CHAPTER 93: OPENING THE ERA OF BIG DATA

Fat Girl No.25 howled, "Can people even live like this anymore? We have to trade stuff for such terrible-tasting food?"

Wind No.3 said, "Anyway, we still have a lot of Pepper and soy sauce at home to trade for rice. Those clothes and bedding can only be traded for Mushrooms now."

Wang Cuihua sent a voice message, "Who would want to trade anything for such bad food? Aren’t they just encouraging more people to go rob?"

Wang Qiqi No.13 said, "@everyone, oh right, I forgot to mention, they’re also exchanging kitchen knives, chopping knives, all sorts of metal clubs, and so on. One of these seems to be tradable for a piece of meat or a steamed bun. Those with kitchen knives at home can go exchange them. I heard there aren’t many spots, and if you’re late, there’ll be none left. After all, everyone’s stopped cooking now, so it doesn’t matter if they’re traded away."

Wang Cuihua sent another voice message, "It’s so chaotic outside, who dares trade away knives? We need to keep some for self-defense. But we can look outside, right? We can enter the houses of those who’ve died in our community and take their knives to trade for food, can’t we?"

Wang Qiqi No.13 replied, "That’s possible. I have all the Keys. Let’s go together and search for anything useful tomorrow."

Jing Shu narrowed her eyes. That’s right. In her past life, she hadn’t quite understood, but in this life, she seemed to grasp it. The government appeared to be doing this deliberately. It was as if they were saying, ’If you don’t want to eat the free food, keep causing trouble, and complain, then fine, let’s try a different method.’ There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. If you want to eat, you have to pay the price.

Reflecting on it now, she couldn’t help but admire the government’s ingenious move. Through this simple method, they had separated those willing to obediently eat the communal meals from those who resorted to robbery, thus providing distinct data for their big data analysis. Those unwilling to trade their possessions would undoubtedly continue to rob, while those willing to exchange items for food generally wouldn’t resort to robbery anymore.

In the era of big data in 2023, no one had any privacy when faced with it. For example, a person’s activity locations; what food they collected at a specific time, month, and year; where they went during certain periods via phone location tracking, including how long they stayed at a location; and even chat monitoring, property assessments, and spending power. To put it bluntly, they could even know where, when, and how many times a week you booked a room with your lover. Even the Wu City police could identify potential suspects by determining who had visited areas where deaths or other incidents occurred during specific timeframes, using satellite imagery, candid shots, and other methods to lock onto them. Soon, everyone who scanned their ID card would receive a rating. The higher the score, the more dangerous the person was considered, likely having committed crimes like robbery and murder. This was what Jing Shu meant when she told Wang Dazhao to absolutely avoid being caught on camera or having his information scanned. If a person frequently appeared at murder or robbery scenes, they would be deemed a ’high-risk individual.’

Some people thought that by not carrying a phone and leaving no tracking record, everything would be fine. However, big data would still analyze them based on the food they had received over the past six months, their previous spending power, and even what they had bought before. Once the data was displayed, it could summarize everything you had done. You clearly had no money before, hadn’t bought or hoarded any supplies, then you showed up when the government distributed free food. But when it came time to exchange items for food, you had no collection record. What were you doing during that time? Such individuals often received the highest ratings and were deemed ’high-probability criminals.’ If they were also captured by satellite or CCTV, or if their phone records showed visits to problematic places that happened to have been robbed, and if their communications (like phone calls) contained records related to robbery, they would be officially documented.

This was the formidable power of the big data era; very few could escape it. The most crucial point was that everyone currently believed it was the apocalypse, that the government was no longer managing things, and the police weren’t coming out to arrest people. They thought they could act with impunity and thus had let their guard down. After all, with no third party present, no discovery, and not even any police, these people could never imagine how their movements could be known so clearly. After all, big data was previously developed by Mr. Ma to expand business and make money; no one had ever imagined it would be used to catch people in the apocalypse.

The Wu City Government initially tried to quell the unrest, robberies, and murders with free food. After this plan failed, they launched a second one: exchanging various supplies for food. The goal was to provoke those who robbed into reoffending, using big data to record who had previously received free food but subsequently had no collection records. These individuals would be placed on a surveillance network for priority monitoring.

Oh, right, if she remembered correctly, big data had been initiated as early as 2017. By the time the Dark Day began, Mr. Ma had already achieved success in this field. Now, Mr. Ma was responsible for using big data to monitor all of Huaxia, analyzing who might be potential criminals, and handling other related tasks. It proved that truly capable people are capable no matter where they are.

「The next day」

When Jing Shu’s family went to Ai Family Supermarket to collect water again, the supermarket had undergone its third major transformation. A recycling area for old items was added to the supermarket square, divided into three main sections: seasonings, metal knives, and household goods.

The scene was bustling with activity, and families, holding their items, queued up in the designated category areas. Those recycling kitchen knives were in a separate lane, isolated by wire mesh fencing.

The most attractive exchange was for kitchen knives, metal clubs, and other dangerous weapons. These items were collected on the spot, and in return, one could immediately receive a piece of cooked meat or choose a steamed bun. This drew countless eager people, some already planning to trade one or two kitchen knives, desperately trying to remember what else they had at home.

Even the quick-witted ones were contemplating stealing kitchen knives from shops or finding metal bars from factories to trade.

For seasoning recycling, there were large tubs for collection. After an item was weighed and assessed, a staff member would scan an ID card—BEEP—and the transaction was complete.

The queue for recycling bed linens and clothes was the longest; not many households had seasonings left, but there was plenty of clothing and fabric around.

"Jing Shu, what are they doing there?" Grandma Jing curiously asked.

"Grandma, they’re recycling old items. For example, giving seasonings to the staff because we’re all out of food at home, and seasonings aren’t of much use now. Then the staff add a record to your ID card. Think of it as adding credits to your ID card, which you can then use to get plain rice."

"It’s so high-tech now."

Jing Shu had always felt that this move to recycle metal knives was truly ruthless. It wouldn’t seem like much in the short term, but within three months, anyone in Huaxia still possessing a kitchen knife they hadn’t traded would either be rich or noble. After all, robbers accustomed to white rice, when they could no longer find anything to steal, would eventually trade their knives for food. Grain was meant for the common people to eat; the country wasn’t losing anything. However, by exchanging knives they no longer used, it disarmed those who intended to rob, effectively defanging the tiger. This reduced the threat for everyone and decreased the frequency of robberies where power was imbalanced due to weapons.