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Chapter 111.2: Undead Cultural Arts

Ji Tang wholeheartedly agreed.

In China, poverty was mostly illness-induced poverty and elderly poverty.

The former was understandable, while the latter, though harsh, was also rather understandable; there was a significant portion of those living below the poverty line, and the main reason being that they were abandoned by their children.

The low-income support, pension for the elderly, and even the groceries brought by street offices, village committees, and poverty alleviation officials for condolence were often taken away by their children and grandchildren. This was a harsh reality.

As for those who became impoverished due to drug addiction or laziness, they weren\'t worth the consideration of Zhao Zhenzhen and Ji Tang.

The loss of ability to work was the primary cause of poverty in the lower strata of Hua Xia society.

However, the situation in this world was different. After several days of visiting, Ji Tang and Rex mainly saw impoverished groups consisting of young and middle-aged individuals, with hardly any sickly or elderly people in sight.

The reason was simple and brutal: those in their prime years were already struggling below the poverty line, so how could the sick and elderly even cope?

In a poverty-stricken village like Back Mountain Village, the oldest person Ji Tang and Rex saw was a woman in her early forties.

Where had all the older people gone? The answer was self-evident.

"There\'s a large number of impoverished young and middle-aged people. It\'s no wonder the people here are so calm when talking about war and see territorial wars as normal," said Zhao Zhenzhen, shaking her head. "Our people who can come over are us and the two old masters. There may not be much we can do, but what needs to be done, we must do. As for the consolidation of villages, it\'s best to start before winter."

Weisshem had a considerable amount of arable land for local farmers. Even though the contiguous and well-leveled land was mostly distributed to the Rhine nobles and occupied by their manor farms, the remaining land, if appropriately managed and gradually reclaimed, shouldn\'t have any problems feeding the twenty-thousand mouths of both farmers and townsfolk.

"The expert task force suggested this as well," Ji Tang said. "Advice from above is to seize the opportunity, pool enough local currency, and consolidate grain purchases to create a model village that attracts farmers to settle"

Before Ji Tang could finish his sentence, a notification chime sounded, and a large block of yellow text popped up in his information panel

Zhao Zhenzhen noticed Ji Tang tilting his head, as if looking at something diagonally downward, and immediately understood. "Lord Yang issued you a quest?"

Ji Tang stiffly raised his head and said wryly, "Lord Yang asked me to immediately organize manpower to install generators and lay power lines"

The expert task force had set today as the deadline for Lord Yang\'s "delivery," and Zhao Zhenzhen found it somewhat amusing, saying, "This guy is really efficient. He\'s wasting no time the moment he gets the stuff."

The old wires the former Weisshem mayor installed on the town\'s main street were an eyesore to Lord Yang, and even less so to Ji Tang. During the construction and renovation works, they had taken the opportunity to eliminate these fire hazards and left gaps for laying cables according to the plan.

Lord Yang\'s request, which came late in the evening (it was only noon on Earth; the sky had turned dark in OtherWorld), was to immediately install generators and lay power lines. Ji Tang had no choice but to quickly log out and summon back Old Geng and Master Liu, who had finished their day\'s work and had gone offline. Together with Rex, Ban, Ossirian, Brook, and Lyka, who were classified as natives on their team, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Having power lines exposed outside could easily lead to safety issues and theft. When renovating the main road of the town, Ji Tang had already instructed clerks to arrange for townspeople to dig underground spaces along both sides of the road to accommodate cables; after all, the roads in this world weren\'t prone to being crushed by heavy trucks, so there was no need to worry even if they were buried relatively shallow.

The 100 kW diesel generator taken from a mining facility could generate 100 kWh of electricity per hour, consuming around 30 liters of fuel. If only used for lighting in specific areas and powering small motors, two units would be sufficient for Weisshem. Indeed, Lord Yang asked Ji Tang to only install two.

Generators, transformers, and transmission cables were all Chinese products with excellent quality. The loss during the electrical transmission was so low that it could be practically neglected. However, to minimize the loss as much as possible, Ji Tang installed both generators on the main street to facilitate nearby electrical transmission.

Due to the shortage of manpower, they hadn\'t finished by the time dawn came (in OtherWorld). Ji Tang instructed the clerks to halt the temporary hiring of part-time laborers for half a day. The main street was sealed off, and they continued working.

The townspeople who came early in the morning to queue for work didn\'t know what was going on and were worried. They gathered outside the main street and refused to disperse.

Shirley nervously came to report the situation to Rex. Hearing that several hundred people were camped outside, Rex was also puzzled and looked to Ji Tang.

Ji Tang: ""

"Arrange a cultural performance for them!" Ji Tang, annoyed by the urgency, said. "Go find out if anyone with talent in singing and dancing is willing to perform near the street intersection. They can perform anything; the goal is to quiet down those people!"

Shirley, looking bewildered, rushed off to find performers, while Ji Tang used his authority as player-mayor authority to assign a quest to players that were online

The players who were farming mobs, completing quests, or just idle chatting, saw the mayor\'s quest on the quests or their player panels and burst into laughter.

"Participate in a stage performance to pacify the restless townspeople? What sort of quest?"

"I can sing \'Little Apple,\' but will the NPC townsfolk understand what I\'m singing?"

"Ji Tang has been in office for so long without issuing quests that I thought he forgot about it. Seems like he\'s been saving up to unleash this ultimate move!"

Complaints aside, there were still quite a number of players who casually teleported to Weisshem, laughing and joking as they came to find Ji Tang

"The heck! Are cables being laid here?" a player that had arrived immediately exclaimed when he saw the work site. "Look at you, Ji Tang. Sneaking around doing a hidden quest while letting the rest of us go dance?"

"It\'s just manual labor, there aren\'t any rewards! Can\'t you see everyone here is using tool accounts?" Ji Tang knew exactly how to shut these guys up and immediately struck with a decisive blow.

Hearing there were no rewards, the players present were dumbfounded and started talking all at once.

"Then how should we do this quest? Can I sing \'Little Apple\'?"

"Forget about singing; the NPCs won\'t hear it." Ji Tang saw the players coming and immediately had the natives take off their lapel badges so he could speak without reservations. "Is there anybody that can dance? And someone who can organize a performance to appease the townsfolk will get double the rewards!"

With the promise of a generous reward, a brave player raised their hand immediately. "Me! I\'ll do it!"

The townsfolk, who had been crowding the intersection of the main street for almost an hour, anxiously looked toward the makeshift stage of wooden bricks.

Having received stable daily wages for the past few days, everyone greatly hoped for these days to last longer. Yet, this morning, they were suddenly told to stop working for half a day and return in the afternoon. Most townsfolk found it hard to feel at ease if they were to return home.

"Why did they suddenly say to stop working? Could it be that Mr. Rex doesn\'t have money to pay wages anymore?"

"Could it be those people the undead caught and brought back yesterday caused trouble?"

"O Lady Gold Coin, bless us"

The townsfolk were exchanging uneasy whispers when suddenly, there was a commotion at the front.

People tried to tiptoe and look only to see a muscular female warrior, dressed in a gorgeous gown, carrying a table around the cordon tapes and placing it in front of the crowd. She then climbed on the table and stood still.

The female warrior standing on the table scanned the hundreds of townsfolk blocking the intersection and raised her hand. "Hello, everyone!"

It wasn\'t the strange KABAKABA sounds but clear standard Mandarin.

However, the townspeople still couldn\'t understand and just stared at this person in confusion.

Although overly muscular, this person was clearly a woman, but why was a man\'s voice coming out from her?!

Players at the cordoned-off area shouted, "Don\'t waste time, Boss Orange Cat! Your transformation can\'t last much longer!"

"Yeah! While you can still produce vocal accompaniment, hurry up and sing!"

The RMB player with the ID "Orange Cat" had just reached level one, and his mana bar was very short. His illusory disguise couldn\'t be maintained for too long. He shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands out, striking a pose like a tenor, and began singing, "You are my little, ah, little apple"

"F*ck, hahahaha!"

"Damn, he only knows how to sing \'Little Apple\'!"

Teacher Yu Chi, who took on the task of organizing the performance, held onto her belly. "Stop laughing, stop laughing, dancers, hurry on up!"

The townspeople in the front row saw undead pouring out from behind the cordon tap and quickly squeezed backward, voluntarily making space.

Several players who came to the front formed a line in front of Boss Orange Cat\'s table. With arms slung and pelvis tilted, they started a rather uncoordinated line dance

Teacher Yu Chi, who had just told everyone to stop laughing, was now rolling on the ground behind the cordon.