Although Lee Matteo didn't have the authority to reveal complete examination details, that evening he discreetly hinted at many key points, such as the content orientation of the assessment and the crucial factors for winning.
By this round, the contracted examination had long stopped focusing on paper proposals, every selected topic was actual combat.
They competed in real situations to determine superiority, and the examination time was extremely short, meant to instantly reveal an inspector's true capabilities.
Currently, ten full days had passed since the initial examination.
During this time, the refugees outside had been selected wave by wave by the first batch of satellite cities, becoming the main construction force.
Calculating based on an initial scale of twenty thousand people per satellite city, two hundred and forty thousand people had already left the formation.
At the same time, five thousand people still poured into the buffer zone daily, accumulating nearly eighty thousand people.
The settlement of three hundred and twenty thousand people, although it hadn't caused any large-scale chaos, small-scale conflicts had never ceased.
Among a million refugees, no matter how low the probability, there were still hundreds or thousands of ambitious thugs hidden within.
These people, instigated by the "Walker," didn't seek to improve their lives but instead became worse, purely worse.Therefore, selecting personnel for satellite city construction had become the most basic yet most troublesome hurdle in the examination.
They needed to use construction ideals to attract refugees, but had no time to explain the ideals in detail, so naturally the quality of selected personnel was uneven.
And the key to the examination was precisely tied to these selected refugees.
After drawing examination topics, the refugees would actually execute them, and their results would be the inspectors' results.
Like the failure of Gu Xinjing and Garcia was because their ideals didn't align.
Gu Xinjing wanted to select more obedient refugees to perfectly execute the various tasks he assigned.
Garcia insisted on selecting those refugees with sufficient capability and initiative to complete the tasks.
As a result, when their separately selected teams were combined together, they directly clashed during the examination and were ultimately eliminated by Lee Matteo and Song Hai's team.
Why?
Simply because Lee Matteo had already resigned himself to elimination and paid no attention to the examination, agreeing with whatever Song Hai said with various acknowledgments, acting like an outsider watching a show.
The personnel entirely decided by Song Hai, although their quality wasn't top-tier and examination results were mediocre, were unified in ideal and had no conflicts while working, which was actually much better than the internal friction of Gu Xinjing's team.
Precisely because of this, the second round of examination opened voting for partners, essentially patching this loophole.
Preventing partners from having conflicts in the personnel selection phase, directly leading to complete failure in subsequent phases.
"In this phase, we'll be at a slight disadvantage."
On the way to the community, Cheng Ye spoke slowly, "We both look young, those able-bodied men might not pay attention to us. But conversely, the likelihood of those 'bad seeds' targeting us is also small. In their eyes, we don't look like we can pass the examination, so it's not worth the effort to interfere."
"Brother Cheng, the inspection station won't reveal our trainee status to the refugees, right?"
"They shouldn't."
Cheng Ye shook his head slightly, "This kind of obvious rank advantage, there's no reason to tell the refugees, otherwise low-term inspectors would have no way to compete with high-term ones. But I guess those high-term inspectors will definitely boast to refugees about their status, abilities, and experience both openly and subtly. These are their advantages to begin with, the inspection station can't prohibit it. What we can do is not let this become our disadvantage."
"Understood." Wang Kang nodded, looking thoughtful.
"So our primary target demographic is?"
"Families." Cheng Ye crisply uttered two words, "And the kind with dependents in tow."
Although he hadn't gone to observe the wasteland situation again these past days, nor had he gathered intelligence while on duty at the inspection station.
But the evening news every evening had exposed the basic situation of the satellite cities to everyone's view.
From the satellite cities' development ideals to their population structure, then to the choice of construction models.
A batch of satellite cities still needed to continuously attract population to join, so naturally they wouldn't be stingy with publicity.
Regarding population structure, all twelve satellite cities had basically the same population composition.
Single able-bodied people were the majority, accounting for almost 40% of the population.
The remaining 60%, family combinations like married couples, occupied 45%, also counting as labor force.
Only the remaining 15% were what he called families with dependents, families with children and elderly.
The reason for having this batch of people was due to mandatory indicators in the examination.
Each satellite city had to select 15% of such families, otherwise by the end of selection, apart from the buffer zone, there would be no place that would accept these "burdens."
"If we were allowed to choose freely, we would only select families, avoiding single able-bodied people as much as possible."
Cheng Ye's tone was certain, he hadn't changed his initial idea, but had become increasingly firm these past days.
"Having an elder at home is like having a treasure," this saying wasn't said carelessly.
In modern times there might be unreasonable elderly people, but those old-timers who could survive from the old era until the current wasteland almost all had skills hidden away.
Even if they couldn't go on the front lines of construction like able-bodied people, and couldn't participate in fighting infected sources in defense.
They might even make what should be a vibrant satellite city tainted with the dreary "old person smell," requiring all decisions to become conservative, unfavorable for early construction.
But was this a big problem?
What Cheng Ye valued more was building a cohesive grassroots structure, a social system supported by beliefs.
Expanding outward step by step, each step taken solidly.
This way, even if they received large batches of able-bodied people later, conflicts wouldn't erupt.
Because families could be used to build a more clearly stratified social hierarchy structure.
Wang Kang pondered for a moment and didn't question this choice, instead thinking, "If we draw a question requiring heavy labor, will we be at a disadvantage?"
He paused, then added another sentence, "I wonder if the rules allow me to work alongside them?"
"Working won't be necessary, the examination questions definitely won't explicitly differentiate demographics."
Cheng Ye couldn't help but laugh, "As for being at a disadvantage or not, it ultimately depends on how well you and I command, whether the families we pick are capable, and whether they themselves are willing to gamble on their own hands."
While speaking, the two had already reached the mall entrance.
On this special day, Big Dragon finally shed his usual sleeveless sweatshirt's rough appearance and changed into a capable long shirt.
And indeed, at first glance he actually seemed somewhat scholarly.
Seeing the two approaching, he quickly came forward, "Sir, the district elders are all up, and personnel are all ready."
"Mm, excellent!"
Cheng Ye nodded and walked into the mall with Wang Kang.
The district elders were sitting in the open space at the center of the first floor, with three hundred militiamen lined up neatly below, everyone wearing clean black long shirts, short knives at their left waist, handguns hanging at their right waist.
This formation, if the short knives were replaced with axes, really wouldn't be much different from the Axe Gang in movies.
"Inspector Cheng." The two walked along the edge of the formation to the front, and the three district elders rose simultaneously, nodding slightly.
"Today, I'll have to trouble the three district elders to help support the scene."
"Rest assured, your matter is our matter, the community's matter." Elder Song was the first to express his stance.
Today he wore a black zhongshan suit. Although his figure was thin, he radiated a special spirit.
Elder He and Elder Zhou had changed into brand new dark green pioneer military uniforms, fully displaying the steady temperament of old soldiers.
Although it was said to be supporting Cheng Ye, it was also the first time in over ten years that they were stepping forward again.
"Time really passes quickly." Elder Song sighed, "The last time I was about to step out of the sanctuary city was nine years ago. I never thought that one day I could leave the city so magnificently. Even if I died tomorrow, this old thing would have no regrets."
"Indeed." Elder He also smiled, raising his hand to touch the pioneer badge on his military uniform, "We two also never thought we'd have a day to wear these clothes and show off outside."
He had four badges pinned to his chest, while Elder Zhou only had two.
Seeing Cheng Ye look over, Elder He deliberately picked up one to display, "This one was from that year of the great flood. The pontoon bridge we built was about to collapse, and I took the lead rushing up to stabilize the bridge foundation, ultimately leading people to save the pontoon bridge. The Domain Supervisor specially issued me this badge!"
The badge wasn't large, about the same size as Happiness City's resident badge.
It had an overall blue-green color, with "Second-Class Merit" written in three large characters on the front, and two lines of small text on the back:
[Flood Relief and Rescue, Protected Bridge with Body]
"Stop showing off." Elder Zhou deliberately teased sourly, "Showing off to everyone you meet, who knows if those refugees outside even recognize it!"
One sentence made Elder He laugh heartily, and the atmosphere became more relaxed.
After joking for a few sentences, Cheng Ye turned to look at the three hundred militiamen and called out loudly, "Is everyone ready?"
"Ready!" Below came a unified response. Although it wasn't as neat as imagined, having this result after a week of training was already very good.
Cheng Ye also didn't expect that with his own ability, he could train an elite force.
The matter of training troops would ultimately require finding a capable person to do it for him. Right now, there was no rush.
"Very good, everyone's spirits are high. I hope you can maintain this throughout the entire day."
Cheng Ye's gaze swept across face after face, his eyes full of satisfaction.
What was an ideal?
Something spoken from the mouth was also called an ideal.
Something displayed through action was also called an ideal.
This wasn't university club recruitment, setting up a table and shouting about benefits, making empty promises, with university students immediately rushing forward for a bit of credit.
In the wasteland, the truly effective ideal had only one principle.
How to keep people alive following you!
What he needed to do was lead these three hundred militiamen and three district elders to demonstrate his ideal.
As for whether anyone would say he was cheating?
They could take it up with the Elder Council.
He was already taking the Idealist route of uniting with the community. If even this wasn't allowed, what was the point of promoting ideals?
Moreover, other inspectors might not necessarily be as honest as the first batch of inspectors, completely randomly selecting people for examination.
Most likely some had already secretly manipulated things, collected enough intelligence, and knew what to select.
These people were the ones who violated rules more, but to be serious, wasn't this also part of an inspector's capability?
After inspecting the personnel, Cheng Ye circled to the alley behind the community that had been converted into a parking lot.
All vehicles had been wiped clean, even the tires scrubbed until they shined.
Big Dragon was standing on a vehicle roof organizing miscellaneous items, with Master Tian helping from the side. Seeing him come over, the two quickly jumped down from the vehicle.
"Master Tian, today I'll have to trouble you to lead the vehicle convoy and help us put on a good show."
"Inspector Cheng, those words are too formal." Master Tian scratched the back of his head, smiling honestly, "I happen to be on leave today, going out will also let me see the world."
Big Dragon immediately followed, "Sir, the supplies and banners are all ready. Should we post them now?"
"No rush, find a place to post them after leaving the city."
"Okay!"
Besides personnel, vehicles were also key.
Other inspectors mostly felt that spending money on vehicles was wasteful, while those fourth-term inspectors with merchant caravans were far away in other places and couldn't rush back.
At this time, it was the best opportunity for him to display this advantage.
Like the residents of the buffer zone rarely saw these vehicles, to the refugees outside, they were even more novel.
Once the vehicles drove out with banners posted, they were guaranteed to be the focus of everyone's attention.
Moreover, these vehicles were the foundation of future Dapo Town to begin with, not deliberate showing off.
"Personnel and vehicles let people see the benefits of following us."
Cheng Ye's tone shifted, "But more importantly is displaying Dapo Town's advantages, that's the main event."
He led the somewhat dazed Wang Kang back to the convenience store, pulled up the rolling door, and fumbled under the counter at the entrance for a while, pulling out dozens of rolled-up posters.
To prevent leaks, these were all hand-drawn stroke by stroke by him over these past days, with no outsiders involved.
Although his drawing level was only at middle school standard and mostly forgotten, with action points' enhancement, it still accurately displayed the effect he wanted.
He gestured for Wang Kang to help, posting the posters one by one on the empty walls of the convenience store.
Colorful and particularly eye-catching.
"Brother Cheng, this is..." Wang Kang looked with wide eyes.
"Engineering diagrams." Cheng Ye was concise. On his face that had remained calm since the inspection began, finally flashed a trace of reassured smile.
Designing Dapo Town's construction plan, relying solely on a construction proposal composed of data was far from enough.
This wasn't modern times, didn't need layer upon layer of approvals, strict construction according to plans, and finally passing inspection before being put into use.
In the wasteland, what mattered was flexible adaptation. There were no rules, as long as it served its function and wouldn't collapse, it was a good building.
Moreover, lacking materials today, changing requirements tomorrow, possibly having accidents the day after, there simply were no unchanging plans.
So the Dapo Town construction plan was only for passing the examination, it had little significance for actual construction. This was also why the three rounds of examination no longer focused on paper.
What could truly move refugees was letting them see the future at a glance, a future that excited them greatly.
Would other inspectors think of this aspect?
Looking at Wang Kang's shocked expression, Cheng Ye already had an answer in his heart.
The upper half of each poster was his hand-drawn current state of Dapo Town:
Muddy country roads, the town turned into ruins, the clearly separated Baishui River and Huangshui River, and the desolate surrounding wasteland, looking no different from any other dilapidated village or town.
The lower half was the appearance after engineering modifications:
The country road widened into a cement road wide enough for three vehicles to pass, with large cleared spaces on both sides, equipped with simple protective isolation nets, even having sections of emergency rest stops.
The town ruins demolished and rebuilt, buildings rising from the ground, with floor plans, aerial views, front views...
All posters had no data, only images.
River channel renovation, fishery development, even the hydroelectric station was drawn in.
Of course, the most magnificent was still placed in the center of all posters, occupying a full four panels of impressive architecture.
Dapo Inspection Station!
This was a large-scale inspection station no less than the Central Station in scale, with sharp angles, radiating a reassuring solidity.
Standing before the already-formed Dapo Town, like a great fortress, giving people a sense of security that could block all infected entities.
"They may talk about ideals, resources, experience, their past achievements."
"These, we have none of."
Cheng Ye pointed at the posters, his voice still steady, "But what I want to tell them is the future."
"A future that can be seen with eyes and touched with hands!"