Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

So Chen Ming responded normally: ”Take some time to do some research or something, as you can see, just the things inside the chip.”

Major General Song’s old face relaxed slightly, and after confirming Bai Quan’s attitude, he didn’t continue to say much.

He quickly verified the authenticity of the data and placed the Data Chip into a special box.

And handed it over to the Star Zone Military personnel, for them to transfer the Data Chip to the laboratory for value confirmation.

Major General Song stood up from the conference table and reached out to Bai Quan, saying: ”Thank you, next is the matter over at the colony.”

Bai Quan first nudged Chen Ming, who had his eyes closed as if he was already asleep, then similarly reached out to shake hands with Major General Song, chatted a bit about colony matters, and ended this meeting.

The remaining issues would be addressed once they reached the colony.

On the way back to Stardust Level, Bai Quan suddenly sent a document to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming opened the document and saw that it was a sample of the two colonies prepared by Lou Wei for his testing.

These two colonies are located in the same Star System, with one being a Light Industry Colony on a habitable Planet, and the other a Heavy Industry Colony on an uninhabitable Planet.

Seeing the Industrial Colony on a habitable Planet, Chen Ming was somewhat surprised, given the inherent value of habitable planets.

But as he continued to look at the aerial and satellite photos of the colony, he suddenly felt unsurprised.

Because these two colonies, even from the outside, looked extremely dilapidated.

Even with various large industrial production facilities set up within the colony, just the sight of it gave off a feeling of a backward, desolate small town.

Moreover, according to the data sent by Bai Quan, the development of these two colonies had begun to decline as early as more than ten years ago.

Now, most of the industrial facilities are in a state of suspension and abandonment. If not for the occasional funding from the Legion to maintain them, the entire colony’s industrial facilities would likely have been dismantled and sold for scrap iron long ago.

It was clear that Lou Wei and the others had deliberately chosen two abandoned and backward colonies for Chen Ming, and they were even linked together, who knows how much effort they expended.

”Truly impoverished.”

Hearing this comment from Chen Ming, Bai Quan likely understood which part of the document had caught Chen Ming’s eye.

So he began to introduce the colony’s past to Chen Ming: ”This colony originally belonged to the Star Zone Military, but in a transaction, it was traded to our Fourteenth Legion, and internally we allocated it to Lou Wei’s faction.”

”Why doesn’t their faction manage these things? After all, they are two industrial colonies so close together.”

”Don’t rush, keep reading, and you’ll understand.”

Chen Ming continued looking through the terminal.

But the latter part of the report only briefly mentioned that the decline of the two colonies started more than ten years ago due to an accident on the Light Industry Colony of the habitable Planet.

However, the specifics of the accident were described vaguely, unlike the usual quality of reports from Bai Quan.

It’s estimated that this report might have been sent from Lou Wei’s side, and Bai Quan just forwarded it to him.

Chen Ming didn’t bother to investigate himself, and directly asked Bai Quan, who probably had already conducted a background investigation of the colony: ”So what exactly was the accident? How could just one accident cause the entire colony to be incapacitated? It even affected the neighboring colony?”

”Think about what the colony has, and consider the importance of the colony’s components that can cause the entire colony to have problems, and you’ll know.”

Since they were currently en route back to Stardust with nothing much to do, Bai Quan kept him in suspense.

”What does the Industrial Colony have...”

Chen Ming instinctively recalled the situations in the Industrial Colonies he had visited in simulations before.

Those warehouses, those factories, those production lines, those robots, those workers who signed high-compensation agreements, and the engineers in charge of maintaining industrial facilities.

And... the Earth Core Melting Furnace Power Tower that almost every Industrial Colony would have.

”Earth Core Melting Furnace Power Tower?”

Chen Ming guessed quickly, which didn’t surprise Bai Quan, confirming, ”That’s right, it’s the Earth Core Melting Furnace Power Tower.”

”But even if that thing broke, wouldn’t fixing it solve the problem? Why did the neighboring colony also have issues?”

”Because that Earth Core Melting Furnace Power Tower didn’t just malfunction.”

Bai Quan said as he sent another document to Chen Ming.

The contents of this document were much clearer, as Bai Quan had someone investigate the true history of those two colonies.

And Chen Ming finally identified the true culprit behind the colony’s decline, Zuo Jing.

”At that time, Zuo Jing executed a sabotage plan targeting the Earth Core Melting Furnace Power Tower, and they succeeded.”

”The Power Tower not only ceased operation, but there were also several explosions occurring back-to-back, causing problems in the external factories and resulting in many casualties.”

”Later on, Lou Wei’s side took over a year to barely repair the Power Tower, but during this unproductive time, the customers had already left entirely.”

”Moreover, because Zuo Jing succeeded in sabotaging the Power Tower, many of his factions were encouraged, becoming rooted in this colony and hard to eradicate.”