Chapter 1100: Chapter 358: Harmful Milk of Utilitarianism

The Taiping Continent might soon be approaching its most glorious moment since its establishment in Night City.

Although completion is still some time away, one can already catch a glimpse from the increasingly towering buildings.

Wide, constantly lit hotel penthouse balconies, reserved sky-high swimming pools, hundred-meter-high artificial mountain waterfalls, expansive hot spring parks, and one majestic man-made spectacle after another, even the hundreds-of-meters-high outer sea wall is gradually nearing completion.

By then, the project to pump seawater outwards will likely be even more awe-inspiring than it is now.

Human technological prowess has achieved the ability to transform the entire world in a land reclamation style of change, and productivity is undeniably advanced.

No one can witness this scene without feeling a sense of profound awe. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Yet every worker here, upon seeing such grand sights, cannot help but ask the question—if we can build such magnificent and beautiful tourist areas, why were we so poor before?

Have there been breakthroughs in technology?

No.

Most of the technologies used by Horizon Corporation are applications of existing basic technologies. Whether it’s the portal robots or transport platforms, aside from innovation, there’s nothing particularly outstanding.

What Horizon Corporation possesses, other companies also have, and even better ones.

Didn’t you see how fast the Ye Corporation completed the sea encircling wall over there?

The technology on that side is far superior to just building houses here.

The only high-tech projects are the circulating water plants and nearshore seafood farming zones under construction over there.

Interestingly enough, despite the world’s advanced biotechnology, the technology for nearshore seafood farming remains zero; not even Lin Miao acquired the relevant technologies.

This is because all seafood in Europe and America is sourced from ocean fishing, and except for Tokyo University, no one considered large-scale seafood farming. Yet, in 2076, even Tokyo University couldn’t manage to develop this technology.

When ocean pollution became severe, and seafood disappeared on a large scale, they realized it was too late to develop mass farming, leaving only biological technology companies to provide limited quantities of laboratory-grown uber-expensive seafood.

However, the good news is that in 2025, Tokyo University could provide a complete set of technical data for nearshore farming, which is extremely valuable.

In return for the transaction, they also obtained a lot of things they wanted, which is a tacit mutual agreement never to be openly discussed.

Of course, Lin Miao publicly declared this area as a seawater adjustment zone, striving to recreate the most authentic seawater.

Including the seafood in the water, which he ’spent a lot of money’ to import from abroad and then kept them in cultivation.

Jasieya’s workplace is this enormous water purification plant.

From here, she can also witness firsthand the entire construction of the Taiping Continent and the surrounding sea.

This might be the most impressive large-scale project she has seen in the two decades since her birth in Cuba.

And Jasieya’s questions were the most numerous; since that day’s conversation, she has been pondering, but the more she thinks, the more questions arise.

Full of numerous questions, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. After work, before it got dark, Jasieya caught up with Rita.

On the embankment, with the sound of waves in her ears and the sea breeze tossing their hair, Jasieya bit her lip, gathered her courage, and asked:

"Why can workers here live so well? I’ve never seen anything like this anywhere else."

This is a question she could not understand.

Why?

Jasieya visited factories in other districts of Night City.

The workers there and those in Taiping Continent had completely different mental states, despite being part of the same company.

The former was as listless as the Cubans, while the latter even had the mindset to learn a new craft.

Even the food they ate was infinitely better than that of workers in other regions.

Is Horizon Corporation really that wealthy?

But military technology factory workers, who are even wealthier, don’t have good lives either; they’re eating vegetable paste with artificial meat just the same.

"Why?"

It seemed to Rita like she heard some amusing thing.

She brushed aside the hair ruffled by the wind, crossed her arms, and retorted:

"Why shouldn’t we live well? Are we destined to suffer from a difficult lower-class life? Are we born inferior?"

Realizing she misspoke, Jasieya hurriedly shook her head and tried to explain:

"I didn’t mean it that way..."

"I know what you mean. I used to think the same way."

Rita said with a smile:

"What you want to ask is, why was our life so hard before? Clearly, we produce enough food on the assembly lines to feed three Night Cities, clearly we produce so many prosthetics that they can fill an entire dock warehouse, and yet still three out of ten citizens have to rely on protein blocks just to live, and only to live; prosthetics have to be the decades-old hand-me-downs that need parts just to maintain, cannot afford medical care, cannot buy a house, cannot afford medicine, despite being exhausted, and yet still get scolded for not working hard enough!"

Even though exhausted, life didn’t improve at all; while living frugally, debts just mounted higher and higher.

This is the fate pressing upon every Night City resident.

Why?

Why?

Everyone wants to ask why.

Of course, they all know the answer, because the culprit stands right in the square, undisguised, yet they are powerless.

Rita did not explain the exploitation of production surplus and class contradictions to Jasieya; she figured the other person would eventually learn, seeing and learning on one’s own is always more convincing than being told.