Homo Sapiens

August 11th, 2019.

A heavy rain fell over Tuwah Port.

Liu Zhifan put down the document in his hands. It was a letter of intent for cooperation from the Coca-Cola Company, sent through their comprador in Yangon.

”Heh... Playing the same old tricks. Do they really think we’re fools?”

Ma Chi shook his head and picked up a cup of Longjing tea. ”There are plenty of real fools, and no shortage of people playing dumb. They just have different goals.”

The terms of cooperation in the Coca-Cola Company’s letter were extremely generous. This wasn’t because they had a change of heart, but because they were testing the Qingye Group.

Evidently, the Coca-Cola Company had learned through certain channels that the Qingye Group was supplying low-cost glass bottles to Venus and Shaxi.

These incredibly cheap glass bottles made the Coca-Cola Company feel the pressure, as well as the underlying crisis.

Therefore, they were using this letter of intent to probe the Qingye Group’s production costs for glass bottles. At the same time, they planned to use the partnership to bring the Qingye Group into their fold, with the future intention of absorbing them.

This was one of the Coca-Cola Company’s standard tactics.

Whether it was when they entered the Huaguo market back in the day, or their factory investments in An Nan, Lancang, and Kampuchea in recent years, they always partnered with local entities. Then, they would gradually destroy the local native brands and finally establish a complete monopoly over the market.

They loved working with compradors, not because the compradors were unaware of their ulterior motives, but because their interests aligned.

Compradors just want to make money—quick and easy money.

As for things like national brands, local industry, or technological independence, they were hardly necessary for compradors who were enthusiastic about becoming ”global citizens.”

Of course, if these ”gimmicks” could bring them greater profits, they wouldn’t mind putting on a facade.

Inside the vast commercial database of Liu Zhifan’s manager program was a mountain of business development histories. How could he not know what the Coca-Cola Company was thinking?

”What a shame. We’re in the same business, after all!” Liu Zhifan said with a shrug and a smile.

Ma Chi naturally understood the meaning behind Liu Zhifan’s words.

A mega-corporation and a comprador might be able to become family.

But between one mega-corporation and another, they were destined to be mortal enemies.

Both Ma Chi and Liu Zhifan were believers in Li Qingye’s ”World Termination Theory.” It posited that even with the deterrence and balance of nuclear weapons, the world would inevitably end within the next fifty years. This end could happen in one of two ways.

The first possibility was the end of human civilization in a biological sense—the extinction of humanity.

The second possibility was that human civilization would achieve its first-ever grand unification and then enter a space-faring era.

It was an inevitable outcome, one of two choices.

In other words, either extinction or ascension.

So, in what form would human civilization meet its demise or achieve unity?

Li Qingye’s view was crystal clear. Humanity’s extinction would most likely be caused by civil war, disease, and environmental degradation. The unification of human civilization, on the other hand, would be accomplished by a mega-corporation.

Why a mega-corporation? Why not some other organization?

The reason was very simple: technology was advancing, the barrier to entry for technology was rising, and the monopoly on technology was consolidating.

Setting aside the biochip control technology mastered by the Homo Sapiens Company, even with things like the current electronic chips, artificial intelligence, big data, and genetic engineering in various countries, ordinary people had no way to resist the control of large corporations.

In Li Qingye’s opinion, ordinary people had already lost their last chance to turn the tables. By failing to completely transform the world before the technological explosion, they were doomed to utter defeat.

Of course, in the early 21st century, ordinary people did have one last half-chance.

That was to use biological means to completely shatter the world order. Through the natural selection of survival of the fittest, they could destroy the legacies of the great families and major capitalists (destroy them in a biological sense), and strangle the mega-corporations in their cradles.

But this was only a half-chance.

And if it spun out of control, human civilization would be completely annihilated.

As time went on and various technologies developed, the gap between ordinary people and the upper class would only grow wider, becoming a chasm as wide as heaven and earth.

This gap wasn’t manifested in their intelligence or physiology, but in the resources they controlled.

To be precise, there was no longer a way to destroy the foundation of the upper class with a single rallying cry.

Ubiquitous surveillance, a network like a spider web, an increasingly intelligent industry and society, and weapons of terrifying power.

These things would only become more and more powerful as technology developed.

And these were things ordinary people could neither obtain nor control.

When one carries a sharp weapon, the intent to kill arises naturally.

When you hold a weapon that can decide another person’s fate, and they are unarmed, do you care about their feelings? Do you see them as your equal?

You say you’re a person with a strong moral compass?

Perhaps you should try asking your own heart.

Those who can hold to their principles are, in the end, a minority.

Whether it was Liu Zhifan and Ma Chi, or Li Qingye himself, they all understood that human nature was the last thing you could trust.

And in the course of their work, they viewed any employee who wasn’t a Soldier or a Spider Web Manager with a biased eye.

This was also why they were becoming less and less averse to implanting biochips. When you worked with your own kind, there was no need for scheming and no fear of betrayal.

They even wished they could implant biochips in everyone in the world. Perhaps then, the vast majority of internal human conflicts would disappear.

Therefore, in the eyes of Liu Zhifan and Ma Chi, anyone or any power not internal to the company was an enemy. This was especially true for a ”small” mega-corporation like the Coca-Cola Company, which was an existence the Homo Sapiens Company had to eliminate.

Only when a single mega-corporation remained in the world could humanity possibly avoid extinction.

They were saving the world.

As for why only a mega-corporation, and not some other power, could save the world?

Because at this point in time, there were only two forces in the world: one was ordinary people, who were already heading for extinction, and the other was the mega-corporations.

For example, the military-industrial complex and the Wall Street Financial Group masquerading as a nation called America.

It was the same damn story everywhere else.

Since the future was destined to be the age of mega-corporations, why couldn’t the Homo Sapiens Company be the final winner?

It was through this set of theories that Li Qingye established the ideological foundation of the Homo Sapiens Company, turning one Spider Web Manager after another into a believer.

So, the Qingye Group, managed by Liu Zhifan and Ma Chi, was fated to never cooperate with the Coca-Cola Company. In the future, the two could only be enemies until one was destroyed.

The comprador merchants in various regions, however, were potential peripheral members who could be absorbed.

Ma Chi thought for a moment. ”Should we reject them outright?”

”No, drag it out. Give them a false impression.” Liu Zhifan shook his head, a slight smile playing on his lips. ”Besides, we can use this opportunity to do a little fishing.”

”Is that so? That could work. Just be sure to handle it properly.”

Liu Zhifan suddenly glanced at him. ”I heard someone was looking for you?”

”Not for me. They were looking for my name,” Ma Chi said with a shrug.

A murderous glint flashed in Liu Zhifan’s eyes. ”Wu Heguang’s niece? The boss’s childhood sweetheart? Looks like she’s here to test the waters. What are the boss’s orders?”

”Don’t worry. I haven’t spent the last six months doing nothing. Even if she’s extremely familiar with the boss, she won’t be able to spot any major issues. Besides, the two of them haven’t seen each other in over three years.”

The reason Ma Chi was so confident was that he was, in fact, Li Qingye’s body double.

His physical characteristics had been temporarily modified to be completely identical through the use of harmless, genetically modified parasites.

Moreover, he was intimately familiar with all of Li Qingye’s memories from childhood to adulthood, with the exception of memories concerning genetic modification and the Jianmu Factor.

Coupled with the character-mimicking software in his manager program, he could achieve an effect that was indistinguishable from the real thing.