Chapter 79: It Touched the Big Pie of Management (Second Bonus Chapter)
"There's no big news, but everyone's saying that the gold-eating ants might not be coming back for a while, because a lot of them were killed last night, and there are piles of them at the door of every household."
"By the way, sister, why haven't we seen any dead gold-eating ants in our house?" Pan Duole asked curiously.
“Xiao Bao likes to eat this.” Zuo Shan still couldn’t help but feel nauseous when she thought of the scene of Xiao Bao swallowing the golden ants raw. Pregnant women are inherently fragile and their emotions are unstable. She was already considered very strong.
"Since there's no immediate danger, let's go back to your old home and find a place to bury your mother!" Zuo Shan pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly.
She didn't want the little girl to face such a cruel reality, but that was her mother who gave her life and raised her; she couldn't just leave her to die in the wilderness.
Last night was a special situation. She was worried that there would be another attack from the gold-eating ants. In addition, she was very worried about leaving Xiaobao alone at home. That's why she hurriedly took Pandole and left.
The situation is temporarily stable, but things still need to be done.
As before, Xiao Bao stayed behind to look after the house. Zuo Shan took Mao Li and Pan Duole to Pan Duole's house. Her mother was still leaning against the wall in the same position, and the bloodstains on her body had dried.
Pandora's tears flowed again. She had seen many dead people since she was a child. In District 50, it was too common for a person to die. Some were killed by mutated beasts, some died of illness or starvation, and some died in fights over food.
She thought she was numb enough to death, but when her only relative died, and in such a tragic way, she couldn't stop feeling heartbroken.
When she was at her sister's house, she tried her best to block out her thoughts and not think about anything related to her mother. But now that her mother was right in front of her, she could no longer stop and burst into tears.
After she had finished crying, Zuo Shan hugged her and comforted her, then asked, "Where do you want to bury your mother?"
Pandora was somewhat bewildered. She genuinely didn't know where the dead people in District 50 were buried, because there were no officially designated cemetery areas. In the past, people who died were simply buried wherever they happened to be, and no one cared where they were buried.
After all, people in District 50 care most about food.
Suddenly, both Zuo Shan and Pan Duole's wristwatches beeped with notifications. Upon opening them, they saw an official announcement instructing everyone to bring the bodies of their deceased relatives and friends to the central square for cremation, in order to prevent too many corpses from being buried nearby, which would attract too many mutated rats and ultimately cause a rat swarm.
There was no need to think about it anymore. Zuo Shan ran home and dragged back the stretcher that was used for sleeping on the floor. He then used a wet cloth to wipe the blood off the woman's body. Everything in her house had been eaten, and her clothes were too tattered to cover her body.
Zuo Shan offered her a set of old linen clothes. These linen clothes were all hand-woven and not worth much money. They only took a little effort, and most people in District 50 could make them.
Pan Duole insisted on dragging the stretcher by herself, as this was the last thing she could do for her mother. Zuo Shan let her go and silently accompanied her to the central square.
**
The first thing Chi Zhengyang did after arriving in District 50 was to convene an emergency meeting with the management teams of Districts 50 and 49.
The meeting had four main agenda items: First, to quickly tally the number of deaths and injuries caused by the large-scale invasion of gold-eating ants; second, to urge the public to transport the bodies of their relatives and neighbors to the central square for unified disposal to prevent a rat infestation; and third, post-disaster reconstruction.
The last item, and the one that gives all management the biggest headache, is to eliminate all exploitation of orphans and pregnant women from this moment on. Anyone found to be in violation will be arrested immediately, and their families will be forced to return all illegal gains.
The first three items were seen by the management as nothing more than formalities. The higher-ups wanted to win over the people, so they just went along with it and pretended to do it. In the end, it did not affect their interests in the slightest.
But the last item was a challenge for them. In the 50th and 49th districts, which were on the fringes, fiscal revenue was pitifully small and almost negligible.
If they relied solely on their government-issued salaries, how could their families have achieved the comfortable life they enjoy today?
This is tantamount to taking away the big cake from every member of the management team. If it weren't for the representatives of the Lan Dun family in the central district, they could have kicked them out immediately.
But the person who came happened to be from the Lan Dun family. What he said was not important. What was important was that he represented the Lan Dun family's will. Anyone who dared to oppose him would not only lose their position in this small management position, but their entire family would probably be wiped out silently.
The officials in management are suffering more than if they had eaten a mutated bitter herb!
But not a single person dared to stand up and say a word against it. They could only obediently nod, with smiles on their faces, and say thank you to the adults of the Lan Dun family for caring about the suffering of marginalized people from so far away. They were so kind!
Some officials thought Chi Zhengyang was just talking, and they were using the strategy of "delaying" to wait until he couldn't bear the hardships of District 50 and would leave soon. At that time, the last point he mentioned could be dropped.
Shuliaochi Zhengyang was a decisive person. After the emergency meeting, he ordered the management to send a group message to every resident of District 50, instructing them to bring the body to the central square so that he would be responsible for cremation.
It was only then that the officials realized that this representative of the Lan Dun family was actually a fourth-tier fire-type ability user. It could be said that even without the Lan Dun family's background, he could crush people outside the 40th district with his own strength.
Even if such a high-level superhuman is a lone wolf, they still have to treat him with respect and deference. If you dare to offend him, he can wipe out these first and second-tier superhumans with a single fireball.
Now no one dared to slack off. The leader of District 50 waved his hand, and the lower-level administrators all got busy.
The management of District 49 is primarily responsible for assisting in the resettlement of orphans, rescuing pregnant women, providing free treatment for the disabled, and installing prosthetics.
Zuo Shan accompanied Pan Duole to the central square, where they saw thousands of corpses, all of them mutilated.
Many relatives gathered around the body, weeping bitterly. Their grief flowed like a river, but Pandora's pain was merely a tiny drop in that river, not even enough to cause a ripple.
The cruelty of nature often exceeds the limits of human imagination, but the inhabitants of the wasteland have no choice but to accept it.
An administrator directed the family members to move the bodies to the center and stack them one by one. Left Shan, unable to bear seeing Pan Duole endure such excruciating pain, softly said:
"Let me take your mother there. This is something adults should do; it's not your place to do it."
Pan Duole trembled all over, and finally couldn't insist anymore. She nodded, sobbing, "I thank you on behalf of my mother, sister!"
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