Homo Sapiens

Before long, the barbecue and drinks Gao Changfeng and the others had ordered were brought to their table.

All sorts of grilled meats and mushrooms, along with rice and ice-cold drinks, were incredibly refreshing on a hot summer day.

Gao Changfeng picked up a skewer of pork belly and king oyster mushrooms, sprinkled some cumin powder on it himself, and popped it into his mouth.

Dabiao, who was beside him, suddenly shouted, ”Hell yeah! Hongsawaddy beat the Bukhara Khanate.”

It turned out a TV to the side was broadcasting a live Group F match for the World Cup Asia Qualifiers. This was also the final match of the group stage.

After defeating the East Japan Team 6-0, Hongsawaddy went on to beat the Kokhan Khanate 9-1 on June 11th.

And just now, they had defeated the Bukhara Khanate 7-0.

In eight matches, they had secured a total of five victories, giving them 15 points and placing them second in the group. The first-place team was the East Japan Team, which had only lost one match and earned 21 points.

”They played well, but it’s useless,” Gao Changfeng said with a chuckle, taking a sip of his lemon tea.

Mao Youmu, who was just as excited, also shook his head helplessly. Of course, he knew it was useless. Hongsawaddy had too few points. To guarantee advancement, they needed at least 17.

Dabiao chugged a bottle of beer. ”HAAA, Hongsawaddy only started taking football seriously these past two years. Otherwise, those East Japan guys would have nothing to be arrogant about.”

Another colleague, Batley, who had come from Luzon to work, was beaming. ”Luzon has a pretty high chance of advancing this time.”

Hearing Batley’s words, Dabiao’s expression immediately turned a little awkward.

This was because the Luzon football team had also finished their final group stage match today. They had recently defeated the XX team, Guam, and the Maldives, earning a total of 16 points.

Dabiao said, lacking confidence, ”It all depends on tomorrow. If the XX team wins tomorrow, then both the XX team and Luzon’s team will have 16 points. They might need a tie-breaker match.”

Gao Changfeng, who was eating his grilled pork belly, actually quite enjoyed watching football. But when he heard Dabiao, he couldn’t help but retort:

”Given the XX team’s current mentality, they’re probably doomed against the Damascus Steel Blade.”

Batley smiled without saying a word. In the match on June 8th, Luzon’s team had crushed the XX team 7-1.

The only goal they scored was from a penalty kick.

Gao Changfeng spread his hands helplessly. ”Even if the XX team suddenly toughens up and beats the Damascus Steel Blade tomorrow, their total score would still only be 16. Then they’d have to play a tie-breaker against Luzon...”

”...” Dabiao fell silent, dejected. After all, given Luzon’s powerful performance in their recent matches, he didn’t think the XX team could beat them in a tie-breaker.

”Haha, let’s stop talking about football. Speaking of which, our company’s materials R&D team is really amazing,” Gao Changfeng said with a laugh, changing the subject and steering the conversation in a direction that interested him.

However, Mao Youmu, who knew a thing or two, shook his head. ”Those materials weren’t developed by our company. They were procured from the Development Group’s Mandalay Special Refining Company.”

In truth, Gao Changfeng knew they were manufactured by the Mandalay Special Refining Company. He just wanted to see if anyone present had friends or relatives working there.

”Oh? Their materials seem pretty good! Are the landing gear components for our team produced by them?”

Mao Youmu nodded. ”Yes. A former classmate of mine works there. I heard that many of the precision components in the country are now supplied by this company. It’s a pity, though...”

”A pity how?” Gao Changfeng asked quickly.

Mao Youmu took a bite of fried enoki mushrooms and then replied:

”It’s a pity because the company’s technology wasn’t developed domestically. It was brought over from the Homo Sapiens Company in Luzon. In order to produce these precision components, the Mandalay Special Refining Company had to give up 49% of its shares. Plus, the core formulas are still in the hands of the Homo Sapiens Company.”

”I see...” Gao Changfeng pretended to look as if he’d just had a revelation.

Dabiao finally snapped out of his funk. ”Come on! Let’s go! Stop just chatting and eat.”

With that, he ordered a few more plates of fried skewers and two more bottles of beer for himself.

Following his lead, Gao Changfeng and the others also ordered more fried skewers and drinks.

As they were eating, Dabiao suddenly asked again, ”Changfeng, I’m planning to bring my family over at the end of the year. Are you sure you won’t consider it?”

”Me? Forget it. My parents don’t approve. They want me to go back to our hometown to work in a few years. I’m planning to save up some money and start a business back home then.” Gao Changfeng already had his excuse ready.

”That’s a real shame.” Dabiao took another swig of beer. ”The salary here might be average, but the other benefits are pretty good. I have two younger brothers back home, and my parents only have one old house. It’s not easy to buy an apartment in our hometown’s city now, let alone get married and have kids.”

’The other benefits here really are good,’ Gao Changfeng thought to himself.

Take an aerospace engineer like him, for example. His base salary was only 15,000 Jin, but with various extras, it came to about 20,000 Jin a month.

Based on the current indirect exchange rate of 5 Jin to 3.6 Huayuan, his salary was roughly equivalent to about 14,400 back home.

For an aerospace engineer, this salary was actually on the low side.

But many people overlooked two key factors: purchasing power and hidden benefits.

In these two aspects, Gao Changfeng had to admit that Hongsawaddy had a solid foundation.

Just looking at the barbecue, fried skewers, and drinks they were having now, one could see that the Jin’s actual purchasing power was very strong.

ml of beer: 2 Jin.

ml of lemon tea: 0.8 Jin.

A fried skewer with about 50 grams of pork belly: 1.5 Jin.

grams of fresh pork belly: 8.3 Jin.

The prices for chicken, duck, eggs, edible fungi, edible insects, cooking oil, and fruits and vegetables were all very low.

If you calculated it based on the indirect exchange rate, the average price of fresh pork in Hongsawaddy was only about 6 Huayuan per 500 grams.

A price like that was comparable to meat prices in America.

The reason they could keep food prices so low was, on the one hand, due to large-scale farming and the support of various technologies.

On the other hand, Hongsawaddy’s own grain, vegetable, and fruit production was massive this year.

This year, they were projected to produce 32 million tons of rice, 27 million tons of corn, 5.5 million tons of soybeans, 1.8 million tons of potatoes (fresh weight), 3.4 million tons of sweet potatoes, 4.5 million tons of cassava, and 1.1 million tons of peanuts.

These agricultural products could all be used as animal feed. For instance, after extracting vegetable oil from soybeans, corn, and peanuts, the remaining byproducts were all used as raw materials for feed.

Currently, Hongsawaddy’s total annual production of concentrated feed was about 35 million tons, of which 18.6 million tons were for pigs.

A single pig consumes about 300 kilograms of feed from piglet to slaughter.

This meant Hongsawaddy could supply 60 million pigs annually. With a slaughter weight of around 100 kilograms and a meat yield of about 75%, those 60 million pigs translated to roughly 4.5 billion kilograms of pork.

With Hongsawaddy’s population of 56 million, that was 80 kilograms of pork per person per year.

And Hongsawaddy’s annual production of chicken and duck was even higher than its pork production. Add to that edible insects, and its beef and mutton production was also considerable.

After all, harvesting corn and rice produced vast amounts of straw, and the Homo Sapiens Company had a special fermented silage technology that could convert the lignin and crude fiber in this straw into small-molecule polysaccharide organic matter suitable for cattle and sheep.

Currently, for straw-based roughage, Hongsawaddy produced 160-170 million tons of corn stover and 30 million tons of rice straw annually. After fermentation into silage, this could produce about 180 million tons of coarse silage feed.

Such a vast amount of roughage was enough to supply tens of millions of fattening cattle or tens of millions of sheep.

This enormous production volume resulted in Hongsawaddy’s per capita available edible meat reaching an astonishing 213 kilograms.

What does it mean to be exceptionally gifted?

This is what it means to be exceptionally gifted.

With a relatively small population, a deep foundation of agricultural resources, the support of technology, and a powerful management system, Hongsawaddy had surpassed most of the world in just over two years to become a meat-exporting nation.

After all, the local people of Hongsawaddy had a limit to how much meat, eggs, and milk they could consume—about 60 to 80 kilograms per person. The remaining bulk of the meat products naturally had to be absorbed by exports.

This was what created the ultra-low prices Gao Changfeng was seeing.

A Hongsawaddy that could export grain in massive quantities was the only reason it had the confidence to maintain such ultra-low prices.