Chapter 142: First Round Screening, Bidding for Construction!

The Western inspectors who had already recognized the situation would naturally not actively provoke him.Even though everyone knew perfectly well that as long as Cheng Ye was allowed to develop step by step, he would sooner or later become another mainstay of the Eastern faction, and might even participate in the power distribution of the inspection station but compared to the distant "future," they cared more about immediate gains and losses.

Going to provoke Cheng Ye now would inevitably make them a target of public criticism, attracting fire for nothing.

Even factional fanatics had to carefully weigh input versus returns before daring to make such a decision where risks far outweighed rewards but Garcia was different.

The grudge between the two had almost no possibility of reconciliation, and more importantly, the Westerners internally also needed a "representative" to check and balance the Eastern rising star.

Rather than having everyone exposed to the Easterners' sight, it was better to push forward someone who had already formed enmity with Cheng Ye. This served both factional interests and could transform internal contradictions into external confrontation.

With various factors interweaving, even if Garcia wanted to retreat now, the Western inspectors wouldn't allow it.

"Heh, interesting. The wound hasn't even healed yet and he's eager to come contracting."

Cheng Ye stared for a while. Garcia was obviously limping with his left leg while walking, and the outline of bandages could faintly be seen under his trouser leg.

Moreover, his overall spirit seemed mediocre, like a college student forced to return to school after a long vacation, his eyes carrying some dazed sluggishness from not being fully awake, even somewhat detached.

"This contracting concerns the power distribution of the inspection station after the satellite city is completed," Lee Matteo pondered, continuing to share gossip he'd gathered from who knows where.

"By then the three main stations will be downsized. North and South Stations will have to change to single-person duty mode in the future. The current 4-person duty will be cut, and Central Station will also be reduced to 6-person staffing. The three stations combined will only need 14 inspectors to operate."

"The first satellite city near the buffer zone is planned to accommodate 200,000 people. This is jointly constructed by various inner city departments, personally led by Station Chief Harlin. Once completed, it will have a mini inspection station with just two passages, one for vehicles and one for pedestrians, manageable by just two inspectors."

"The satellite cities further out are what we get to contract. Currently, 24 are planned in total, each built to accommodate 30,000 people. Calculated by teams of two, that would require at most 48 inspectors. But think about it, how could they possibly launch so many at once in the early stage? Being able to start half would be good."

Lee Matteo smacked his lips, "So this competition matters at every round, can't miss any."

"According to this, of the 80 inspectors currently present, the first round needs to filter out at least 32 people?" Cheng Ye quickly calculated mentally, his tone carrying some gravity.

"Mm, that number's right," Lee Matteo nodded.

Nearly half the people, this competition was quite fierce indeed.

Cheng Ye thought silently.

In fact, given Happiness City's current strength, planning 24 satellite cities was completely beyond capacity.

No matter how abundant the building material reserves, it would be absolutely impossible to simultaneously support construction of one 200,000-person core satellite city plus 24 secondary satellite cities of 30,000 each.

However, since Ding Yishan dared to issue such directives, there must be deeper considerations behind it.

Was it the result of negotiations between various inner city departments?

Or perhaps...

A guess flashed through Cheng Ye's mind. If they just wanted to distribute materials evenly for building houses, there would be no need for inspectors to personally lead teams. The Works Department could simply arrange workers to construct according to blueprints.

Since they specifically wanted inspectors to participate, there must be "operational space" involved.

Could it be that they wanted the 24 satellite cities to compete?

Using this method to force construction progress, making each contracting group compete with each other in resources, efficiency, and results, ultimately filtering out the optimal development model?

Cheng Ye's thoughts gradually became clear, but the final answer still depended on the content of this round of assessment.

Before long, with nearly half an hour still remaining before the 9 o'clock meeting, all inspectors had already arrived.

Seeing this, Ding Yishan no longer hesitated. He first signaled staff to distribute thick material booklets, then raised his hand to signal Harlin to begin the meeting.

"The fourth inspector general meeting of Happiness City Inspection Station in New Era Year 35 is now officially convened!"

Harlin stood up, his voice clear and steady, "This general meeting focuses mainly on outer city construction. I will now relay the core points of Happiness City's outer city plan to everyone again."

"1. Purpose of the outer city plan: According to statistics, the number of migrants about to relocate to Happiness City has reached 760,000, with a daily average increase of 12,000 people, and the growth trend continues. According to supercomputer calculations, an estimated 1.17 million migrants will ultimately be included in Happiness City's resident population. This scale has far exceeded the buffer zone's carrying capacity. To ensure orderly migrant settlement work, we have decided to immediately launch the outer city plan to ensure proper placement of relevant personnel."

"2. Why the outer city plan requires inspector participation: This outer city plan was specially applied for by Station Chief Ding to higher authorities and is an important opportunity to test the practical capabilities of the inspector force. If the project can be smoothly implemented, it will break through the inspection station's current activity range limitations, laying the foundation for subsequent construction of satellite city inspection stations at all levels, thereby promoting expansion of the inspector force to 200 people. The 50 additional positions will be filled by selecting the best from existing inspectors' descendants according to regulations, to ensure continuity and stability of force construction."

"3. Significance of the outer city plan for Happiness City: Advancing the outer city plan is a key measure for Happiness City to optimize spatial layout and enhance carrying capacity. Through orderly settlement of new residents, it can effectively alleviate resource constraints in existing urban areas..."

"4. Impact of the outer city plan on surrounding areas: It will form a radiation circle centered on Happiness City, driving reuse of resources in surrounding abandoned areas, while further compressing infected entities' activity space through the satellite cities' defense systems, reducing threats to the main city."

"5. Core difficulties of the outer city plan: Material allocation and transportation safety, public security management after migrant settlement, resource balance between different satellite cities, emergency response to sudden infected entity attacks..."

"6. Participants in the outer city plan: Led by the inspection station..."

"7. Phase division of the outer city plan:"

"..."

A simple contracting plan, when implemented in practice, would become lengthy regulations and systems.

From an overall perspective, all the planning details Cheng Ye had provided accounted for roughly only 15% of the complete proposal.

The remaining 85% was all completed by decision-makers from Happiness City and the inspection station working around the clock for four days.

This involved not only comprehensive reward and punishment mechanisms, but also outlined the inspection station's future development path.

As Harlin read through each item, his voice echoing in the conference hall, Cheng Ye not only didn't find it boring, but occasionally nodded in approval because he understood that these weren't bureaucratic literature meant to fool leaders or the public.

But action guidelines that would immediately be implemented, each item relating to the survival of over a million people, tolerating no superficiality.

The two points that caught his attention most were items 17 and 32, which almost directly determined the contracting logic.

Item 17 concerned personnel affiliation in satellite city construction. The inspection station's answer was "recruitment system."

This meant inspectors couldn't passively wait for assignments, but had to personally enter migrant groups, using their construction concepts and planning blueprints to attract migrants to join.

Of course, to ensure basic operations, all inspectors qualifying for contracting would first receive an initial quota of 200 people. These were carefully selected from the buffer zone, mostly brave young adults willing to venture out, naturally carrying a spirit of "outward expansion."

But subsequent personnel expansion would depend entirely on the inspector's appeal: whether they could unite hearts with vision or win trust through achievements directly determined the satellite city's development speed and population scale.

Item 32 concerned resource allocation during construction. Resource allocation indeed didn't follow the old path of egalitarianism, but adopted an elaborate balanced exchange system:

The core indicator was 'settlement numbers.'

For each migrant successfully settled, the contracting group would receive corresponding points, which could be directly exchanged for construction materials, production resources, or even additional nutritional paste, defense facilities, and weapon equipment.

The key variable was the 'public satisfaction coefficient.'

The inspection station would arrange undercover investigations. If inspectors blindly expanded recruitment to earn points while ignoring migrants' basic living guarantees (such as housing, food, safety), and satisfaction plummeted, the coefficient could drop to as low as 0.5, severely discounting the actual resources obtained.

Below 0.5, the inspection station would initiate elimination mechanisms, eliminating that inspector and imposing punishments like term reduction and blocking qualification accumulation, ensuring no one would act recklessly for achievements.

If numbers were small but settlement quality was high, such as stable order and good construction progress, the coefficient could rise to 1.5 or even higher.

This would ultimately form a virtuous cycle of small-scale high-quality → high coefficient → more resources → steady expansion.

Corresponding to the personnel mechanism, each contracting group would receive 100 basic points.

Although it wasn't clear how much material this could exchange for yet, it should be enough to support initial needs for 500 people.

"These details should only be known after obtaining contracting qualifications..."

"Interesting, it's really like playing a management simulation game, requiring comprehensive development planning."

Cheng Ye held his pen, the tip sliding rapidly across his notebook, occasionally recording key points from Harlin's speech.

Especially those regulations that went beyond the paper materials, with additional interpretations he provided.

Cheng Ye had a vague feeling that whether he could obtain contracting qualifications might depend on these seemingly casual supplementary explanations.

Lee Matteo also put away his usual playful demeanor, seriously taking notes with a grave expression, though he couldn't help commenting at the end, "This is treating us like waiters, having to both bring in customers and serve them well before getting paid."

"Waiters don't have the power to decide customers' life and death."

Cheng Ye calmly refuted, and Lee Matteo's expression changed slightly. He opened his mouth but ultimately said nothing more.

Clearly, there were still certain differences in their concepts.

Lee Matteo focused more on the contracting task itself, looking at rewards after completion.

But he hadn't realized one thing: from the moment contracting began, inspectors would already wield unimaginable power.

This power directly determined the satellite city's construction direction, development philosophy, and even migrants' quality of life, while subtly cultivating the inspector's own influence.

As he pondered, a young voice beside him spoke up, "Inspector Cheng, I'm Little Zhang from Internal Affairs. This is your exclusive material, please don't share with others."

The young man wore glasses, had delicate features, and exuded scholarly air.

He placed a manila envelope on Cheng Ye's desk, adding, "After reading the materials, you can raise your hand to request the test questions."

Each inspector had a staff member beside them, ostensibly for service but more like exam proctors.

Little Zhang continued explaining the rules, "During the answering process, you may request assistance from no more than three external personnel, but you're forbidden from revealing test content and can only inquire about specific problem points."

"Everyone's materials and test questions are different?" Cheng Ye asked curiously.

"Yes."

Little Zhang nodded, "The materials are generated by the supercomputer based on your duty records at the inspection station, personal living habits, personality assessments, and other data, so everyone's materials have targeted differences. As for the test questions... you should understand after reading the materials."

Cheng Ye nodded slightly and opened the envelope. Inside was a neatly bound stack of documents.

The first page prominently displayed his name, with a pentagram rating chart below marking various values.

[Cheng Ye]

[Order: 5 points (Still has obvious shortcomings, needs to strengthen control over rule enforcement and situation stability)]

[Management: 16 points (Possesses basic coordination and personnel deployment abilities)]

[Construction: 5 points (Still has obvious shortcomings, no actual past records available for reference)]

[Cooperation: 41 points (Outstanding cooperative ability, can efficiently coordinate various forces for work collaboration)]

[Resilience: 29 points (Possesses good response and recovery abilities when facing emergencies and pressure)]

"What's the maximum score?" Cheng Ye turned to Little Zhang beside him, his fingertip lightly tapping the glaring 5s for Order and Construction.

Little Zhang's smile froze for a moment, then returned to professional calm as he honestly answered, "Inspector Cheng, the maximum for each category is 100 points."

"100?"

Cheng Ye raised his eyebrows in astonishment.

Well, his numbers were really quite low. Among the five dimensions, not one could reach the passing line.

Especially Construction and Order, both with 5 points?

The Construction category was understandable since he'd never participated in field construction and had no past records for reference.

But Order with 5 points...

Cheng Ye flipped to the back of the rating chart and found even more detailed ranking data:

[Rankings: 67, 64, 78, 35, 57]

[Overall Ranking: 62]

[Rankings may overlap, overlaps counted as same rank]

[Only ranks inspectors qualified for contracting construction, this data doesn't participate in subsequent evaluations, only used for material generation]

"So there are 13 other people like me with only 5 points in Order?"

Cheng Ye was immediately amused.

Among the 80 people present, he was the only trainee inspector, yet unexpectedly some first or even second-term inspectors were tied with him in this category.

Well, it seemed Order didn't entirely represent force, but more likely related to tough enforcement style during duty, determination in rule execution, etc.

After all, he was always accustomed to resolving conflicts peacefully rather than directly applying regulatory pressure.

Setting this aside for now, the overall ranking was worth noting.

Among 80 people, just based on these surface factors alone, he wasn't ranked last but led a full 18 people.

This starting advantage was much better than expected.

Cheng Ye continued reading the materials. The content wasn't complex, mostly detailed introductions to terrain and abandoned villages around Happiness City, with quite a bit of "additional content" that Harlin hadn't mentioned earlier.

For example, Dapo Town where Zhang Xiaofan had discovered Baishui Grass, located 60 kilometers from the buffer zone. If chosen for satellite city construction, they could receive an additional small mobile transport team plus construction resource preference.

Another example was Broken Stone Village near Linjiang, which had an abandoned cement factory. Happiness City would assist in reopening the production line, allowing the satellite city to directly utilize the abandoned production facilities and provide certain job opportunities.

Of the over 300 pages of materials, these advantageous terrain introductions occupied nearly half.

The supercomputer had also filtered suitable areas based on his personal data: decent cooperation ability led to recommendations for locations requiring frequent coordination with logistics and transport departments; good resilience resulted in listings for several environmentally harsh but high-potential options.

"No wonder the materials can't be shared," Cheng Ye had a sudden realization. "If others knew the material content, they could judge the popularity of certain terrains and even reverse-engineer the supercomputer's assessment of each person. Well, if that's the case, then the upcoming test questions are..."

"Bidding?"

Cheng Ye was quite familiar with this.

Although he hadn't had time to start working before crossing over, under his graduate advisor's "help," as a civil engineering prodigy, he had still participated in quite a few projects without pay.

From municipal engineering to park planning, he was already thoroughly familiar with proposal logic and bidding strategies.

There were only so many advantageous locations, and open selection would inevitably lead to fierce competition. Using this kind of secret bidding method that prohibited communication could exactly ensure fairness.

While choosing disadvantageous terrain might have less competition, it could be ranked at the end of the construction sequence or even become a backup option due to excessive initial investment and high risks, ultimately coming to nothing.

The real purpose of this material was to help inspectors accurately position their own advantages and avoid blind following.

As for whether he could ultimately pass the screening, Cheng Ye already had a good idea.

If this were the final round, this proposal would directly determine the contracting area and subsequent planning but now, it would most likely just filter out some brainless people and generate the second set of questions based on proposal content.

In other words, if this step wasn't handled well, every subsequent step would face massive troubles!