Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 442 Food, Relationships, Water

"Latest notice: Due to the new rules, the daily meal supply for shelter members will be temporarily adjusted from two meals to one meal, effective immediately."

On the morning of April 2, this notice was released by the North Star organization and then disseminated to every shelter.

When the ordinary people living in the shelters heard the news, they were immediately filled with complaints.

"One meal a day? If the portion size is the same as before, it's not enough at all..."

"Only the second day of the rules, and clean food is already this scarce?"

"Just eat whatever you can, as long as you don't starve."

"I think those who have transcended should eat less; they're more resistant to hunger!"

The North Star Shelter's personnel allocation system categorizes Ascended Individuals and ordinary citizens for placement. A shelter is either entirely populated by Ascended Individuals or entirely populated by ordinary citizens.

This arrangement is both convenient and safe.

There are already existing conflicts between those who have transcended and ordinary people, and they often engage in online flame wars. If they live together, conflicts are even more inevitable.

Upon hearing the announcement, ordinary people overwhelmingly believed they should receive more food. Their reasoning was that those who had transcended their physical limitations would be physically stronger and wouldn't suffer much even if they didn't eat for a day or two.

This viewpoint was met with strong opposition from the sublimationist community as soon as it appeared online.

"Those who can eat little or nothing are those with high spiritual power who have sublimated! We, with low spiritual power, aren't much stronger than ordinary people physically, so how could we possibly not need to eat?!"

"If we really have to rank who eats more and who eats less, shouldn't it be the ordinary people who eat less? Good steel should be used where it's needed most; aren't those who achieve transcendence more valuable than ordinary people?"

A neutral observer said, "There's no need to argue. In ancient times, during famines, disaster victims could only eat once every few days. This time, the rule only lasts for a month, and people can eat once a day. Surely, it won't lead to people starving to death?"

"Yes. The previous fasting rule meant going without food for several days, and not many people starved to death. In my opinion, this time the rules are even more lenient than that one."

The various groups engaged in a back-and-forth exchange, each unwilling to yield. However, on the North Star Network, almost no one mentioned the option of concealing intelligence. This suggests that both ordinary people and those who have ascended to higher levels felt it was unnecessary and that most were unwilling to lose their fertility.

The differences between countries are thus revealed.

In the online environment of the Solomon Empire, "plastic stimuli" has become a hot topic of discussion.

"Anyone want to take a gamble? A 50% chance isn't low!"

"Since it's possible to change physiological functions, do you think you'll end up as 'Plastic Man'?"

"The superpower is purifying plastic? That's interesting."

"We have to gamble, even if we don't want to, otherwise how can we possibly have enough to eat?!"

This is not only because many Somali people do not care about having children, but also because the Somali government only provides basic food to its citizens.

Unlike North Star, which announced a guaranteed food supply of one serving per person per day, Somaro's statement indicated that citizens could collect food from self-service points, receiving one unit every two days. If they felt this wasn't enough and wanted more, they would have to spend Ascendant Coins to purchase it.

The announcement immediately caused an uproar among ordinary people in the country.

Someone posted a picture online of their food ration, which was just a small metal can, no bigger than the palm of their hand, containing minced meat and vegetables. They might survive for two days on this tiny container, but they'd definitely be too weak to move.

For ordinary people whose terminal panels are closed, there is absolutely no way to obtain Ascension Coins, so this purchasing system completely excludes them.

Ordinary people in Somaro can complain all they want, but they can't do anything about the authorities.

As early as two years ago, when the rules of the apocalypse were first released, the two major powers, North Star and Soroma, embarked on completely different paths.

North Star prioritizes protecting the nation's population, leveraging its large population base and numerous ascendants to cope with the rules of the apocalypse.

Soroma, on the other hand, adopted an elitist and intelligent approach, aggressively recruiting high-potential individuals from various countries with substantial incentives, prioritizing their safety and advancement. As for ordinary people, a covert strategy was adopted, replacing them with increasingly sophisticated intelligent robots to compensate for the lost productive jobs resulting from the sharp decline in the number of ordinary workers.

The two routes were initially indistinguishable, but now, two years later, the changes brought about by the routes are quite clear.

Just like his strategy for dealing with the current new rules, Soroma doesn't care too much about the life and death of ordinary people.

Because all key nodes within the country are controlled by the Ascended, and factories and other production departments are either in complete darkness or operated by intelligent robots, ordinary people are powerless to resist and have become a purely dependent group. For many high-ranking Soromagnets, getting rid of these "liabilities" is a priority, so why would they bother to help them?

At this moment, the senators at the Solomon Senate meeting were also discussing this matter.

Of the original thirteen elders, only twelve remain. After the failed assassination attempt on the pope of the Firebringer Cult, the elder who had been secretly bribed to recommend Peter for the cult has been dealt with, and his family's resources have been divided up.

One elder said with disdain, "I see many ordinary people cursing online. These people are really ungrateful. They don't even realize that they have no contribution or value to Soroma now. They are just a bunch of parasites who live off our charity."

“That’s right,” another elder immediately chimed in. “These ordinary people only consume resources and produce nothing. It’s one thing to keep supporting them, but during special periods we have to spend a lot of resources to take care of them. It’s a losing proposition.”

"Doesn't Beixing like to keep people around? Let's just pack all these people up and send them there!"

"It used to be okay, but now Beixing doesn't accept them anymore, otherwise they would have taken those Yingqi people away long ago."

"I think we should cut off the internet connections of ordinary people, so they can stop venting online all day long."

At this moment, King Bruce, who was sitting in the middle, spoke up: "It's better to leave an outlet for venting online than to let them cause trouble in real life."

"Your Majesty is overthinking it. What kind of trouble could they possibly cause? If they dare to act recklessly, we can just send in some smart security teams to handle it."

King Bruce looked over, and the elder immediately shut his mouth.

At this point, another elder suggested, "Your Majesty, regarding the 'plastic activating reaction,' should the government provide injection points? Many ordinary people are currently considering this."

“Okay.” Bruce nodded. “Sure. Set up high-density microplastic injection points in densely populated cities, and those who want to try it can go.”

“We hope more people will go,” one elder said. “That would greatly reduce our food burden. Don’t forget that we promised to provide food aid to several small countries in order to get the vote for the chairmanship of the Confederation of Peoples.

The elders nodded in agreement. Then one of them brought up a matter: "A confidential agent from Beixing contacted me through someone on my line, saying that he wanted to defect to our Soroma. He has already left Beixing."

“Oh?” Bruce asked, “Who is it?”

"Her name is 'Han Qiu.' She was originally trained by Jiang Lanying, and after Jiang's death, she secretly infiltrated the Countermeasures Research Office. Her current appearance is probably because her identity has been exposed."

"The Countermeasures Research Office? Then he must know quite a few secrets!"

"It is necessary to bring them in."

The elders were immediately interested upon hearing this. As the most important department in Beixing at present, the Countermeasures Research Office undoubtedly contained a lot of valuable intelligence.

Bruce pondered for a moment and said, "Then let him come. After he passes the counter-espionage test, I'll meet with him in person." "Understood."

……

"Our investigation into Han Qiu has yielded some results."

On the morning of April 2, Guan Tong received a call from Li Meng, who said that he had taken over the investigation into the matter.

"Han Qiu grew up in an orphanage, but the orphanage he was admitted to, as recorded in official information, is fake. Through layers of screening, we found the orphanage he actually attended as a child, and there is another person on the list of children in that orphanage whom you should remember."

"Who?" Guan Tong asked.

"Han Ling".

Han Ling!

Upon hearing this name, Guan Tong immediately understood everything.

"It's Han Ling, the one in charge of managing the Qingmei Association's Yongzhou base."

“That’s right. These two lived in the same orphanage. According to the investigation, they should have had a good relationship back then, and they addressed each other as brother and sister.”

"Han Qiu, Han Ling... I see, no wonder Han Qiu is targeting me."

He had initially thought that Han Qiu and "Wei Huo," who had used his name to create a variant of his own, only wanted revenge for their commander. Now it seemed that perhaps only "Wei Huo" was like that, while Han Qiu harbored another kind of hatred towards him.

Li Meng continued, "After you destroyed the Yongzhou base, Han Qiu should have been targeting you, wanting to get revenge for Han Ling. Based on this, it's possible that he joined the Countermeasures Research Office to gather intelligence on you."

"..."

Guan Tong felt that there was nothing wrong with Han Qiu wanting to avenge his sister, after all, some conflicts were destined to be irreconcilable.

“If he wants revenge, he can come to me directly,” Guan Tong said, “instead of targeting an innocent person who is trying to overcome spore addiction symptoms at a rehabilitation center.”

Li Meng sighed: "How could he possibly be your match? I reckon he thought that girl named Suzuki had some special relationship with you and wanted to dig out more information and weaknesses about you from her to deal with you, but the result was not satisfactory, so... In short, the authorities will not tolerate this matter and have issued a global arrest warrant for him."

Guan Tong didn't say anything. He knew he would find Han Qiu himself and make him pay for his actions.

Li Meng seemed to have guessed Guan Tong's thoughts and didn't continue the conversation on that topic. Instead, he brought up the rules: "Currently, shelters in various cities are facing a shortage of clean food, and the authorities are scrambling to raise funds. If you have any channels to assist, you will be rewarded."

Guan Tong recalled the canned goods she saw in the warehouse last night and said, "Why don't we look in the supply warehouses of the abandoned city? There should be a lot of food stored in metal or glass."

"The authorities are already working on this channel. The food is actually not too bad; one meal a day, or even one meal every two days, so no one will starve. But clean water resources are a big problem now. The water reserves used to be almost all stored in plastic containers, and they were all contaminated after the regulations were introduced. Although we can now draw groundwater to replenish the water, it will take time."

“I can provide some clean water,” Guan Tong said.

Although his shelter can produce uncontaminated water, the output is limited within a certain period of time and depends on the total output of several taps.

"Do you have a clean water source?" Li Meng asked. "How much can you supply?"

"Ten tons a day shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Guan Tong's estimate was rather conservative; he estimated that if several taps were running continuously for 24 hours, they could easily release tens of tons of water.

"Ten tons a day!" Li Meng's voice suddenly rose. "Assuming each person needs at least 1500 milliliters of water per day, ten tons of water can supply at least six thousand people!"

It's no wonder Li Meng was excited. You have to understand that a shelter can house about a thousand people, which means that Guan Tong's clean water source can meet the drinking water needs of 6-7 shelters. That's no small number.

"Guan Tong, your clean water source can help so many people, so let's hand it over to the authorities! In return, the authorities will provide you with enough Ascension Coins as compensation."

“No need for that, but my situation is a bit special,” Guan Tong said. “We can provide the government with clean drinking water, but not the water source.”

"Is that so?" Li Meng guessed from Guan Tong's words that the water source might not be a natural water source, but some kind of mental energy tool.

"Okay, then just supply water."

"Give me an address, preferably in Pinglu, and prepare some suitable containers. I will put the water there when the time comes."

After learning of "Han Qiu's" existence, Guan Tong had no reason to stay in the abandoned city of Yunhua any longer, and he planned to move the shelter back to the bottom of the Pinglu Valley.

Shortly after Li Meng hung up the phone, he sent him an address in Pinglu City. He told him that the authorities had specially prepared a spatial artifact for him to use temporarily in order to facilitate water transportation.

After Guan Tong returned to Pinglu in the afternoon, she met with Li Meng and obtained the prop, which was a small square box containing ten one-ton metal barrels.

Guan Tong liked the small box quite a bit, as it was much larger than his own storage ring. He had originally thought that such spatial items were very rare, but it was clear that for a behemoth like the official organization, which controlled a database of tens of millions of ascendants, even if something was rare, multiplying that by the base number would make the quantity seem exaggerated.

After returning to the shelter with the props, he turned on several taps and used his materialized shadows as pipes to transport water to the metal barrels outside.

Black Star and White Star stood outside watching. After discussing for a while, the former came over and found Guan Tong.

"Commander, I have an idea."

"You said."

"I want to leave Bai Xing at the base to take care of Alan, and take some clean water produced by the base back to the Twin Star Bar outpost in Sisia. I'll also continue to acquire Flowing Spiritual Power for you, Captain."

Guan Tong asked, "Are you planning to sell it to the civilian Ascensionists in Sisia?"

Although Sisyah's national strength is not as great as that of Beixing and Soroma, it is still a major country. At least the officials who belong to the government will not lack clean water, only the common people may lack it.

Those who have achieved enlightenment in the common people are precisely the main client group of Black Star, who acts as an intermediary.

“It’s not selling, it’s giving away,” Black Star said. “I want to improve relationships by giving away some water. Clean water is a resource that’s only become scarce because of this rule. Once the rule ends, no one will want it. Selling it would be reasonable, but it would also make people hate me. Giving it away will make people very grateful.”

Guan Tong nodded; Hei Xing was right.

A resource that is not valuable to begin with may become scarce in the short term due to some special reason. Selling it at a high price may be reasonable from a business perspective, but it will definitely arouse resentment. Unless you only intend to do a one-off deal, it is not worthwhile in the long run.

But giving it away is a different story. It's better to offer help in times of need than to add flowers to brocade. People will appreciate your kindness and might help you in a crucial moment in the future. For someone like Black Star, who acts as an intermediary, this is incredibly beneficial.

“Okay, go ahead.” Guan Tong thought for a moment, took off her storage ring, took out the Silver Hunter, and traded it to Black Star. “Take this spatial ring for now; it’ll make transporting water easier. There’s also a professional-grade protective suit inside; you can wear it in the city to prevent the absorption of microplastics.”

The protective suit he mentioned was the high-level item with an oxygen content display that he bought during the "Misty Nightmare" rule period. He had left it unused ever since.

Black Star received the ring, his expression quite excited: "Thank you for your trust, Captain! I'll head back to Sisia now!"

(End of this chapter)