By now, the Uz sports car had completely driven out of Azula's metropolitan perimeter and reached the rural farmlands. Vast swathes of farmland lined both sides of the highway. The terrain was sprawling and fertile, and even early in the morning, agricultural machinery was already hard at work tilling the fields.
Yaxiu glanced out and saw clusters of low-slung, single-story buildings forming villages and towns in the distance—though some rose two or three stories, compared to the advanced two-tiered city, these modest structures looked like relics of a bygone era. Still, young orcs were driving tractor-like machinery across the fields, lending the whole landscape a vibrant air of vitality.
"Are there really this many young, able-bodied workers in the countryside?" Yaxiu asked curiously. "I thought the young people would all run off to work in the big cities."
"How could they?" Annan remarked casually. "Eighty percent of the Gospel Country consists of production villages and towns. No matter how advanced alchemical machinery gets, industries like livestock, fisheries, and mining still require manpower to exploit. The ten major cities can only thrive because they are sustained by transfusions from all the other towns and villages."
"Then why don't the young people leave?" Igola asked. "Rural life can't possibly be better than living in the big cities, can it? There aren't even any drones in the sky out here."
Yaxiu's face darkened. "Don't bring up drones. You'll frighten Lisi."
Annan raised an eyebrow. "Are you really that curious?"
"Not particularly curious, it's just that the Blood Moon went through a similar stage," Igola said calmly. "Yearning for prosperity is basic biological nature. The Blood Moon Country had to expend a tremendous amount of effort just to make the laboring underclass recognize their place."
Annan pondered for a moment, then slowed the car to a stop beside a field and called out to a young orc working nearby: "Hello there."
As someone capable of ranking in the top ten of the Beauty Board's sub-rankings, Annan's charm easily transcended racial boundaries. The young orc came trotting over eagerly, scratching his head foolishly, so nervous he couldn't even manage a proper greeting.
"Do you use 'Xinyue'?" Annan asked.
At the mention of this, the young orc's nervousness vanished. "Of course! I'm even an Earl with three thousand Heart Friends!"
"Here's the thing. I'm from Limited Culture Media Company. We're conducting field research on the interests and preferences of Xinyue users to survey advertising placement intervals. We'd like to know what kind of Xinyue videos you've been watching lately. Could you let me see your playback history?"
The young orc readily agreed, summoning his Book of Gospel to show the fugitives:
*Clean and Hygienic*
*Sauced Big Bones Made by a Handsome Orc Over an Entire Day*
*Thirteen Life Hacks You Absolutely Must Know*
*Top Ten Sights of Moluo Village*
*...*
"Great, thank you very much for your cooperation." Annan took out a bottle of the alcohol they had been drinking yesterday. "Here is a small gift for you."
"Thanks." The young orc took it curiously. "What kind of drink is this? Pink Rabbit? Never seen it. Could you swap it for the Throat Piercer brewed in our village?"
"Sorry about that. I'll keep it in mind and bring a brand you like next time." Annan smiled, leaving the young orc thoroughly spellbound. "Goodbye, and may today be another day blessed by the Gospel."
Glancing back at the young orc who stood frozen in place staring after them, Yaxiu teased, "My lady, you've casually ruined another man's marriage prospects."
"Did you understand what you just saw?" Annan asked.
"Understand what?" Yaxiu couldn't quite keep up with her train of thought.
"An information chasm?" Igola asked thoughtfully. "Still, we're not far from Azula. Standing on tiptoe, you can see the two-tiered city on the horizon. Can they really be trapped by an information chasm?"
"Far more easily than you imagine," Annan said. "The Book of Gospel's barriers have no loopholes."
Knowing the fool in the back seat hadn't caught on, Igola explained, "All the videos that orc usually watches were made by residents of other villages and towns. Not a single one was about big cities like Azula. On top of that, Pink Rabbit beer—which Annan was drinking—is a very famous brand in Azula, yet that orc farmer had never even heard of it. From this, one can draw a conclusion: although that orc received a secondary education, his worldview is completely confined to rural villages. He has no concept of the splendor of life in a metropolis.
"Perhaps in his eyes, Azula—only dozens of kilometers away—is just a slightly larger town, not worth longing for at all. His current life is already pretty good. People richer or more powerful than him probably just don't have to work in the fields and get to lie in bed playing on Xinyue all day."
"By the way," Annan added, "city dwellers don't use a Curtain application like Xinyue. In fact, farmers outside the Azula region use locally tailored information apps of their own. Xinyue is an exclusive Curtain app restricted to the sub-tier areas under the tier-two city of Azula."
Information chasms, information curtains, information cocoons.
There might be many names for it, but they all amounted to the same thing—blocking your access to information so that you only receive curated, one-sided fragments, thereby shaping a shallow and narrow worldview.
The principle was simple, the method uncomplicated, but the consequences were chilling to the bone.
Yaxiu couldn't help shaking his head. "How is that possible? It would be one thing if they were uneducated, but every citizen here has received a secondary education, haven't they? How could they be duped so easily—"
By this point, Lisi had already woken up. Clinging to Yaxiu like a koala, she listened quietly to their discussion.
"I don't know how things were in your Blood Moon Country," Annan said calmly, "but don't forget: we have the Gospel."
The Gospel.
A noun they had heard countless times over the past few days, once again demonstrating an importance rivaling that of air, sunlight, and water.
"The class barriers you couldn't build despite exhausting all your wisdom are nothing more than sandcastles casually thrown together for the Gospel. In the Gospel's social system, information chasms shouldn't exist merely between classes, but between every region, every village, every family, and even every individual.
"As long as you remain unaware of my extravagance and I remain unaware of your vulgarity, everyone in the Gospel Country can work together in joyful harmony. The regional, racial, and class conflicts that should naturally erupt between people are dissolved away by the Book of Gospel.
"Everyone has their own place in society, and everyone must hold firmly to it. Perhaps emotions like greed, fear, jealousy, and anger might cause people to make irrational choices, but that doesn't matter. From childhood, the Book of Gospel teaches everyone to be rational and conquer temptation.
"And even if you truly cannot, it still doesn't matter—the Book of Gospel will help you 'filter out' any information that might contaminate you. As long as your world is sufficiently narrow, even the faintest glimmer of light is enough to illuminate everything you have.
"For the machinery of society, what lubricant could ever compare to lies and ignorance?"
Just then, a highway bridge that seemed to lead straight toward the heavens came into view ahead. This was no simple concrete structure; a pale blue halo of light hovered over the surface of the bridge deck, exuding a cutting-edge, high-tech aura. The light formed words representing three destinations: 'Hemaila', 'Asitela', 'Fanmula'.
"Hold on tight. We're about to accelerate."
Annan's tone was breezy as she steered the vintage sports car up onto the bridge. As the odometer ticked up, the passengers realized the car was moving faster and faster, almost as if it were about to take flight off the bridge!
"A miracle?" Yaxiu exclaimed.
"It's a miracle constructed by the civil sorcerer construction crews," the young butler said with a smile. "This is an overpass leading to other tier-one cities. As long as you drive on it, your speed keeps increasing until you can even break the sound barrier, almost as though the bridge itself is surging forward. It's the fastest mode of transportation in the Gospel Country."
Holding Lisi in his arms, Yaxiu gazed out the car window at the land below.
Farmlands spread out in neat order, and houses stood row upon row. Yet lifting one's gaze just a fraction higher revealed the bustling two-tiered city of Azula.
The sun hung high in the sky, its dazzling rays almost blinding. Today was another day brimming with hope.
Chapter 290