Only after they left the yurt and arranged for people to inspect the command system did someone speak up, eyeing the documents in Tong Wenshi's hand.
"Tong, where do you think these people came from?"
"I don't know either." Tong Wenshi flipped through the application in his hands, his thoughts in disarray.
He asked them, "Did you think that was a magic trick just now?"
The other two considered it. "I think it probably was."
Tong Wenshi also thought a magic trick was a fairly reasonable explanation.
"Then let's wait for the comparison results. Given the state of things, they can't possibly get any worse."
Application in hand, Tong Wenshi returned to his office.
Elsewhere.
Zhang Tianyuan and his companions had not been confined. Although someone followed them at all times, they could visit anywhere in the settlement except the warehouses.
Naturally, Zhang Tianyuan would not miss this opportunity. He arranged for Bai Xu and Mie Juan to go to the command vehicle to coordinate with Tong Wenshi's people and sent the machine gunner to maintain the weapons, then took Instructor Yin and Wu Yisi wandering around the settlement.
From time to time, he asked the attendant following them for information about the settlement.
The attendant told them everything he knew. Clearly, Tong Wenshi and the others had given him instructions.
After asking around, Zhang Tianyuan learned that the settlement currently had a total population, with more than twenty thousand brought here by Tong Wenshi during the great evacuation, picked up around the Imperial Capital and along the way.
The rest had heard the apocalypse broadcasts and come from all over the country.
In more than half a year, only a little over ten thousand people had made it here.
Zhang Tianyuan frowned the moment he heard that number.
"This won't work. Most survivors can't reach the settlement. They don't have what they need to travel under apocalyptic conditions."
Instructor Yin added, "When ordinary people travel through the apocalypse, the best outcome is that they give up after getting lost and settle on the outskirts like Ding Jingye and his people, making regular trips into the city to gather supplies."
Wu Yisi speculated, "If more than ten thousand made it here, then probably two hundred thousand people heard the apocalypse broadcasts and set off in this direction to produce a turnout like this."
Where had the other hundred and eighty thousand people gone?
They could only hope that, as Yin Hongwen had said, they had given up along the way and settled on the outskirts of some city.
The attendant sighed. "We understand
that too, but without gathering a large enough population, we have no way to restore industrial production."
"Without restoring industrial production, we can't drive the Darkseekers out of the cities. It's a vicious cycle. Only by doing everything possible to gather enough people do we have any chance of breaking it."
Zhang Tianyuan and the others looked thoughtful.
Standing there, they looked over the settlement of more than forty thousand people on the grasslands. Aside from the large numbers of livestock gathered from the grasslands, there was not a trace of industry.
A perfectly good industrial society had actually regressed into a nomadic one...
"What defeated humanity was never the Darkseekers. It was the ninety-percent death rate!" Zhang Tianyuan remarked after a long while.
The attendant smiled bitterly. "Monsters like the Darkseekers might be terrifying, but as long as we restore our industrial production capacity-even just a single flashlight production line-we'd have complete confidence in reclaiming a city. Unfortunately..."
Unfortunately, they could not restore it now!
Zhang Tianyuan and the others believed every word.
They could see from their own experience how thoroughly an intact industrial society could suppress the Darkseekers.
Throughout their journey, they had never worried about the Darkseekers.
As long as they were not surrounded on all sides by the more than a million Darkseekers in the Imperial Capital, they could carve a bloody path out with their ferocious firepower and powerful ultraviolet lights.
Clearly, with sufficient industrial production capacity, the Darkseekers posed no threat at all.
The command vehicle Tong Wenshi and the others had previously driven out to the grasslands was towed out and parked beside the one Zhang Tianyuan's group had arrived in.
The two vehicles were similar in style, but there were clear differences in many small details.
The programming experts were comparing the underlying code of the two vehicles.
Bai Xu stood to one side, watching.
Although the command system inside the vehicle was classified, under the present circumstances, this was their only option.
The middle-aged man who had stood behind Tong Wenshi earlier frequently came by to observe.
On his first visit, the programming experts had only looked a little puzzled.
On his second visit, the experts looked surprised.
By his third visit, the experts were astonished.
"What have you found so far?" the man could not help stepping forward to ask.
The team leader replied, "Quite a few functions and programs look very similar at first glance, but when we open up the underlying code and analyze it, there are clear differences between the two, particularly in their approach. The design philosophy and requirements of their system are clearly
different from ours."
"In short, they look alike, but they aren't the same."
Listening beside them, Bai Xu imitated Zhang Tianyuan's way of speaking. "Of course. Although the countries in our two spacetime worlds have the same name, there are bound to be differences in their strategic needs."
The middle-aged man glanced at Bai Xu without committing himself.
"Can we continue our talks now?" Bai Xu asked anxiously.
The middle-aged man looked deep in thought. "I'll go back and ask."
Tong Wenshi soon learned the results as well.
"Then let's keep talking to them and see what comes of it."
That afternoon, Tong Wenshi returned to the yurt where Zhang Tianyuan was resting.
"Your command system is indeed different from ours. Our experts believe it must belong to an independent military with extensive combat requirements."
Tong Wenshi got straight to the point, candidly sharing the findings he had received.
Zhang Tianyuan offered him a handshake. "Then here's to the success of our cooperation."
"We haven't agreed to cooperate yet," Tong Wenshi reminded him. "I still have doubts about your identities."
Zhang Tianyuan chuckled. "That's fine. The moment you were willing to talk to me, our cooperation was already settled."
Behind him, Bai Xu could not help nodding, thoroughly agreeing with those words.
They had thought they would just talk first, too...
Zhang Tianyuan's confidence gave Tong Wenshi both hope and pressure.
"I've finished reading this application."
Tong Wenshi set the application on the table and asked, "Assuming you really do come from somewhere out of the ordinary, there's one thing that puzzles me."
"Why do you want to help us?"
"What do you gain from it? Just the payment we'll give you afterward? That wouldn't be proportional to what you put in, would it?"
One man opened a legendary Spacetime Tunnel, dispatched large numbers of personnel, and expended manpower and resources to save hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of people, only to ask for a little ore or some goods as payment afterward...
Was he a bodhisattva?!
Zhang Tianyuan understood where Tong Wenshi's doubts came from.
He pointed at Bai Xu and said, "As you know, there are quite a few parallel spacetime worlds. With that many, a few are bound to run into trouble. Yours is one, and Bai Xu's is another."
"The main reason Bai Xu's spacetime world has chosen to help you through this crisis is-
They hope that, in the future, you'll help them survive their apocalypse in return!"