Spring Festival was gradually drawing near.
Early in the morning, Chen Shouyi stepped outside.
The temperature was especially bitter today. Long icicles like sharp spears hung from the entrance to the apartment building, some nearly half a meter long.
A gust of cold wind swept by, and even Chen Shouyi, dressed lightly, couldn't help breaking out in goosebumps.
The sky was gloomy and gray, thick with haze, and the air reeked of something sour and pungent.
The steam age!
Chen Shouyi sighed softly.
Nearly two months had passed since the last upheaval. Countless steam factories had sprung up across Hedong City like bamboo shoots after rain, their rows of chimneys belching white smoke day and night. After being out for just an hour or two, even clean clothes would be thoroughly coated in coal dust.
The once-clean, gleaming high-rises that had been bright enough to reflect a person's image had turned black with grime, their former luster completely gone.
Most of these office buildings now stood half-abandoned, their occupants long gone, with no property staff left to clean them.
At the neighborhood gate, Chen Shouyi glanced at the bulletin board, which was crowded with people every day.
There were even more job notices posted on it now.
In a prominent spot in the upper-left corner was a new recruitment notice for retired soldiers, stamped with the seal of the subdistrict office:
By March 1, all retired servicemen under the age of forty-five must report to the Hedong Military Region garrison.
Twenty years of a state of near-war had kept Great Xia's armed forces at six or seven million. Retired soldiers numbered more than ten times the standing forces, nearly one hundred million.
With a population of 1.7 billion, that meant one out of every seventeen people was a retired soldier.