As soon as these words were spoken, Xu An seemed to suddenly understand something, and a look of realization dawned on her.
All of this.
Did it still not explain what the Lighthouse was doing?
Weren't their objectives simply to reduce the population?
Or perhaps the Lighthouse had also discovered that with the current population trend, they wouldn't be able to last much longer.
That was why they had resorted to such extreme measures.
"Hasn't there been a riot on the Lighthouse already?"
Xu Yan merely shook her head in resignation.
She knew the secrets her daughter carried.
But she had always thought that the spatial dimension was equivalent to their mobile storage.
This world was too vast, and she and her daughter were but specks of dust in this world.
Whatever the Lighthouse could do, wanted to do, or had already done was not something they could control.
Seeing Xu An ask about these things as soon as she woke up from her sickbed, she had a premonition.
But in truth, she did not quite agree.
"You just woke up, you should rest well first."
"Mom!"
Xu Yan could not persuade Xu An in the end and nodded her head.
"Yes, not long ago, there was a public robbery at the relief shelters."
"You know, according to the Lighthouse's rules, those who engage in public robbery and fighting are to be exiled."
"But the people at the relief shelters did not obediently follow the rules and be exiled; instead, they chose to resist."
"They even said that this was all a conspiracy by the Lighthouse, aimed at exterminating all of them, the poor people."
"Not only that, but when you left, you asked me to keep an eye on the rats, remember?"
"Many people had frozen to death in the back alleys, but because everyone was preoccupied with their own affairs and there was no one responsible for clearing the back alleys, a plague broke out in the back alleys, and they were directly quarantined."
"Some people said that the plague was incurable, that most of the people inside had already died, and that some sort of eradication plan was to be carried out."
"But the officials had not agreed at the time, and likely had reservations. Just as everyone was hesitating."
"A fire suddenly broke out in the back alleys. You know that those areas were built with some abandoned drainage ditches and aging wires from when the Lighthouse was constructed. With the uneven terrain, rescue was already difficult."
"Moreover, there were contagious diseases inside."
"So, even fewer people were willing to go in to fight the fire."
"By the time the fire was extinguished and the rescuers entered, they found only charred corpses lying in disarray."
Xu Yan found herself unable to continue speaking.
But without her mother needing to say any more, Xu An could already picture such a scene in her mind.
As Xu An listened to these events, one after another, she had never imagined that these things would come crashing down on her like waves.
One after another, they arrived before her as if in a hurry.
"Where is Rat? Where is she? How could she let the back alleys become like this?"
Seeing her mother's expression suddenly turn crestfallen, Xu An instinctively felt that Rat must have had an accident.
But the answer she most dreaded hearing was still spoken by Xu Yan.
"Rat was ambushed, and her whereabouts are currently unknown. Her family should have taken her away. I've been trying to find out, but I haven't been able to get any news about Rat. Some people say Rat is already dead."
"After Rat left, there was no one to protect the back alleys."
"You know, the back alleys are not managed by the Lighthouse rules or the enforcement team, and they are all old, weak, women, and children."
"It was probably in the second month after the expeditionary force left that the back alleys fell into chaos. The back alleys are no longer a shelter for orphaned children."
"It has now become a true lawless zone."
Hearing this, Xu An's already furrowed brow deepened.
She released Goudan from her spatial dimension.
Goudan had also not seen Xu Yan for a long time.
As soon as he came out, he wagged his tail incessantly.
He wanted to be close to Xu Yan.
Xu Yan had also not seen Goudan for a long time. She led Goudan out, petting him affectionately.
"Let's go, play with Grandma."
Xu An knew her mother was giving her space to think things through.
After Xu Yan's figure disappeared, Xu An sat up in bed.
She looked at the communication device in her hand, hesitated for a moment, and called Zhou Haimei.
Once they returned to the Lighthouse, their communication devices could be used normally.
The call was answered quickly.
Xu An was using a holographic communicator, so she could see the entire scene on Zhou Haimei's end from her bed.
Where Zhou Haimei was located seemed to be a seaside villa. Outside the window was a heated artificial lake, and the spacious, bright floor-to-ceiling windows offered an unobstructed view.
It didn't look like a place to live in the apocalypse at all, but rather like a seaside resort villa.
Xu An had always known that Zhou Haimei had a strong background, but she never expected that someone could afford such a house in the Lighthouse.
They were either rich or noble.
Zhou Haimei looked very excited, as if she had been awake for a long time. She was sitting on a large bed, her chest wrapped in dense bandages.
There were bandages on her arms and head as well.
She looked as if her injuries were even more severe than Xu An's, and Xu An immediately became tense.
Xu Yan had said that Zhou Haimei was fine, and Xu An had believed her.
But now, seeing Zhou Haimei looking so badly injured.
"Mei Jie, are you okay? How did you get injured like this?"
"It's nothing, nothing. Don't mind how I'm wrapped up. My injuries aren't as serious as yours. It's just that my family is too dramatic. My mom insisted on wrapping up the wound, fearing infection, and ended up like this."
"Don't worry, it's you I'm concerned about. Are you okay? And Qin Chuan, you don't need to worry about him either."
"If I have to say, Qin Chuan's recovery ability is simply monstrous. He was fine the second day after coming up and is now down there leading the enforcement team to extract marine resources."
Xu An nodded.
"It's good that you're alright. By the way, what about those people below the Lighthouse?"
Zhou Haimei was hot-tempered and never looked down on anyone because of her privileged background.
Similarly, her upbringing had made her never look up to anyone either.
That's why she was so arrogant and didn't know how to navigate situations.
"Please, don't even mention it. I'm so angry. The people on the Lighthouse never intended to take care of the people in this fishing village from the start."
"They took the equipment to start mining, only humanely giving the fishermen some food."
"But they didn't expect these people to push their luck. It's not like either side was in the right. The Lighthouse was heartless, but the men in the fishing village were beasts. They saw that the few of us were down, and then they started threatening their own wives and children, saying that if the Lighthouse didn't take them along, they would kill their wives and children."
Xu An couldn't help but let out a scoff at this.
"Are these people crazy? Are they not dying fast enough? Can't they see that the Lighthouse actually wants to exterminate them all? And they still want to threaten the authorities?"