Chapter 42: Section 2_Line 1

Ye Wenjie had gone on a trip to the Advent Faction Base turned into ruins by bombings; it was confirmed by the armed personnel that all the entrances had been collapsed.

Jiang Yu took the opportunity to describe the design at the entrance of the research base, listening to which made the armed personnel break out in a cold sweat. They had searched this power plant both overtly and covertly, twice, and found no sign of tampering; it had been one of the first places ruled out as a search location.

Unknowingly, they had circled around the entrance of the Advent Faction's research base twice and were now terrified of being held accountable by the Commander. They followed behind, silent as the grave.

It wasn't until after Ye Wenjie had toured the ruins that the local government sent someone to take a look, but upon seeing Captain Wu and others armed, they left without saying anything.

Jiang Yu was speechless. Accustomed to the peaceful domestic environment, he didn't even know how to begin commenting on the chaos he saw.

The search for Baluo continued, not because everyone was so eager to kill him.

Rather, it was because Ye Wenjie had always hoped to mend the rift between the Advent Faction and the Redemption Faction. Had it not been for the reliable information about the Advent Faction's research base this time, she would not have made a move.

For this reason, Ye Wenjie had long ago issued an order to eliminate all members of the Advent Faction, making sure no information leaked out.

If Baluo escaped, the rift between the two factions would only widen.

But despite searching for Baluo for two more days with no results, Ye Wenjie had no choice but to declare the operation a victory.

One could predict that the tensions between the Advent Faction and the Redemption Faction would escalate even further, with conflicts potentially occurring at the slightest provocation.

However, none of the armed personnel considered these things. Captain Wu's squad was in better shape, having at least captured some people.

The rest of them were a bit dazed, feeling like they hadn't done much, just aimlessly searching until the Advent Faction Base self-destructed and they regrouped.

It was not as commendable as Jiang Yu, an entourage member of the Commander, who took great risks to infiltrate the base, found its location, and figured out the cause of the explosion.

Ye Wenjie explained to everyone that the objectives of the operation had been achieved; it was a tremendous victory!

Everyone felt a bit better and prepared to start their journey home.

Ye Wenjie left Jiang Yu behind to organize the retreat.

Captain Wu and his men weren't fools; they could tell that the Commander wanted this young man to get familiar with the Redemption Faction's armed personnel, a clear prelude to being given significant responsibility.

After Ye Wenjie and Chu Xu left for the airport first, everyone began to cozy up to Jiang Yu.

Jiang Yu handled it with ease, asking the leaders of the armed personnel to organize everyone to retreat in groups.

Regarding the transportation and transfer of weapons, which obviously couldn't be taken on planes and trains, Jiang Yu just made inquiries and didn't blindly direct.

He was well aware of his limitations, having studied social sciences, not military strategy, and he harbored no aspirations to be a general. It was enough to just go through the motions.

This delay meant Jiang Yu returned a day later than Ye Wenjie.

It was still Captain Wu's Mongolian man who took Jiang Yu to the airport; this Mongolian was named Barto, who drove steadily and was quite conversational.

Jiang Yu looked out at the desolate landscape, "The environment here is much worse than I imagined. No wonder there were several sandstorms at the beginning of the year."

Barto spoke very good Mandarin: "I watched the grasslands disappear day by day. Before the grass could thicken, the cattle and sheep had already grazed it over and over again."

"Mongolians stop being Mongolians when they settle down."

Jiang Yu asked, "Doesn't anyone plan the grazing? I remember Inner Mongolia started to raise livestock in enclosures to protect the grasslands."

"Who cares about that here!" Barto exclaimed. "The officials only hope the cattle and sheep can reproduce more, to look better on their report. Nobody cares about the fate of the grass."

Speaking of which, Barto pointed to a little hill: "That's a waste dump, which wasn't there five years ago.

"Ever since the iron mine was discovered, no grass grows for miles around.

"The water flowing from the minefield causes cattle and sheep to have diarrhea and fall ill after drinking it!

"But it lies uphill, and now the herders downstream are nearly driven to a dead end."

Jiang Yu looked at the waste dump, which was indeed surrounded by sparse vegetation, as if cursed.

Barto once again said, "It's only after I saw the true colors of these people that I decided to join the Redemptionists. There's no saving them."

Jiang Yu suddenly recalled a segment from a book where Ye Wenjie was cutting down trees in the Construction Corps.

He suddenly understood a bit of Ye Wenjie's despair.

Jiang Yu sighed, "Everything will get better."

But Barto just shook his head, "The world has long forgotten about us. Ever since the advent of tanks, the people of Mongolia have never been able to turn their situation around.

"Who will come to help us? Who will care about what we think?"

Clearly, he didn't believe in Jiang Yu's slogan-like comfort.

Jiang Yu suddenly wanted to do something for this land but didn't know where to start.

The journey afterward was filled with oppressive silence in the carriage.

Even after disembarking from the plane, Jiang Yu couldn't forget Barto's expression of despair.

Jiang Yu took a deep breath and tried hard to adjust his mood.

His power was limited now, and thinking too much about these issues would only add to his worries. If the opportunity arose to help Barto's grasslands in the future, he would definitely lend a hand.

But for now, he should focus on what he could manage. Worrying about things well beyond his capacity was futile.

When he returned to the dormitory, it was already midnight.

The commotion woke his roommates, murmurs of discontent floating through the air, but a few packages of authentic beef jerky and lamb jerky soon had everyone smiling.

The dormitory leader even brought out his treasured baijiu to share with everyone. After a drink and some jerky, the roommates quickly fell back asleep.

Jiang Yu took a good shower, feeling both physically and mentally drained.

Yet, he still mustered the energy to read through the full version of the "Poison Apple Project."

The second part of the plan, aiming to achieve the goal of Brain Implant Technology, was similar to what Jiang Yu had previously guessed: to block the entire society's upward mobility and make the social classes impregnable.

The third part of the plan was the theoretical support from Kong Xiang.

Kong Xiang first proposed that there have always been two threads running through the history of humanity.

One of the threads was survival, a theory that Jiang Yu also strongly agreed with.

Many terrible things humanity had done, along with some strange rules, were all for the sake of survival.

The other thread Kong Xiang referred to as the "stealth line," which he regarded as equally important to survival. It enabled human society to develop rapidly and become increasingly unbalanced.

However, Kong Xiang did not find a suitable theory to explain this thread.

In his paper, he stated that the line seemed to be related to economics or wealth, technology, but these concepts seemed not comprehensive enough.

Nevertheless, he was certain that the second thread existed and was more complex than the concept of survival, serving as a main driver of modern society's formation.

Although this part of the theory was somewhat vague, it did not affect Kong Xiang's judgment.

He articulated society's current imbalance through aspects such as wealth and social classes and did so in a way that was both profound and simple.

Using "Great Old America" as an example, Kong Xiang predicted that this superpower across the ocean might very well disintegrate in the future.

Kong Xiang explained that their values and economic system were tending toward separation rather than unity, which is a precursor to the splitting of a large social group.

This would be an opportunity for the Advent Faction to wreak havoc on the world.

Given the extreme instability of modern society, the sudden emergence of two technologies exceeding society's capacity would lead to a rapid and complete collapse of the entire social structure.

Kong Xiang described that the disaster brought about by the collapse of the system itself would be like white phosphorus, relentlessly burning down to people's bones.