"I haven’t done anything wrong; I don’t want to run," Geng Jin protested.
"But at least you have to explain first, how exactly did you kill those people?" Xu Yang asked, curious.
After A40 carefully explained the ins and outs, Xu Yang realized immediately that this was going to be difficult to handle. Unintentionally, it had killed 20 senior managers, professional executives, and investors, and the companies behind the victims would not let this go easily.
"We still need to run fast," Xu Yang shook his head.
"Isn’t there a law or something that can help make sense of it, like emergency avoidance?" A40 was distressed.
"The law isn’t what matters now, it’s all about the money," Xu Yang explained, "We can go to Shangjing Headquarters and negotiate through the corporate legal process. But these days, it’s hard to find a reliable law firm to represent us, and the company court fees are extremely high. Both sides compete financially, and the risk of failure is enormous. You’ll still have to pay with your life, so we might as well just run."
"Eh, it must be nice to be rich; I want to be rich too. How can I become wealthy?" A40 said.
"Not good, you are a Synthetic Human; your only need is electricity," Xu Yang joked.
"That’s true, Huang Feng probably won’t require a dowry. Alright, I’m off!" A40, unarmed, prepared to leave.
"Your Fury is dropped in Aizu City, you should probably get it back," Xu Yang suddenly remembered the Lost Magic Sword that had fallen underground.
"The real strong one can defeat the opponent with any weapon!" A40 declared magnanimously, "First, I’ll go get some poison from the Poison Master."
"Then you run first; I will follow in a while, and I need to meet with Seeking Shadow and the others," Xu Yang nodded.
"A true warrior never stops," A40 left Shijin Mansion, taking a small path into the countryside by himself.
Xu Yang returned to the office.
With Lila’s perspective, he could clearly see the conference room, which was very small; not many people came in person. They took their seats upon arrival, then connected the data cable to the brain-computer interface and entered the virtual space to start the online meeting, saving a lot of space.
At this point, Lila ended the visual sharing and instead opened up her data signal for Xu Yang to access, allowing him to sync with the photonic signals received by Lila.
The online space was expansive; it was a very large-scale golf course with lush green grass, blue skies, and white clouds as far as the eye could see—a breathtakingly beautiful vista. The rolling hills and the cool breeze blowing over one’s face made the air feel so clean that it was stifling, devoid of any hint of industrial pollution, a completely different scent from Anjiu City.
About 200 business and industry executives had been summoned by Mayor Oohara Nobuhiko, covering entrepreneurs from construction, transportation, manufacturing, finance, trade, and the service industry. They played virtual golf while negotiating with the virtual mayor, discussing various matters.
Lila wanted to see how realistic the online meeting room was, so she went to the luxurious restaurant attached to the golf course. They had prepared scallops, lamb chops, roast chicken, and four different flavors of souffle, not to mention numerous cocktails of varying tastes.
She poured herself a glass of red wine and shared its digital aroma with Xu Yang. The higher the degree of brain modification, the richer the taste that could be experienced. Lila could taste 99% of the wine’s fragrance—the program activated every line of taste code in her Consciousness Chip. Xu Yang, however, only synced about 20% and felt a false hint of grape fragrance on his tongue.
Lila watched a fat man send a golf ball flying. In this online space where she was only a stream of consciousness with no ability to use Magic Power, she couldn’t perceive the details of his action, leaving her with a faint sense of loss.
Once everyone had gradually arrived, Mayor Oohara Nobuhiko began to speak on the public communication channel, briefly but clearly outlining the core focus of the meeting.
"Maintain stability."
The center of attention was to restore economic growth, and other matters could be given secondary priority.
Therefore, it was essential for the community’s individuals to set aside old prejudices and come to an agreement on various matters.
Mayor Oohara Nobuhiko originally was a core manager sent by Kyoto Infinity to control and coordinate Anjiu City. After Kyoto Infinity gave up on Anjiu City, he continued to serve as the mayor, coordinating all city affairs.
Being a mayor... It’s a very troublesome matter.
Xu Yang knew this. Originally, the man’s power came from Kyoto Infinity, but now the situation had changed, and any misstep could lead to his downfall.
If he angered the residents, they would revolt and could kill him.
If he angered the entrepreneurs within the city, he would be replaced by a new representative.
If he angered Xisheng or external capital, he would be assassinated.
Xu Yang, too, was curious to see what strategies the mayor would come up with. If he didn’t do well, Xu Yang would find a way to replace him.
At the moment, the fate of the entire city was tied to this meeting and the mayor’s every move.
First on the agenda was to define Oohara Nobuhiko’s own responsibilities. Given the city’s independent operation, he decided to establish a unified Anjiu City Public Management Company to handle the overall operation of the city, ensuring the construction of an inhabitable, technologically advanced, and prosperous corporate city for the residents, aiming to build for the future.
The mayor had no money, and therefore downsized the administration. The authority and responsibility of his public management organization were greatly limited, operating under the principle of minimizing managerial institutions to provide services, without supporting too many public management staff. Various functional departments would be split up and sold to other companies for contracting.
Following that, Oohara Nobuhiko highly praised the entrepreneurs present and planned to dismantle the area originally belonging to Kyoto Infinity, parceling it out and trading it to various business owners for development.
"This is just a modern version of enclosure," Xu Yang thought to himself. Land sales are a traditional skill of local governing bodies, an experience not to be missed. By selling city land, one can secure support from core industrial and commercial entrepreneurs, and thus stabilize one’s own position.
Xu Yang intended to operate peacefully in Anjiu City and develop slowly. Having land available was very good, so after discussing with Lila, they reserved 1000 acres of suburban land valued at 1.7 billion for their own industrial production, making guns and ships. This area corresponded to the underground expansion space of Aizu City; once connected, it would form a seamless new city zone, providing countless people with a place to live and work happily.
"Only then can we be barely considered as entering the realm of major businesses," Lila said.
"Indeed... we need much more money and resources. Black Fire Innovation is recruiting witches worldwide while launching new space motherships. Their military expansion will be as rapid as a snowball rolling downhill."
Although Lila had found underwater oil nearby, they couldn’t start exploiting it now. Xu Yang needed an absolute advantage in economic strength and military units, otherwise, the oil would remain untapped.
Without money, they would have to invite other capital to invest and share profits, influencing decisions. Without armed force, the entire industry could be taken away.
In other words, to achieve great things, one needed more money, a larger scale of private armed forces, and a more powerful assembly of witches. Xu Yang could handle the last one himself, as he still had to bring back more than fifty young witches.
In the meeting that followed, Oohara Nobuhiko successfully secured the support of the business owners, and then dared to connect a group of civic representatives online, satisfying their various demands.
Because Oohara Nobuhiko was afraid of being killed by the citizens as well as being replaced by the entrepreneurs, he had to serve each party’s demands like a Wallpaper Master, suggesting everyone moderately concede benefits to the public, to be settled at a later time.
About 400 civic representatives accessed the online meeting, bustling into the virtual scenario to advocate for the interests they represented.
The discussion went on for several rounds regarding these matters, and eventually, a few reasonable outcomes were negotiated.
The first was the introduction of public elections, terms of office, and dismissal mechanisms for city public management personnel, to reduce the growth of corruption in public management.
The second was the establishment of city labor associations and consumer associations. The former would represent workers in negotiations with business owners about working hours and environments, as well as organize large-scale work stoppages. The latter would represent consumers, accepting and providing feedback on product issues, introducing city-level transparent evaluation mechanisms.
The third was to delineate an area outside Anjiu City to establish a trial site for de-corporatization, attempting to construct a new social form and provide a peaceful haven away from companies.
After lengthy compromises and arguments, the initial contest ended, with capitalists, civilians, and the mayor reaching an agreement on these major affairs. Each participant received an outcome that met their psychological expectations.
Oohara Nobuhiko indeed served as a kind of glue, bonding the Anjiu City of 6 million surface and 300,000 underground inhabitants together, minimizing the risk of a second civil unrest, surviving through the Blackfire crisis, and continuing onward to tomorrow.
Within about 1-2 weeks, the production of social order could be restored to pre-war levels, a rare and valuable recovery for damage of this scale.
Many didn’t linger and gradually went offline to search for food, as virtual meals couldn’t fill stomachs.
A few members remained from foreign observation teams, and they offered a very novel and advanced concept to the disaster-stricken residents of Anjiu City: child loans.
Under this loan model, men and women alike could their genetic information, which would be collected by their research personnel, frozen and shipped to professional birthing centers on Taixi Continent. There, their genetic information would be further propagated by professional mothers, and subsequently raised in unified institutions.
The population and witches produced through this model would become assets of the lending companies. They would have the ultimate right of life and death over them, without guaranteeing their safety. In return, the citizens providing genetic information could obtain low-interest loans of 100,000 to 200,000.
This was very attractive to those who had no time for romance but wished to have offspring, and those who urgently needed money. The companies had conducted pilots in some areas of other continents, receiving an overwhelmingly positive response, with men and women breaking down doors daily to trade their genetic information.
Raising children and submitting them to corporate labor not only causes suffering for the kids but also results in hefty upbringing costs for the parents. On the other hand, by selling offspring to the lending companies, though kids would still suffer, one could alleviate immediate financial pressures, ensuring a guaranteed profit.
For many citizens of Anjiu City facing the risk of supply disruptions, this was also highly attractive.
"Filthy corporatism, just standing here fills me with hatred. They are definitely using a virtual online meeting because they fear assassins, surely someone would love to bring a bomb and restart everything," Lila said.
"We’re relatively weak, so for now we can only mix with them for a while. We’ll settle the score later."
The fiery rain of the apocalypse would descend swiftly, and when it did, they wouldn’t have a choice. Lila thought silently. And then we’ll cast aside their corpses and build a New World from the ashes.
"I was chatting with Du Qianqian before, and she said a person’s life is worth about 2 million, but now companies can buy a brand new person for just a few hundred thousand," Xu Yang said.
"What are they planning?" Lila muttered, "There are more and more people."
"Population is like profit, like a buffer. I’ve heard about some companies conducting isolated experiments. If the birth rate can be controlled, companies might be able to plan consumption the same way they plan production, propelling a large specific population to consume exclusively, offsetting their production risks. And..."
"Human enhancement technologies are highly advanced. And every commercial implant, every instance of body modification surgery has gone through at least 10,000 live installation tests before hitting the market."