"That... I’m afraid it will take a long time. Once we reboot the servers, the enemy hackers could just attack again. Our firewall won’t be able to stop them," the director of network security said.

"Contact that cybersecurity company and have them send engineers over to fix this. We paid them a fortune."

"We’re already on it."

·

Although the banking sector shut down the systems in time, millions of people had already completed their transactions. Having learned from past mistakes, the people were smarter this time. They avoided the crowded malls and supermarkets, instead going wherever they could buy something. It didn’t matter what it was; they just wanted to seize the opportunity and buy whatever they could.

A considerable number of people opted for international online shopping. Even though it was much more expensive, they didn’t care in the slightest. After all, the money was a windfall; it didn’t hurt to spend it.

Some people, however, still failed to buy anything in the end and were left seething with frustration.

Some even had a complete breakdown on the spot, falling into corruption and becoming Corrupters.

Thanks to Zhou Chen’s meddling, the twenty-one cities were already showing the first signs of chaos.

Now it was time for the Second Stage of the plan.

He typed out a short message and sent it.

--[Second Stage. Prepare for execution.]

「Late at night.」

On the silent, empty streets, truck after truck rolled in and began to dump their cargo.

--They were dumping grain.

At almost the same instant, the exact same thing was happening in every city. From the downtown cores to the remote outskirts, trucks loaded with grain appeared. They dumped their contents onto the roads, creating conspicuous mountains of food.

Once their work was done, the Salvation Army’s undercover agents quickly drove the trucks away, vanishing into the night without a trace.

Before long, the early risers discovered the grain piled on the roads. They stared in a daze for a long time. Once they were sure it wasn’t a dream, a wave of shock and joy washed over them. They immediately scrambled to find anything at home that could hold grain and began hauling it back, basin by basin, bag by bag.

More and more people were awakened by the commotion. Peeking outside curiously, they saw the mountains of grain on the road. Screams and gasps of astonishment instantly shattered the late-night silence.

And so, long before dawn, the city was already in an uproar.

Once they heard the news, sleep was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Grabbing pots, pans, and bowls, they swarmed the streets to claim their share of the grain mountains.

They felt like they were in a dream. First, a fortune had appeared out of nowhere, and now, mountains of grain. ’Can something like this really happen in North Carolina?’

It was too good, too unreal to be true.

Whenever someone suspected it was all just a fantasy, the tangible feel of the grain in their hands would pull them back to reality, confirming that it was all true.

"Who on earth brought all this grain?" people wondered, completely baffled.

"Well, it definitely wasn’t the government."

"Who else could it be? It has to be the Salvation Army. First giving us money, now giving us grain... Only the Salvation Army would do something like this."

"Totally! And don’t forget all those news reports. The Salvation Army treats the common folk so well—raising wages, cutting work hours, giving days off, providing cheap food so everyone can eat their fill, even sending kids to school for free... Man, why wasn’t I born in the south?"

Some sighed, lamenting that they weren’t from the southern part of North Carolina. If they were, they’d be living the good life by now instead of living in constant fear, worried the government would show up one day to forcibly conscript them.

"I wonder when the Salvation Army will finally make it up here. Then we wouldn’t have to live such a miserable life..." someone muttered under their breath.

’Yeah, when will the Salvation Army finally get here...’

Hearing this, countless people let out a collective sigh in their hearts.

Compared to the government, they much preferred the Salvation Army’s system. At least under them, you could live like a human being.

·

"Mother f@ck!"

At dawn, the Minister of Food for North Carolina was jolted awake by a phone call. After listening to the message, he couldn’t help but curse.

’Damn it, damn it all! This is insane!’

’How in the hell did the Salvation Army pull this off?!’

According to reports from the city granaries, every single granary in the northern cities had been hit last night. All the stored grain was dumped onto the city streets. By the time the granary and city hall staff realized what had happened, it was too late. The people had already picked the streets clean.

"Are the granary garrisons complete idiots? How could they just let the Salvation Army haul away the grain like that?" the Minister of Food roared. The whole thing seemed utterly impossible. No matter how he racked his brain, he couldn’t figure out how the Salvation Army had managed it.

’Stealing all the grain right from under the garrisons’ noses... And not just in one city, but in twenty-one of them!’

’The most infuriating part was that from start to finish, not a single person noticed a thing!’

’Not one damn person!’

’Even useless fools aren’t *this* incompetent, are they? Are the granary garrisons blind?!’

’Or did the Salvation Army send some kind of god of thieves?’

Struggling to calm himself, the Minister of Food sighed. "The situation is extremely serious. Report this to the cabinet immediately."

’Those were military rations!’

Running out of food is the last thing you want in a war. If the soldiers go hungry for even three to five days, their combat effectiveness will plummet, and they might even mutiny!

When the government cabinet received the news, they were livid. They wanted to chop off the heads of every last one of those useless bastards. If they couldn’t even guard a massive granary, what good were they?

They quickly issued an order: go door-to-door and confiscate the grain!

They could write off the 1.8 billion US dollars, but they absolutely could not lose the grain. Without food, the war was over. The front-line troops would collapse in less than five days. At that point, they might as well just dig their own graves and wait for the Salvation Army to show up.

That afternoon, the Government Army arrived in the twenty-one cities.

"O-Officers, this is grain our family bought ourselves, I swear. It’s not the stuff from the street. Please, have a heart, just let us keep it. How will my family survive without food? I... I have a few packs of cigarettes here. A little something for your trouble..."

At Luther’s house, Luther shielded a bag of rice behind his back, trying to butter up several Government Army soldiers in the hopes of keeping some of the food.

The Government Army soldiers took the cigarettes and sneered, shoving Luther to the ground. "Don’t interfere with official military business. Keep running your mouth and we’ll put a bullet in you! ’Grain you bought yourself’? Looks to me like you’re hoarding military rations!"

"No, that’s not it..."

"Shut up!" A soldier kicked Luther in the stomach. He immediately doubled over like a shrimp, his body trembling from the pain.

"Take all the food. Confiscate those spices and new clothes for the army, too. Hmph. All of it was bought with state property. We’re already being generous by not conscripting you to atone for your crimes. We’ll let you off this once because of the cigarettes, so don’t push your luck."

The soldiers swaggered off with the goods, leaving Luther lying on the floor, sobbing in anguish. ’But... we really did buy that rice ourselves...’

The same scene played out in countless homes. The Government Army went door-to-door, forcibly confiscating all food. They didn’t care if some of it had been bought with people’s own money. No matter how much the citizens cried and begged, the soldiers remained unmoved, not leaving behind a single grain of rice or crumb of bread.

Moreover, they used the crime of "misappropriating state property" as a pretext to confiscate any new items found in people’s homes. The slightest hint of protest was met with a brutal beating.

They were like a swarm of locusts, greedily devouring everything in their path.

The cruelest thing in the world is not to have never possessed something, but to have it within your grasp only to lose it again.

This perfectly described the state of North Carolina’s common people. The "happiness" that had been so close was ruthlessly stripped away by the Government Army. They were once again left destitute, having even lost the few possessions they originally owned in the process.

How could such a thing not ignite their fury?