Black technology: a super empire spanning two worlds

Chapter 31 [Absolutely artificial scarcity]

When Xiao Yu read to this point, he opened another page to search for the current global population of the Blue Star World. The data showed that the current global population is about 33.5 billion.

"After so many years, the population has only recovered to about one-third of its historical peak..." Xiao Yu couldn't help but sigh, then closed the page and continued browsing the humanities and history content.

The emergence of artificial synthetic starch has ended the "Dark Wasteland Era" of humans on Blue Star, and then entered the so-called "Post-Wasteland Era" that lasted for forty years. During this period, the environment of Blue Star continued to deteriorate, forcing the survivors to change and adapt to the new environment, and their lifestyles have also undergone earth-shaking changes.

The biggest change is the dramatic increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, which has made the air unaffordable for direct breathing. Therefore, wearing a breathing mask and a compressed air bag around the waist have become essential items for travel, and this lifestyle has continued to this day.

In addition, the structure of man-made buildings has also undergone tremendous changes. Houses can be completely isolated from the outside air, and the air emitted indoors is industrially purified air. Because the house is isolated from the outside world, you can take off your breathing mask indoors.

But from then on, breathing air is no longer free and needs to be purchased.

At this moment, Xiao Yu was not wearing a breathing mask. His office was indoors, so he had to use a product unique to the cities in the contemporary Blue Star world - air transmission pipelines.

Every household in Fengquan City where Xiao Yu lives is connected to an air pipeline, which is similar to the household gas pipelines in cities on Earth, except that what is transmitted on Earth is natural gas or coal gas, while the air pipelines on Blue Star provide purified air for people to breathe.

Therefore, people living on the Blue Planet need to spend money to buy the air they breathe, which is an absolutely fixed expense. If they are deprived of air, they will really suffocate to death.

Big cities have air pipelines that can be connected to every household, but some small towns and small settlements do not have such convenient conditions. Generally, compressed air tanks are purchased at trading markets. They are similar to gas tanks on Earth, but they are filled with breathable air.

The "post-wasteland era" that has lasted for forty years is still a chaotic era. Various forces have risen up one after another to grab territory, plunder resources, and plunder people. Weak forces are swallowed up by powerful forces. This is also an era of scramble for supremacy.

A new order was born in such troubled times, and the country, order, and civilization gradually returned.

"Oh, so that's how it is. This so-called 'Kingdom of Heaven' was established under such a background, breaking through the siege and successfully entering Central Plains." Xiao Yu seemed to have suddenly realized something. It has been half a century since the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven.

After reading the article, Xiao Yu pondered for a while and said to himself in confusion: "This Kingdom of Heaven has been established for half a century, but it cannot allow its people to achieve food freedom. There must be a big problem here. The scarcity of food must have been artificially created."

Xiao Yu had made such a speculation before, and now he is more and more certain. If not, there is no reason why food products related to eating would be so expensive.

The Blue Star world mastered the technology of industrial mass production of artificial synthetic starch ninety years ago. The power of industry is terrifying. Xiao Yu is very clear about this. Moreover, the technological level and industrial capacity of Blue Star far exceed those of the Earth.

In Xiao Yu's opinion, it is entirely possible to maximize production capacity. Not to mention the current global population of more than 30 billion, even the industrial starch needed by 300 billion people can be fully supplied.

In other words, at least industrial starch should be extremely cheap, but what Xiao Yu saw was that this artificial starch was really expensive as the staple food for the lower class. Most of the money earned by many people at the lower class was just to feed their family, and then there was not much money left.

After learning about it, Xiao Yu also realized that the ecological collapse of Blue Planet more than a hundred years ago was not instantaneous, but an irreversible collapse trend.

During the process of ecological collapse, the humans on Blue Star at that time launched a "Spark of Life" plan, which preserved the embryos of many species, including living individuals of many species, which survived human intervention and did not become completely extinct.

Although much was destroyed in the turmoil of the following decades, much has been preserved.

Therefore, Blue Star still has fresh food such as fruits, vegetables, poultry, eggs and meat, which can be cultivated in a closed and isolated environment with a suitable growth environment. However, in the Blue Star world, they have become expensive and scarce luxury goods, and people at the bottom of society are reluctant to consume them several times a year. Only a few groups such as the rich or the powerful can achieve food freedom in this era, and even eat fish, meat, and delicacies from land and sea every day until they are sick of it.

As a native Earthling, Xiao Yu was shocked and even found it difficult to understand the situation on Blue Star, because if it were in his home country on Earth, it would have taken half a century to rebuild order, and there was also the technological and industrial foundation of Blue Star civilization to support it.

First of all, the price of artificial synthetic starch will definitely be reduced to a bargain price. Of course, this bargain price is based on the Earth's terms. Cabbages on the Blue Star are extremely expensive now.

Secondly, even fresh food, fruits and vegetables can be grown on a large scale in isolated industrial greenhouses. The technology in the Blue Star world is so advanced that Xiao Yu does not believe that the modern agricultural technology here will be more backward than that of his hometown Earth.

Even if we cannot allow everyone to have free access to fruits and vegetables, we should not let these fresh foods become a luxury in the eyes of the lower class.

That only means that all of this is artificially created. Excluding all impossibilities, no matter how unbelievable the remaining thing is, it must be the truth, and it is artificially created.

Xiao Yu tried to further search for the reasons and underlying logic, but he couldn't find the answer on the Internet after searching for a long time, so he gave up searching because he realized that there was a high probability that he would not find the truth on the open Internet on Blue Star.

Just then, a small holographic window popped up and someone submitted a job application to Prism.

Xiao Yu closed the messy holographic panel pages, threw away all the doubts in his mind, and immediately opened the resume information submitted by the job seeker and took a look.

……

In the following days, seven people came to apply for the position of general manager. Xiao Yu personally interviewed them one by one, and finally selected a man named Luo Guanqi as the general manager of Prism Company.

Xiao Yu offered an annual salary of 300 million star dollars plus stock option bonuses. As for the stock options, there are of course performance requirements.

"This is the company's current office. The company is just starting out, and you, as the general manager, will be busy next. The enterprise plan has been finalized. You can log in to the company's internal general manager account and have the authority to review it. Just follow the plan." Xiao Yu brought the newly recruited Luo Guanqi to Prism Company's office.

"I understand." Luo Guanqi looked at the office space in front of him. He definitely couldn't use it for office work now. It needed to be renovated and some office equipment needed to be purchased. If he hadn't seen that the registered capital of Prism Company had reached 5000 million Star Yuan, Luo Guanqi would have suspected that he had been fooled.

Xiao Yu only had more than 8000 million Star Yuan on him, but the company's registered capital was as high as 5000 million Star Yuan, just to show its strength to the outside world. Otherwise, others would think it was a scam company or that it had no strength and no future, and it would be more difficult to recruit outstanding talents.

However, although Prism Company is a start-up company, it has a registered capital of 5000 million Star Yuan. Luo Guanqi guessed that the boss Xiao Yu must be no ordinary entrepreneur.

Most entrepreneurs don't have the financial strength to do this, and when he talked with Xiao Yu, he clearly felt that this boss was definitely not starting a business for the first time. After reading the business plan, he became more convinced that Xiao Yu had run a business before.

After a few minutes, Xiao Yu left after giving a few instructions, and the task was handed over to Luo Guanqi. His next priority was to build the initial framework of Prism Company according to the boss's instructions, so that the company could get on track and run.

……

(End of this chapter)