Chapter 143: Abandoned Hydroelectric Station, Planning Dapo Town!

After clarifying his thoughts and reviewing the materials again, Cheng Ye's objectives became crystal clear.Since this was only the first round of screening and not the final site selection, there was no need to rush into focusing on those unconventional special terrains to stand out as an anomaly.

Even though in his view, certain overlooked areas could have potential that wouldn't necessarily lose to popular locations if utilized properly but the core of the first few screening rounds was obviously to assess whether an inspector's comprehensive concepts aligned with reality and whether their knowledge reserves were solid.

Those "ingenious ideas" applied to special terrains lacked case study support and might not gain recognition from the evaluation team. Instead, they could be penalized for deviating from conventions.

So the optimal solution was to choose a location that wasn't too popular or too obscure, yet could precisely showcase his own advantages.

Cheng Ye's fingertip slid quickly across the materials, first crossing out the first batch of invalid options, all locations more than sixty kilometers from Happiness City.

The reasoning was simple. Early construction material transportation relied on mobile units, but with the current frequent rainfall, heavy downpours could wash away temporary roads at any time, delaying transportation cycles, not to mention possible infected entity attacks along the way.

Once the distance was too far, logistics losses alone could drag down initial construction.

More critically was the water and electrical grid network. Being far from the main city meant building power and water supply systems from scratch, which would not only require additional massive resource investment but would exponentially increase the difficulty of settling migrants.

For someone like him who lacked hands-on construction experience, this would undoubtedly be setting up obstacles for himself.

Next, he crossed out areas more than sixty kilometers from the industrial district.

The same logic applied. Most building materials and equipment needed to be allocated from the industrial district. Close meant high transportation efficiency and low costs, while distant locations could cause project delays due to delivery issues.

Using Happiness City and the industrial district as centers, drawing sixty-kilometer circles around each, the intersection area of the two circles immediately stood out.

Cheng Ye traced the boundary with his pen tip, counting thirteen locations that met the criteria, more abundant than expected.

The most prominent was a county-level old-era county seat.

Wenlu County.

The materials showed this had once been a battlefield for transcendent conflicts, so most buildings inside had collapsed, with only a few residential building frames still standing in the ruins, plus scattered shops on the city outskirts maintaining relatively intact forms.

Worth mentioning was that the underground water supply and sewage networks of the county seat might still exist, but reactivating them would inevitably require massive resources for repairs. Just clearing the sediment and damage inside the pipes could exhaust the initial material allocation.

This was also why Happiness City had never moved to occupy this place. After all, even the buffer zone's pipelines had problems every few days, and no one wanted to gamble on this kind of "infrastructure black hole."

Additionally, there were two former county-level towns, Changshui Town and Yunshui Town (both with permanent populations exceeding 100,000), plus one town-level village, Dapo Town (approximately 30,000 people).

What caught Cheng Ye's attention was that Dapo Town had a small hydroelectric station. Although the turbines had long been dismantled, the dam structure was intact. It must have been built to century-long engineering standards back then, with no corners cut.

If equipment could be reinstalled, it would be sufficient to support the initial power needs of the entire satellite city.

Even better, the reservoir formed by the dam had water quality that met standards, solving both drinking water and irrigation problems, practically a natural "double insurance."

Of course, there was also a fatal reason why Dapo Town had become an abandoned ruin that no one cared about.

The water system here connected to the Linjiang River. When Linjiang flooded, Dapo Town would become a marsh.

After each flood, mutated plant seeds would be carried by water currents and take root.

So occasionally going there, one could find germinated mutated plants that had taken root, like the four Baishui Grass specimens that Zhang Xiaofan had brought, which came from there.

Finally, there were eight large surrounding villages.

The residential buildings in these villages were mostly still intact and could barely accommodate people for initial habitation.

But choosing here meant taking the "demolition and reconstruction" route, first leveling existing houses, then rebuilding according to plans, essentially adding an extra procedure for oneself. This was suitable for experienced, time-abundant territorial occupation, not the current stage that needed rapid settlement results.

Of course, the materials also noted at the end that inspectors could also select terrain for construction from scratch but Cheng Ye completely ignored this option. Even if he really wanted to choose such a place, he would need to obtain contracting qualifications first, then apply specifically to the inspection station.

Writing "I want to build skyscrapers on flat ground" now would probably get him screened out in the first round.

"Which place to choose?"

After pondering for a moment, Cheng Ye decided to use his three off-site consultation opportunities.

This mechanism was somewhat like the "help segment" in talent shows he'd watched before his transmigration. On the surface it assisted decision-making, but in reality it tested inspectors' judgment, experience, and network breadth.

"Little Zhang, I need to make a phone call."

"Certainly." Little Zhang responded respectfully, "You just need to specify the consultation target and question, and we'll relay it and record the answer."

Can't make the call personally?

Cheng Ye was stunned for a moment, then understood. The design of this round of testing was indeed clever.

If making calls personally, one could completely have the other party help with indirect inquiries, effectively breaking through the three-time limit but with staff relaying, one question corresponded to one answer, with absolutely no possibility of exploiting loopholes.

"Good, the first call, please contact Engineer Liu from the Works Department."

Cheng Ye said thoughtfully, "Ask him about the current status of Dapo Town's Baishui Dam, whether the dam structure can still operate. If not, what are the resource requirements and technical thresholds for repairs? Please have him explain using professional terminology."

"Yes!"

Little Zhang picked up the defense communicator and gave quiet instructions, never asking who Engineer Liu was throughout. Obviously, the inspection station already had dedicated personnel responsible for liaising with various departments to ensure consultation channels remained open.

About ten minutes later, a white paper filled with writing was delivered by staff into the meeting hall and placed in front of Cheng Ye.

By this time, quite a few people in the hall had begun seeking outside help, with white papers constantly being passed back and forth, making the atmosphere more tense than before.

Seeing that Cheng Ye, a trainee inspector, had also successfully received a reply, many inspectors cast covert glances, obviously not expecting that after such a short time on duty, he already had connections he could reach in the buffer zone.

"This really is serious, I never experienced this kind of scene even during school exams."

Cheng Ye unfolded the paper, which contained over five hundred words.

Engineer Liu indeed hadn't used layman's terms, using engineering terminology throughout.

"According to the 12th round basic survey of New Era Year 33, the concrete grade of Baishui Dam structure is relatively low (C25). After long-term exposure to natural environments, the carbonation depth test value is 3.2cm, exceeding the safety threshold by 1.1cm, requiring surface carbonation treatment. The spillway gate hoist corrosion degree is 78%, requiring complete gearbox replacement. There are 3 cracks in the water conveyance tunnel, with maximum width 0.8mm, requiring grouting sealing..."

The end also included a summary: "To repair to operational condition requires 80 cubic meters of C30 concrete, 12 tons of steel reinforcement, 1 hydraulic hoist. Recommend deploying 2 structural engineers plus 15 skilled technicians, estimated construction period 15 days."

If this information were given to laypeople, they definitely couldn't analyze the degree of Baishui Dam's damage and could only gauge difficulty from the final recommendations but falling into Cheng Ye's view, it gave him confidence.


Village-level hydroelectric stations were mostly built in the late 20th century, around the millennium, about a century ago.

Initially built as supplements to the overall power grid, they later became contracted industry projects due to rapid infrastructure development.

They belonged to high one-time investment, low return rate, long payback period quality investment projects but concrete carbonation was an irreversible natural process. Even with good maintenance after private contracting, carbonation depth would slowly increase over time.

Regular concrete in natural environments had annual carbonation depth of about 0.1-0.3cm. One hundred years of accumulated carbonation reaching 3.2cm indicated the dam structure was either in a dry, low-pollution environment, or had received regular simple maintenance over the years.

"There are maintenance traces, and repair is possible."

Cheng Ye's thoughts flowed rapidly, "It seems Happiness City had considered this before but shelved it due to high resource consumption and low return rates."

This precisely indicated Dapo Town was a potential stock. The hydroelectric problem could be solved by repairing old facilities, saving at least 70% of resources compared to building from scratch.

Of course, Engineer Liu's information was about "repairing to operational condition." This would definitely not work by modern standards and couldn't pass even the most basic data inspections.

But in the wasteland, this wasn't a problem. Safety redundancies from modern standards were luxuries here. Wanting to repair old-era inherited facilities to perfection was no less difficult than rebuilding.

Of course, a bold idea flashed through Cheng Ye's mind. Perhaps he could use action points to accelerate repairs?

But this would have to wait until obtaining contracting qualifications for personal experimentation, plus figuring out how to explain abnormal progress to construction crews. For now, he could only set this aside.

"Choose Dapo Town, both water and electricity can be resolved. Only transportation routes remain."

Cheng Ye's finger slid quickly across the map, rapidly connecting scattered information heard from scavengers, sketching a route map from Happiness City to Dapo Town in his mind.

Among the 80 inspectors present, he was the only trainee who had never left the outer city, relying only on secondhand information and maps to imagine road conditions.

This was a disadvantage, but also an advantage.

He had no subjective experience interfering with judgment and would only use the most objective data like distance, terrain, and obstacle points to assess transportation difficulty.

When the supercomputer verified solutions, it would inevitably also use pure data models.

His idealized analysis might actually stand out in supercomputer evaluation.

"Little Zhang, second call, please contact Elder Song from Tianyuan Community in buffer zone B-7, and ask him about the difficulty of traveling from Happiness City to Dapo Town, viewing it from a pioneering perspective."

"Yes." Little Zhang quickly recorded and turned to relay instructions.

This wait was particularly long. About fifteen minutes later, a staff member came carrying a thick stack of papers.

Unlike the previous single-page replies, this time there were actually over ten pages, neatly bound, particularly conspicuous among the other thin reply papers.

The inspector sitting by the door couldn't help but look up in surprise, thinking some high-term inspector had used heavyweight connections to obtain such detailed materials.

Only when the papers were delivered to Cheng Ye did glances throughout the hall carry some amazement.

Even Ding Yishan cast an imperceptible glance, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly in what seemed like approval but Cheng Ye had no attention for any of this at the moment. After reviewing the information obtained, only one thought remained in his mind:

Having an elder in the family is truly like having a treasure!

Elder Song had survived from the old era to now, struggling through countless life-and-death situations. His experience was indeed unfathomable.

Not only had he understood the subtext of Cheng Ye's words (not looking at paper data, only discussing actual risks), he had also mobilized the collective wisdom of veteran pioneering legion members within the community, providing a reply that could be called a living map plus survival manual.

The first few pages were route breakdowns, detailed to the risk level of each road segment:

Traveling along the old provincial highway after leaving the city was the optimal choice. This was the main route that Happiness City had invested in maintaining, managed by the Hundred Ghosts Gang, with smooth road surfaces suitable for convoy transportation, directly reaching Dapo Town's outskirts, but the final 20 kilometers required switching to county roads.

County roads were the first hurdle, with multiple road surface collapses, frequent appearances of infected entities and mutated beasts, especially the road segments near the county ruins that Cheng Ye had circled, namely the "Wenlu County" ruins, where infected entities often wandered and mutated beasts attacked humans in groups.

The final 7 kilometers of rural roads were even more troublesome, all dirt roads that would inevitably become muddy and impassable in rainy weather.

Add to this that if Linjiang River flooded, this section would definitely be submerged, making even boat travel difficult then.

The middle pages marked high-risk points along the route.

Wenlu County ruins were the primary threat, having once been an old-era county seat, now become a nest of infection sources.

Despite Happiness City's large-scale multi-year sweeping efforts, infection sources still continuously emerged.

The underwater areas of Linjiang tributaries harbored another layer of risk. Infection sources gathered from the main river channel mostly lurked underwater, especially during flood season, easily ambushing human settlements near waterways.

Even more delightful were the later pages, which completely marked the specific conditions inside Dapo Town, details not even mentioned in the materials Cheng Ye had.

For example, the "Jiajiale Supermarket" at the west end of town had intact overall structure with undamaged load-bearing walls. After cleaning, it could accommodate at least 500 people for short-term residence.

Also, the office building in the town center, though damaged, had a solid framework. After repairs it could serve as temporary office space, and even the water tower on the roof could be restored for use.

The abandoned grain station at the east end of town had underground warehouses with excellent moisture-proofing, suitable for storing supplies...

All this information was annotated with specific times, the earliest from April this year, the latest from just two days ago.

Obviously, although Tianyuan Community residents didn't venture out, they had never cut off channels for obtaining outside information.

Either obtained from some scavenger's account, or from coworker chatter during work.

This information might normally have little use, but when Cheng Ye inquired now, it immediately gained precious value.

On the last page, Elder Song had also noted the types of infection sources that might be encountered along the route, but perhaps considering Cheng Ye's inspector status, this section was written very vaguely without detailed descriptions of characteristics, probably to avoid "showing off ax skills before Guan Gong" in Cheng Ye's professional domain.

"Not bad, the tricky point now is probably the flood threat."

The more Cheng Ye read, the more confident he became, not intimidated by the dangers in the information.

It was meaningless.

Outside Happiness City, the wilderness was full of dangerous places everywhere.

Those elusive infection sources weren't like zombies that could be seen and shot from far away. Many were carried by mutated organisms, exchanged through water systems, or even formed through natural induction.

Like the current Void Mist, no one could say clearly how many new infection sources this round had brought to Shi Province.

So choosing locations for safety was itself the biggest misconception.

What should be considered more was how difficult it was to prevent these dangers.

"Wenlu County will definitely have inspectors choosing it, no surprise. This is the largest county seat between Happiness City and the industrial district. By all rights and reasons it should be rebuilt as a resource transfer station, with value even greater than satellite cities in front of the buffer zone."

"So I don't need to worry too much about threats from Wenlu County. Happiness City's legion forces will most likely also treat this as a primary sweeping target. What I should really worry about is Linjiang flooding and infection sources spreading from the water system."

Cheng Ye pulled over a blank sheet and began writing down key words.

[Flood Warning], [Flood Season Conditions], [Embankment Status], [Underwater Infection Source Characteristics]...

Life was ironic.

A few days ago when Master Zhang chatted with him about rainfall, he was still worried whether Yueye Shelter City would be flooded.

Now he had to ponder whether his chosen Dapo Town would be swallowed by rising water.

Should he use the third opportunity to ask more?

Cheng Ye hesitated briefly, then gave up. There was no room now to switch to other places. Within the sixty-kilometer overlap circle, there were only so many selectable locations.

If there really were better choices, he could slowly apply for adjustments after obtaining contracting qualifications.

Besides threats, he also had to calculate reconstruction difficulty.

According to Elder Song's information and the materials, Dapo Town's underground pipeline network was long ruined.

This was within his expectations. Having no illusions actually saved him from wasting energy on future repairs.

Moreover, being completely ruined was good. Installing new pipeline networks might actually be more convenient than repairing old ones, and could be done according to new planning, avoiding the layout limitations of old pipelines.

Those old-era buildings were quite well preserved, sufficient to get through the difficult early period.

"I choose Dapo Town!"

Cheng Ye exhaled deeply and turned to confirm his choice with Little Zhang.

"Very well, Inspector Cheng." Little Zhang handed over a manila envelope, "Please open the test questions to answer. Also, we need to collect back these materials. Would you like to review them a bit more, or start answering now?"

It became a closed-book exam?

Cheng Ye took the test envelope without hesitation, "Start now."

Opening the envelope, the test questions inside were more complex than expected, a full twenty-one major questions, all open-ended discussions with no standard answers. For example:

The core purpose and strategic significance of choosing this location, the supplementary role of this region's development prospects to Happiness City's overall planning, specific breakdown of short-term construction goals (3 months) and long-term development direction (1 year), how to balance priority between migrant settlement speed and defense system construction...

But compared to modern bid documents, these test questions were much simpler. No need to precisely calculate the cost of every investment, no need to rack brains to "cut corners" in budgets to enhance competitiveness, only needing to explain clearly why to do this and how to do it.

"Inspector Cheng, you have eight hours to answer, submit before 6 PM. If you have any needs during this time, just instruct me." Little Zhang thoughtfully added.

Cheng Ye looked at the wall clock in the center of the meeting room. It was just past 10:05.

Eight hours was enough for him to carefully polish his answers, even allowing him to draft a complete outline on scratch paper first.

The moment his pen touched down, thoughts surged like a tide.

In the selection purpose section, he wrote extensively:

"The core value of Dapo Town lies in 'low-cost startup'. Baishui Dam repairs can solve water and electricity necessities, existing buildings (Jiajiale Supermarket, town government office building) can quickly transform into settlement and office facilities, saving at least 40% of initial resources compared to building from scratch. Its 60-kilometer location advantage can both receive radiation from Happiness City and the industrial district, and serve as an outpost for outward expansion. The strategic significance lies in steady progress, gradually pushing outward..."

"Short-term can rely on surrounding unique clay to build kilns, restoring brick and tile production, both solving building material self-sufficiency and providing employment for migrants. Medium-term needs to prioritize embankment repairs, building two bridges over Linjiang, one for vehicle material transport, one exclusively for pedestrian passage, completely opening direct supply channels with the industrial district. Long-term can utilize Linjiang advantages to develop fishery farming and handicrafts, becoming Happiness City's food supplement point and light industry support..."

"Regarding flood response, establish three-level response mode, organize personnel to reinforce embankments, clear drainage channels, open waterways to guide water flow direction..."

"..."

The writing on scratch paper grew denser.

From resource allocation to personnel division, from infection source defense to public satisfaction improvement, every question closely addressed Dapo Town's actual situation, without a single empty slogan.

Lee Matteo sitting nearby appeared agitated, scratching his head, writing a few strokes then stopping to scratch his head. Especially every time he glimpsed Cheng Ye frantically outputting like a wound spring, filling one scratch paper then switching to another, the sores at the corner of his mouth turned red from frustration.

The anxiety in his heart was indescribable.

As for other inspectors in the hall, a few third and fourth-term veteran inspectors also wrote fluently with clear thoughts. Several second-term inspectors wrote intermittently, occasionally stopping to frown in thought.

As for first-term inspectors, most stared blankly at the questions, only able to write wherever their thoughts went, with handwriting so messy it looked like doodling.

At noon, staff pushed food carts in, distributing heated blue-bag nutrition paste.

Although it tasted awful, no one in the hall complained. Most gulped it down in a few mouthfuls, wiped their mouths, and continued burying their heads in answering questions.

Everyone knew this eight-hour battle of pens might determine their fate for the next several years.

The sky outside remained overcast throughout, with rain sometimes heavy, sometimes light, pattering against the glass with rustling sounds that interweaved with the scratching of pen tips across paper inside, creating a strangely focused atmosphere.

Cheng Ye remained buried in his test questions throughout, sometimes pausing to think, sometimes writing rapidly, completely unaware even when golden rays filtered through the windows.

At 4:30 PM, with an hour and a half remaining before submission, he finally put down his pen and began checking his draft word by word.

After confirming the logic was complete and measures were implementable, he organized the key points into formal answers with neat handwriting.

During his final review, he added a sentence at the end: "The core of satellite cities is to assist development, not compete with Happiness City and the industrial district. Every step of Dapo Town's construction should be premised on giving migrants somewhere to live, work to do, and hope to have, creating a unique fishery-type handicraft satellite city."

After writing this sentence, Cheng Ye gently closed the test booklet, and an unprecedented sense of assurance flooded his entire body.

Perhaps he wasn't an experienced inspector, perhaps he still had major shortcomings in force and construction, but every word in this proposal condensed his most genuine understanding of satellite city construction and Dapo Town.

Not replicating a super shelter city like Happiness City, but building a super satellite city that would attract migrants to put down roots.

"Little Zhang, submitting!"

When the test questions were collected, Cheng Ye subconsciously looked up toward the window, instantly stunned.

The sky had briefly cleared!

The sun was setting westward, orange-red evening clouds spreading across the horizon, coating the world that had been overcast all day with a warm golden edge.

Just like his current mood, clouds passing over, full of hope!