Chapter 435: Concessions Began
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Haierfa.
“This… what is going on? Can it be explained by science?” Chen Jin said with a grave expression as he held a terminal communicator in his hand.
“Dad, I’ve asked Professor Feng about this matter. He said it is very likely that, after those celestial particles from the Heavenly Realm had dispersed on Earth, they were affected by the field energy of many special elementary particles. There were no changes in ordinary chemical and nuclear fission reactions. Only fusion reactions with very high energy levels seemed to become somewhat slow and not as dramatic as before.”
“Our high-end weapons have obviously become limited in their power,” Chen Xing Yue said with an obvious tremble in her voice. She had lost her former calm.
“Is this about balance?” Chen Jin muttered. “Or, is this a fine-tuning enacted by the source of the universe?”
The problem was that, after such an adjustment, the power of the trump card in their hands had immediately weakened.
If the Revival of Magical Powers had been more intense, it might be possible that nuclear weapons would have been weakened even more thoroughly.
“Dad, what should we do now…? What should we do?” Chen Xing Yue said.
She was stunned out of her wits. Although the Chen family did not openly or explicitly do anything against the Protoss, everyone knew that the family had the toughest att.i.tude against them and were insulting to them.
Some of the senior administration of the Protoss also regarded the Chen family as an ill-mannered and wicked “opponent.”
Once tensions between humans and Protoss intensified in the coming times and conflicts broke out, the Chen family would be the first to bear the brunt. They would be the main target of the attacks.
If they were in a disadvantageous position or if they were faced with certain failure, the Chen family would definitely come to a bad end.
“Don’t panic. I’ll ask you this: currently, how many people know about the failure of the nuclear weapons?” Chen Jin asked.
“Not many—only the nuclear weapons maintenance personnel, some federal members of parliament, and some of the family heads of the biggest clans. There should not be too many people who know about this matter, as it has not yet spread,” Chen Xing Yue said after some thought.
“Then block this news and seal it tightly! You must not let the Protoss know about this.”
“I know. The Federation also knows that this is a serious matter, so the news has been strictly restrained from the beginning. Fortunately, the Protoss do not know much about science and technology. There are not many Protoss who know the local written language… For the time being, this news should not leak.
“But… paper can’t hold fire; some things can’t be hidden for long. I’m afraid that, sooner or later, this issue will come to the Protoss’ knowledge as time pa.s.ses. When that time comes…”
Thinking of this, Chen Xing Yue could not help but say, “Dad, I think that our previous response tactics may not be suitable now. If the Chen family continues to maintain its tough att.i.tude without making appropriate concessions, it is very likely that we will face a huge loss in the future… Maybe, we should make some small changes.”
“Oh…”
Chen Jin heard the meaning behind her words. She meant that they should compromise and weaken their stance. Their att.i.tude could no longer be as tough as before.
In the past, they had the ultimate weapon to fall back on, so there was no reason for fear.
Now their trump card had been weakened, and they could no longer act tough.
“Okay. It’s okay to change our stance a little, but don’t make too many out-of-character changes,” Chen Jin suggested. “When it comes to principles, we still have to insist on what has to be insisted on. If we compromise without limits, it may give the other party a clue… You must know that, generally speaking, the IQ of the Protoss is not low.”
“I know, Dad. I will do a good job.”
After that, the two ended the call.
Chen Jin remained silent for a while.
He had never imagined that the originally stable situation would actually take such a turn.
“Nuwa, Alice, what do you think I should do now? If we have no nuclear weapon with sufficient power, how should humans deal with the Protoss?”
Chen Jin felt a headache coming on. The individual strength of the Protoss was too great. Now the humans had virtually lost their trump card. Would humanity still have the means and ability to resist the Protoss after the balance was broken?
“Master, if the ultimate end result of the traditional route of our technology has been weakened, then we can only find another way, and develop some weapons based on the celestial particles. For example, the basic celestial particles can achieve a speed more than a hundred times faster than the speed of light after they have been stimulated by mental power. If we can develop a celestial cannon with greater caliber and power, it would have a similar effect to nuclear weapons when it comes to delivering a killing strike against the high-level pract.i.tioners of the Protoss.
“Besides the route of ‘celestial technology,’ we have another option, which is to get all humans to cultivate. We can develop more exercises and nurture more pract.i.tioners among the humans of Earth, and find ways to improve their cultivation. It would be best if they could attain a level similar to the monks in the Shenguang Order or the Sage Order of the Protoss. If that happens, then humans can also be G.o.ds—even more powerful G.o.ds than the Protoss!
“As long as the pract.i.tioners we train are strong enough, and we have more talents and stronger experts on our side than the Protoss, they will no longer be so scary.”
Nuwa’s meaning was very simple: they should open up two new routes.
Firstly, they would turn to the development of “celestial technology” based on the celestial particles.
Secondly, they would take the cultivation route and cultivate more Terran strongmen, preferably on par with the Shenguang Order of the Protoss.
But…
When it came to the development of “celestial technology”, it would take at least several years or decades to achieve significant results to replace nuclear weapons.
It would be even more difficult to nurture and train cultivation experts of the human race. It would take at least a hundred years, maybe even a thousand, to make a breakthrough in the techniques and attain the pinnacle in cultivation.
In short, there was a time lag in between. A fatal time lag.
If the Protoss got a clue as to what had happened during this period and uncovered the secrets they were concealing, they would probably not hesitate to immediately overturn the existing order.
The humans of Earth would instantly be sunk into a huge crisis.
Not only would a significant portion of humans be eliminated, but they could be reduced to underlings… The equal relations.h.i.+p between the two sides would turn into a relations.h.i.+p between master and slave.
Dangerous.
The potential circ.u.mstances of human beings could be extremely dangerous.
“Nuwa, according to Murphy’s Law, once the worst situation occurs and the secret is leaked—when that time comes, how should we deal with it?”
Chen Jin was making the worst a.s.sumption.
“Erm, I am afraid that we have no good counter-response. Even if we created an A-Cla.s.s wars.h.i.+p, the portal is too small to send it s.h.i.+p through. In the end, the humans can only depend on themselves.”
“Eh, I wonder if this will work?”
Chen Jin’s mind suddenly came up with a bold idea. He said, “The power of nuclear weapons on Earth has been weakened, but it is still a purely material universe here on Haierfa. The power of nuclear technology here remains the same. If we produce the nuclear weapons here, add a good isolation sh.e.l.l to block the influence of the ‘celestial particles,’ and then bring them to Earth, would that mean that that the ‘trump card’ of nuclear weapons would be returned to the humans?”
No; to be precise, it would be returned to the Chen family.
In addition, the size of the portal was about one meter. A miniaturized nuclear warhead could be transported to Earth.
“Master’s idea is good. There are some materials that can s.h.i.+eld the ‘contamination’ of the celestial particles and preserve the full power of the nuclear weapons.”
This meant that, as humans gradually lost the trump card that was their nuclear weapons, Chen Jin would have one last form of insurance on hand.
This was the benefit of holding two universes in your hands.
On Haierfa, the technology route based purely on the material world could be explored to its very end.
…
Time went by quickly.
In the blink of an eye, three years had pa.s.sed.
The Protoss immigration work was still underway on Earth; the process had even sped up significantly. The migration numbers of the Protoss had reached 20 million per batch, with two batches arriving each month.
The number of Protoss living on Earth had exceeded 1.2 billion.
This population size was enough to const.i.tute a superpower.
Moreover, given the character and culture of the Protoss, things like law could never restrain them. Moreover, as their population count increased, they gradually started to live in the same s.p.a.ces as humans. Contact between the two groups of people increased with each pa.s.sing day. As such, criminal incidents were also increasing year by year.
There were more and more criminal acts initiated by the Protoss.
However, if one were to look at the statistical parameters of the crime rate, the overall crime rate of the Protoss had actually decreased significantly over the past two years, from a handful in one thousand to only a handful in ten thousand. The results were very significant.
Why was this so?
Why was there such an apparent decline in the crime rate?
The main reason was that the federal government had become a loser. When it came to defending the dignity of the law, they had made shameful concessions. They had preserved the judicial right and the right to arrest Protoss who broke the law, but had given up the right to punish them.
After the police caught the Protoss criminals, they could be judged in court and convicted, but when it came to the final punishment, the criminals would still be handed over to the senior administration of the Protoss. The specific mode of punishment would be discussed and implemented by them.
For the Protoss, the Federal police in charge of law and order could arrest and convict the criminals, but could not punish them. They could only turn them over to the Protoss.
In addition, the death penalty was abolished. If a Protoss killed someone or committed a very serious crime, the harshest punishment that could be meted out was to exile the criminal to the prison planet.
Moreover, if a criminal case occurred within the inner circle of the Protoss, the federal police were not allowed to intervene. The case could only be handled internally by the Protoss.
In a sense, the Protoss held special privileges that placed them outside the law.
Of course, the above measures did not have the effect of curbing crime. On the contrary, crime would be expected to intensify, and criminals to become more unscrupulous.
The Federation’s real trick for reducing the crime rate was to recruit a group of kind pract.i.tioners with a high level of cultivation from the Protoss by paying them a high salary. They were then added into the ranks of the federal police after a short period of training. They were given the t.i.tle of “Protoss Detective” and partic.i.p.ated in the war on criminal behavior.
This move was brilliant. With the help of a large number of “Protoss Detectives,” whether a criminal act was carried out by the Protoss or ordinary humans, they inevitably were quickly struck down with no way of escape when faced with a powerful pract.i.tioner. The effect of this deterrent was remarkable.
In addition to verbal praise and material awards, the Federation even specially filmed a TV series about the story of the cooperation between the “Protoss Detectives” and the “Human Police.” Not only did the show receive good ratings, but it also had a widespread and outstanding word-of-mouth reputation.
Thus, the Protoss Detectives, with their outstanding ability and sizeable number in the hundreds of thousands, became the starting point for the integration of the Protoss and the humans.
The major concessions made by the Federation in terms of law were tremendous contributions that aided the goal of improving the relations.h.i.+p between the two communities and easing tensions.
According to the latest polls, the Protoss had a good impression of the humans, as high as 75% approval; and humans had a good impression of the Protoss up to 65%.
On the other side.
The senior administration of the Protoss were a bit puzzled regarding the behavior of the Chen family, the backbone of the human hardliners, over the last three years.
It would not be an exaggeration to describe it as “an inexplicable expression of goodwill.”
This was especially apparent in business dealings. Sometimes, the generosity of the Chen family was so over-the-top as to border on the infringement of business principles.
For example, the Protoss would sell the ores and minerals from the Heavenly Realm to other companies or consortiums at a price of $100. But the Chen family often bought the same goods at a price of $120, $150, signing off on orders with terrifying price tags.
In addition, considering the Protoss’ lack of funds, the Chen family was the first to issue a loan of up to 10 trillion credits to the Protoss, with an interest rate of zero.
Of course, the simple act of giving could not alleviate the Protoss’ predicament. After all, it was better to teach people to fish than to give them fish. So, in order to improve the self-sufficiency of the Protoss, the Chen family provided them with 1,000 indoor agricultural bases and more than 1,000 capsule factories within three years. They even provided training to the workers at every step of the way to impart the necessary skills and technologies.
In addition, the many companies under the Chen Family Consortium had opened themselves to the Protoss, recruiting more than 1 million Protoss employees in the manufacturing, agricultural, mining, gaming, cultural, entertainment, and security industries. They were the pioneers who founded the history of Protoss working together with the soft and weak humans. This undoubtedly required a lot of drive and courage… There were few companies that were willing to stuff a few walking bombs into their offices.
Moreover, under the packaging and operation of Xing Hai Entertainment Company, many Protoss actors with good performance skills were featured in many wonderful works. They quickly became popular and gained numerous fans. These Protoss led the way in achieving good results in the entertainment industry.
Not only did these various measures by the Chen family bring a lot of benefits to the Protoss, but they also helped to improve their integration with humans.
If their relations.h.i.+p continued to develop with this same momentum, humans and Protoss could surely live in harmony, would gradually merge into one group of people.
In the future, the two communities could lay down their defenses and mingle together under the same sky.
However!
Paper could not contain fire.
Secrets would be exposed one day.
43-year-old Chu Mingyang was a politician with outstanding ability and a bright future. However, he was exposed by the media for using public funds to buy several gifts worth no more than $1,000. After being criticized and cursed at by netizens, he had no choice but to apologize in public, admit his culpability, and resign from his post.
Originally, his future had been so bright, but it was destroyed because of a few small gifts.
He wanted to find a new job, but was sneered at by many interviewers at many companies because of his bad reputation.
He was driven into an endless abyss just because of a small mistake, with no hope of recovering himself.
He was in a rage!
Endless resentment, frustration, and anger!
He had no future. Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth and went straight to the Celestial City, the capital of the Protoss, found the Protoss’ senior administration, and directly revealed a secret that had come into his control by chance.
…
In a simple and unadorned ancient temple.
Bang!
The leader of the Protoss, Bakedu, was a strong man with a height of two meters and a reddish-copper skin tone. He slammed his fist onto the low table in front of him. He was extremely excited. “There’s actually such a thing! Really!”
“This is the reason that humans have been so kind and polite these past few years.”
“Heaven is helping us!”
“Those puny humans have lost that artifact, and so are playing tricks. How can they match us? Killing them is a piece of cake! There’s no time to lose. Organize a force immediately to take down this planet, and get back everything that originally belonged to us!”
Bakedu stood up with an impatient and antic.i.p.atory expression!
The dignity and the face of the Protoss could no longer tolerate a situation where they were equals with those insignificant humans.