Chapter 717.1: Water

[Starting today, the undersea freshwater pipeline is officially operational, and the water reservoirs on the island have been fully refilled. According to the water supply agreement signed between the Ring Island Governor’s Office and French Fry Harbor City Hall, imported freshwater now costs only 0.8 silver per ton! Residential and industrial water prices on Ring Island will return to pre-destruction levels from before the ocean current power station was destroyed, and monthly water usage limits will no longer apply.]

[Reported by the Baiyue Strait Branch of Survivor’s Daily!]

Recently, The Survivor's Daily had also established a branch office in French Fry Harbor, though the office itself was merely a small wooden hut of 20 to 30 square meters.

The branch director was a Moonfolk woman named Misa. Before the Xilande Empire launched its purge against the Moonfolk, she had once been a teacher. After learning about The Survivor's Daily, she decided to establish a branch in French Fry Harbor as well, reporting local events and interesting stories, promoting cultural exchange between different peoples, and at the same time helping improve literacy among her fellow Moonfolk.

Some things didn’t necessarily need to wait until literacy rates improved before they could begin. On the contrary, it was often precisely because such things existed that people became more motivated to learn.

As for The Survivor's Daily itself, its admission standards were surprisingly loose. Any branch that swore to speak from the perspective of all survivors could receive recognition from the Dawn City headquarters and the other branches.

No official rubber stamp personally granted by the administrator was required to qualify as an orthodox source of truth.

Of course, if one day a branch stopped standing with the survivors, then Dawn City headquarters and the other branches would issue a public statement expelling it from the organization and cease reprinting or citing any of its news reports.

That, in itself, served as an exit mechanism.

From the perspective of profit or propaganda, such a management and withdrawal system obviously had its flaws. But as the administrator once said, the New Alliance was not limited to a single newspaper.

If one day every branch of the Survivor’s Daily disappeared, or only the Dawn City branch remained, then that would simply mean its historical mission had ended. It would be time for it to retire quietly into a museum, while the people of that era naturally found something new to continue carrying the torch forward.

Since French Fry Harbor still lacked both paper mills and printing presses, The Survivor's Daily: Baiyue Strait Edition was currently printed under contract by a factory on Ring Island.

Fishermen, sailors, and dockworkers traveling frequently between French Fry Harbor and Ring Island would occasionally carry copies of the newspaper back to the island. As a result, even though The Survivor's Daily was not officially sold on Ring Island, copies could still occasionally be seen around the docks.

“0.8 silver?! Damn it, they’ve been charging us 1 silver!” Staring wide-eyed at the newspaper that seemed damp enough to wring water from, a dockside repairman couldn’t help cursing aloud.

Since Ring Island residents frequently went ashore, they were already quite familiar with silver and could easily convert the value into their local currency.

“Well, the people operating the reservoirs and water pipes need to earn a little too.” The middle-aged man squatting beside him grinned and spoke casually.“What, you expect them to work for free and survive on nothing?”

“I’m not saying they can’t make money. The problem is this money’s just way too easy to make!” The repairman shook his head, folded the newspaper, and stuffed it back where he had found it.

Work was about to begin.

Recently, a wave of new orders had arrived from French Fry Harbor and Port Gallon, causing Ring Island’s factories and docks to grow lively once more.

To improve loading efficiency, the Port Authority had even reinstalled the gantry cranes sitting rusting away in storage, sending many of the young men hauling cargo at the docks back into factory work.

And old technical workers like them, who had lost their jobs alongside the massive ocean current power station, finally had work again too.

Honestly, if Ring Island still hadn’t offered any suitable jobs, they had already been planning to try their luck over in French Fry Harbor. Apparently, the harbor there was also undergoing automation upgrades, and the wages were decent.

The only concern was safety.

The middle-aged man smiled faintly, tossed his towel over his shoulder, and stood up alongside the repairman. “No matter what, even at 1 silver, it’s still way cheaper than before! And there’s no water usage limit anymore... finally we can go back to showering once a day.”

They were in the tropics, after all. Skipping a shower for even one day felt unbearable, especially when working at the docks.

Not long after the two middle-aged men left, a group of idle young men wandered over from the settlement and happened to squat in the exact same spot they had occupied earlier.

Not everyone had found work at the factories. Even though the docks no longer needed them, they still habitually drifted over here anyway. After all, many of their friends still worked nearby, and interesting ships occasionally passed through.

Besides, living off relief payments meant they weren’t in any urgent rush to survive. If they were going to waste time staring blankly into space anyway, they might as well do it somewhere entertaining.

“Hey! There’s something here!” One sharp-eyed youth quickly spotted the stack of newspapers stuffed beneath a ladder. He yanked them out, unfolded one dramatically, and shouted proudly toward his friends. “Look what I found! Newspapers brought back by sailors!”

Hearing the excited yell, the youths lounging in the shade immediately stood up and gathered around with interest.

“The latest issue of The Survivor's Daily! A newspaper from French Fry Harbor! Let’s see what they’re writing about... holy shit, the undersea freshwater pipeline is officially functioning!”

“No way?!”

“So that’s why my mom said the water bill got cheaper yesterday...”

“Hah, I already knew that yesterday.”

“I heard the pipeline passes through a minefield! Won’t that affect the war?”

“The war? Damn, if you hadn’t mentioned it, I almost forgot there even was one.”

“This war’s been going on forever, and I still haven’t seen a single person from Shelter 70.”

The youngsters crowded around the newspaper, noisily discussing the news. Before long, the conversation drifted from the freshwater pipeline to the bar advertisements printed on the third page.

That page contained the densest concentration of color illustrations in the entire paper. There was nothing particularly explicit, but for boys at that restless age, the images were lethally attractive, like cigarettes and alcohol to old men.

Of course, not everyone was interested in those nutritionally bankrupt advertisements.

Sunil, sitting among them, was thinking about something else entirely. A few months ago, he had worked in Ring Island’s canned food factory producing canned herring.

Then a series of events unfolded. The factory production lines and automated dock systems were shut down, and under orders from the Governor’s Office, he had gone to the harbor to take odd jobs instead. Now that Ring Island’s trade had recovered, the automated dock equipment and production lines were no longer operating at a loss, and the Governor’s Office once again wanted them back in the factories.

He suddenly felt like nothing more than a convenient machine, dragged around by the nose wherever needed.

What he was feeling wasn’t exactly teenage angst. At 17 or 18 years of age, if boys weren’t wasting their energy obsessing over pretty girls, then naturally they started pondering questions about their future, like what they had been doing and what they would be doing in the future.

And after reading the news about the completed undersea freshwater pipeline, Sunil found himself filled with emotion. Especially after learning that survivors from Coral City had actually participated in designing the pipeline.

That’s amazing...

While Ring Island’s people remained trapped in a confusing war and constantly pushed around by incomprehensible events, the unluckiest people of all had already crawled out from the disaster of months ago and started new lives.

I want my life to mean something too...

Finally making up his mind, he suddenly raised his head without warning and looked at the others gathered around the paper. “I want to go to Port Gallon.”

The noisy discussion abruptly stopped. For a moment, only the cries of seagulls echoed across the dock.

One chubby youth with a face tanned waxy-red stared at him for several seconds, confirming he wasn’t joking, before widening his eyes in disbelief. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Port Gallon?!

That place wasn’t just a few words different from French Fry Harbor, it was in another province over 2,000 kilometers away! That was a wasteland even more wasteland-like than Ocean Edge Province itself!

There were no unemployment benefits there, and no insurance. Not even basic guarantees of personal safety. And worst of all, they still practiced the oldest and most primitive institution in human civilization, slavery.

In a hellhole like that, killing people was as ordinary as gutting fish.

The outburst shattered the silence. Seeing everyone staring at him like he had gone insane, Sunil hurriedly explained himself. “Wait, don’t laugh at me yet... remember that ship from before?”

A freckled, broad-built youth froze for a second before asking, “You mean those thighs... Wait, aren’t they all in French Fry Harbor now?”

Several months ago, when the cargo ship from Port Gallon had docked at the port, the graceful figures lined along the deck had invaded the dreams of many teenage boys. Back then, they had been sitting here on the docks drinking beer.

They were in the exact same spot.

The moment Sunil mentioned the ship, everyone instantly understood which one he meant.

“But Port Gallon has even more thig– What I mean is, the whole wasteland is changing! People everywhere are taking action to build better lives, while I’m just wasting time here!” Suni coughed hard and looked seriously at his friends. “Don’t you think that’s a waste?”

The others exchanged confused looks before staring back at him, now even more convinced something had gone wrong in his head.

“What’s wrong with life here?”

“Honestly, sitting here watching everyone else’s drama is pretty fun too.”

“I agree,” the red-faced chubby kid nodded vigorously. “Things happening out there in the wasteland are fun to watch. Actually going there? I would probably get boiled into soup.”

“It’s impossible explaining this to you guys...” Sunil sighed helplessly and turned his gaze toward the harbor. “I didn’t study all that stuff just to haul crates at the docks or arrange cans on an assembly line. Machines can already do those jobs perfectly fine. To put it bluntly, this place doesn’t actually need me. But I feel like that place might.”

His companions exchanged glances again. This time, they finally understood.

Good lord. So this idiot basically wanted to go play enlightened genius among wasteland natives.

He probably wants to seduce some pretty girls while he’s at it.

“So... what exactly do you plan to do there?” Still hoping to talk some sense into his overly idealistic friend, the freckled youth stared seriously into his eyes.

But unexpectedly, Suni had already thought everything through.

“A teacher.” Without avoiding his gaze, Sunil answered immediately.

Everyone was stunned again.

“A teacher?!”

“What can you possibly teach them?”

“You can’t even find work yourself!”

“Languages. Arithmetic. Even physics and chemistry. Everything they taught us in school.” Sunil counted on his fingers while looking at them. “Knowledge that factories don’t need might still matter over there. I heard some people there don’t even know how to cook with fire yet. Besides, the newspaper said they need teachers. As long as you’re literate, that’s enough. The New Alliance, you know, those people north of the strait, they’re planning to open schools in Port Gallon and teach many things! Also, they pay in silver! Something like 1,000 or 2,000 a month!”

Everyone exchanged shocked looks.

They hadn’t realized he had thought this through so thoroughly, even researching the salary beforehand.

Realizing he was completely serious, the freckled youth finally stopped trying to dissuade him and instead gripped his shoulder firmly. “I won’t try to talk you out of it anymore. But that place is truly a shithole. Before you board that ship, you’d better think carefully.”

Finally feeling understood, Sunil let out a relieved breath and smiled. “I’ll discuss it with my family.”

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