"Sir, my brother asked me to come here and wait for you. He’ll be here as soon as he finishes wrapping up the demolition ceremony," Er Long hurriedly stepped forward, speaking respectfully.

Cheng Ye nodded with a smile and started with some small talk.

They talked about the changes brought by the Void Mist, the refugee camp outside the Buffer Zone, and mentioned how astonishing the fish stock in the White Water River was.

Soon enough, Long indeed came in quickly with a few others.

In no time, over twenty people gathered in the meeting area. Long introduced them one by one; there were community management officials responsible for livelihood issues, key militia members in charge of security, and representatives of the workers who had renovated the shopping mall. All of them were capable individuals from the Celestial Essence Community.

Clearly, they realized what Cheng Ye was about to discuss next.

As for Wang Kang, he didn’t join in, instead taking people to the back to handle the fish stock.

Once everyone was seated, Cheng Ye cleared his throat and got straight to the point: "As for the Satellite City construction, you’ve all heard about it, right?"

"Heard about it!" Long nodded first, his tone filled with excitement. "The broadcasting station has been hyping it up these past two days. I heard that the first batch is to start construction on 12 Satellite Cities simultaneously, and the subsequent ones will unfold one after another within a week."

"Yes, Long is right."

Cheng Ye nodded and took out a folded map of the surrounding area from his pocket, spreading it on the table. He drew a big circle on the map with his fingertips, "The construction of Satellite Cities is now the core development plan of Happiness City moving forward. In the future, we will extend around the ruins of Chuan City, establishing a circle of Satellite Cities to form a large surround defense perimeter."

Actually, the concept of this defense perimeter wasn’t explicitly mentioned from above, but it was his inference based on the logic of Satellite City layout.

After all, the core significance of Satellite Cities is "multifocal collaborative defense," eventually delineating first, second, and third-level defense perimeters. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The outermost Satellite Cities will naturally form a Buffer Zone, keeping the Infected Bodies and mutated creatures from the Wilderness on the outside.

Further inwards, the Satellite Cities at each level will progressively filter out dangers so that by the time they reach Happiness City, the remaining threats will have dwindled to negligible levels.

It was precisely because of this that the scale of the three Inspection Stations would gradually reduce, ensuring it wouldn’t impact the fundamental operations.

"And I might choose one of these locations next, to lead a team in constructing a Satellite City."

Cheng Ye spoke forthrightly, his fingertip landing directly on the marked spot labeled "Dapo Town" on the map, his tone sincere.

For those above, one might have to weigh words carefully, but for these people in front of him, who would be working alongside him and might even put their lives at stake, he had to be sufficiently honest.

No one would willingly leave the safety of the Buffer Zone to face the life-threatening dangers in the Wilderness.

Especially since a number of people present were retired veterans from the Pioneer Corps, they knew better than anyone what it meant to build a city outside. If he were to obscure the truth, they would be the first to detect the flaws.

And to have people follow you on a venture, it takes honesty, and... a tangible exchange of benefits.

Before everyone could fully digest this information, Cheng Ye continued, "I didn’t randomly pick Dapo Town. Firstly, its geographical environment is profitable. The fish stock in White Water River is staggering; relying on fisheries alone can accumulate a significant amount of valuable development funds without always depending on grants from above. Secondly, Dapo Town can coordinate with our Celestial Essence Community’s walking street, forming a ’fish supply + commerce flow’ closed loop, doubling the profits."

"Why do you say that?"

Cheng Ye flipped the map to the backside, where he had previously drawn three major frameworks in neat handwriting.

He pointed to the first framework on the left.

[Handicraft Industry]

"First, let’s talk about the handicraft industry. In my view, so many women and children in our community sit idly every day, relying only on community subsidies or their husbands working outside to support them. This is a very irrational community structure. It’s not that they lack labor capacity; they just haven’t found suitable work. They can’t always be supported this way, or do some scattered odd jobs. It wastes time and doesn’t earn much either."

"What I want to arrange for them are jobs with low difficulty, high repetitiveness, but with considerable stable income."

As he finished speaking, Cheng Ye’s fingertip slid to the lower part of the framework, where a simple storefront illustration was drawn, accompanied by several bold black characters.

[Dapo Fish Processing Plant]

"This is the first industry layout for Dapo Town."

Pointing at the illustration, he explained, "The fish caught from White Water River won’t be directly transported to the walking street or elsewhere for further processing. That would waste too much time and increase transportation costs. We’ll build a processing plant to batch process the fish: cleaning the innards uniformly, then slicing and portioning according to needs, and packaging under ’fresh consumption,’ ’cured preservation,’ and ’dried fish production’ specifications."

"Inspector Cheng." Elder Qu on Elder Song’s left spoke up.

Being in charge of community work distribution, he naturally understood what Cheng Ye was talking about better than others.

"I have a question I’d like to ask."

"Go ahead, Elder Zhou, no need to be formal." Cheng Ye turned towards him, maintaining a calm tone.

"This fish processing plant you mentioned, is it to be built in Dapo Town, or within the Buffer Zone?" Elder Zhou’s eyes slightly flickered, and his tone was cautious.

This was something everyone was concerned about but didn’t dare ask outright, considering Dapo Town was on the edge of the Wilderness. It would be too risky to let the women and children go there to work.

"Of course, it’s to be built within the Buffer Zone." Cheng Ye couldn’t help but chuckle, his tone confident. "How could we possibly build the plant outside, sending women and children into the Wilderness? That’s against our working principles."