Chapter 591 Let It Lose the Soil for Survival (1/2)

That loud voice was like an arrow piercing the clouds. Under its command, the confused and dull faces suddenly seemed to have found a backbone, and they were filled with indignation one after another.

"That's right! How can that be done!"

"Who's going to schedule our shifts?!"

"that is!"

In addition to being flushed with excitement and having a thick neck, there were also runny noses and tears. The old man on crutches walked tremblingly to the person who quit smoking and begged.

"Sir... you are not from here and don't understand. Without the farmer, we will starve to death."

I'm confused about quitting smoking.

"Ah...is that farmer still teaching you how to farm?"

He had met the farmer.

Standing on the stairs pretending to be a fool like a fool, being manipulated by Luo Gan like a puppet on strings.

No matter how he thought about it, that guy didn't seem to be someone with that kind of ability!

Several old men looked at each other and lowered their voices to him.

"You don't need to be taught that kind of rough work."

"But sir, we only know how to farm..."

"The master will collect a little...but not much. The rest is enough for our family to eat, and we can still pay for it if we work for him. If we go to the wasteland, it will be the end. Don't you You know what those mutants call us, they call us two-legged animals!"

"That's right, it's a wasteland outside... If there is no master to take care of us, will you take care of us?"

As soon as the old man finished speaking, a servant who was probably in the manor next to him shouted anxiously.

"We don't need you to worry about it! The lady is still alive...she is the new owner of the farm!"

Realizing his gaffe, the old man quickly changed his words and shouted loyally.

"That's right! Give us back Miss...!"

Shouts came and went at the door.

The farmer's private soldiers stood in the distance and watched silently. They neither stood with them nor came to help the alliance.

This is a request from their superiors.

No matter whether the nightmare last night was the work of the Torch Church or not, no one who has experienced it once wants to experience the feeling of being led by the neck again.

That kind of power doesn't make sense at all.

When he fell into that indescribable dream, some kind of melody seemed to float in his head, and then his body no longer belonged to him.

Don't talk about cannibalism.

I'm afraid that even if the Alliance asks them to eat shit, they can only lie on the ground and swallow it with a happy face, and they will retching in disgust until they wake up.

After all, isn't that mind interference device in the hands of those guys at the moment?

The conspiracy theory is that maybe I have actually been brainwashed, but I just don’t know it because the brainwashing hasn’t ended yet.

Some officers certainly thought so.

It was precisely because of this that they did not dare to stand up and compete for the position of the farmer, let alone ask how the young lady in the manor was doing.

They would do whatever the alliance asked them to do, whether it was moving corpses out or maintaining order, but they would never do anything unnecessary.

Seeing the crowd of excited people, the quitters were dumbfounded and couldn't say a word for a long time with their mouths open.

He wanted to help them.

No particular reason.

He would not look at the problem from the perspective of a manager. He just saw that they looked pitiful, and he himself happened to have enough food and clothing, and a piece of equipment was more expensive than all the rags they were wearing combined.

To put it another way, does a level 30 boss need a reason to go to Novice Village to show off? The realization of self-worth is also a need in itself.

However, he really didn't know how to help.

That Zhao Tianqian is dead.

The survivors here can obviously discuss the next path together, and no matter which path they end up taking, they can just be responsible for their own choices like adults.

However, they refused and would rather put all the responsibility on an eight-year-old child who was even angry and quarrelsome with his good friends.

If in reality, she had not even finished elementary school at her age.

Does everything automatically get better as long as someone takes charge?

Will the pie fall from the sky by itself as long as responsibility and power are given to an imaginary omnipotent god?

What kind of idealism is this?

"No, this is your settlement..."

Quit smoking and said dumbfounded.

"Have you never thought about... taking care of it yourself?"

That complaint was drowned in the noise of the roaring mountains and the tsunami.

Standing in front of the door, he didn't notice that a pair of eyes mixed in the crowd were watching all this coldly.

The man seemed to have expected it, with a faint sneer on his face.

It's like watching a clown teaching goats to sing, his smile is full of ridicule...

…

The annex of Pinecone Farm.

The players who found an empty room were sitting in a combat meeting, exchanging information that had just been transferred from the official website.

The manager gave them only one tip -

The large number of "pathogens" present in Pinecone Farm is a hidden danger to the Torch Church's plan.

In particular, they may have learned through informants in the farm that the Alliance is developing antidotes and vaccines.

In order to thwart the alliance's plan and recover the experimental data that was not taken away last night, the Torch Church is most likely planning the next round of offensive against this settlement!

As for the information about a series of settings such as the Sanctuary, Forerunners, Apostles, Executioners, etc., everyone can learn about it from the updated settings on the official website.

According to Fang Chang's speculation, the executioner and apostle they captured last night were sent to the Heart of Steel for interrogation and the results were obtained.

However, Fang Chang never expected that he would actually be fooled.

That sanctuary is really just a program running in the virtual space.

And it's more than that.

This thing is more powerful than ordinary virtual spaces. It is a distributed computing network formed by interconnecting countless brains implanted with bionic crystals!

Ye Shi touched his chin and thought for a while, then suddenly started.

"Fuck...I understand."

Kuang Feng glanced at him.

"What do you know anymore."

"To put it simply, this thing is like Voldemort's Horcrux! It can store part of consciousness in other people's brains!"

Luo Yu almost choked on his saliva when he heard this metaphor.

"Pfft...you are so imaginative."

"But I understand it now," Lao Bai said, touching his chin, "In other words, there may be hundreds of Horcruxes hidden in the settlement... What the hell?"

Finally realizing the seriousness of the problem, his expression changed slightly.

Good guy.

This is the full map!

Fang Chang also looked solemn and nodded slowly.

"Theoretically, any NPC here may become Luo Gan's eyes... But fortunately, only by entering the fugue state can Luo Gan personally interfere with the behavior of those chess pieces. Otherwise, the impact on them will only be communicated in the mind. Or to the extent that it makes your eyelids move.”

Everyone was silent for a while.

Even so, this thing is quite outrageous.

"...The problem now is that we don't know where the monsters will spawn from. If there is another tunnel hidden in this settlement, we may have to fight street battles with mutants here."

Just when Fang Changzheng was feeling troubled, the voice of the old man who quit smoking suddenly came from the open microphone of the communication channel.

"Have you reached the conclusion of your discussion?"

Fang Chang replied casually subconsciously.

"Still discussing, not so soon...what's wrong?"

The sound on the communication channel was very noisy, and some vague shouting could be heard.

Quit smoking and said with a proud face.

"The survivors of this settlement have blocked the door of the manor... I feel that if we don't do something, we may have to conflict with the survivors here first."

Hearing these words, Ye Shi was stunned.

"The door is blocked? What's going on?"

He was obviously not the only one who was confused, everyone else also showed blank expressions.

Knowing that this matter couldn't be explained clearly in a few words, I quit smoking and didn't explain it at all, and directly sent the video of the scene.

Looking at the excited crowd in the camera, all the players were stunned.

"……I go."

"Are these people crazy?"

Ye Shi scratched the back of his head in confusion and said.

"I don't understand...what on earth do they want to do."

The master is gone...

Isn't that a good thing?

Fang Chang looked calm, as if he had anticipated the situation before him. Seeing Ye Shiyi's confused face, he spoke concisely.

"This is actually easy to understand. Think about it, if you were a serf and the landowner died, what would be your first thought?"

Ye Shi said immediately.

"That must be dividing the fields!"

Not surprised at all by Ye Shi's answer, Fang Chang smiled and said.

"Of course you will think so if you are a new era youth in the 21st century, but the people here do not think that the land under their feet is theirs at all. Therefore, for various reasons, they will try to make it New farmers come out so they can continue doing the same work."

Ye Shi was stunned for a long time, trying to figure out why the original farmer died and a new one had to be found.

Without farmers, wouldn’t crops grow in the fields?

"...This is too ridiculous."

Looking at the confused Ye Shi, Fang Chang said with a smile.

"There is nothing absurd or not. If you think about it from another perspective, when Singularity City was still doing well one hundred and fifty years ago, would you be willing to go out to open up wasteland?"

I didn’t understand why Fang Chang asked, but Ye Shi still tried to listen to him and thought about it in the context of the game.

Go to the wasteland to open up wasteland...

If there was no second life, he would most likely not dare.

However, Fang Chang did not wait for him to figure out the final answer. He continued speaking almost a second before he opened his mouth.

"Most of the residents of Singularity City are living well under the care of the War Construction Committee, but after all, those are the last few years of the War Construction Committee's lifespan, and the material supply cannot always be so abundant. So the authorities promised to reduce the income of ordinary residents. rationing and providing certain assistance to the pioneers.”

"You are a young man with ideals. You thought it would be better to go out and try your luck than starve to death, so you risked your life and walked into the wilderness of the wasteland. You used a hoe and shovel to dig out the first stone in the ground that was as frozen as steel. He opened a well, dug out the first field, built the first house, and used the surplus food in the next year to buy seeds, fertilizers, and cattle and sheep animals..."

"Things have been going well so far, but then a group of wandering wastelanders wandered to your doorstep, begging you to take them in."

"Whether it was because of their labor force or out of sympathy, you nodded generously and agreed to let them live not far from you. Anyway, you can't till all the fertile land even if you are exhausted. It would be safer if there are more people. You know very well that the environment in the wasteland is getting worse day by day, and no matter how powerful you are, you are only one person with only two hands and cannot use three guns."

"Later, a crisis broke out in Singularity City. Mutants replaced the old humans and became the new masters. More refugees came to you. Although you want to help them, you can't use your hard work to save them. He wanted to give away his stored grain to others, so he came up with a compromise - you lend them grain, seeds, and production tools, and in exchange, they need to repay them with next year's grain or cultivated land, so that both of you get something. benefit."

Ye Shi scratched his head.

"What's wrong with this?"

Looking at Ye Shi who was puzzled, Fang Chang smiled and said.

"There is no problem with this. The plantation economy was actually relatively progressive in the early days of the Wasteland Era. It encouraged the expansion of large settlements to a certain extent. However, during the War and Construction Committee era, most settlements were unwilling to cause trouble for themselves. Yes, because they have the all-purpose 'black box' of the production department."

"Although some small plantations are technically immature, they have housed a large number of surplus survivors that the settlements can no longer accommodate, and have suppressed the emergence of predators to a certain extent."

"Without those plantations, after the crisis in Singularity City broke out, this place would probably have become a kingdom of predators, and it wouldn't just be mutants who would eat humans. The situation would only be worse than it is now."

When he said this, Fang Chang suddenly changed the subject.

"But the problem is that a century and a half later, local people are still using farm methods to run this society that has actually developed into a settlement."

"The farmer manages the little power he has very carefully, hoping to use mortal wisdom to do things that even gods cannot do, and like his ancestors, arrange everything in detail. He does this The biggest dream in his life is probably to occupy all the surrounding settlements. As for developing any kind of industry, that is not what he can think of, or it is not what any noble can think of. At least there must be a group of people like Boulder City. Nobles who are not full must be fed.”

Ye Shi said in confusion.

"But there are also many officers here... For example, Luo Feihui, who wanted to use our power to rise to power, can't he be considered a noble?"

Fang Chang shook his head.

"Like the Yang He who has escaped from this farm, he only borrowed part of the power of the farmer. In essence, he is just a powerful servant."

After a pause, he continued.

"However, this is not just a problem for the farmer. You can find that the local survivors are very careful not to take on any unnecessary responsibility."

“They hold the idea that more things are worse than less things, and they just accept whatever happens. They want to bury their heads in the soil so that tall people can hold them up, and they want to stick their butts up to the sky so that they can grab a bench in time when dawn comes. ”

"Mutants always talk about two-legged beasts and want to eat people with all their teeth and claws. The church doesn't treat them as human beings. It kills tens of thousands of people at will. Maybe you despise them in your heart and just stand there. From the perspective of modern people, we sympathize with their plight...but the church and the mutants are the ones who treat them the least, aren't they themselves?"

"Didn't you realize? This is actually the result of running in both directions. No one put a rope around their necks at all, because there is no need at all. The situation here is completely different from that of Boulder City. So don't expect a few words to make them think of themselves. It’s people. This four-wheel drive doesn’t even have a gas pedal. Let’s teach them how to read first, and then give them a copy of How the Rock Was Built. It would be good if they could at least shout a few slogans.”

Luo Yu interjected.

"Isn't it called "Boll the Awakener"?"

Fang Chang coughed.

"I forgot..."

How embarrassing.

His partner is still the editor of that book.

Looking at Fang Chang blankly, Ye Shi's Adam's apple moved, and he wanted to say something but swallowed it back.

He thought of the lamb.

At the last moment, that little girl was not thinking about her own survival, and was even willing to be eaten by that young lady.

And she never thought about whether her self-sacrifice was really good for Yin Yin.

eat human……

Even if you don't go crazy, it will be a lifelong psychological shadow.

Even a guy like Lao Na who dared to put anything in her mouth and said it didn't matter in the game anyway didn't dare to try what a human tastes like.

What's more, it's the meat of a good friend...

In the end, she never regarded herself as someone special, even though she was so smart that she didn't look like a child at all.

For a moment, Ye Shi suddenly felt that although the actions of the Torch Church were a bit extreme, they were not entirely without reason.

How could these people go crazy because of the fruit?

They're not normal at all.

However, the absurd thing is that this farm is a relatively normal settlement in this wasteland, and it is far more evil than here.

"...No wonder the Enlightenment Society wants to destroy the world."

Looking at Ye Shi muttering there, Lao Bai patted him on the shoulder.

"Okay, don't listen to Fang Chang's nonsense. If this guy was thrown into the era of the Prosperity Era, he would probably be a shareholder of the Enlightenment Society. If you listen to his nonsense, you won't be led into a ditch."

Fang Chang retorted dissatisfiedly.

"You are slandering me now. I will never do such an extreme thing again."

"That's hard to say. You guys with good brains, you know what you are thinking every day." Lao Bai smiled and patted Ye Shi on the shoulder, "Go and talk to that Yin Yin. She cooperates with us."

"Ah?" Ye Shi was stunned for a moment, then blurted out, "What can a little brat like her do?"

Luo Yu raised his eyebrows at him mischievously.

"You can't teach her. Don't you just like younger ones?"

As soon as he heard this, Ye Shi jumped up like a rabbit whose tail was stepped on, and glared at Luo Yu who was smiling evilly.

"Get out of here! I, I fucking... like people who are a little older than me."

Guang Feng touched his chin.

"I understand, no wonder..."

Ye Shi blushed anxiously.

"You're such a damn hammer!"

The room was filled with an air of joy, diluting the solemnity of that moment before.

Fang Chang, who was sitting aside, coughed and looked at Ye Shi who was eager to argue.

"Seriously, I think what Lao Bai said makes sense. If we didn't help that little girl, she would have been forced to become the farmer by the people here."

In fact, that's what those officers thought.

Except for the dead Luo Feihui, everyone else was more inclined to support the little girl to become the owner of the farm than to become the owner of the farm.

In this way, they had indirect control over the farm without having to worry about messing up everything and getting into trouble, and they didn't have to fight to the death for an unpleasant position.

After all, the situation is still unclear. The war between the Torch Church and the Alliance has just begun, and anything can happen.

Ye Shi muttered.

"If you take your time and inherit such a large fortune, others may enjoy it secretly."

Fang Chang glanced at him.

"Then you messed up everything and were used as a scapegoat by those people?"

Ye Shi couldn't help but said.

"Then what do you expect from a child? And didn't you say it yourself? Those people are hopeless."

Fang Chang shook his head.

"I never said they were hopeless. It was the torch that thought they were hopeless. I just wanted to express that 'awakening' is not something that falls from the sky. It is not one person's responsibility, but everyone has an unshirkable responsibility. responsibility."

"The same goes for that child. Of course she can accept the power and responsibility given by those slaves with peace of mind, but the price is to become the puppet of those servants. After all, the farmer is not that easy to be, and she has no Isn’t that what my father did?”

"Of course, she has another choice now, which is to return the power and responsibility that her father has taken away from everyone in this settlement, and to withdraw voluntarily in exchange for a dignified ending. In this way, she is still Can save some property.”

Lao Bai frowned and hesitated.

"Isn't this too heavy for her? Alyssa is almost an adult after all...and she is only eight years old."

Fang Chang shrugged.

"This is already the easiest way. She only needs to nod and cooperate with us to say some scene words, and she can get a decent ending. And if she refuses our help, what will she face next? That’s the heaviest part.”

Ye Shi looked at him puzzled.

"What's the meaning?"

"This is a holy war against the Torch Faith, so the battlefield will naturally not be limited to places visible to the naked eye... I just thought of it. The Holy Land is actually not as invulnerable as we thought. It can be hidden in anyone's head. "

Fang Chang did not directly answer his doubts, but asked him this question.

Ye Shi thought hard for a long time, and was about to say that he didn't know, but suddenly his heart moved, and he thought of the Naguo, and blurted it out almost subconsciously.

"As long as the torch loses the soil for survival..."

Nagging doesn't kill anyone.

But it would make the soil no longer suitable for old humans.

This is the foundation of all plans of the Torch Church, just like "neutron annihilation" is to the Enlightenment Society.

And similarly, the reason why the Torch Church and their plans can be implemented here is precisely because there is soil here where dirt can survive and multiply.

Then just make this place no longer suitable for them to survive.

The Alliance allows the surrounding survivors to decide their own fate, but the premise is that they do not mess around on their own territory and disturb others.

But now this is obviously not the problem of the locals themselves.

The Alliance's Heart of Steel has arrived here, which is the most direct proof.

Looking at Ye Shi who became more alert, Fang Chang nodded approvingly.

"Yes, as long as the majority of the land is united, the torch and its fruits will lose the soil for survival. And in order to achieve this, the managers will almost certainly allocate the land that originally belonged to the farmers to Those serfs re-established order in this area."

"After the disaster last night, all settlements on this land have to face a multiple-choice question——"

“Is it the church, or is it the alliance.”

This war has already begun.