Chapter 1622: The Red One Inspection Team Residing at the Ninth Center

After Territory Two was merged into the Ninth Planting Center, the cultivated area of what was already the largest planting center under Hui Three expanded to 6,660 mu, and this year's land reclamation quota for the center increased from 1,000 mu to 1,400 mu.

This quota was no casual figure—it was signed onto the responsibility document by the director of the Ninth Center, Xia Qing. If the target isn't met by year's end, the Agriculture Department will dock the Ninth Center's employee benefits, and the staff will have no choice but to fall back on a survival mode of stuffing their bellies with compressed rations.

In early February, temperatures will shoot up thirty degrees in a hurry, so the task of clearing land and building greenhouses has to start immediately.

To complete the task, the Ninth Center needs to recruit 188 new employees. Several hundred applicants, divided into three batches, have been making their way from the Safe Zone to take part in the onboarding selection; those hired will report for duty before January 25 and officially start work after five days of concentrated onboarding training.

Today's batch is the first group of applicants, and Ninth Center director Xia Qing needs to sit in on the interviews for mid-level managers and technical staff.

Xia Qing entered the office, and every staff member inside who could stand up did so to greet her; those who couldn't stand due to physical disabilities still gave her an eye-salute and chimed in with the greeting, their voices so loud you'd think they were lining up for a parade review rather than working.

The employees, who had spent the whole noon watching top-tier sniper videos, could barely contain their excitement at the sight of their director.

Xia Qing nodded, walked over, and sat down in the centermost chair. She hadn't even taken off her protective mask—her presence alone filled the room, and the staff were so thrilled they were screaming inside.

Only Yue Haiying, seated to her left, and Zhang Song, seated to her right, knew why Xia Qing hadn't removed her protective mask.

Yue Haiying straightened up in his seat and gave the order, "Begin."

"Yes!" An HR staff member did an about-face, marched to the door in goose step, and called out loudly, "Number One!"

"Here—"

Because of the cold weather, a loud reply came from the applicants waiting in the warehouse; Applicant Number One stepped out of formation and ran toward the office.

She leaned her upper body forward, arms pressed tight against her waist and swinging powerfully front to back, fists turned inward. Her stride was precise, her footfalls steady, every push off the ground gathering the strength of her whole body. Reaching the office door, her steps suddenly grew heavier and slower; she adjusted crisply in the last two strides, then brought her heels together and raised her left arm in a salute. The whole sequence was swift as the wind yet without a trace of fluster—every detail radiated iron discipline and solemnity.

"Number One, Xu Youqin, reporting for the interview." In the eleventh year of the Calamity's killing snow, Xu Youqin had led a team on a mission; her right forearm was corroded by an advanced evolved fungus, forcing amputation and her retirement from service.

Xia Qing, sitting ramrod-straight, nodded. "Begin."

Yue Haiying handled the applicants' basic background questions, the head of the hiring department asked about their professional competence, and Zhang Song was in charge of the psychological fitness assessment.

Xia Qing? She sat in the middle holding down the room—and kept a constant eye on her phone.

It was the weekend, and quite a few off-duty employees and their families had come to watch from a distance. Wang Jun, a Class-B magnetic-sense Evolver who was off duty today, had also brought his son Wang Shunkang, a Class-C magnetic-sense Evolver, and the two of them were mixed in among the crowd.

Having been at the Ninth Center for half a year, Wang Shunkang—now half a head taller—used his ability to screen the applicants; whenever he detected a problem with someone's magnetic field, he passed that applicant's number to his father in a code only the two of them understood.

Once Wang Jun received his son's signal, he sent the number to Xia Qing. Upon getting the message, Xia Qing would tick "Disagree" on that applicant's hiring form, ensuring no destabilizing element made it into the Ninth Center.

Only thirteen applicants needed to be interviewed by Xia Qing and Zhang Song; two hours later, the two of them had wrapped up the day's tasks and left the office.

Xia Qing asked the talent-assessment specialist she had borrowed from Territory Seven, "Song Ge, shall I drive you back?"

Zhang Song of course wanted to spend more time with Xia Qing. "Sure, thanks, Qing-jie. Could you drive the car over to the new employee dormitory first and give me ten minutes? I need to finalize the itinerary with the Red One inspection team."

Xia Qing nodded. "Sure, no rush."

Zhang Song certainly knew why Xia Qing wasn't in a hurry, but he was—desperate to chase this lot off so he could then tag along with Xia Qing to continue inspecting the wolf packs, monkey packs, bear packs, and tiger packs in the Evolution Forest…

For the convenience of the employees' meals and rest, the new dormitory building was put up right next to the existing dormitory and the cafeteria. The building materials used included new bricks hauled in from the Safe Zone, locally sourced stone bricks, and usable materials recovered from the ruins of a town south of Territory One in the northern sector.

That stretch of town ruins was too far from the Safe Zone; aside from the recyclable metal building materials that had been carted off, the bricks, tiles, and old furniture were all still there. What the Safe Zone construction effort lacked wasn't these things—it was land and food.

The wall materials were old, but the rebar was new and the cement was a new formulation, ensuring a solid structure that resisted insects and fungi. In a Calamity year, to have a house that felt this safe, the vast majority of people would count themselves satisfied.

But the inspection team living in the inner city of the Red One Safe Zone was not among that vast majority.

Zhang Song, deputy director of the P3 Laboratory in Territory Seven, had come over personally to look after this group's meals and lodging, learn their needs, and arrange their itinerary—only to be met not with gratitude but with the lofty, condescending displeasure unique to senior intellectuals.

The Red One team leader, Yao Yuanxing, asked mildly, "Could we not start tomorrow? We'd like to wrap up the inspection and exchange and return to the Red One base as soon as possible, because several members of our team are leading national-level major research projects; if we delay too long, we won't be able to meet the year-end project milestones."

If that's the case, why did you lot come over early in the first place?

Zhang Song's tone was even milder than Yao Yuanxing's, yet it carried the piercing quality of a criminal interrogation: "Team Leader Yao, genuine mission pressure gives rise to efficient solutions, not pressure tactics. Using an absolute formulation like 'must meet the requirement before year-end' to probe the disclosure boundaries and security permissions of our institute's core information looks more like a territorial declaration laying groundwork for intelligence-gathering advantage than a request for cooperation. Shall I go on and analyze the source of the anxiety behind this kind of bottom-line presupposition of yours?"

Meeting Zhang Song for the first time, Yao Yuanxing was caught off guard by this off-script move.

Seeing Yao Yuanxing on the back foot, Han Yanqian's mentor Hu Guangdong spoke up mildly, "Professor Song, don't make things hard for Xiao Yao—he's only following orders. If your institute's research schedule is too tight to spare the time and personnel to accompany us, could we conduct an independent investigation? Rest assured, Professor Song, we will abide by all relevant regulations, and our group's personal and property safety won't be your institute's responsibility."

"Professor Hu must be aware that 'independent investigation' has another name: 'unauthorized probe.' As for not needing us to take responsibility—" Zhang Song stared straight into Hu Guangdong's eyes and slowed his pace of speech even further, "in criminal-investigation case files, that's usually the opening line of an accident report."

Hu Guangdong let out a laugh; Yao Yuanxing lowered his eyes.

After pinning down these two ringleaders, Zhang Song pushed his glasses up by the temple and adopted an even more sincere manner. "What we have here isn't an inner-city Safe Zone guarded by heavy troops—it's a territory on the edge of the Evolution Forest, and the experimental zone is pure, untouched Evolution Forest. As the person in charge on the hosting side, my duty is to ensure the exchange proceeds within a framework of absolute safety and compliance. Therefore, every part of the itinerary must follow the schedule we have already set and risk-assessed. This is for your team's safety, and also to keep any unnecessary misunderstandings between us to a minimum. In Calamity years, working online has become the norm; if your team hasn't brought enough equipment, you can apply to the Ninth Center to lease office equipment."

Hu Guangdong asked, "Could we lease equipment from your institute instead?"

Zhang Song sighed. "I'm ashamed to say, we're just a private research institute located inside a territory—no future, wallowing in our own decline. Our research funding is tight, and our office conditions are honestly limited."

Hu Guangdong…why does that line sound so familiar?