CDJMM – Volume 5 -Chapter 10 Civilization Rescue Team (10)

This war waged by more than a dozen neighboring countries against the Louis Empire finally came to an end when the Excavator Corps and the Special Crane Mobile Unit flattened their capitals and captured their kings and nobles.

The entire war lasted three weeks. The Inquisition suffered one death and two minor injuries, and with such a minimal cost, they captured an allied force of one hundred thousand and achieved total victory.

When Jones came to report the results, Le Jing was drafting the Louis Empire’s Five-Year Plan. Hearing that one person died, he didn’t even lift his head and asked, “Who died? How did he die?”

He’d already sent all the mages to the desert for the Ant Forest Project. Jones and the others were driving excavators in a cold-weapon era—it was basically max-level accounts farming newbies. How could there still be casualties? Did a mage slip through the cracks?

Hearing Le Jing’s question, Jones’ expression turned extremely complicated. “It was the Middle Eastern terrorist leader, Mohammed. He… he was peeing, and his urine splashed onto a venomous snake.”

Jones tried his best to keep a solemn expression. “The snake bit him… on that part. No one was willing to suck the venom out. We considered bloodletting treatment, but… he died too quickly… cough.”

Jones coughed, barely holding back laughter. He was professionally trained—he would not laugh unless absolutely necessary!

To think that Mohammed, a terrorist who spent his entire life matching wits with the American military, would die in such an undignified way. It was both lamentable… and hilarious.

Even Le Jing was silent for a second at this bizarre cause of death. As a fellow man, he felt Mohammed’s pain deep in his soul.

Jones coughed again, forcing himself back into the calm of a veteran intelligence dealer. “We’ve already escorted the captured kings, nobles, and the 100,000 soldiers back to the empire. Your Majesty, how do you wish to deal with them?”

Le Jing pondered for a few seconds, then instructed: “Find people to do basic information registration on them. Assign work based on their skills. If they have no skills, put them on manual labor. Pay them according to the free-citizen wage standard.”

Jones accepted the order and left.

Le Jing stared at the half-written Five-Year Plan, slightly lost in thought.

Humans are a precious resource.

And this world lacked them the most.

Bridges, roads, farming, land reclamation, construction, planting trees—everything required manpower.

This world also lacked intellectuals.

Aside from magic and extraordinary races, the productivity level was equivalent to medieval Europe. Common people were impoverished, and even kings and nobles might be illiterate.

Take the Louis Empire as an example: less than half the nobles could read. The rest were useless wine sacks.

According to historical progression, humanism and early capitalism would eventually emerge here. People would gradually break free from ideological shackles and resist feudal oppression, eventually creating a political system suitable for this world—maybe capitalism, maybe socialism, or something Earth had never seen.

That future belonged to this world. It had nothing to do with Le Jing.

His task was to ensure this world’s civilization continued—not to change or accelerate its historical process. Any reform beyond current productive forces was doomed to fail, like Wang Mang’s reforms in late Han China, or the early People’s Communes.

This world faced one crisis: severe environmental destruction.

A hundred and fifty years ago, a divine war broke out. Gods rampaged and used divine power recklessly, scarring the world.

Acid rain fell, farmland turned to desert, oceans filled with floating corpses of dead fish. Add earthquakes, floods, tornadoes—the world was dragged toward destruction.

Later, the war ended, and the gods abandoned this world.

In such harsh conditions, the natives struggled to survive for a century… until Le Jing arrived.

But he wasn’t their savior. He couldn’t save everyone.

His job was to ensure population numbers stayed above the threshold required for civilization to persist. In his estimation, keeping most of the Louis Empire’s civilians alive was enough.

He would alleviate environmental pollution to an extent.

After that, however this world developed—its choices, its future—would have nothing to do with him.

That was why Earth’s agricultural machinery was only operated by Earthlings. He would not and could not teach the natives to use it. Having criminals raise pigs and chickens or farm fields was only to prevent further population decline.

He would not let this world learn Earth’s culture or knowledge.

Still… knowing the answers but never being able to reveal them—was difficult.

Le Jing stared at the unfinished plan, sighed, tore it up, balled the paper, and threw it into the trash.

This world had its own path. He should not interfere.

And Earth’s answers might not apply here anyway. Civilizations shouldn’t all look the same.

He genuinely looked forward to what kind of unique civilization a world with magic would one day produce.

…

Lin Bin and Lin Lei’s recent days were… unexpectedly fulfilling.

Under the personal example of Mexican cartel boss Francisco, they deeply understood the wrongs they had committed and dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to the noble enterprise of raising pigs.

And within just a month—they quit drugs!

All thanks to Francisco’s “guidance.”

He was far too experienced in dealing with addicts.

He tied Lin Bin and Lin Lei up and force-fed them two catties of vodka a day—enough to make them drunk, unconscious, and numbed to withdrawal pain. After two weeks of this, not only had they quit drugs, but they’d also developed an ability to drink without getting drunk.

Even Lawrence gave him a thumbs up. “You’re really something.”

“What’s so impressive? It’s just treating the symptoms. Once they go back to Earth, they’ll relapse.”

Francisco exhaled a smoke ring, his tone calm to the point of coldness. “Once you touch drugs, you can almost never quit.”

Lawrence’s eyes flickered. “Not necessarily. People with strong willpower can quit easily.”

Francisco sneered and shook his ashes. “Since we’ve met, I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t touch drugs. Or you’ll be a useless wreck for life. And don’t think willpower can beat addiction. Honestly, in my life, I’ve only seen two people succeed—and only because they were lifelong inmates. Other than them? Never.”

He took a deep drag, flicked away the cigarette, and stepped on it. “That’s why I sell drugs. But I never use.”

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Jones pinched his nose as he stood outside the pigpen, looking at them like they were insane. “What’s wrong with you people? Does smoking in a pigpen make it smell better?”

Francisco: “…”

Lawrence twitched. “What do you want?”

Jones relayed Le Jing’s orders: “The Demon King wants us to register the captives’ information and assign jobs…”

Lawrence scowled. “I still have rice seedlings to plant later. No time.”

Francisco remained expressionless. “I have pigs to feed. No time.”

“That’s not my problem. It’s an order from the Demon King. If we fail, we can all go to heaven together.” Jones grinned wickedly. “You aren’t afraid of hell—surely you’re not afraid of heaven?”

Francisco: “…Fine. I’ll find you two people.”

He pulled out his walkie-talkie and said in bad Mandarin: “Er Lin, get over here.”

A minute later, Lin Bin and Lin Lei rushed over, smiling sycophantically. “Boss, you called?”

Francisco pointed at them. “These two are yours.”

Jones looked them up and down—skinny, scrawny—and frowned. “Just them? Not enough. We’re registering more than a hundred thousand people. We need hundreds.”

Francisco replied calmly, “Let the natives do paperwork.”

Jones blinked, then slapped his forehead. “Right… I forgot we already have free labor.”

Lin Bin and Lin Lei watched them converse in foreign languages, not understanding a word, too afraid to interrupt.

When the conversation paused, they cautiously asked Jones, the only one who spoke Chinese:  “Boss… we have some brothers back on Earth. Could they come here to help?”

Jones’ eyes sharpened. “What are their backgrounds?”

Lin Bin rushed to answer: “Um… not good people. Addicts like us, involved in petty crimes. So we want them to come here for… reformation.”

Of course, they were actually their enemies. They couldn’t suffer alone—those guys needed to suffer too.

Jones certainly wanted more helpers.

“I’ll report this to the Demon King.”

Le Jing readily agreed. Recently, recruiting world-class criminals had caused considerable commotion on Earth, so it was better to keep a low profile now—like Jones said, bringing in small, unnoticed petty criminals would minimize attention.

…

Team Leader Zheng’s face was dark. Recently, things were getting really weird.

There weren’t even drug users—heck, not even prostitutes—in his jurisdiction anymore!

The informants reported addicts to him, but he couldn’t find a single one of them. It was like they had vanished off the face of the earth. How was he supposed to meet his numbers? His performance?

Addicts disappearing one after another… was this a distortion of human nature or a collapse of morality?

No—this was a major, rare case!

After reporting the serial disappearance of drug users to his superiors, Zheng immediately formed a task force to investigate the Missing Addicts Case.