Chapter 1957: Interested in Making Some Extra Cash?
Not being able to find it wasn't a big deal—the time since the district's division wasn't that long, and there were still living witnesses.
Xu Huo hitched a ride and found an underground clinic far from the city center.
Medical costs at the Eastern District Hospital weren't high, so most people didn't need this kind of substitute. It was mainly for those who couldn't easily go to a hospital to get their wounds treated.
In a cubicle with the curtain pulled back, an elderly doctor had just finished washing his hands. Turning around, he spotted the person sitting behind him. He was startled for a moment but quickly calmed down. "Can you players stop being so sneaky? Knocking on the door in broad daylight wouldn't kill you."
Xu Huo casually pulled the curtain shut, blocking the view of the knife-wound patient still unconscious from the anesthetic, and said to the doctor, "Old sir, don't be nervous. I just want to ask a few questions."
The doctor seemed used to this. He sat down, picked up his registration book, and muttered to himself while writing, "Getting old, memory's not what it used to be. Can't even remember when I ran out of anesthetic. Told them I was quitting and to find someone else to help, but they just won't listen..."
Xu Huo let him finish, waited until he'd written down the missing medications, then asked, "Why is the city government restricting the newborn population?"
The doctor's hand paused at the question. He looked up and stared at Xu Huo for a moment before saying, "Why else? They just don't need that many people."
Xu Huo understood. So the city government was secretly controlling population growth, and it wasn't like no one knew.
"Are there enough players in the Eastern District?"
"Maybe they think so themselves." The doctor's answer was vague. He stretched his back, pulled a pre-cut slip of paper from a drawer, wrote an address on it, and handed it to him. "I don't care about any of that. I just want to live a healthy life until I'm old. If you want to dig up some big scoop, go here. There are people leaking info there every day."
Xu Huo paused, took the paper, left a hundred White Notes, and left.
The address the doctor gave him was for a bar. It was still daytime, but compared to other quieter shops, this place was bustling. However, the people coming and going weren't drinkers—they were individuals carrying bags and moving with a sense of urgency.
Xu Huo pushed the door open. Inside, aside from a few people near the entrance who glanced up at him, everyone else was busy with their own tasks. Small terminals were already common in the Eastern District, but these people were all handling paper documents. They were writing what looked like news articles, filled with terms like "City Government," "Agor Corporation," and "Rebel Army."
Strangely enough, these people, all mixed together and editing each other's drafts, were writing very different things. Some were promoting the city government, some were writing about Agor Corporation's contributions to Jade Spring City, and others were condemning the Eastern District's oppression of the Western District from the Rebel Army's perspective.
Armed robots and aircraft passed by outside the bar, but they only glanced in and moved on.
"Hey buddy, give me a hand and move this stack of files over there." Someone handed Xu Huo a pile of papers.
Xu Huo looked down. The headline read, "Eastern District Players Massacre Civilians." He took a few steps with the flyer before another person took it from him. That person handed the flyer to someone wearing a hat, saying quickly, "Get these distributed as fast as possible. Must be done within two hours."
The person in the hat got on an aircraft and left.
The one who had handed out the flyer turned around and urged his colleague, "Hurry up and finish that article about the Rebel Army impersonating city government players!"
A crowd of people was bustling around the table. Xu Huo even helped out a few times and roughly figured out what this place was.
It was essentially a media company that manufactured conflict. On one hand, they pretended to be the Rebel Army and used flyers to attack the city government and Agor Corporation. On the other hand, they posted "clarifications" on the Message Collection Terminal, shifting the blame back to the Rebel Army.
It was hard to say they weren't a mouthpiece for Agor Corporation, because Agor Corporation was almost invisible in all of this. They were only mentioned in passing, and the information was mostly things ordinary people could find out, or things that couldn't be hidden—like sudden incidents of players killing ordinary people. But as for investigations into those crazy players, they didn't say a single word. Besides that, anything that couldn't be found on the Message Collection Terminal was almost never mentioned here either.
Still, it was somewhat useful for Xu Huo. Scenes of players killing people, which had been almost completely scrubbed from the Message Collection Terminal, were partially preserved here. Additionally, they had ready-made survey data, like small filler news items. For example, Agor Corporation had developed some new potion, some other city government was begging to buy it from afar, or Jade Spring City's government had started cooperating with multiple city governments, with talent from other cities continuously coming to Jade Spring City to study. There were even quite a few players saying they wanted to settle down in Jade Spring City.
Besides that, they would also leak locations suspected to be Rebel Army activity sites or Rebel Army strongholds. Of course, since these places were written about, they had definitely been investigated already, but it still gave some insight into the Rebel Army's patterns of behavior.
Half an hour later, Xu Huo left the bar.
Using public opinion to guide and consume the emotions and enthusiasm of ordinary people wasn't a rare tactic. In other words, it was to give these bored people something to do, to keep them from staring at things they shouldn't be staring at.
However, the fact that this station was arranging for players from other cities to come and study was a very important signal. You couldn't attract players without something truly useful. He wondered if this was related to the abnormality of the Eastern District players.
Additionally, it was almost certain that incidents of players losing control were not uncommon in the Eastern District. This meant that the Eastern District's method of training players had serious flaws and side effects.
But under these circumstances, the Eastern District was secretly controlling the population. And from the data, this secret control didn't start immediately after the East-West division. So, at some point in the past, Agor Corporation suddenly stopped relying on the city to supply players, or they found a clear line of control—they no longer needed that many players.
Not needing too many players, yet still able to attract players from other places... Could it be that they had broken through a technical barrier that even the advanced wormhole points hadn't cracked, allowing them to precisely cultivate elite players?
If that were the case, Agor Corporation probably wouldn't be holed up in such a small divisional station.
After leaving the bar, Xu Huo planned to go check out the places where the Rebel Army had been active. But he hadn't even walked a few blocks before a woman started following him. She tailed him for a few minutes, then cut through an alley to block his path. She tossed him a fruit she'd bought from a street vendor, and when he caught it, she smiled and said, "You're from another district, right? Interested in making some extra cash?" (End of chapter)