Urban Sims

"Oh my God! It's all rubbish. How much is this rubbish?"

The scene in front of her made Lan Mengxin couldn't help but exclaim.

"Can't imagine it?"

A tut-tutting voice said: "Actually, this land covering an area of ​​more than 300,000 square kilometers is full of colorful garbage. Its average thickness is more than 200 meters, and its total mass exceeds 100 billion tons. , this is all the garbage generated by humans living on this planet in the past thousands of years after entering the industrial age, including industrial waste, nuclear-contaminated soil, domestic garbage... Almost all of it is piled here, and it is returned at 2 per year. The number of billion tons increased..."

"There is no grass growing in this area, the air here cannot be breathed, the water cannot be drank, and the concentration of nuclear radiation is higher than any other area. This is the dirtiest, most toxic, and harshest place on the entire planet."

"There is no hope in this place."

"This is Area 0."

The aircraft was shining bright lights, and through the glass cockpit, through the gray atmosphere with visibility less than 100 meters and various particles suspended in the air, I looked at the high and low buildings below, including old clothes, broken shoes, and junk. There are tens of millions of items including electrical appliances, scrap metal, various plastic products, car wrecks, old tires, etc. It can be called a "garbage museum"... Zhou Ming said with shock in his eyes.

"Area 0?"

Is there a mysterious Area 0 on this planet?

Lan Mengxin was very surprised. She had never heard of this place.

"Yes, District 0."

Zhou Ming nodded: "It can be said that without this Area 0, these garbage will be distributed everywhere on this planet. Even the paradise island, which is as beautiful as paradise, will also be disturbed by the garbage problem. No matter how beautiful it is, it will be disturbed by the garbage problem. The scenery, against the background of these garbage, will also be somewhat compromised."

"In addition, most of the clean, beautiful, and pollution-free original ecological environment of this planet can only be maintained for a long time because of the existence of this zone. Once this zone is closed or loses its function, within half a year, all areas of this planet will be destroyed. The place will start to be occupied by all kinds of garbage again..."

"It can be said that without the trash can of Area 0, the quality of life in any area on this planet will drop by several levels."

"This is the conscience of this planet."

The man's words made Lan Mengxin open her mouth and couldn't help but say: "With so much garbage piled together, can it be processed completely? Besides, wouldn't it be good to build more garbage disposal stations in various places? Such centralized treatment will lead to pollution. It’s so serious and so inconvenient.”

"No, these garbage can only be processed centrally."

Zhou Ming shook his head and said: "In fact, with the degradation ability of this planet, a lot of garbage produced by humans is becoming increasingly powerless and difficult to degrade naturally. It can only be processed by the garbage generators themselves. Decentralized processing will not reduce costs, but will Secondary pollution can only be dealt with by concentrating it."

"And did you know? In order to collect this garbage, before creating the money empire, the ruler has invested tens of millions of manpower and cleaned it up for fifty years, and then launched two consecutive 'garbage cleanup projects'. Basically clean up all the garbage.”

"Don't underestimate human beings' ability to produce garbage. On this planet now, only Area 52 and the Noble District of Paradise Island are the main sources of garbage. With a population of more than 200 million, 200 million tons of garbage are produced every year, with an average of one ton per person. What if there are 1 billion or 10 billion people on this planet who are producing garbage? How much garbage will be produced every year?

Considering the processing capacity of the Zero Zeros in Area 0, how many times the number of people must be expanded to make the speed of garbage processing catch up with the speed of garbage production? Break even? "

Returner?

Could it be...

Hearing this term, Lan Meng's heart suddenly shook, and he immediately thought of something and asked Zhou Ming: "Are you saying that the place where those who were returned to zero were taken to by the cleared ones is this Area 0?"

"Otherwise, why would this place be called Area 0?"

Zhou Ming nodded and said: "The main people responsible for cleaning up garbage in Area 0 are those who return to zero. Area 0 is the destination of those who return to zero, and they can never leave."

"Oh my God!"

Lan Mengxin covered her mouth and exclaimed: "So those people were sent to this hell?!"

The fate of those who returned to zero is really tragic!

"No, no, no, you are wrong."

Zhou Ming raised an index finger, shook it and said, "It is true that the fate of those who returned to zero is miserable, but in fact, apart from the harsh living environment, other aspects of Area 0 are not particularly bad."

"On the contrary, Area 0 is the area with the least pressure for survival competition and the highest average happiness index among all areas on this planet."

The highest happiness index?

This word made Lan Mengxin wonder if she was hallucinating, or was someone talking serious nonsense?

Apart from pessimism and despair, how can there be any happiness in this district?

No matter how optimistic you are and how strong your mind is, if you live in this area for a week or two, you will probably want to kill yourself and get out of the sea of ​​misery as soon as possible, right?

And the highest happiness index?

Do not joke! They are already so miserable and you still want to gloat about their misfortune.

"You do not believe?"

Seeing the expression of disbelief on Lan Mengxin's face, Zhou Ming smiled slightly, drove the aircraft, flew in a certain direction in the gray sky, and said: "I will take you to the residential area of ​​the Zeroers to observe In a moment, you will understand what I mean."

…

Half an hour later.

The edge of the garbage sea below suddenly sunk downwards. Under the steep slope with a height difference of more than 100 meters, an empty and flat land appeared in the field of vision.

This flat land covers an area of ​​thousands of square kilometers.

On the surface of the flat ground, there were criss-crossing and dense track indentations, as if they had been repeatedly run over by some kind of tracked vehicle.

In the thick gray fog, the harsh sound of "Ka La Ka La~" came out. A crawler vehicle emerged from the sea of ​​garbage, waving a huge bucket-shaped mechanical arm, with a huge bucket behind it. The truck bed was filled with all kinds of garbage... The garbage truck, which was more than fifteen meters long, transported hundreds of tons of garbage at a time.

The destination of the garbage truck is the huge garbage treatment plant dozens of kilometers away. There are eight such plants in District 0, each covering an area of ​​more than ten square kilometers. The core device of the plant is the central area A nuclear fusion power station with a generating power of 10 million KW can generate huge amounts of electricity, which is enough to meet the energy needs of processing 200 million tons of various types of garbage every year.

Soon, after the garbage collection truck entered the factory, hundreds of tons of garbage were poured into a huge funnel-shaped container. "Buzz~" the crusher started, and the garbage in the funnel container was crushed by the high-speed rotating nano-diamond knife. , cut into pieces of garbage of varying sizes, no larger than an adult's fist. Through a long transmission belt, these pieces of garbage are sent to the interior of the factory to start the garbage sorting process.

On the projection display screen of the aircraft console, a picture of the interior of the factory appeared.

Zhou Ming pointed to the workers standing on the assembly line, wearing protective clothing and sorting garbage, and said: "This is called a factory worker. They don't need to complete heavy physical labor. They only need to do a good job of sorting and stand on the flowing water for 8 hours a day. You can get a salary of about 300 credit points.”

The scene changed and he pointed at the garbage collection truck that drove into the parking lot. After parking, the man who got out of the car said: "This is called a factory worker. You only need to drive the garbage collection truck outside the factory and collect the garbage." The garbage can be transported to the factory, the technical content is not high, and you can earn 5,000 credits for each trip."

"In addition, the prices in the factory are not high. One liter of water costs 10 credits, and a full compressed nutritious meal only costs 20 credits. The most expensive item is protective clothing, which costs 300 to 1,000 to repair. Buy a new one. It costs about 10,000, and other expenses such as accommodation, electricity, medical and other expenses are not very high, with an average of no more than 150 credits per day.”

"If the workers in this factory only maintain the most basic survival needs, they can work 15 days a month. They can work one day and have one day off."

"If you are a worker outside the factory, if his collection truck does not have a major failure, you can earn about 2,000 credits for each trip, and such a trip generally takes no more than two days."

"So, the survival pressure in Area 0 is relatively small. People with hands and feet will basically not starve to death as long as they are not lazy."

"As for why the happiness index is high, you will know if you look at the family life of those who have returned to zero in the factory living area."

The camera turned and another scene was played on the projector.

Factory living area, a family of five, daily life scenes.

Because the projector can play external sounds, the first thing Lan Mengxin heard was a burst of laughter.

The family was discussing a topic.

The topic was about buying a refurbished learning machine for my youngest son.

This refurbished learning machine was manufactured six hundred years ago, but thanks to the superb repair skills of the repairman, it was still usable after replacing two damaged parts.

In the sea of ​​garbage in Area 0, in addition to learning machines, there are also many household appliances, electronic products, antique TVs, computers and other items that can be used after repair, as well as a variety of books, antiques and toys.

But the most popular ones are actually cassette radios, MP3s, various game consoles, DVDs, movie discs and other items from before the nuclear war... These items unearthed from the garbage have brought great joy to the people in Area 0. Endless fun.

Focusing on these interesting "garbage", people in Area 0 spent most of their free credits on these garbage.

There has even been a group of "restorers" who specialize in collecting, sorting, researching, and repairing these garbage. These restorers have become the most popular in District 0 with their superb skills in repairing garbage and restoring its original functions. , a group of people with the highest income.

Thanks to the efforts of "restorers", many cultural and artistic works such as music, movies, games, novels and so on before the nuclear war can be reproduced in the world and enrich people's spiritual life.

In the end, the parents of this family decided to spend 10,000 credits to buy the refurbished learning machine, and told the youngest son that he could only learn the knowledge inside and not play the mini-games, otherwise he would just have to study. The machine was confiscated and he was not allowed to play with it.

"Long live Mom and Dad!" The little boy jumped up happily. His brother and sister also looked excited and whispered to each other. When the learning machine was bought, each of them would play for 2 hours a day.

The happy scene of this family made Zhou Ming sigh: "Everyone takes it for granted that the Returners are the most desperate and hopeless group of people, but on the contrary, they are very lucky."

"There is too much garbage in District 0. There are about three to four million people there. They don't have to worry about unemployment for thousands of years. The rulers don't want these people to be reduced on a large scale. In terms of salary, the salary is not low."

"And these so-called garbage, the garbage that people despise, aren't they the conscience, truth, goodness and beauty that those indifferent, selfish, greedy and hypocritical people once abandoned?"

"But no one expected that these consciences, truth, goodness and beauty, those emotions and art, would be picked up from the garbage dump by those who returned to zero, restored like treasures, and collected at a high price."

"How ironic and subversive is this?"

"Perhaps only when we take a closer look at the whole world will we understand who is truly rich and who is truly poor in this empire of money."

boom!

Lan Mengxin opened her eyes wide, and there was a huge roar in her head. The shock in her heart was hard to calm down for a long time.

At this point, the worldview of the Money Empire is finally complete.