Chapter 148: A Hasty Decade_1

Lin Sen had been awake for two years now, and this was the longest he had stayed awake.

Apart from the initial Underground City proposal, Lin Sen seemingly had no other plans on the surface.

Previous plans had always been laid out on a broad strategy level, guiding Wallfacers' departments in producing results.

Over these two years, Lin Sen and Feng Zi delved into various societal sectors and actively participated in numerous specific affairs.

They moved among the different tribes of the Underground City, not only engaging in deep exchanges with professionals from all walks of life but also taking part in their work and lives.

Accompanying them were members of the Future Intelligence Office, which was secretly established two years ago, including Dr. Yun Fei. Despite his advanced age and declining physical strength, he remained spirited and sharp-minded.

He had dedicated his life to social practice and exploring future societies, and he was a highly respected sage within the Future Intelligence Office.

Grounded in the achievements of the School of Future History, the Future Intelligence Office amassed a collection of the finest sociologists, psychologists, economists, technologists, environmentalists, data analysts, and more—elite talents across multiple fields.

All results of the Future Intelligence Office were kept confidential and their research scope extended beyond human society.

Mind Empathy Technology had matured, and within the Future Intelligence Office, one department devoted itself to constructing a small mind-sharing society using this technology.

By studying this type of social form and the Trisolarans' modes of thought and societal patterns, participants were the elite talents of humanity.

The Trisolaran society was certainly not a simple ant or bee colony model; researching their social patterns was a long-term project.

The people of the Underground City also endured two years of miserable life; although everyone was emaciated, they did not sink into despair.

Firstly, their resilience wouldn't allow them to give up easily; secondly, they hardly had the time to think about anything beyond survival; thirdly, their loved ones were there, making it impossible for them to give up.

A point to note is that in the original work, the Underground City was not built after the Great Ravine, but during it.

Human governments were supremely wise, yet in situations of resource and food shortages, anything could happen, eventually leading to a global collapse and massive loss of population.

After the Great Ravine, human technology surged, transforming the Underground City into a highly developed subterranean society, where residents enjoyed comfortable living environments equipped with all kinds of facilities.

In the process of constructing the Underground City and during the industrial development, humanity paid a very high price.

Challenges and problems were endless, accidents were frequent, and people were constantly exhausted by the sheer number of challenges and survival predicaments they faced daily.

Everyone struggled on the brink of survival, but they did not give up; an accessible goal was where their hope and faith lay.

People believed that once the construction of the Underground City and industry was complete, securing enough food and a good living environment, humanity could overcome the current difficulties and return to pre-disaster living standards.

Outside the Underground City lay boundless swamps and mudflows, making communication between the cities incredibly difficult. Neighboring cities could communicate through underground tunnels, but the distant ones could not.

The road to industrial reconstruction was fraught with challenges and uncertainties, starting with the slow development of technology from the most basic mechanical equipment.

However, each Underground City had access to different materials and resources; they had to develop their own industrial models suited to their needs and build an industrial system tailored for their survival.

In the short term, the industrial development models indeed led to a significant decline in the level of human scientific and technological knowledge, even possibly regressing by nearly 150 years.

Yet, from a long-term perspective, this temporary setback could actually lay a solid foundation for a future technological leap.

As humanity rose again from the great abyss, this diverse industrial system showcased its unique strengths.

Different technological paths and industrial solutions clashed and fused, igniting sparks and even explosions never seen before.

After everything was in order, Lin Sen and Rey Diaz entered hibernation once more, and the temporary supreme decision-making power of the Moon Base was entrusted to Feng Zi.

...

Time hurriedly passed another 8 years, entering the 38th year of the Crisis Era.

There are now 3614 Underground Cities around the globe, down from the initial 3791—what happened to them goes without saying, as nothing comes without a cost.

The largest Underground Cities housed nearly 4 million people, while the smallest had just a few hundred thousand.

In these ten years, there were four planetary-level storms. The atmosphere grew thinner, and meteorologists predicted that it was no longer enough to compress polar cold currents—the planetary-level disasters had passed.

The weather gradually warmed, with the global average temperature at 8 degrees Celsius, turning the surface into swampy lands every summer.

It was foreseeable that, once the climate recovered, surface water would evaporate, large amounts of mud would accumulate, soil erosion would be depleted, and global desertification would begin.

People had been living in the Underground Cities for ten years, having initially thought that within six to eight years, the industrial system of the Underground Cities could be restored to its pre-Crisis technological level.

However, reality was far crueler than expected. A decade later, only a small number of Underground Cities had achieved this goal, with the majority still struggling under the shadow of disasters.

Each Underground City faced countless hardships and challenges—resource scarcity, confused technology paths, unsettled minds, and isolation—none of which made rebuilding the industrial system any easier.

Underground Cities kept announcing that they had combined third-generation controlled nuclear fusion with genetic engineering to mass-produce artificial food.

Everyone looked forward to the age when hunger would be a thing of the past, and the inhabitants of the Underground Cities could finally shake off their reliance on food from the Moon.

The economic model of the Underground Cities now resembled a contribution point system similar to that in games, where work for the Underground City was required to earn contribution points. Food from the Moon Base could only be obtained with these points.

There's a catch, though: a person's labor earns contribution points, but the points only serve as vouchers to purchase food. Actual money must still be paid to buy the food.

This system is an upgraded version of the food ticket system, which was a way of distributing social resources as food purchase certificates. Essentially, it was obtained without labor, just a means of allocating resources, and indeed a good system under the conditions of the time.

Yet, with this contribution point system requiring labor to earn the purchase vouchers, and still needing money to buy food from the Moon, it's undeniably a form of double exploitation of everyone.

Over the span of ten years, everyone racked up astronomical food debts from the Moon Base. Though repayment is a future concern, no one cares; food is bound to be cheap in the future, making it no different from being gratuitously given away.

These years, workers from the Moon and Country C have been seen in every corner of each Underground City, always the first to respond during any disaster, and even evacuating all personnel to the Moon Base in the event of a major catastrophe.

Humanity is indeed better off now than during the disaster-ridden decade. Many industries have gradually taken shape, but these industries have been developed in the short term, and many have grown "abnormally."

Nonetheless, the hardest ten years are over. The global population loss of nearly 80 percent depicted in the original work did not occur; in reality, the loss was negligible.

Humanity had partially restored the industrial level to what it was before the Crisis. Despite a decade of hardship, people of this era did not succumb to despair.

On the contrary, during these ten years of arduous development, they displayed tenacious resilience and resolute determination. No matter the difficulties faced, they never bowed their heads or gave up. There was only one way forward because retreat would mean losing the chance to survive.

PS: The numbers 3614 and 3791 have no special meaning, arbitrarily taken from the original work: 3614 is the number of nuclear bombs deployed by Logic in the Snowfield Project, and 3791 is a transformation of the number 1379.