So, what is the connection between water diversion and buying this piece of land? A big one!
To explain that, we have to start with the mechanics of next year's mudslides. According to the scientific nonsense spewed by the self-proclaimed experts, this disaster was the direct result of the great floods in the second year submerging many parts of the world, followed by the third year's tornadoes and quakes sucking down and swallowing vast amounts of that stagnant water and countless urban structures. For example, the massive floodwaters that had submerged over half of Wu City dried up in just a few days during the quakes, with half the city vanishing into a black hole along with the water.
After a long year of brewing, churning, and digesting within the earth's mantle, these elements were finally destined to be excreted from mountain passes at high elevations as a special, volatile kind of mudslide.
This mudslide was partly dry and hard, partly liquid sludge, and heavily mixed with human structures, undegraded plastic, heavy doorframes, and all sorts of modern garbage. If you could think of it, this sludge probably contained it in its churning mass!
Jing Shu remembered very clearly a certain geological "expert" on the news who had once said:
"We need to correctly and objectively view these natural phenomena in the apocalypse. They're all normal functions of nature. The planet occasionally gets sick, just like if someone forced too much water into your stomach and made you eat a bunch of indigestible junk, then shook your body nonstop for a year or so.
Wouldn't you get diarrhea? Wouldn't you eventually vomit? So, these mudslides're just the Earth's way of purging itself of waste. Don't panic. Once it's finished excreting all the waste, it will recover, and the apocalypse will end. All we need to do is let it relieve itself comfortably and return to its normal state."
Yeah right. Jing Shu rolled her eyes at the memory of that old fraud. Every year he claimed the apocalypse was ending soon, and every time she saw a mudslide erupting from a ravine, she couldn't help but picture a giant squatting down to take a dump.
And her villa was situated right at the foot of the mountain range. You could imagine how much of that "waste" would flow down the slopes toward her front gate. Luckily, it was a low hill nearby, not a towering mountain peak. Her heart ached for the people living in those densely populated mountainous areas for a solid minute as she imagined their plight.
This year, another significant portion of city buildings would be buried and permanently encased in the mudslides, just like reinforced concrete pouring into a mold. The key issue was that the sludge destroyed a lot of viable farmland. Places where you could at least grow something in the soil before were now covered in this rocky, gray sludge. How could you farm on solid stone?
This environmental shift massively increased the government's burden. People had thought they couldn't farm in the first year's extreme heat, the second year's floods, or the third year's quakes. Nobody expected the fourth year to just bury the remaining land entirely. Soilless cultivation became a mandatory necessity again, driving up energy costs at a time when everything was already in short supply and the grid was failing.
So, back to the point, if Jing Shu wanted to divert the flow of sludge, she needed this "bottomless pit" to store the portion of the mudslide flowing down from the mountain towards her property. Otherwise, once the weather turned cold and the mudslide's movement slowed, if it solidified, it could flood her villa or block the areas she wanted to divert it to, like other residential zones.
That, of course, was unacceptable. It would cause a massive public outcry and draw unwanted attention. If she was diverting the flow, she couldn't harm others' interests, lest someone use it as an excuse to move against her. So, these deep sinkholes were absolutely necessary as catch-basins.
If she didn't want her villa to be submerged under a floor and a half of muck like it had been in her previous life, diverting the mudslide into these sinkholes was the only way to go.
Besides, she couldn't stop the mudslide erupting from the mountain anyway. To put it bluntly, could you stop yourself when you had a bad case of diarrhea? Sooner or later, it was going to come out somewhere else. Jing Shu would have loved to change its direction entirely, but she was dealing with a whole mountain range. Unless she flattened miles of hills, some of that flow was destined to come her way.
Oh, and she also needed to dig a new artificial riverbed. That was a huge engineering project, but she figured she could manage that once the mudslide arrived and she had the right equipment. For now, she needed to get all the other structural preparations for the diversion ready.
Once the idea hit her, Jing Shu immediately contacted Li Yuetian via her communicator.
"Jing Shu! I still haven't thanked you properly for your help. You've done so much for our Banana Community lately, really took a load off our shoulders. If you need anything at all, just say the word," Li Yuetian said warmly, his voice clearly grateful.
"You're too kind, Captain Li. It's like this: plots No. 26 and No. 27 in Banana Community, plus the one in front of them, have all collapsed into the sinkhole, right? I want the usage rights for this sunken land for the next year."
"Oh, Jing Shu, are you talking about joining that treasure-digging craze? For 5,000 virtual coins, you can lease an entire sunken plot of land for a year, plus we will even assign five treasure-diggers for free to help you scavenge. Anything valuable you find is yours, and you get full rights for a year. Some people even dug up rare core stones worth a fortune in the rubble. How about it? Want me to give you a discount on the lease?"
What the hell, that was actually pretty cool. Even if it was just a temporary lease, a one-year ownership was more than enough for her purposes. She had never heard of this kind of thing in her past life—probably because she had been too poor to even afford a steamed bun back then, let alone afford to dig for treasure.
"Alright, how much with the discount?"
"Two thousand virtual coins for the lot."
"Deal."
She hadn't expected the transaction to go through so smoothly. Since she was short on actual virtual coins, she paid with the wheat she had brought back from America—black market goods that weren't exactly fresh, but were still good enough for a barter deal.
Now that the mudslide had somewhere to go, one major problem was finally solved, bringing her one step closer to her next plan of defense.
That night, over a steaming dinner, the family naturally brought up the disaster again. Wu You'ai was still visibly shaken. She had gone to her advisor's lab at noon to study a new project, and luckily, the accident hadn't happened in her jurisdiction. Otherwise, things would have gotten very messy for her career.
"How messy?" Jing Shu asked, curious about the bureaucracy.
"If an incident happens within a Visitation Specialist's jurisdiction, and you aren't on-site to manage things, regardless of whether it's during your working hours, you might get reported by a temp worker. The consequences, well..."
Just as these words were spoken, Su Lanzhi returned home looking weary and exhausted. She was followed by Su Yiyang, Wang Fang, and Su Long's family of three, whom they had just sent off two days prior. Her mother's first words upon entering the warm villa were:
"Sigh, they weren't on-site the night of the quake. Even though it was off-hours, the temps still reported them to the board. The higher-ups considered their efforts afterward, so only one of them got fired. The other is staying on as a temp for now. If performance is good, maybe they will get reinstated eventually. For now, they will stay here tonight, since they lost their dorm in the collapse too."
Wu You'ai shrugged at the table, as if to say, "See? That's what happens." This was especially true for those without powerful connections; if you made a mistake and got reported, you lost all the benefits of being a permanent employee.
Wang Fang lowered her head, wiping away silent tears with her sleeve. Their house was gone, their home was gone, they had lost everything, and now their jobs were gone too.
Su Yiyang, however, apologized for the disturbance and scolded his family, "What're you crying for? You're being shortsighted! If Jing Shu hadn't called us over, we wouldn't even be alive to worry about those things. We can earn back those worldly possessions. It's normal to be demoted if you didn't fulfill your duties as formal staff. Escaping with our lives means we have already hit the jackpot."