At the same time, Minister Niu Mou cleared up many of Jing Shu's doubts.
They rode the Maybach back to the Planting Industry R&D Management Department, where Su Lanzhi worked. The leather seats were cool and smooth under her. According to him, this Maybach was reserved solely for picking up and dropping off VIPs.
Qian Duoduo himself boarded a completely black stretch sedan that looked ordinary from the outside. It was not a luxury brand and showed no badge. The paint was a flat, light-absorbing black. If not for the 88888 license plate, she would never have guessed it was Qian Duoduo's personal car.
Minister Niu Mou said Qian Duoduo owned two such custom-built vehicles, made exactly to his specifications. The interior was lavish. The body used carbon fiber, that top-tier material used for missions to the sky and sea, monopolized globally and incredibly expensive.
Beyond that, the car carried the most advanced safety systems. If it plunged into water, it could function as a yacht. If it fell from a cliff, there was an emergency parachute and a glider. If a big rig ran it over, the car could instantly cocoon Qian Duoduo inside a safety capsule.
The vehicle could prevent 98 percent of lethal threats from weapons.
In short, no matter what happened, it was designed so the owner wouldn't die.
The build cost exceeded one hundred million. There was supposedly another one even more impressive, but no one had seen it.
Jing Shu listened, stars in her eyes, her gaze lingering on the retreating black car. The world of the rich really was something.
"Several months ago," Minister Niu Mou said, leaning back against the headrest, "the authorities consolidated a lot of private oil holdings. After the Earth's Dark Days, oil is a strategic reserve, so resources must be centrally managed. Qian Duoduo is the exception. At the state oil base, he calls the shots, and he still holds shares.
It's complicated, but the short version is Qian Duoduo controls extraction rights, and it's perfectly aboveboard. Wu City is building an artificial sun. The resources being dumped into it are a bottomless pit. Right now the authorities need Qian Duoduo's petroleum. Everyone is watching the oil in his hands.
The artificial sun is a pit. In earlier tests it burned through energy worth hundreds of thousands in a single second. But we can't not build it. Water sources are so polluted that apart from reservoirs, groundwater has already been overdrawn. Keep this up and we'll see land collapses all over."
Jing Shu nodded, watching the cityscape blur past the window. Caught between wolves ahead and tigers behind, it was truly a dilemma. An artificial sun. Was the sun so easy to make?
The Planting Industry R&D Management Department was a whirlwind of activity when they arrived. Water shortages were severe. The allocations here had dropped, yields had fallen, and without Jing Shu's hundreds of frogs eating bugs day and night, Wu City's last vegetable plot might have disappeared. The air inside the building was thick with the smell of damp soil and greenery.
Jing Shu spotted Yu Caini hauling night soil, the bucket heavy in her grip. Compared with a few months ago when she still looked human, she now resembled an elderly aunt entirely, reeking of manure and sweat. If not for the hateful glare she shot her way, Jing Shu would not have recognized Yu Caini at all.
Clearly life was treating Yu Caini badly. That put Jing Shu at ease.
When Yu Caini met Jing Shu's provocative gaze, she seemed to remember that day, ducked her head, shoulders hunching, and fled, her shoes scuffing against the concrete floor.
"Minister Niu Mou, how can we strip Yu Caini of formal employee status?" Jing Shu asked, her voice low. "Yu Caini's backing is over in the new city zone."
"If an employee's mistakes cause serious financial losses," Minister Niu Mou said, adjusting his glasses, "we can revoke formal status directly."
"I see," Jing Shu said, eyes narrowing, a slow smile touching her lips. In the last life, Yu Caini was the culprit who cost Su Lanzhi her post in the system. In this life, Jing Shu would not kill her. She would simply see her lose that iron rice bowl, then watch while Jing Shu's family grew happier and happier.
Minister Niu Mou could not help sighing, a soft exhalation. Months ago, Yu Caini had been a system manager with people behind her and a team of researchers. Months later, Yu Caini had fallen this far, and now even the iron rice bowl was in danger. She had offended someone she should never have offended. The backers behind her likely could not lift her up again.
As for Jing Shu's family, Minister Niu Mou felt they were his's lucky stars. He rubbed his hands together, mind drifting to that passionate night.
…
Jing Shu gave her household all the advance notice: about the diesel, about the RV, so that when changes appeared they would not be too abrupt, and that from now on the home would have a new delicacy, ice cream. She laid it out over dinner, watching their faces.
She also sent a jar to Wu You'ai and her mentor, planning to cultivate goodwill in advance. The glass jar was cold with condensation. People soften after receiving food. When Jing Shu later asked for RV modifications, it should go better.
The uproarious issue of the Nanhai migration was finally settled. China's second migration began.
Although the first migration had seen more than half die and shocked the entire country, people in parts of Africa had already built underground houses and were living comfortably, so the moment the Nanhai people heard the word "migration," the wailing began, a collective sound of despair.
It didn't matter. China took a hard line this time. Refuse to migrate and you don't eat. Migrate and you receive a daily bowl of white rice and various benefits. In the end, it went forward, a grim, orderly procession.
It was a fine place. In the second year it was flooded and many thought it had disappeared from the map. By the fifth year, it reemerged and it's since been hailed as the most comfortable climate zone in China.
As global temperatures plunged, Russia hit a new record at minus 78, and China reached minus 50 to minus 70. Only Hainan and Guangzhou hovered around minus 20, practically springtime warmth.
Migration was necessary.
By late July, Wu City had basically completed its citywide sweep. Hundreds of criminals were executed daily. Some fled to other regions, and some criminals fled in from other regions, but it made no difference. The crackdown was relentless.
Every community now had Consolation and Counseling Specialists or other liaisons in charge of headcounts and local conditions. In just two months, high criminality dropped below one percent and kept falling. The moment a stranger appeared, the report was filed and the identity recorded, a seamless, silent machinery of observation.
And the big data was national.
No matter where you ran, you still had to eat, did you not? You still had to drink water, did you not?
If you wanted food, you had to scan your face at government-run supermarkets. Anyone on record would be seized. There was nowhere to hide. Some thought themselves clever and sought jobs as private bodyguards. Unfortunately, those posts were also forced to link to the big data system as secondary data nodes. Everyone had to be registered, their lives rendered into lines of code.
Wu City's news now broadcast daily how many criminals were executed and how many were captured, detailing their crimes again and again to keep the public deterred. The anchor's voice was calm and factual.
Meanwhile, big data was finally explained publicly on July 27 in a news segment. Fifteen minutes were devoted to detailing its functions. Only then did everyone realize why the authorities had seemed to know everything without saying a word earlier. Big data was that powerful. It was a walking Sherlock Holmes.
Jack Ma, absent for half a year, reappeared, flamboyantly styled as the CFO of Big Data, and said on the news, his image crisp on the screen:
"Big data is not to monitor you. It is to better protect everyone. From today on, you must carry your phones on you at all times so big data can understand your whereabouts. If you don't carry your phone, it will be considered that you have something to hide and you will be recorded on file."