Apocalyptic Reincarnation: Start with a 30-million Bonus-Chapter 347 - 339: First Satisfy Your Hunger, Then Talk About Dreams (Thanks to A Feng Yu for the Generous Reward)
Snowflakes began to drift through the air again.
Tiny white feathers, like pear blossoms blown off the tree, scattered haphazardly.
The earth was enveloped in silver white, the piercing cold wind howled fiercely.
After the group left the electronics wholesale market, it started to snow again.
This made everyone's mood turn sour.
The carcass of the tiger they had encountered earlier was nowhere to be found.
But now, they were not in the mood to search for it, nor did they have the energy to do so.
With heavy hearts, the vehicles slowly moved along.
They progressed steadily, not fast, but stable.
The snow on the road was still deep; snowplows continuously pushed aside the snow to clear a passable path.
The people in the vehicles ate something simple.
Li Yu suddenly asked: "Shang Xue'er, do you remember how many people left Jiefang City with you in the end?"
Holding food in her hand, Shang Xue'er paused briefly and after some thought, replied:
"After Director Zhang took in some refugees and more people joined afterward, I don't know the exact number, but it certainly wasn't a thousand, maybe eight or nine hundred.
But then the riots happened, and many must have died. The conflicts mainly arose between the refugees and the natives, and after the riots, we simply couldn't control it.
After that, it was Lao Lu who led us to escape.
Inside Jiefang City, it was complete chaos, with everyone fighting and clashing over resources."
Li Yu hadn't inquired much about why Lao Lu and the others had to flee Jiefang City.
Looking at Shang Xue'er now, he actually knew why Jiefang City ultimately fell.
The fundamental reason lay in the food crisis; with an overabundance of people, it was impossible to sustain everyone, and that naturally led to conflict.
In any era, once a food crisis emerges, the larger the shortfall, the greater the unrest.
Another reason was that with too many people, the leaders couldn't manage everyone, lacking the strength to control the general populace.
Guns, pens, hoes.
Guns symbolize the armed strength of a force, its equipment, population, Combat Power, and so on.
Pens symbolize the acknowledgment under governance, public opinion, loyalty and alignment with the will of the people.
Even in these apocalyptic times, when morality has decayed, sometimes rallying the people's hearts still requires pens.
Hoes symbolize food, owning the most basic of sustenance. If people can't live, then there's little persuasiveness.
Li Yu was no hero; he didn't believe he had that kind of charisma, so he had never expanded the team at the base too much.
The key point was, in these post-apocalyptic times, first it was torrential rains, then drought, and now heavy snowfall.
The land was barren, the conditions for cultivation were harsh, meaning it simply couldn't support that many people.
Lacking the most basic material foundation, relying solely on ideals and dreams was nothing short of delusion.
We have to remember that in the past there were cries for: "seize the landlords' land to distribute..."
Humans are pragmatic.
But Li Hang and Dapao probably didn't quite understand this, so Li Hang asked, "What was the fundamental cause of the riots?"
With a hint of sorrow, Shang Xue'er said: frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"You might not be able to imagine, but towards the end in Jiefang City, all of us couldn't find much food, hundreds of us went hungry every day.
Even we could only manage one meal a day, let alone ordinary people in Jiefang City. Some of them were directly starved to death."
Some group leaders had hoarded a substantial amount of food in their hands, and at the time, Director Zhang ordered these people to distribute some of their food, but they refused.
In the end, they even killed Director Zhang, which led to a riot, and everyone began to plunder food, and then everyone went mad.
To be honest, joining our base has been the happiest time I've experienced since the apocalypse began.
At least we can eat our fill every day, and there's a safe place where we don't have to worry about danger at night, and, the environment inside our base is so nice."
Hearing Shang Xue'er say this, Yang Tianlong and Dapao both remembered the time before they joined the base. It felt like a long time ago.
But back then, they were indeed living in an environment where food was scarce and danger lurked everywhere.
Now that they thought about it, so much time had already passed.
Li Hang had never experienced a shortage of food, even though after the apocalypse broke out, he often went out to kill zombies, and even had to face many enemies, he never went hungry.
Li Hang, listening to Shang Xue'er talk about this, felt a strong sense of impending crisis in his heart.
Li Yu nodded to reassure Shang Xue'er, "Don't worry, now that you've joined us, we'll work together to protect the base, and I promise you won't encounter this kind of situation in the future."
Shang Xue'er nodded gratefully and said:
"Thank you, Director Li, thank you for accepting me.
But I'm always worried about something. Our base is so nice in every aspect, but what if one day a power stronger than us appears? What do we do?"
Li Yu looked deeply at her and asked, "What do you think we should do?"
Shang Xue'er frowned and said, "Expand our manpower, enlarge our base, and increase our strength.
But with more people, incidents like what happened at Jiefang City are more likely to occur, and food supply will be an issue.
So much land is unusable now, and the weather is like this, I think it's difficult.
I always feel that in this post-apocalyptic world, it's difficult to have a very powerful force, and we are already very powerful.
I'm just worried that there might be someone more powerful than us...
Sigh, I don't know what to do."
Li Yu looked at her and said, "Think about how you joined us."
Shang Xue'er seemed to understand and immediately bowed with some regret, saying,
"I'm sorry, I spoke too much. You have your plans, and I might have thought too one-sidedly."
Li Yu did not directly reply to her words but said lightly, "You being able to think of these and talk to me about them directly, I am pleased.
But just like the lesson from Director Zhang and Jiefang City, you should be very clear.
The core of everything lies in production. Zombies, weather, environmental uncertainties make production also filled with uncertainty.
Let the bullets fly for a while, having more people does not mean having greater strength, take it slow."
Everyone listened and pondered the meaning of Li Yu's words.
...
Li Yu suddenly looked at Shang Xue'er and asked, "Are you afraid of death?"
Shang Xue'er was suddenly asked this question and was a bit stunned. What did this question have to do with the discussion they just had?
But she still had to answer, so Shang Xue'er said, "To say I'm not afraid would be a lie, but somehow I'm not that scared either."
Li Yu smiled and didn't say much more.
In this post-apocalyptic world, he only believed in one thing: only those who are well-fed can talk about reason.
...
On the way back, they were a bit faster than on the way there, but still couldn't compare to the speed before the snow.
They didn't encounter any other problems on the road.
At five-thirty in the afternoon, as the sun set, they arrived at the gas station outside the base.