Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

February 1, 1984, was the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, a traditional Chinese festival.

In Yunlan City and Niudongping Village, every household is beginning preparations for the Spring Festival reunion.

Zhou Xiaoqing, Zhou Da'an, and the others all returned; they no longer stayed in the Saudi Empire to continue their work.

They had a five-day holiday and all returned to Yunlan City to celebrate the Spring Festival.

In Yunlan City today, only a portion of the staff remain at their posts, while most have returned home to reunite with their families.

"Wow, Mom and Dad, you both went to participate in tree planting? What about your salaries?"

After returning home, Zhou Xiaoqing reunited with his parents. Before having the New Year's Eve dinner, they chatted and shared their experiences over the past period.

His wife, Zhu Qinmei, was also standing nearby, watching the scene with a beaming smile, feeling incredibly content.

Since getting married last year, Zhu Qinmei has been staying at home full-time to prepare for childbirth and recuperate.

Her husband, Zhou Xiaoqing, went to Saudi Arabia to participate in a desert greening project, where he reportedly earned an annual salary of $100,000.

In fact, Zhou Xiaoqing had already told her this when she came back last night.

Zhou Xiaoqing's basic salary is $8,000 a month, but she will receive additional bonuses if she performs well.

As a result, Zhou Xiaoqing has received an average of $1,500 in bonuses each month over the past few months. In addition, she received a $10,000 year-end bonus during the Spring Festival, so the total bonus has exceeded $10,000.

With a basic monthly salary of $8,000, he earned nearly $30,000 in less than two months.

Invincible!

Even if Zhu Qinmei stays at home and successfully gives birth to the child and raises him to the age of three, she will only receive a reward of about 30,000 to 40,000 US dollars, which is roughly the same as her husband's salary for two months.

So what else could she possibly want?

Once her man withdraws from the project, he can get back more than $100,000.

With this amount of capital, one could easily start a small business or lease more farmland for large-scale mechanized farming.

In this way, their family can have more income.

This is simply too good!
Of course, it would be even better if we could stay on the desert greening project.

Currently, most banks in Yunlan City offer deposit interest rates exceeding three percent. Even if you simply deposit these funds in a bank, you can still earn a considerable amount of interest each year.

"Yes, your mother didn't go with you, I went by myself," Zhou Xiaoqing's father said with a smile.

"It's a good thing your mother didn't go, otherwise she might not have been able to handle it. The workload on our side is quite heavy."

This is a fact!

The desert greening project within Yunlan City needed to meet the deadline, so it was naturally very fast. Otherwise, the construction progress would have reached 30% in just a short time after the Great Wall of Forest was built around it.

This speed is certainly very fast.

However, the project has been suspended due to the Spring Festival and will resume after the holiday.

On New Year's Eve, many people in Yunlan City set off fireworks and firecrackers, making the starry sky that night exceptionally bright and beautiful.

Beijiang City, Limi Cave Villa, is where Zhao Mancang and his family spent this year's Spring Festival.

Zhao Mancang took out several bottles of fine wine that had been aged for more than thirty years, and Zhao Jinshi and his children helped pour the wine.

"Come on, everyone, let's raise our glasses and wish our whole family good health!"

Zhao Jinshi, who was quite adept at handling situations, spoke with unusual cheerfulness.

The other children all raised their glasses with smiles on their faces, offering their heartfelt blessings.

Lin Wan and Liu Baochan watched the scene with smiles and raised their glasses in celebration.

At their age, they have nothing to be dissatisfied with in life.

We've enjoyed everything we could, seen all the sights we wanted to see, and now our children are growing up, starting their own families and careers.

This is a very good thing.

They don't need to urge them; the children are quite self-disciplined.

However, now that my daughter is married, she can no longer have New Year's Eve dinner with everyone.

After all, once a daughter is married, she's like water spilled from a cup; she belongs to another family.

This is a principle that has existed since ancient times.

Zhao Mancang took a sip of wine, then sat down to eat with his wife and children.

He is fifty years old this year!
I'm over fifty now, and I've lived more than half my life.

He is already very content with his life so far.

However, his life is still very exciting, and he wants to see his children get married and have children of their own.

Although he certainly won't help his children take care of their children, having grandchildren would definitely make a difference.

And here comes a little one we brought back today, who is Lin Baohui's son, Little Sweet Potato.

This little sweet potato is already three years old this year, and can clearly call out "grandpa," "grandma," "aunt," and "uncle."

Besides Xiao Fanshu, Zhao Jinshi also had a child with Wen Zhaoli, Zhao Siwen.

Furthermore, this year, Xiaopangdun, Zhao Zhicheng, and Zhao Zhirui have all gotten married, and having children won't be far off.

It is almost foreseeable that the Zhao family will have more children in the next few years.

While they may not have a house full of children and grandchildren, they will certainly have quite a few children.

Take Zhao Jinshi as an example. This guy can be said to have copied his father's philandering ways, and he married two wives.

And it seems that Zhao Jinshi has other women in Hong Kong or other cities.

For Zhao Jinshi, being devoted to one person was impossible.

The family was enjoying their meal together when suddenly Zhao Mancang's phone rang.

However, Zhao Mancang did not answer the phone, but instead ate his meal first.

No matter how raging the floods are outside, it's nothing compared to having a reunion dinner with Lin Wan and the others.

Moreover, Zhao Mancang roughly knew what the situation was.

When he returned to Beijiang City, he had already received news that Sam and his allies would continue to place heavy bets, sending Ethiopia to the forefront, in preparation for continuing their attack on Yunlan City. Zhao Mancang, of course, knew the situation.

It's simply that Reagan and his group were unwilling to admit defeat.

In fact, just as he had guessed.

Rewind two days, to a luxurious villa estate on Long Island, New York, where several people were discussing matters in a magnificent conference room.

Upon closer inspection, one would recognize several familiar faces among this group: Clement Newman, Beatty Rockefeller, and Walter DuPont.

The newcomers are James Morgan, Tobias Davis, and Andrew Williams.

These people are among the wealthiest in the United States.

"After two and a half years of in-depth investigation, we are now almost certain that a mysterious and unknown force is lurking within Sam's Club, and that this capital group controls a great deal of wealth."

Clement Newman said in a deep voice, "This room has state-of-the-art shielding equipment, so everything we say right now will not be leaked."

Clement Newman had been targeting Cloud City for several years.

He suffered a setback back then, but fortunately he didn't completely collapse and has now risen again.

Life is full of ups and downs; the one who laughs last is the most awesome.

Regardless of all that, Clement Newman, who had regained control of the situation, immediately launched an investigation and also joined today's gathering.

It is almost certain that their interest group has no outside forces involved.

The Morgan family, the Newman family, the DuPont family, the Davis family, and others—these families fight tooth and nail every day, but at least they know each other inside and out.

That's why they came together, united against a common enemy, determined to uproot the force lurking within Sam's ranks.

This force established a city called Cloud Rift outside of Sam.

This Yunlan City is actually only populated by Chinese immigrants; white people make up only a very small portion.

Based on the current investigation, Clement Newman and his team are well aware that three Hollywood giants—Wan Jia Supermarket, Mayflower Media Group, and Paramount—as well as several others, are likely involved.

The forces connected to Yunlan City are complex and difficult to unravel.

Those who are sitting here today can basically be confirmed to have no connection with Yunlan City.

"As everyone knows, this mysterious conglomerate possesses a lot of high technology, and they have also arranged for many scientists to be smuggled out of our home country, Sam."

"Those Mach 5 fighter jets that appeared in Yunlan City before were simply because the technological knowledge that we, Sam, already possessed was stolen by them."

"But to be honest, they're really tight-lipped; they managed to keep the secret for so long."

After Tobias Davis finished speaking, Andrew Williams suddenly interrupted:
"How should we deal with Yunlan City now? According to the information we have, Yunlan City is already deeply entrenched, not to mention they also have a huge amount of power within our Sam territory. The slightest disturbance will likely alert them. This is not a good situation."

"Let's leave aside financial means; as for military means, we..."

There was already a financial war a few years ago, and Sam suffered a crushing defeat back then.

It could even be said that the funds provided by Sam helped Yunlan City reach a higher level.

Almost the entire world knows that Yunlan City possesses a great deal of powerful weaponry and has an inexhaustible supply of funds.

A childcare subsidy is known to everyone.

Parents don't need to work at all; they can simply raise their child safely until the age of three and receive subsidies ranging from over $30,000 to $40,000.

Who wouldn't want this kind of subsidy?
Moreover, in the past few months, Yunlan City has launched a series of jobs with an annual salary of $100,000.

Although it involves planting trees and creating forests, I believe many people are capable of doing this kind of work.

People living in Yunlan City are incredibly lucky to have a job that pays an annual salary of $100,000 so easily.

The outside world's understanding of Yunlan City is limited to newspapers, television, and other means, and is not actually very thorough.

Yunlan City has more than three million short-term residents and tourists, and this is not a false figure.

Moreover, this group of people is quite mobile, as most of them can only stay in Yunlan City for a short period of about a month.

If it exceeds one month, one must leave Yunlan City; hiding is impossible.

Yunlan City is filled with all sorts of high-tech gadgets, such as the various cameras on the roads and the incredibly advanced satellite technology. It would be difficult for anyone to hide.

Millions of people have already been caught and permanently blacklisted.

This one aspect of management alone is extremely difficult.

"Press the pressure!"

James Morgan said expressionlessly:

"We must take Yunlan City. Such huge profits shouldn't be kept all by them. And that desert greening technology is too lucrative."

"Drones, fighter jets, missiles, and other cutting-edge technologies are truly incredible."

When desert greening technology was mentioned, Betley Rockefeller, Walter DuPont, Clement Newman, and others all showed greedy expressions.

No one can resist greed and want to seize Yunlan City's desert greening technology. Why?
For a single desert greening project covering 10,000 square kilometers signed with the Saudi Empire, Yunlan City received a staggering 100 billion US dollars.

However, the entire project only had a little over a thousand construction workers. Based on their annual salary of $100,000, and with a construction period of one year, the labor cost would be at most a little over $100 million.

If we spread that out over the later maintenance period, which is about three to five years, then we'll allocate $200 million for human resources, and then calculate $1 billion to $5 billion for other costs such as trees.

So, even with this calculation, there's still a profit of over 90 billion US dollars.

This isn't gross profit, it's net profit.

As is well known, the Saudi Empire, the Date Palm Empire, the Persian Empire, as well as China and other places such as the United States, all have large areas of desert and Gobi.

The most, most, and most important point is the Sahara Desert, which is an enormous area.

What would happen if the Sahara Desert were turned into the Sahara Forest?
Okay, even putting aside everything else, this 10,000 square kilometer desert greening project alone is enough to make Clement Newman and others extremely envious.

Although the people present, and their families combined, may have assets worth tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions of US dollars.

However, please note that this is just an asset, not hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars in cash.

Although once you have hundreds of millions of dollars, it's just a number, in reality, at that level, it represents a person's power to allocate resources.

It's clear that Yunlan City possesses so much wealth, and their existence inevitably influences James Morgan and his ilk's right to distribute that wealth. (End of Chapter)