Differences Between Worlds

"Young man, are you going to enlist?"

"Don't be rash!"

"Don't let the settlement allowance from the recruitment office go to your head. That's money for your life."

"City folk like us don't need to risk our lives for that little bit of money."

"Those refugees outside the city are more than enough to defend Yero City!"

After Lu Zhan changed his destination, the middle-aged driver up front kept looking as though he wanted to say something.

Lu Zhan's destination was simply too conspicuous. It was easy to guess what he intended to do.

Perhaps because Lu Zhan was so young, the driver finally decided to offer him some well-meaning advice.

The Wilderness outside Yero City teemed with powerful monsters of all kinds.

To defend against their incursions, Yero City had formed a massive army.

Since Yero City was powerful enough, it had not instituted compulsory military service.

The doors of the Recruitment Office, however, were always open to ordinary citizens.

Recruitment posters of every description were even plastered all over the streets.

To encourage civilians to enlist, the recruitment posters pulled out all the stops, listing all sorts of dazzling benefits.

For instance, anyone who signed up and passed the physical examination would receive a settlement allowance of 3,000 yuan.

During their service, food, clothing, housing, and transportation were free. Benefits abounded, and there were even rewards for military merit.

More tempting still, they were guaranteed wives upon discharge-up to three of them.

Quite a few young people had been seduced by these "sweet promises" and enlisted in a moment of hotheaded enthusiasm.

Clearly, in the middle-aged driver's eyes, Lu Zhan, a bald-headed boy, was another of their victims.

"Sir, enlisting can't be as dangerous as people say, can it?"

"The leaflet said that after basic training, recruits could apply to be stationed in the outer city."

"Standing guard on those high walls would be even more impressive!"

Lu Zhan displayed the stubbornness befitting his age, along with unrealistic fantasies about his future.

Seeing how naive Lu Zhan was, the middle-aged driver felt all the more obliged to teach the young man a lesson and show him how cruel reality could be.

"Young man, those recruitment slogans are all a con."

"I've been around. I've got inside information."

"Sure, you can apply to be stationed in the outer city after you enlist. But whether your application gets approved is entirely up to them!"

"If you've got no money or connections, you'll definitely be posted out in the Wilderness."

"As for guarding the inner city's high walls, don't even dream about it."

"Just as we outer-city residents look down on the refugees outside the city, the people in the inner city won't let us outer-city folk stand guard there."

The middle-aged driver debunked the claims for Lu Zhan one by one. Only two things on the leaflet could be trusted.

The first was the 3,000-yuan settlement allowance, but that was money paid for his life.

The second was the three wives issued upon discharge. Although they were all refugees from the Wilderness, that promise would indeed be honored.

But he would have to survive until discharge, which meant living alongside monsters for at least seven years.

As for the other benefits, they would either be reduced, withheld, or come with a catch.

Nothing good fell into anyone's lap for free, much less into the lap of a poor kid with neither power nor influence.

If enlisting really offered so many benefits, people would already have battered down the Recruitment Office's doors.

They would not need to plaster false advertisements all over the city like a stubborn rash.

No clearheaded civilian in the outer city would ever enlist unless they truly had no other way to survive.

"I never imagined there were so many catches to enlisting."

"Thank you for warning me, sir."

"But I'm different. I'll definitely survive, and I'll keep climbing higher, one step at a time."

All Lu Zhan could do was verbally thank the middle-aged driver for his well-meaning advice.

He was going to enlist regardless, and as quickly as possible.

After all, he was different from ordinary people. The "benefits" offered to them might not apply to him.

"Ah, young people are always reckless. You won't turn back until you hit a wall."

"By the time you regret it, it'll be too late."

Seeing how "determined" Lu Zhan was, the middle-aged driver could no longer be bothered to persuade him.

Life was hard for everyone these days. Perhaps dying early would give him a chance at a better life in his next incarnation!

"Whooo! Whooo!"

The steam-powered vehicle continued through the city, but the surrounding streets grew increasingly rundown, and pedestrians became fewer and fewer.

Throughout the journey, Lu Zhan kept his gaze fixed outside the window.

He was witnessing the many facets of this world firsthand.

Yero City really is a metropolis, and a prosperous one at that.

But one thing is strange. Along the entire route, there haven't been many tall buildings.

Most of the tall buildings here are only thirty or forty meters high.

Could Yero City have a rule forbidding buildings from exceeding that hundred-meter wall?

Lu Zhan had asked the middle-aged driver about this.

But even the well-informed driver could not explain it clearly. He merely said it was possible, and that local rumors said the same thing.

Yero City has a fully developed electricity supply. It has electric lights, telephones, and even a subway.

And that's just the outer city. Rumor has it that cars in the inner city can even fly.

So why are all the vehicles on the streets steam-powered?

And they burn charcoal, not the coal used in my previous life.

As for vehicles with oil-burning internal combustion engines, I haven't seen a single one.

With his previous life as a point of comparison, many things his body's former owner had taken for granted seemed distinctly odd to Lu Zhan.

And so far, Lu Zhan had only taken a cursory look. He was certain that many more "differences" lay hidden beneath the surface.

What strikes me as even stranger-or downright unsettling-is how information is transmitted in this world.

Yero City has electricity and telephones. That means they definitely have the ability to use electromagnetic waves.

Yet in my predecessor's memories, telegraph machines and even radios were exclusive to the wealthy, with prices ordinary people could only dream of affording.

As

for televisions, there aren't any on the market at all.

This absolutely cannot be because Yero City lacks the ability to mass-produce them. The high-tech life-support equipment at the Ninth Medical Security Center has already proven its technological capabilities.

But why would Yero City restrict the flow of information like this? Newspapers are actually the primary means of sharing information with the public.

Yero City was deliberately limiting both the speed and scale of information flow. That was the conclusion Lu Zhan reached after repeated consideration.

The more he learned, the more "abnormal" Yero City seemed to him.

It was precisely because he had realized that something was "wrong" with Yero City that Lu Zhan had decided to enlist.

This was not only his sole means of survival, but also his only opportunity to become part of Yero City's establishment.

Having lived a previous life, Lu Zhan knew very well the benefits of joining the establishment.

Only by fully integrating into Yero City could he uncover the truth about this world.

"Whooo! Whooo!"

As Lu Zhan's thoughts wandered throughout the journey, the steam-powered vehicle finally reached its destination.