Starting as a Wallfacer, his defection to the Three-Body Problem shocked the world.

Chapter 265 Destined for officialdom, no need to turn the pages of the book

Let's rewind to six months ago.

"Snapped!"

A crisp crack of a whip rang out, and a man staggered a few steps, falling to the ground. The various building materials he was carrying on his shoulders scattered everywhere, making a crisp sound as they hit the ground.

"They're so slow at doing any work. These androids are getting more and more useless."

On the high platform, a foreman wearing a prosthetic mechanical skeleton looked fiercely at the group of androids below, his displeasure almost written on his face.

The Earth Federation has awarded a tender for the restoration project of Los Angeles. This underground city, built in the last era, has long lost its former glory. Apart from its wartime use, its only remaining function is to be a tourist attraction.

The Earth Federation Committee once proposed whether to demolish these obstructive underground city buildings, but this was met with strong opposition from historical preservation organizations.

Their explanation is quite reasonable. Although this thing is no longer useful, it represents the pain of an era. Moreover, it was designed and built by Lin Xuan herself. Demolishing the underground city of Luo City, do you want to deny Lin Xuan's decision back then?

With such a huge accusation leveled against them, the Earth Alliance naturally dared not mention the demolition of the underground city again, so they just let it rot there. Every year, the Earth Alliance even had to spend a large sum of money to bid for the restoration of these old relics, which can be described as a business that only loses money and does not make any profit.

Since the Star Ring Group expanded its real estate business into the solar system, humanity has no longer had to worry about housing.

On average, every human being now owns property on at least several planets.

In addition, with the rapid development of technology and the filling of labor shortages by androids, the total human population is now two-thirds lower than during the planned economy era of the PDC.

So even homeless people begging on the streets wouldn't want to live in this dark and gloomy underground city.

At this point, many construction teams saw the business opportunity and offered to take on the restoration work of these underground cities.

Due to the overuse of androids in recent years, the number of mass-produced androids has increased, and the Earth Alliance has been troubled by the problem of where to place these androids.

These engineering teams are practically the gathering place for mass-produced androids. According to the laws of the Earth Federation, androids do not enjoy civil rights, which means that these abandoned underground cities are the natural new home for these androids.

The construction team made money by using the androids to repair the underground city, while also arranging for the androids to live in the underground city—a win-win situation.

As long as the project continues, the androids can use this interface to stay in the underground city indefinitely, thus properly solving the problem of android placement. Therefore, even if the Earth Federation knows about it, they turn a blind eye to it.

This amicable situation for all three parties lasted until a new committee member of the Earth Federation Engineering Department took office.

Li Qiming's father was one of the early followers of Lin Xuan in the fight against the PDC. In the Battle of Luocheng, his father took the lead and led his company to hold back the PDC's vanguard.

After the two great international eras began, his father's achievements were not forgotten, and he was given a considerable official position to garrison Luocheng.

It can be said that Li Qiming was a second-generation official from a young age. After growing up, he relied on his father's connections to smoothly enter the local government.

Logically speaking, unless such a person is truly capable, entering the local alliance would at best result in a sinecure where they can just laze around at home and wait to die.

But Li Qiming was exceptionally lucky. When he was working as an engineering specialist, his direct team leader suddenly died, and he temporarily took over the position of engineering team leader.

As a result, the team leader only lasted two days before his team was imprisoned for embezzlement, and he was promoted to a position in the general team.

The next step up would be the head of the Los Angeles Engineering Department, but this position has remained largely unchanged for decades, so Li Qiming never expected to climb any higher.

But coincidentally, after Lin Xuan returned, she purged all of Cheng Xin's faction's cronies in the Earth Alliance. Her drastic measures at the top naturally had a significant impact on those below.

Many people eliminate their political enemies by labeling them as doves, and this head of engineering in Los Angeles happened to be from a family that had been supported by the dove faction.

This is really bad luck. The son of an official enjoyed the glory brought by his ancestors, but he also had to bear the consequences of having his entire family implicated.

This secure job, which hadn't changed hands in decades, was snatched away by the butterfly effect brought about by Lin Xuan.

Subsequently, Li Qiming naturally became the temporary head of the Los Angeles Engineering Department.

He reached this position in less than three months, rising at a rocket-like speed. In the blink of an eye, his official rank was higher than that of his father, who had gotten him into the engineering department through connections.

If you're destined for officialdom, you don't need to read books.

However, such a rapid promotion was bound to attract a lot of criticism. On the third day after Li Qiming took office as the head of the engineering department in Los Angeles, all sorts of rumors about him had already spread throughout the city.

The most prevalent theory is that he had some unspeakable relationship with the person in charge of the Central China region.

The most deadly thing is the spread of rumors and misinformation, especially when these rumors reach the ears of the person in charge in Central China.

The higher-ups were furious and ordered Li Qiming to deal with these comments within a week, and to actively distance himself from the Central China region. Even the project funds that were supposed to be allocated to Los Angeles were delayed because of this incident.

The higher-ups aren't paying, but the workers still need to eat. Especially in this era, those foremen have dozens or even hundreds of androids under their command. If they were to cause trouble for Li Qiming, the resulting negative impact would likely alarm even the Earth Federation Committee.

Within a week, Li Qiming had no idea how to silence the public outcry.

The only way at present seems to be to create a bigger news story to cover up the public's dissatisfaction with him.

Therefore, Li Qiming came up with a ruthless plan: he intended to directly halt the renovation project of the Luocheng Underground City.

If those above want to distance themselves from the situation, and those below want to join in the fun, then let's overturn it!

Let's just flip the table over, then nobody can play anymore.

The underground city renovation project was a national policy personally decided by the Earth Alliance, but the Earth Alliance also had a lot of headaches about this matter, but they were struggling to find a better solution at present.

Then Li Qiming will be the first to stop the underground city renovation project. If this succeeds, Li Qiming will save the Earth Alliance a lot of unnecessary financial expenditure.

If we fail, at worst we'll just have to take off this official uniform, which isn't much different from our current fate of waiting to die.

When people are driven to the brink, they will try even the most hopeless options. As a lowly seventh-rank official, what he had to do was try to shake up the financial problems that had plagued the entire region for decades.

Li Qiming was unaware that his choice would deal a heavy blow to the Earth Alliance.

The day after funding for the renovation project was suspended, the army took over the entire underground city of Henan Province and expelled the 21 androids who had stayed there under the pretext of the project.

By this point, some officials had realized that something was wrong. There were too many androids, and even they were unable to use their prosthetic machines. If a riot broke out, the entire city of Los Angeles would fall in an instant.

Therefore, suggestion boxes were soon submitted to the Central China Regional Alliance Council.

However, the current Earth Alliance is in a state of heightened anti-dove sentiment. Any official who dares to propose a weak and tactful policy at this time will be labeled as a dove of Cheng Xin's faction and eventually sent to the world for forced labor.

Therefore, after seeing the letter of opinion, the Central China Regional Federation of Local Governments responded with only one sentence.

"Ready to fight at any time!"

This set a bad precedent, so much so that when the news spread from Central China to the China branch, and even reached the Earth branch, the Earth Alliance gave the same response.

We're ready to fight another battle for Los Angeles, but this time, the roles are reversed.

But the foremen weren't stupid. They didn't intend to follow Lin Xuan's example and launch another coup in Los Angeles to overthrow the Earth Alliance's rule. All they wanted was for the Earth Alliance to restart the underground city's renovation project and quickly pay off the outstanding project funds.

Therefore, their protests are mostly marches, since if violence breaks out, the garrison in Los Angeles only needs a few thousand men to suppress the more than 200,000 androids without prosthetic bodies.

This explains why, despite the significant reduction in the human population, they still dare to mass-produce androids.

As long as prosthetic devices are not installed on them, these androids are no different from cats and dogs to humans.

But here's the funny part: androids have no human rights; they aren't even protected by Earth's laws.

These foremen hoped to provoke protests from the androids, and the only way to do so was to awaken human compassion for these humanoid beings.

After all, some sanctimonious people in the past could even come up with the brain-dead suggestion of listing cats as protected animals. So, I'm not going to be wrong to make some androids as protected objects, am I?

But the foremen didn't know that in the current local government, from top to bottom, no one dared to act like a saint.

The last one who acted as a saint is still locked up in the Star Ring Group's luxurious prison.

Then, things gradually began to spiral out of control.

The Earth Federation officials completely ignored these androids, and the foremen were still inciting protests, but the people didn't understand why they didn't care. Every morning when they got up, they could see huge protest marches.

As time went on, some overly compassionate people eventually couldn't stand it anymore.

They sympathized with the plight of these androids, but were unable to comprehend the predicament they were facing. As a result, some people spontaneously organized donations of supplies and assisted the foremen in inciting demonstrations.

The foremen were dumbfounded when they saw this.

No, bro, we need money. What's the point of you donating supplies to us? If you really feel sorry for us, you could donate some money. As long as the money is there, we won't cause any more trouble.

But everyone knows what the foremen are thinking. They just refuse to donate money. People pity the androids, not the foremen. In the end, all the money donated will end up in the foremen's pockets.

Then the situation started to get increasingly absurd. At first, the donations were just water and food, but later, people started donating weapons.

When the foremen saw this, they panicked immediately.

Good heavens, we're just here to ask for our unpaid wages, are you trying to kill us?!

Having weapons in hand, even without the ability to use prosthetic devices, will be considered rebellion.

The people who came to suppress the rebellion and the people who came to appease the protesters were two completely different groups.

Before the foremen could even react, strategic weapons like "ideological imprint bombs" had already appeared among the donated supplies.

When this thing appeared, everyone broke out in a cold sweat.

If the previous donations of guns and the like could be considered spontaneous acts by the public, the release of this "ideological imprint bomb" made everyone realize that there must have been someone else pulling the strings behind the scenes.

What ordinary family would hide genetic weapons in their home?

That very evening, all the foremen in Los Angeles held a meeting and decided to immediately stop this crazy operation to avoid getting burned.