Chapter 155 Going with the Flow

Now that Watasha has taken the initiative to propose it, why don’t they go along with it?

After the trains were reorganized, most people like Qian San and Qi Zhenzhen stayed on Line 1. After all, the areas around Line 1 stations had been cleared for some time and were relatively safe. Meanwhile, the areas where Line 2 stations were located had limited construction in various areas.

They had heard about an epidemic in the coastal areas of Jiangnan during the summer. Although they heard from the news that it had been brought under control, who knew if it would still have an impact.

Therefore, most people weren't very interested in the coastal Line 2 construction. Only Chen Jing'an, who wanted to visit his fifth brother in the coastal area, actively boarded the car with his bodyguards after hearing about the opening of Line 2.

Although Li Er, the little tail, had already contacted the bodyguards sent by his parents, he followed along when he heard that Chen Jing'an was coming.

However, even though Chen Jing'an boarded the train of Coastal Line 2, it was not so easy for him to see Chen Jingming. After all, although Chen Jingming had come here a long time ago, as a doctor he was not necessarily at the base where the train station was located.

As for Chen Jing'an's desire to get off the train to look for someone, regardless of whether he could successfully find them, his bodyguards wouldn't allow him to get off. Therefore, he could only follow the train back and forth between stations, praying that he would be lucky enough to see his fifth brother at the next stop.

Although Chen Jing'an, Li Er and others usually spend most of their time on Line 2, they will occasionally get off the train when the two lines intersect in City G to meet up with their friends.

The newly added luxury carriages on Line 2 were thus transferred from Line 2 to Line 1.

Qian San was very happy to see his friends, but when he heard that there was a luxury carriage on Line 2 that none of them had ever seen, he became a little dissatisfied.

"How come that bearded guy has such a nice carriage right away? Why don't we have one? Does he look down on us?"

The more Qian San thought about it, the angrier he got. He went back and told all his friends who lived on Line 1, "Do you think the train is looking down on us? What's the matter? Do they think we don't have as many crystal cores as that foreigner?"

Recently, because each base has to exchange food and other supplies with the train, the crystal cores distributed to them on a monthly basis as agreed upon when the supplies were collected from each base are indeed less. But we can't look down on them like that, right?

After hearing what Qian San said, the other second and third generations were also very dissatisfied.

These people have had almost everything they wanted since they were young, and have never been treated differently by others. They simply cannot accept the fact that "others have it but I don't."

Especially since even foreigners can stay here, but these old passengers don’t even have the chance to see it. It makes them even more angry just thinking about it.

But even though they were so quiet, there was still no change on the Line 1 train, and there was no sign of the luxurious carriage they had been longing for.

The reason was simple: the remaining train revenue was finite. Line 2 was nearing its end, and since we wanted to be able to run multiple trains simultaneously, just like Line 1, we had to accumulate enough cores to redeem an entire train before the various stations on Line 3 were finalized.

As for Qian San and the others' "complaints", Jiang Qian had already checked their magic crystal balances through the "Train Bank". Knowing that they did not have the ability to live alone in the luxury carriage, she naturally ignored their words and pretended not to hear them.

It is not known how depressed Qian San and the others are, but it is another matter that Jiang Qian feels can be put on the agenda.

Due to weather reasons during this period, fewer and fewer people are able to take a bath.

When the weather is warm, water at 30 to 50 degrees Celsius is enough for a shower, but when the weather gets cold, even water at 100 degrees Celsius will cool down quickly.

Clean water is hard to come by, fuel even harder in winter. Furthermore, with temperatures so low, most people are afraid of the cold. Unless absolutely necessary, they even sleep in their clothes, fearing they might be whisked off to another world by the cold. After all, compared to life itself, something as trivial as taking off clothes to shower is nothing.

Therefore, since the weather turned cold in mid-November, many people have not taken a bath.

Don’t wash for one day, don’t wash for two days…don’t wash for a month…

Up to now, two months have passed since the first snow fell. Even though the train has an excellent air filtration system and there are many passengers, there is no obvious smell in the carriage. However, when a passenger occasionally passes by, the unusual smell will still be very prominent.

Ordinary people may not feel anything because they are used to this smell, but for people like Jiang Qian who often live on the train and have the opportunity to take a shower frequently, the smell is very obvious.

However, only family rooms, family suites and luxury carriages on the train have bathrooms, and the bathrooms in these carriages are only available to the passengers of that carriage and cannot benefit everyone.

So, after much thought, for the sake of her own nose and considering the need for epidemic prevention, Jiang Qian decided to build a public bathroom on every train, which is commonly known as a bathhouse.

The most important things for running a bathhouse are equipment and water. The equipment and carriages are readily available, and the system can provide them. As for the all-important water supply, the system has already solved the large-scale water supply problem in the carriages when we developed the eco-carriages.

Now that both are available, Jiang Qian simply added two carriages to each train, one for men's and one for women's bathrooms.

In addition to the essential bathing area and changing area, she also set up a massage area and a leisure area.

That's right, even though it was a bathhouse, she wasn't going to mess around with it. She wanted to make everything the same as it was before the incident.

She plans to recruit some bathhouse attendants and technicians with rich massage experience, which will not only enrich the bathhouse's services and add more paid items, but also help more people get through this somewhat difficult winter.

…

At this time, Watasha, who had been staying on the train for almost a week and was reluctant to leave, finally received news from the capital.

Two days ago, at a meeting of the capital's rescue command center, the matter of Watasha was brought up for discussion for the third time.

Contrary to what Li Changhe and Gao Zhe had imagined, the participants did not agree as actively as they had thought about the cooperation proposed by Watasha. Instead, many people expressed opposition, so that the discussion lasted intermittently for three days.

It is true that their country does not have sufficient resources of all kinds. Since the occurrence of the mutation, the contacts and trade with various countries have been interrupted, and the resources available in the country have been stretched to the limit.

Normally, at this time, with Watasha bringing a large amount of oil to trade, it should be easy to reach a cooperation, but...

"We cannot agree to this proposal."

At the conference table, the white-haired old man frowned, his face full of disapproval.

"It would be fine if we simply relied on this shipment of oil to allow Watasha and his family to settle in our country, but the deal he's talking about goes beyond that. Having abundant oil is certainly great, but he wants more than just food. In exchange, he wants us to be responsible for the transportation of the oil. How is this any different from asking us to help him stabilize the situation in his country?"

"That's right. We're still in a mess in our own country right now! I think instead of trading oil with Watasha, we should set up a train station in the west as soon as possible. We have our own oil fields and don't have to import from abroad!"

"But our domestic resources are limited after all. Since we have the opportunity to import from abroad, why not do it? Our own high-quality steel should be used for the best purpose!"

"But the reward offered by the other party is really generous. If we miss this opportunity, we will never get it again!" Someone hesitated.

"Right now, the most important resources are food and population. I don't agree with trading food for other resources right now. Although the prophecy says this winter will last six months, we can't be sure of its accuracy. What if this winter is even longer than predicted? We're still short of food ourselves, so I don't think it's wise to trade it now!"

"I feel like the world isn't safe out there right now, and it's too dangerous to send anyone out! Since we're capable of being self-sufficient, I don't think it's necessary to do this business with Watasha. The downsides outweigh the upsides."

"The most important thing now is to maintain domestic stability. Everything else can wait until later!"

But some people have different opinions.

"I think this business is viable. In fact, the situation in our country has stabilized now, and grain planting is back on track. As long as this continues, we should be able to get through this winter safely.

The experimental results from the Northwest Research Institute have already come in, and the fungi delivered by the train are indeed very effective in purifying pathogens. Now all that's left is research on a vaccine.

I think we can now turn some of our attention abroad. After all, we live on a planet, and if the external environment remains so harsh, we won't be able to return to our previous lives by relying solely on domestic stability!

After these words were spoken, everyone else fell silent.

Indeed, if they want to restore their previous life, they cannot just work hard at home.

Since the end of the world, they have been constantly advocating and urging the international community to help each other, work together and overcome difficulties. All their initiatives and research results in the past six months have not been concealed. While they were announced domestically, they were also disseminated externally at the same time.

They have always hoped that other countries and people would join hands with them to face this sudden challenge, but...

The environment abroad is so complicated that there are only a handful of governments or organizations that are truly involved in disaster relief on a large scale like they are.

Even to this day, their appeals have received little response. Of the small nations that have responded, most are seeking assistance. These small nations can't even take care of their own citizens' survival, let alone collaborate on research.

After all, this planet is a sphere. Although most countries are separated from them by rivers and oceans, and even if there is unrest in the short term, it will not affect them, there are still some small countries that are only separated from their country by a river or even directly border them.

Especially in the neighboring Northeast Peninsula and Southwest Peninsula, even though there are barbed wire fences and walls built before, and the army is constantly patrolling, in the past six months, there are still many residents of neighboring countries who try to cross the border, which cannot be prevented at all.

If they carry the disease, then no matter how well they do domestically, it will be useless. Furthermore, the rivers flowing through some border cities even originate in these small countries. If the upstream rivers in these small countries are full of zombies, then anything they do downstream will be in vain.

But this situation cannot be solved. After all, they can't change the direction of the river, right?

"Now that Watasha has come to negotiate, it's actually a great opportunity. While sending people over to participate in the oil transportation is dangerous, we can use this transaction as an opportunity to formally and legally help them. Other countries can also use this as an example. I believe this will be beneficial for the early restoration of peace and stability!"

Although the countries are in chaos now, they still enjoy corresponding sovereignty and cannot be violated at will. Even with good intentions, they cannot interfere in the internal affairs of other countries without reason.

Therefore, even if they stabilize the domestic situation in the future, it will be very difficult for them to take legal and compliant measures to help other regions stabilize.

Now that Watasha has taken the initiative to propose it, why don’t they go along with it?

When the others thought about this, even though they still felt that the transaction was very risky, they had to agree that it was indeed a good opportunity.

So, by the end of the meeting, after a long stalemate, the deal proposed by Watasha was finally officially approved. As for the details of the deal, they would need to discuss it in detail after Watasha arrived in the capital.

…

【Author’s words】

Thank you for your support. The next chapter will be updated tomorrow afternoon or evening.