Time passed quickly.
After the Sunkern that had hatched in the following batches had spent some time under observation and care at Zhengming Company, their health was finally confirmed to be in perfect condition.
It was now time to deliver them to the people who had rented them.
Xue Wenhui had originally planned to have the renters come to Zhengming Company to collect their Sunkern.
That would save the company some money, after all.
However, after giving the matter some thought, Jiang Ming rejected the proposal.
Instead, he decided to assign staff to deliver each Sunkern directly to its new temporary home.
Strictly speaking, all these Sunkern still belonged to Zhengming Company.
It was only right for the company to show a little more responsibility as their owner.
Besides, Jiang Ming had another reason for making the deliveries personally—or at least ensuring they were handled properly.
He wanted to see what kind of people had rented the Sunkern.
He’d already conducted some basic background checks, but information on paper could never compare with seeing things with his own eyes.
Xue Wenhui could only reluctantly agree.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t help grumbling that the genetic organisms Jiang Ming had worked so hard to cultivate hadn’t earned them a single penny.
Instead, the company was having to spend even more money on the whole operation.
Jiang Ming simply smiled with confidence.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Xue. What we’re investing now will come back to us tenfold, a hundredfold, even a thousandfold in the future!”
“Fine, fine! You’re the general manager, so you get the final say. I’m done arguing!”
Seeing that Jiang Ming wouldn’t change his mind, Xue Wenhui waved his hand and returned to his office.
A hundred years ago, the revival of spiritual energy had nearly destroyed humanity’s existing social structures.
Fortunately, human civilization had managed to survive.
Everyone understood that if human civilization was ever to shine across the world again, it would need more than the protection of powerful warriors at the highest levels.
Talented people in every field were equally indispensable.
Nowadays, however, because of the limitations imposed by spiritual energy concentration, roughly eighty percent of humanity would never be able to harness spiritual energy in their lifetimes.
That meant they could devote themselves wholeheartedly to other fields, helping lay the foundations for the revival of human civilization.
As civilization gradually recovered, the rudimentary education system established during humanity’s period of mass displacement naturally became inadequate.
Twenty years ago, after extensive discussions among the various federal governments, a decision was made to restore the education system that had existed before the revival of spiritual energy.
In addition to the existing primary schools, middle schools, and universities, postgraduate programs for master’s and doctoral degrees were reopened, allowing talented individuals capable of further advancement to receive a higher level of education.
Pan Ying was one such individual. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
She had graduated with a postgraduate law degree just over a year earlier.
Having studied in a major city, she’d had the opportunity to stay there and find a job.
But having only just emerged from the ivory tower of academia, Pan Ying had lofty ambitions of her own.
She wanted to return home and contribute to the development of her hometown!
Then the realities of life in a “small place” gave her a harsh lesson in local connections and social obligations.
Strictly speaking, Coastal City was only one step removed from being a major city, so it wasn’t exactly a small place.
But there was one undeniable problem: it was a coastal city, with the nearest point to the shoreline less than twenty kilometers away.
In Jiang Ming’s previous world, such a location would undoubtedly have been considered advantageous.
In this world, however, things were different.
Following the revival of spiritual energy, a considerable number of plants and animals had absorbed spiritual energy and become mutant beasts with special abilities.
Moreover, just as in Jiang Ming’s previous world, the planet’s oceans covered far more area than its land.
Consequently, the number of organisms living in the oceans vastly exceeded the number living on land.
If someone was lucky—or perhaps unlucky—enough, they might even encounter a Tier Seven or higher mutant beast along the coast.
Fortunately for humanity, the habits of marine creatures meant they rarely ventured onto land.
Otherwise, given how weak human civilization had been in its early days, it might not have survived being caught between threats from both land and sea.
As long as humanity couldn’t establish an overwhelming advantage over these creatures, few people would consider building cities along the coast.
As a result, Coastal City was surrounded by only a handful of similarly audacious small cities.
It was practically isolated from the rest of the world.
Its only regular connections with the federal government were the taxes it paid and the occasional arrival of a new chief executive appointed by the authorities.
In a city like this, whenever a problem arose, people’s first instinct was to settle it privately rather than go through the legal system.
The only organizations that regularly needed legal services were companies whose business operations extended beyond Coastal City.
Of course, that was how things worked in practice.
Nevertheless, the chief executive was still an official appointed by the federal government, and major incidents couldn’t always be settled behind closed doors.
For appearances’ sake, most companies still maintained legal departments.
In reality, however, these departments were little more than figureheads.
By the time they became involved, the matter had usually already been more or less settled.
That was precisely the kind of job Pan Ying had.
At just twenty-six years old, she was currently the head of the legal department at an ordinary company in Coastal City.
The unfortunate part was that she was the only person in the entire department.
As for her compensation, although her department existed mostly for appearances, Pan Ying held a postgraduate degree and was a local resident.
Her salary and benefits were therefore quite decent.
But Pan Ying wasn’t satisfied.
Back at university, she’d ranked among the very best students in her entire program.
Had she stayed in the major city after graduation, her abilities and the support of her academic supervisor would likely have made it relatively easy for her to establish herself.
You become like the people you spend time with.
If Pan Ying had wanted to get ahead immediately after graduation, she would have relied on her own hard work rather than thinking about leveraging her supervisor’s connections.
Yet after spending more than a year immersed in Coastal City’s social environment, she was surprised to discover that she’d begun developing precisely that kind of mindset herself.
After much careful consideration, Pan Ying decided she couldn’t keep wasting her youth in this place.
She was going to leave.
But this was still her hometown, and she had no idea how long it might be before she could return.
Perhaps she would never come back at all…
Pan Ying’s parents had died in a disaster more than a decade earlier.
The reason she’d survived and eventually gained the opportunity to study elsewhere was largely thanks to the help she’d received through the very network of personal connections and local relationships she now found so stifling.
That was the main reason she’d wanted to return home immediately after graduation: she wanted to give something back to the place and the people who had helped her.
Now, however, those same circumstances had become the reason she wanted to leave.
The irony wasn’t lost on her.
One day, after finally making up her mind, Pan Ying resigned from her job and began wandering aimlessly through the streets, hoping to imprint the sights of Coastal City firmly in her memory.
This was the place where she’d been born and raised.
How could she possibly bring herself to abandon it so easily?
After wandering for an unknown length of time, she suddenly noticed a large crowd gathered in the distance.
Curious, she walked over and asked what was happening.
It seemed that a press conference showcasing a genetic organism was about to take place.
Since she had nothing else to do, Pan Ying decided to stay and see what kind of genetic organism was being presented.