Homo Sapiens

Stepping out of the trading hall, the bustling Qingye Square was not far away.

Lai Shengli felt a wave of heat wash over him as he and Ahaxi walked together toward the Yangon Grand Hotel, located over four hundred meters away.

There were very few private cars by the roadside, but buses and taxis were plentiful.

It was currently rush hour, and the streets were crowded.

As Hongsawaddy's largest city, Yangon currently had a population of 8.3 million.

As Lai Shengli and Ahaxi walked, they watched the passing crowds. Nearly one-third of the pedestrians were wearing the work uniforms of the Three Great Groups.

They were very easy to identify. The Qingye Group's logo was a green tea leaf pattern, the Development Group's was a golden gear with two crossed longswords, and the United Group's was a string of emerald green prayer beads with two ears of rice.

'The proportion has gone up again,' Lai Shengli muttered to himself.

He had been working in Yangon for almost a year. When he first arrived, employees of the Three Great Groups accounted for only about one-tenth of Yangon's total population. Now, that proportion had risen to nearly one-third.

It was a clear sign of how terrifyingly fast the Three Great Groups were expanding.

The entire city was now essentially made up of employees of the Three Great Groups and their relatives.

Lai Shengli found this model vaguely familiar, yet he also felt it was not quite right.

Ahaxi, who was from Persia, was also having a hard time adapting to the way society functioned in Hongsawaddy. Here, almost everything was inextricably linked to the Three Great Groups; he couldn't even have a meal without running into them.

The two arrived at the Yangon Grand Hotel, which was a subsidiary of the United Group.

Quite a few people ate here, especially employees of multinational corporations like Lai Shengli and Ahaxi. They almost always dined at the Yangon Grand Hotel.

It wasn't that they were required to eat at the Yangon Grand Hotel. Rather, it was the closest to the trade center, the food was good, and the prices were reasonable.

Just as they entered, Lai Shengli ran into Li Xingchen, the business manager for the Huahai Oil Company. After a brief greeting, Li Xingchen, who seemed particularly warm toward Ahaxi, invited them to dine together.

Inside a private room on the third floor.

They chatted about everything and nothing while waiting for their food to arrive.

Before long, a server came in, pushing a small cart to serve their dishes.

Mindful of Ahaxi's particular dietary needs, Lai Shengli had specifically ordered lamb pilaf, braised beef brisket with tomato, stir-fried beef with kai-lan, cream of mushroom soup, and freshly squeezed juice.

"President Ahaxi, please, help yourself."

"Haha, I won't stand on ceremony with you, Manager Lai." Ahaxi looked at the pilaf before him and suddenly remarked with feeling, "Hongsawaddy's agricultural potential is truly enviable!"

Li Xingchen smiled and shook his head. "President Ahaxi, you may envy Hongsawaddy's agricultural potential, but perhaps they envy Persia's abundant oil and natural gas."

Taking a bite of lamb, Ahaxi knew why Li Xingchen had sought him out. He smiled and asked:

"Manager Li, as for your company's desire to import another batch of natural gas, I have no objections. It's just that our company hopes to import a batch of drones..."

"On that front, I can help make an introduction." Li Xingchen knew the other party would certainly have other requests.

After all, Persia would be using the Hua Yuan as the settlement currency for this transaction. The Hua Yuan was a fiat currency, not as stable in value as the Gold Yuan, so it needed to be spent quickly.

But the Persian side didn't dare make excessive demands, mainly because Persia's current external environment was even worse than Hongsawaddy's.

At least Hongsawaddy, by leveraging its strategic alliances in Southeast Asia and the importance of its new medicine, had made many powers unwilling to offend it at this time.

Persia, on the other hand, was sitting on a mountain of oil and natural gas but had been under long-term sanctions from Europe and America, making its internal situation very unstable.

Ahaxi picked up his glass of fresh juice. "To a pleasant cooperation, then."

Li Xingchen also raised his glass.

The two men clinked their glasses.

"To a pleasant cooperation."

After they had been eating and drinking for a while, Lai Shengli, who was sitting by the floor-to-ceiling window, suddenly saw the heads of the Bunge Company and Cargill Company in Yangon walking across the street. It looked like they were heading to the Yangon Grand Hotel for dinner.

Ahaxi followed his gaze and also saw the figures on the street. He turned his head and asked:

"People from ABCD? Manager Lai, why are you paying attention to that pack of vampires?"

Lai Shengli narrowed his eyes and said meaningfully, "Those guys have been active again recently. I just wonder if the Three Great Groups have noticed."

"They're courting death. The Three Great Groups are not to be trifled with, especially here in Hongsawaddy." Li Xingchen, who knew some inside information, sneered.

Ahaxi, however, just smiled without saying a word. He knew that America, the power behind ABCD, often used such methods to "dye" other regions.

But Hongsawaddy was completely different from other regions.

Ahaxi even felt that Persia wasn't as closed off as Hongsawaddy.

That's right, Ahaxi considered Hongsawaddy to be very closed off.

Persia's isolation was due to external sanctions, which had caused an excessive, defensive reaction internally, forcing it to passively close itself off.

Hongsawaddy's isolation wasn't because of any specific closed-door regulations or restrictions, but rather an invisible barrier formed by the Three Great Groups.

This invisible barrier was the real reason for Hongsawaddy's isolation.

In other places, America could easily find large numbers of local Converts to lead the way, even Converts who brought their own "dog food." By just throwing money around, they could raise a massive fifth column to wave their flags and cheer them on.

But in Hongsawaddy, America's usual playbook wasn't working well.

This was mainly because employees of the Three Great Groups made up 32.3% of Hongsawaddy's total population. If you added the armed security forces, Hongsawaddy's official government agencies, and the like, that proportion would reach about 40%.

In other words, in Hongsawaddy, an average of 4 out of every 10 people were affiliated with the Three Great Groups or the government.

When you included their families, relatives, and close friends, 99% of the people within Hongsawaddy were considered to be part of the Three Great Groups' inner circle.

Less than one percent of the population consisted of the minorly wealthy, prosperous sole proprietors, or employees of multinational corporations.

So how was America supposed to throw its money around?

The Three Great Groups' control over their employees was nearly all-pervasive, and the employees didn't dare betray their companies lightly.

There was a rumor circulating among the common people in Hongsawaddy that went something like this: It's better to provoke Buddha than to provoke the Three Great Groups.

The reason was, naturally, very simple. If you were targeted by the Three Great Groups in Hongsawaddy, it was useless even if you fled into the deep mountains and old forests.

In the past, during the day-to-day management of the Three Great Groups, quite a few employees who were punished or demoted felt the company was too harsh on them, so they resigned.

These people now regretted their decision to death.

Because now, within all of Hongsawaddy, there were no other jobs besides the sufficient positions offered by the Three Great Groups.

Even if they wanted to return to the countryside to farm, it was no longer possible.

Although the Three Great Groups wouldn't just openly seize their land, farming still required irrigation facilities, pesticides, fertilizers, agricultural machinery and tools, seeds, and sales channels, right?

The Three Great Groups could lock you down completely.

Under normal circumstances, the Three Great Groups didn't fire employees. They would only use demotions, fines, exile, imprisonment, or even summary execution. Firing was the one option not on the table.

If you chose to resign, unless you could emigrate, you would find it impossible to get by in Hongsawaddy and would be directly turned into a marginalized, blacklisted vagrant.

Of course, even after becoming a blacklisted vagrant, there was still a chance to change your situation: apply to go to a high-risk development zone and become a pioneer worker.

Usually, as long as you worked honestly in the development zone for five years, the blacklist restriction would be lifted, and you would be accepted back by the Three Great Groups.

With the Three Great Groups' tight control system, America might be able to buy off a few dozen people in Hongsawaddy, but once the number exceeded a hundred, the probability of being exposed was nearly one hundred percent.

It was precisely because Ahaxi understood some of these circumstances that he felt Hongsawaddy was extremely closed off and difficult to infiltrate.