Chapter 323: Aftermath

Ma Jia humbly stated that everyone must have thought of it, but as someone in the legal field, he was just more sensitive to these aspects, which was not surprising. He also expressed that he “had not done enough and hoped to better serve the masses and the Transmigration Group in the future.”

“My back is strong, I can carry a heavier burden,” Ma Jia said sincerely.

Xiao Zishan nodded repeatedly, expressing his support for Ma Jia’s aspirations. As for himself, Xiao Zishan felt that with his basic popularity among the masses, it would not be a problem to continue as a member of the Executive Committee. As long as he didn’t stumble on the issue of maid distribution, this caretaker cabinet would have successfully completed its mission, and his future political prospects would be guaranteed.

Wu De and Ma Jia also discussed the promotion of civil adjudication in the civil affairs field, stating that if he were to serve as the People’s Commissar for Civil Affairs in the next term, he would be committed to promoting this system.

That evening, posts about the distribution of maids and the convening of the second general assembly were published on the BBS. To accommodate those who did not go online, related notices were also posted in the dormitory area and at the entrance of the cafeteria.

These two matters sparked heated discussions, both on the BBS and in the dormitories, cafeteria, and café. Wen Desi’s proposal of seven maids per person was surprisingly unpopular—no one had high hopes for the quality of native women at this stage, and no one was interested in keeping a harem of “dinosaurs.” The majority opinion was that one would be enough to solve physiological needs. As for a real harem, that would have to be cultivated slowly by oneself in the future.

However, the concept of a “draft pick” was considered by everyone to be a good reflection of fairness, and this issue sparked a heated discussion. This was followed by a major discussion on the re-education of the current life secretaries and the cultivation of future life secretaries from a young age. The atmosphere was extremely enthusiastic.

In contrast, the discussion about the second general assembly was much more subdued. This important meeting, which concerned the interests of most people, had pitifully few participants.

In the demonstration farm’s café, the lighting was still dim. As usual, every seat was taken. Soft music swirled around, almost imperceptibly. However, a new sign had been hung on the counter: “Please pay for food and drinks first.”

Cheng Mo sat in a corner of the café, in the board game area. To provide leisure and entertainment and reduce the pressure on electricity consumption, the General Office had placed many chess sets, card games, and board games in the café. However, not many people played them. Chess players were mostly quiet, so this area was relatively peaceful. Besides his table, there was only one other table of people playing Warhammer 40K, one of whom was Xi Yazhou, who was about to become the garrison commander of Sanya.

Cheng Mo watched as Xi Yazhou commanded his Daemon Prince to charge with great intensity, as if he himself were one of the four Chaos Gods. He couldn’t help but let out a cold “humph.” The person sitting opposite him said, “What’s wrong? Let’s continue the game.”

“Nothing,” Cheng Mo said, feeling a little anxious. “I just feel uncomfortable.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” the person opposite him smiled slightly. Under the gaslight, it was clear he was not very young, a man of about thirty. “You can’t get fat from one bite. Take it slow.”

“It’s a pity we didn’t seize the opportunity…” Cheng Mo was still unwilling to accept it.

“You seized it pretty well. The only surprise was that Shan Liang jumped out,” the man playing chess said, slowly twirling a pawn in his hand. “He stole most of the limelight…”

“He was impulsive, incited by Ma Jia. That Ma Jia, he’s truly a product of the legal profession,” Cheng Mo said, still a little resentful. “Now he and his gang of cronies are going to rise.”

“This was also expected,” the man playing chess said, moving his pawn across the river. “People in the legal field are experts at politics. Look at the politicians in the United States, almost all of them are lawyers.”

The two played in silence for a while longer. Cheng Mo’s pieces were gradually forced into a corner. He lost his focus and said:

“I wonder what new tricks they’ll pull at this general assembly.”

“They will give everyone many benefits that can be cashed in immediately,” the other person said. “The Executive Committee is going to make a great effort to maintain stability.”

“At least we’ve won a lot of benefits for everyone. It was worth making a fuss,” Cheng Mo said. “But it looks like this batch from the Executive Committee will just change their name and continue to be in power.”

“That’s right. They have the first-mover advantage. They have the foundation, they have the popularity. The re-election is just a formality. They will probably add many new institutions and positions to accommodate the idle personnel.”

“Isn’t that benefit going to Shan Liang? The Executive Committee will definitely try to buy him off.”

“Not necessarily,” the man playing chess said. “Giving Shan Liang a position would be telling everyone to make trouble, that the more trouble you make, the higher your official position will be. The Executive Committee will never do that.”

“So he’s going to be crushed.”

“Even less likely, unless the people in the Executive Committee have tofu for brains.” The man playing chess pushed his pawn. “Check your elephant! Think about it, if Shan Liang, who ‘petitioned for the people,’ is crushed, the masses are not fools. They will rise up in rebellion immediately. The Executive Committee’s power is not yet so great that it can command guns to do anything. So, at most, Shan Liang will have a glass ceiling. He won’t be denied any of the benefits he’s due. The one who’s really going to be crushed is Dugu Qiuhun.”

“He’s bold and reckless enough, actually trying to bring the police force into the city to suppress us.” Cheng Mo thought that if he had really charged in, the situation would have been truly unmanageable.

“With Dugu Qiuhun pulling this stunt, his position as the director of the East Gate Market police station and the commander of the Bairen City outer perimeter security is finished. Commissar Ma is in a very passive position.”

“We should remind everyone: Dugu attempted to use natives to suppress the transmigrators. We should give him a good punishment,” Cheng Mo thought for a moment. “This kind of malicious behavior must be nipped in the bud!”

“You don’t need to remind them, someone will. I think we should appropriately help Dugu Qiuhun in this matter—he was obviously used as a pawn.”

“You’re really soft-hearted,” Cheng Mo said. “But how can we help him? With this crime, it’s hard to even write a defense.”

The man playing chess chuckled. “We are all comrades, not mortal enemies. We still have to work together in the future. Our goal is to make the Transmigration Group more balanced, not a life-and-death struggle between us and the enemy.” He fiddled with his chess piece. “When I said help him, I didn’t mean it that way—Dugu’s crime is unforgivable, and he’s finished. But this matter should end with him. We shouldn’t dig into the roots, look for a background, or expand the scope.”

“Hmm,” Cheng Mo nodded. “Should we bring Shan Liang into our group?”

“No, it’s better for Shan Liang to remain an independent dissident. Doesn’t Ma Jia’s Law Club always cling to the banner of ‘pure academics’? Shan Liang will also cling to the banner of ‘petitioning for the people.’ But we can ‘be friends’ with him.”

“Let me handle this.”

“Good, checkmate!” the man playing chess said, pushing his pawn one step forward.

At this time, in Room 1111 of the Executive Committee compound, several key members of the Law Club were summarizing and organizing the various proposals for distributing maids. At Wen Desi’s suggestion, the members of the Maid Policy Committee were to be from the Law Club.

The proposals were varied, but there were not many new ideas for the distribution itself. Most suggested a lottery or drawing lots. Some proposed a bidding system—all the women would be valued based on their appearance, figure, age, etc., and a base price would be set. Everyone would then bid publicly, and the highest bidder would win. Those unwilling to spend money could take the ones others didn’t want.

Some also proposed that certain posts that were particularly arduous and dangerous should be given priority in choosing. Many others were not interested in having a woman around them at all and favored setting up a “nightclub”: “Get a sauna, a massage, watch naked women dance, and finally get laid.” This was someone’s proposal.

Most of the proposals were actually about how to obtain women. Judging from the proposals, many people were not interested in the women who were most easily available in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions. Some proposed immediately sending people to Suzhou to set up a post to purchase women, whether they were the beauties of Suzhou and Hangzhou, the courtesans of Qinhuai, or the “Slender Horses of Yangzhou.” Some even specified the “Eight Beauties of Qinhuai.”

“That’s hilarious. Don’t you know the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai all had bound feet?” Ma Jia commented. The ancient standard of beauty was too different from the modern one. For example, the few foreign women that everyone in the Transmigration Group coveted were considered incredibly ugly by the Chinese of this time.

Although Wen Desi was the head of the committee, he rarely came here. He would occasionally come to look at the summarized proposals and make a few irrelevant comments. Xiao Zishan, on the other hand, often came to show his “concern,” sometimes bringing “comfort items” like cigarettes and tea, but he did not express any opinions on the specific measures. Thus, the actual implementation power of this committee fell into Ma Jia’s hands.

An Xi proposed that he be responsible for this matter.

“Dean Ma, although this matter concerns the people’s livelihood, it’s not very high-class. If you handle it personally, it might be a bit… a bit…” An Xi couldn’t find the right adjective. “…it might affect your future development.”

“It’s fine. Since this task has been given to our Law Club, we should do our best to handle it well,” Ma Jia said. “This is a test for us. It’s better for me to be personally responsible.” He thought to himself that even Chief Wen wanted to have his name attached to this, which showed that whether it was high-class or not didn’t matter. “Concerning the people’s livelihood” was the most important thing.

As he spoke, he drew out another proposal: someone suggested buying women from Japan or Vietnam. Someone else even proposed to personally go to Europe to buy a batch of Slavic foreign women from the Turks.

“By the time you buy the foreign women and bring them back, the third and fourth maid revolutions will have probably already broken out here,” Ma Jia commented. Even if this half-circumnavigation of the globe to buy women could return to Lingao safely, at least half of the Slavic foreign women on the ship would have died.

Ma Jia wrote down the reason for rejection below. Because a proposal could be passed with only 5% co-sponsorship, many of these clearly fantastical proposals could make it to the ballot. One of the tasks of the Maid Policy Committee was to weed them out.

“You people, all you do all day is KUSO. You don’t know how to use your power properly,” Ma Jia sighed to himself. KUSO seemed to have become a form of political expression for the nerds. The proposer probably didn’t even take his own proposal seriously.

Although it was KUSO, Ma Jia and the others did not dare to be negligent. They still wrote down the reasons for rejecting the proposals one by one and made them public. This was a sensitive period, and it was not impossible that someone would jump out to make trouble. So Ma Jia repeatedly instructed his subordinates that even if a proposal was nonsensical and incoherent, as long as it had 5% co-sponsorship, the reason for rejection must be clearly stated.

As for going to Japan or Vietnam, that was easy to do. However, at this time, Japanese women were short and thin, not at all like the Japanese women in AVs. He had never seen Vietnamese women, but he estimated they were similar to the natives in Guangdong and Guangxi. He thought for a moment and still put this proposal on the ballot. Wen Desi had said to give full play to democracy. Anyway, even if everyone chose this plan, going to Vietnam and Japan would not cost too much—at most, they would just curse AVs for being deceptive afterward.

Ma Jia was busy and dizzy when he suddenly heard an argument in the office. It turned out that several members of the Law Club who were handling the matter were discussing the issue. Ma Jia listened carefully and found that someone was questioning the fairness of this slave purchase intention. The focus was on whether this was fair to female transmigrators and family transmigrators who were unlikely to participate in the distribution of female slaves.

He heard Ji Xin say, “As for this slave purchase intention, there are many unfair aspects: first, there are both men and women among the transmigrators. Since we are using public funds to buy female slaves, should we also use public funds to buy male slaves? Second, there are couples and families among the transmigrators. Since others can enjoy public funds, what about them? Doesn’t this benefit become something that some can enjoy and others cannot?”

“Didn’t they say? Those who want to enjoy it can enjoy it, and those who don’t can give it up,” An Xi said.

“Theoretically, that’s not wrong, but in practice, it’s unfair, especially for women. Although Chief Wen said something about giving them seven strong men, this benefit is essentially purely male-oriented. The so-called equal treatment is meaningless.”

“We can consider compensating with other benefits, such as giving them priority in the distribution of other things in the future,” Dong Shiye said. The long-range survey team had nothing much to do recently and was resting and preparing for the Sanya development. He also enthusiastically participated in the activities of the Maid Policy Committee.

Ma Jia secretly thought that this Ji Xin was quite pedantic. Just as he was about to tell them to stop their rambling discussion, Ji Xin came to him.

“I have a proposal. Do you think it’s appropriate?” Ji Xin then presented his view.

Since distributing maids was a form of welfare, paid for from public funds, to show fairness to transmigrators with families or female transmigrators, it could be distributed in the form of cash subsidies per person—cash instead of in-kind benefits.