Chapter 497: Chapter 181: Facing the Future, Competing Ideologies!

Despite Matthew Lee not having the authority to reveal the full details of the assessment, he subtly hinted that evening at several key points, such as the assessment’s tendency and the critical factors for winning.

By this round, the assessment no longer valued paper plans; every topic was a real-world battle.

It involved on-site competition, with the exam time being extremely short, designed to immediately reveal the true skills of the Inspector.

Currently, ten full days have passed since the initial assessment.

During this time, the external refugees were selected wave after wave by the first batch of Satellite City, becoming the main force in construction.

Based on the initial scale of each Satellite City at twenty thousand people, 240,000 people have left the formation.

At the same time, 5,000 people still pour into the Buffer Zone every day, accumulating nearly 80,000.

The settlement of 320,000 people, although it has not resulted in large-scale chaos, has never been devoid of small-scale conflicts.

In a million refugees, even at the lowest probability, there are hundreds or thousands of ambitious thugs lurking.

Instigated by the "Wanderers," these people, far from seeking to improve their lives, have instead become worse, purely malicious.

Therefore, selecting manpower for Satellite City construction became the most fundamental yet thorny hurdle in the assessment.

One must attract refugees with a construction ideology but lacks the time to elaborate on the ideology, naturally resulting in a varied quality of selected personnel.

And the key to the assessment is precisely tied to these selected refugees.

After the topic is drawn, it is actually executed by the refugees, and their performance is the Inspectors’ performance.

The failure of people like Gu Xinjing and Garcia was because their ideologies were incompatible.

Gu Xinjing wanted to select more obedient refugees to perfectly execute his various assignments.

Garcia insisted on selecting refugees with enough ability and initiative to complete tasks.

As a result, the teams they each chose clashed when combined, and during the assessment, they fought directly, ultimately being eliminated by the team of Matthew Lee and Song Hai.

Why?

Because Matthew Lee, holding a mindset of being eliminated, did not pay attention to the assessment at all, nodding to whatever Song Hai said, acting like a bystander watching a play.

All the personnel chosen by Song Hai, while not top-notch, had average assessment results, but the strength lay in their unified ideology. Their work had no conflicts, much stronger than the infighting of Gu Xinjing’s team.

For this reason, the second round of assessments opened partner voting to patch this loophole.

To avoid conflicts in the team selection phase, leading to losses in all subsequent stages.

"In this phase, we will be at a slight disadvantage."

On the way to the community, Cheng Ye said slowly, "We two look young, so those young adults might not take notice. But conversely, the ’bad seeds’ are less likely to target us. In their eyes, we don’t look like we can pass the assessment, so they won’t bother to interfere."

"Brother Cheng, would the checkpoint reveal our apprentice status to the refugees?"

"Probably not."

Cheng Ye shook his head slightly, "This apparent level advantage has no reason to be told to the refugees; otherwise, Low-phase Inspectors can’t compete with High-phase ones. But I guess those in High-phase will surely boast about their identity, ability, and experience openly or secretly... these are inherently their advantages, and the checkpoint can’t prohibit it. What we can do is not let this become our disadvantage."

"Understood." Wang Kang nodded, seemingly in thought.

"So, who should we primarily target?"

"Families." Cheng Ye replied decisively with two words, "and the kind with dependents."

These days, he hadn’t gone back to observe the situation in the Wilderness, nor had he gathered information on duty at the checkpoint.

But every evening news broadcast exposed the basic situation of the Satellite City to everyone.

From the development concept of the Satellite City, to its population structure, and then to its architectural model choices.

A batch of Satellite Cities still needs to continuously attract population to join, naturally not stingy with promotions.

Regarding population structure, all 12 Satellite Cities share a fundamentally similar population composition.

Primarily single young adults, occupying nearly 40% of the population.

And the remaining 70%, family combinations like couples, occupy 45%, also considered labor force.

Only the remaining 15% are what he referred to as families with dependents, families with children and the elderly.

The reason for this group remaining is still a hard requirement in the assessment.

Each Satellite City must choose 15% of such families; otherwise, by the end of selection, besides the Buffer Zone, no place would accept these "burdens."

"We only select families; we don’t want a single young adult."

Cheng Ye’s tone was firm, without altering his initial thought, and instead grew increasingly determined over these days.

An elder in the home is like a treasure; this saying isn’t without reason.

In modern times there may be difficult elderly, but the elders who survived from the old era to the present Wasteland often hold skills.

Even if they can’t engage in construction like the young people, nor participate in defending against infection sources.

They might even make a Satellite City, meant to be vibrant, take on a gloomy "elderly scent."

But is that a big problem?

Cheng Ye places more value on forming a cohesive basic structure, a socially supported belief system.

Expanding step by step, solidifying each step.

This way, even if a large number of young adults are received later, there won’t be conflicts. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Because families can be utilized to build a more hierarchical social structure.

Wang Kang pondered for a moment, not questioning this choice, but rather thinking, "If we draw a topic that requires heavy labor, won’t we suffer losses?"