorities absolutely will not tolerate this. A global warrant has been issued for him.”
Guan Tong didn't say anything. He knew he would find this Han Qiu himself and make him pay for what he had done.
Li Meng seemed to have guessed Guan Tong's thoughts. He didn't continue on that topic and instead brought up the matter of this current rule. “Right now, shelters in every city are facing a shortage of clean food. The government is scrambling to gather supplies. If you have any channels to help, there will be a fee.”
Guan Tong remembered the cans he had seen in the warehouse the night before. “What about searching the supply warehouses in abandoned cities? There should be plenty of food preserved in metal or glass containers.”
“The government is already looking into that channel. Food is actually manageable. One meal a day, or even one meal every two days—no one is going to starve to death. But clean water is a major problem right now. Most of the previous water reserves were stored in plastic barrels. As soon as the rule took effect, it all got contaminated. We can supplement it by pumping groundwater now, but that takes time.”
“I can supply some clean water,” Guan Tong said.
Although his shelter could produce uncontaminated water, the output was limited over a given period, depending on the total output of several faucets.
“You have a source of clean water?” Li Meng asked. “How much can you supply?”
“At least ten tons a day, no problem.”
Guan Tong was being conservative. He estimated that if the faucets were left running 24 hours a day, he could release dozens of tons without issue.
“Ten tons a day!” Li Meng's volume suddenly shot up. “Based on a minimum of 1,500 milliliters per person per day, ten tons can supply at least six to seven thousand people!”
Li Meng's excitement was understandable. A typical shelter housed about a thousand people, meaning Guan Tong's clean water source could meet the drinking water needs of six to seven shelters. That was no small number.
“Guan Tong, your clean water source can help so many people. Leave it to the government! In return, the government will compensate you with enough Ascension Coins.”
“That's not necessary. It's just that my situation here is a bit special,” Guan Tong said. “I can provide clean drinking water to the government, but not the water source itself.”
“Is that so?” Hearing Guan Tong say this, Li Meng guessed that the water source might not be a natural one, but rather some kind of Mind Power item.
“Alright, then. Just supply the water, then.”
“Send me an address, preferably in Pinglu. And prepare some suitable containers. I'll put the water there.”
Now that he knew about “Han Qiu's” existence, Guan Tong had no reason to stay in the abandoned city of Yunhua. He planned to put the shelter back at the bottom of the valley in Pinglu.
Not long after Li Meng hung up the phone, he sent an address in Pinglu City. He told Guan Tong that, for convenience in transporting the water, the government had specially prepared a space item to lend to him temporarily.
Guan Tong returned to Pinglu in the afternoon and met up with Li Meng to collect the item. It was a small square box. Ten large metal drums, each holding one ton of volume, were stored inside it.
Guan Tong quite liked this small square box because it was much larger in volume than his own Storage Ring. He had originally thought that this kind of space item was very rare. But clearly, for a behemoth like the government, which had a database of millions of Ascendants, no matter how rare something was, multiplying it by that base number made the quantity quite astonishing.
After taking the item back to the shelter, he started turning on the faucets. Using his solidified Shadow as a pipeline, he transported the water into the metal drums outside.
Black Star and White Star were standing outside, watching. After they discussed it for a while, Black Star came over to find Guan Tong.
“Troupe Leader, I have an idea.”
“Go on.”
“I want to leave White Star at the base to take care of Aaron. I'll take some of the clean water produced by the base back to our Twin Stars Bar stronghold in Xisiya. I'll also continue collecting Flowable Mind Power for you, Troupe Leader.”
Guan Tong asked, “You plan to sell it to civilian Ascendants in Xisiya?”
Although the Kingdom of Xisiya wasn't as powerful as Beixing or Suroma, it was still a major nation. At the very least, Ascendants affiliated with the government wouldn't lack clean drinking water. Only civilians might be short of it.
And civilian Ascendants were precisely Black Star's main client base as a middleman.
“Not sell it, give it away,” Black Star said. “I want to improve relationships by giving away some water. Resources like clean water are only scarce because of this rule. Once the rule ends, no one will care about it. If I sell it, it might be reasonable from a business perspective, but it will also breed resentment. If I give it away, it will earn gratitude.”
Guan Tong nodded. Black Star was right.
A resource that wasn't inherently valuable became scarce in the short term due to a special reason. Selling it at a high price might be reasonable from a business standpoint, but it would certainly invite resentment. Unless you only planned to make a one-time deal, it wasn't a good long-term strategy.
But giving it away was different. Offering a timely favor was far better than adding something to an already perfect situation. If people remembered this kindness, they might just lend a hand in a critical moment later on. For someone in Black Star's position as a middleman, the benefits could be endless.
“Alright, go ahead.” Guan Tong thought for a moment, then took off his Storage Ring, took out the Silver Hunt, and traded it to Black Star. “Take this Storage Ring for now. It'll be easier to transport the water. There's also a professional-grade protective gear set inside. If you wear it in the city, it'll block the absorption of microplastics.”
The protective gear he was talking about was the high-level item he had bought during the [Nightmare Beasts] rule, which had an oxygen level display. He had kept it stored away ever since using it back then.
Black Star took the ring, a look of intense excitement on his face. “Thank you for your trust, Troupe Leader! I'll head back to Xisiya right now!”