Chapter 328: Dragon City’s Problem

Ye Xiaoxing nodded repeatedly as he listened to Meng Chao.

“I knew it. It’s impossible for you to have relied only on luck to stop the White Spirit and Gao Ye.” Ye Xiaoxing was impressed by Meng Chao. “You’re completely right. Even though we shouted that we would conquer the Other World during the era that gave us the greatest despair, that was just to gather the hearts of people and point them in the direction with the strongest ideal. It doesn’t mean that the war can be won easily and that the Other World will be conquered in no time.

“Many of the academicians in the Survival Committee, Supernatural Tower, and the Red Dragon Army have made predictions about the next stage of the war, and the endless terrorist attacks you mentioned just now might replace the simple and crude full-frontal clashes over the past few decades. This will become the main tactic the monsters will use against the humans.

“However, terrorist attacks on material things are not a fatal threat to Dragon City. What is troubling us even more is the mind attacks.”

Meng Chao thought about it and asked, “Are you talking about monsters like the Demonic Air Ripping Eye? The type who are skilled in mind attacks and can make humans’ mental strength index plummet?”

“No. Even though the Demonic Air Ripping Eyes are very strong, they’re not smart enough. Even though they can make a human’s mental strength index plummet to zero, at most, they can only turn people brain-dead or make them go completely mad. They can’t damage the core of Dragon City.

“The mind attacks I’m talking about strike directly at humans’ thoughts.”

Ye Xiaoxing pointed at his temple.

Meng Chao frowned a little. “Thoughts?”

“That’s right. The sturdiest fortresses are always destroyed from within, aren’t they? The thing that can be easily interfered with, invaded, changed, and completely twisted in a human are their thoughts.”

Ye Xiaoxing was quiet for a while before he said, “Meng Chao, you’re just a freshman and you haven’t truly joined society yet. The education you received from primary to high school should have described Dragon City as... a city with its people united and a bright future.

“I have to admit. After half a century’s worth of people’s sacrifices and never-ending hard work, Dragon City has walked out of the darkness and created a glorious present we didn’t even dream about in the past. We wouldn’t lose to any of the metropolises on Earth.

“To achieve this, many superhumans led the fights and wore themselves out with all the fighting. They offered all their strength so that the fires of human civilization would burn brightly in the Other World.

“But... a perfect world doesn’t exist. No matter what sort of society we live in, there are always all sorts of problems and conflicts. You can understand that, right?”

Meng Chao nodded to show that he was not a naive university student and was mentally prepared to listen to the problems Dragon City currently faced.

Ye Xiaoxing nodded and told him about Dragon City’s main conflicts.

The first was the conflict between superhumans and normal people.

Or rather, the difference between the powerful people and the weak was getting greater. The social strata might soon be torn apart, which would end up causing all sorts of societal problems.

Humans were never equal, and it was a fact known since ancient times. A “paradise” of absolute equality would only be a hell with even more tragedy.

But no matter how unequal the humans on Earth were, they were only facing an inequality in terms of wealth, authority, and societal positions.

In terms of individual fighting strength, lifespan, and other basic aspects, even the top hundred richest people on Earth were not much different compared to a homeless man who did not have a single penny to their name.

Money could do anything and even buy lives, but even so, a rich person was still only able to live around a hundred years.

No matter how much money a person had and how much authority they possessed, it was not enough to destroy a main fighting tank with one punch.

It was also impossible for them to use their own magnetic fields to hoven hundreds of meters in the air among the white clouds in the blue sky.

Because of it, even though the normal people knew that there was a distance they could not hope to close with the rich, they could still bear the existence of this distance.

However, after Dragon City transmigrated to the Other World, new things like spirit energy and superhumans popped up. The difference between individuals was no longer limited to only money, status, authority, or other external objects. Even the basic things that made up a human, like strength, life, and physical constitution, became vastly different between individuals.

An office worker who worked a nine to five job watching his boss driving a good car while having a beautiful woman in his arms was one thing, but if he could also see his boss soaring high in the sky and being able to destroy the world with just a swing of his arm, perhaps even having a lifespan that was twice as long as his, then it was something else.

Besides, when they had just transmigrated and all order had crumbled, the temptation to have lovers became much stronger for the powerful. The traditional system of having only one partner was challenged, and it became common for the powerful to have multiple lovers.

Even now, there were people who were willing to be lovers of the powerful even if they were not acknowledged so that they could obtain descendants with powerful genes. They did not want to be lovers with the weak and give birth to normal children in a world where zombies and monsters wandered about and where the apocalypse might arrive at their doorstep at any moment. This knowledge was always at the back of everyone’s head.

Over the twenty years, Dragon City had faced a baby boom.

But in the last two years, one particular phrase sprung up on the Internet: “You must awaken to supernatural powers. Otherwise, if you give birth to children as a normal person, you’re being irresponsible to your children!”

It was because after the population grew, they faced a lack of space and resources. The competition between people grew, and so did the pressure. This was normal since everyone was now trying to right a wrong after they went way over the mark when they tried to increase the population.

But when even the most basic right of reproducing was challenged, it was very difficult for the normal people to look at the difference between themselves and superhumans with a calm outlook.

“Weeping Reaper Lin Chuan’s thoughts gradually turned extreme because the difference between normal people and superhumans has become too great. It’s the reason why he went on the wrong path, right?”

Ye Xiaoxing sighed and said, “It’s not as if the Survival Committee and the Supernatural Tower don’t see the distinction between the strong and weak becoming clearer day by day. It’s not as if they don’t want to solve this problem either.

“But this is a new problem that humanity has not faced over the hundreds of thousands of years of human civilization on Earth. So how could they solve it quickly, completely, and perfectly while Dragon City is still at war?

“Here is something simple. Even if we won the northern offense, Dragon City still faces the danger of being surrounded by monsters, and beyond Monster Mountain Range is the endless Other World. How can we guarantee that there are no enemies who are even more dangerous than monsters out there?

“If we don’t prioritize allocating most of the resources to the superhumans, who will take care of those enemies? The Red Dragon Army? I’m not trying to look down on the Red Dragon Army’s fighting strength, but it’s impossible to send millions of soldiers tens of thousands of kilometers away while ensuring that the supply line will remain smooth.

“We have to rely on the superhumans, who then have to face life-threatening risks. After they fight against all sorts of monsters, shouldn’t they enjoy rewards that they deserve?

“If we force the superhumans to hand over their rewards and share them with the normal citizens, we might be able to achieve superficial equality, but will we stimulate the superhumans’ fighting spirit and desires? I don’t know. We might have to rely on brainwashing at that point.”

“That’s right.” Lu Siya could not help but butt in. “Twenty or so years ago, most of the normal people could only shudder while curled up in trenches, ruins, and lairs. In the meantime, the superhumans of my grandfather’s generation fought against monsters and got us a lot of resources so that we could rebuild all of Dragon City.

“At that time, all the normal people were very grateful toward superhumans and sincerely idolized my grandfather and the others.

“But some of the normal people whose standards of living are much higher than twenty pr thirty years ago don’t understand the concept of being content with what they have. All they see are things being unfair, and they’re dissatisfied with everything. At one moment, they say that the promotion channel is shut, and in the next, they say that superhumans are greedy and spend lavishly.

“What a joke. My grandfather worked hard to mine crystals outside Dragon City. He often had to fight monsters and lost count of just how many times his intestines were dug out. My father ran into a few accidents in the mines too. Every time, he had to brush shoulders with death. Even I nearly died under Raging Waves. Is it a sin now for the three of us to enjoy life a little after all our sacrifices and hard work?

“I say, those normal people must be bewitched by the highly intelligent monsters who are skilled in mind attacks. That’s why they’re so ungrateful.”

“You can’t say that,” Ye Xiaoxing said. “No one is ever bothered by whether you get a few resources, so long as the distribution is fair, and no one is ever worried about living in a poor state, as long as they live safely. This is a human weakness. No one can overcome it completely.

“Besides, there are also black sheep among superhumans. They use their superpowers to commit crimes, and it destroys the interests of the normal people. The adjudicator court does whatever it can to subjugate the evil superhumans, but all of the superhumans have great skill and can deal lots of damage, so the adjudicator court has to be wary, even though they want to defeat them.

“And usually, good news never gets told, but bad news spread like wildfire. Superhumans fighting against the monster invasion quietly in the wild is no longer news, but if a superhuman uses his or her superpowers to commit crimes beside normal people in the city, this is definitely a major news.

“Not only does it make the normal people stand against superhumans and further tears apart the social stratum, it also gives the highly intelligent monsters the chance to attack us while we’re weak. This is an opportunity for them.”

Ye Xiaoxing tapped his messy desk with his finger and cast a glance at Meng Chao’s expression. When he saw that he was calm, he continued describing the situation to him.

Not only was there a conflict between normal people and superhumans, there were also divisions among superhumans in regards to the development of Dragon City.

The largest division came with the question as to whether they should limit the scale of the nine great mega corporations.

Everyone knew that the current Dragon City’s order was built by the nine great mega corporations with Battle God Lei Zongchao bearing witness to it.

Up till then, the nine great mega corporations had developed to the point where they not only controlled the economic lifelines but also had their own schools, hospitals, and even fighting power that was even better than the Red Dragon Army. They also had more than half of the seats in the Survival Committee, and the ones in control of the mega corporations were also Deity Realm fighters—the peak of human evolution.

When the viruses raged among humans, zombies went about on a rampage, and monsters invaded the city, the Dragon City was divided into lairs scattered all over the place, so it was inevitable that mega corporations rose to power. They were beneficial toward the continued existence of human civilization.

But as of now, the existence of the mega corporations reduced the Survival Committee’s power while also reducing the survival space for middle and small businesses. They might also place the interests of their corporation above the interests of Dragon City during the colonization war in the future.

Should they put limitations on the nine mega corporations or even split them up so that the greatest authority was gathered in the hands of the Survival Committee?

This was a topic that the ones with knowledge in this matter talked about without end.

But since there were at least nine Deity Realm elites standing behind the nine mega corporations, this sort of discussion was something that would only be discussed verbally.