Big Data Cultivation

Chapter 2388: Chapter 2380: Visiting

Bring a Nascent Soul Middle Phase along? Feng Jun thought about it, then still shook his head. "Old Angler’s thinking is way too rigid. If I bring people over, I figure he’ll be unhappy again. At the very least I should say hello first, then see whether I bring them or not."

After saying that, he pulled out his Mobile Phone and swiped it, and disappeared right in front of Xia Nichang.

The next moment, he appeared on Xingzheng Star. He looked around and found that the surroundings were still relatively peaceful. In the distance, anti-air fire flared from time to time; clearly they were guarding against an Insect Race incursion.

Feng Jun took out a radio. The Human Race’s technology in this world was highly advanced, but during wartime, radios were still indispensable.

He tuned to a channel and listened for a while, and basically understood the situation on Xingzheng Star. The Insect Race that had made it to the surface had basically been wiped out; there were still some stragglers who’d slipped into the forests, but most of those were non-flying insects, and the soldiers were in the process of mopping them up.

But even so, the situation on Xingzheng Star wasn’t exactly rosy. Although quite a lot of Human Race reinforcements had arrived, the entire star had already been heavily blockaded by the Insect Race; people and supplies couldn’t get in or out.

Xingzheng Star had now implemented a wartime rationing system for supplies. Food and vegetables weren’t too big of an issue; the key problem was a severe shortage of ammunition and Energy Blocks. For ammunition, Xingzheng Star could still produce some on its own, but there really weren’t many Energy Blocks.

Strictly speaking, as the primary planet of a star system, Xingzheng Star shouldn’t have been short of such reserves. But they’d already been besieged by the Insect Race for over half a year, and the fighting had been fierce for a time, and Xingzheng Star itself didn’t have any Energy Stone Mine at all!

Of course, even now their Energy Block reserves hadn’t completely run out, because no one knew how much longer this war was going to last. The official propaganda was urging everyone to save power, and for people living in cold regions to use firewood for heating whenever possible.

You had to know, this planet had also taken the Human Race several hundred years of terraforming to turn into a Yi Ju Star, and cutting trees here used to be a serious crime. Now the authorities were actually calling on people to chop trees for warmth.

And it wasn’t just material shortages; they were also short on manpower. A lot of reservists had already been called back into the army to fight, and some factories, short of workers, were finding it hard to keep operating.

Hesheng was one such company. Its headquarters wasn’t on Xingzheng Star, but it was a business that had started from here, specializing in various types of mechanical equipment, especially mining machinery.

This kind of company was the easiest to grow on Frontier Stars. During the pioneering process, the variety of equipment needed was enormous, and if you couldn’t manufacture locally, just the equipment itself would be outrageously expensive.

Hesheng rode the wave of frontier development and rose to prominence. The founder placed a lot of emphasis on R&D, and later they even broke into the interior markets. The second-generation Sect Leader was also quite capable, and moved the company away from the border through capital operations and marriage alliances.

Being able to pull that off meant they were anything but ordinary, and it also showed that Hesheng’s technical strength was indeed formidable.

Plenty of people had connections, but there were very few who could actually move a company out of a Frontier Star System.

Even so, the Hesheng Production Base on Xingzheng Star was still one of the company’s three main bases, and the person in charge here was also from the He Clan—most of the He Clan hadn’t moved away from Xingzheng Star.

The current supervisor of the production base, He Runxian, was the founder’s great-grandson. Counting all the brothers and sisters who shared that same great-grandfather, there were over a thousand of them. And that was with quite a few grand-uncles having died in battle; otherwise the number would easily be over two thousand.

This was a fairly large Clan with deep capital reserves, which was the only way they could keep reproducing and growing in the brutal inter-species war. As for ordinary folks, they could only fend for themselves.

Director He had recently run into trouble—or rather, everyone on the planet had run into the same trouble. Because of the war, orders couldn’t be delivered on time. That in itself wasn’t the real issue; after all, it counted as force majeure. The problem now was that the factory couldn’t keep running.

Producing equipment obviously required energy and manpower, but energy supply was tight and many workers had been drafted away. The factory was in danger of shutting down.

Actually, even a shutdown wouldn’t be fatal. But the completed equipment needed maintenance and protection; otherwise, if it got damaged, they’d have to remake all the orders after the war, and that would be a total disaster.

He was only the supervisor of this production base. Redoing the orders would drag down the entire Hesheng company—because even if this base went bankrupt, Hesheng Headquarters would still have to coordinate the completion of those orders.

So what he needed to do now was to fight for some military orders, and use the energy allotted for those orders to, incidentally, protect the equipment they’d already produced.

But it wasn’t that easy to get military orders. Hesheng was renowned for its mining and construction machinery, and producing some military supplies shouldn’t have been a problem in theory. The trouble was that they had deep pockets and were located on a Frontier Star, and the Federation believed it was inappropriate to let them produce military goods.

At the end of the day, the Federation was guarding against them becoming an uncontrollable power—not that they were worried about Hesheng defecting to the Insect Race. So long as Hesheng had the capability to disobey orders at a critical moment, it would severely undermine the Human Race’s united front against the Insect Race.

Similar incidents had occurred plenty of times in history: someone’s wings grew hard, they were unwilling to obey unified command, and it led to extremely serious consequences.

But He Runxian didn’t believe the He Clan would do such a thing. For the sake of protecting their homeland, the He Clan had lost hundreds of clan members in this war. So he was especially angry about failing to get any military orders.

And after production stopped, food supply was another big problem. The production base had a high degree of automation, but there were still more than two thousand technicians and workers.

This time, many of the young people had been drafted, but there were still more than a thousand people and their families who needed to eat.

The authorities provided food relief, but that relief basically only ensured people wouldn’t starve to death. And as for how disgusting those high-calorie nutrient pastes tasted—only those who’d eaten them knew.

The several thousand people in the living quarters were his second-biggest headache. The He Clan had lived here for several generations; he couldn’t just wash his hands of them. Besides, this was a Frontier Star, where labor was already in short supply. It hadn’t been easy to gather and hold onto such a workforce.

If the base could secure a military production contract, then everything could at least be held together, barely.

He Runxian had even hinted that the technicians should post online, saying that such a large Hesheng Base actually hadn’t managed to get even the scraps of a military contract—had anyone thought about what would happen to Hesheng’s workers?

Just like staffers enjoyed a "no crime for speaking" privilege, because the Human Race had been at war with the Insect Race for years on end, ordinary people could freely express their views online, and reasonable suggestions would even be rewarded.

Of course, if you tried to incite a street protest, you’d be done for—Gauss Machine Guns would come out to greet you. You could clearly speak your mind on the internet, after all.

The Lord of the Netherworld... had a bit of democracy and a bit of autocracy; the main goal was to achieve greater efficiency in governance during wartime.

But that post didn’t attract much attention. There were plenty of cases more miserable than theirs on Xingzheng Star—if nothing else, the Warfield Hospitals were overflowing, and many wounded couldn’t receive timely and effective treatment. Wasn’t that worse?

He Runxian had been running around all day, and only returned home by maglev car at night, in an extremely foul mood. "When the hell is this going to end?"

Just then, the gatekeeper came to report that someone outside was asking to see him, wanting to talk about military orders. The visitor refused to reveal their identity.

He Runxian wasn’t surprised by the visitor’s furtiveness. He knew there were all kinds of commercial brokers within the Federation. Not long ago, Fang Yingwu’s The Seventh Army had been drifting around the star system, and it was through contacting arms brokers that they managed to replenish their energy and ammunition.

As for his own safety, he wasn’t too worried either. His residence might be a sizable manor, but it wasn’t far from the production base, and the manor itself had security staff and some very powerful defensive weapons.

These defensive weapons usually couldn’t be used casually, but after this Insect Race incursion, he’d been granted authorization to open fire freely.

As long as he didn’t take the initiative to attack the Human Race, there was no problem. If someone tried to break into the manor, he could also use the weapons to tear them to pieces—this was to prevent people from taking advantage of the chaos to loot during wartime.

So He Runxian’s response was, "Quick, invite him in. Lao Liu, go relay the message for me."

Lao Liu was a security guard whose ID number ended in six, and that was how he was usually addressed.

Lao Liu came back soon, saying the other party was unwilling to enter the manor and wanted He Runxian to go out to talk.

This result wasn’t surprising. Lao Liu already had a rather intimidating appearance, and He Runxian sending him out was partly to flex a bit of muscle—if you’re here to scam or cheat, you’d better think twice.

In fact, Lao Liu had also wanted to use the chance to probe the other party’s authority, such as by conducting a search.

But the visitor didn’t buy it at all, making it clear they had no intention of going inside. "Tell He Runxian to come out and talk. If he doesn’t, I’m leaving."

Lao Liu was big and burly, but very shrewd. He didn’t resort to force; he came back to report instead. "...This guy is wrapped up tightly from head to toe. Looks like he really doesn’t want his identity info scanned."

He Runxian had been busy all day and was already exhausted. He raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, and asked weakly, "Lao Liu, do you think I should meet him or not?"

"I think... it doesn’t really matter," Lao Liu thought for a moment and replied. "Things are already like this; it’s not like they can get much worse. At a time like this, who would bother plotting against you, sir?"

The wording was a bit reckless, but that was the reality. Hesheng was already a mess. No one was interested in taking over this pile of trouble. And if anyone wanted to swallow the base, once the war ended they’d have to face the wrath of Hesheng Headquarters.

He Runxian asked the smart housekeeper, confirmed that there were no Human Race personnel moving within a one-kilometer radius, then nodded. "Alright, Number One and Number Two suit up in Mecha and come with me to meet this person."

Number One and Number Two were security guards with Mecha operation clearance. Because He Runsheng’s status was relatively high and his industry was sensitive, he had four such guards by his side—this was a special approval from Xingzheng Star.

Under the cover of the two Mecha, He Runsheng rode a bulletproof hover car to the front gate.

The other party was just one solitary figure, carrying a Laser Pistol and a multi-purpose machete. In the middle of the night he was still wearing goggles and a mask—one look and you could tell he wasn’t a normal guy.