Hearing Ning Zhe's request, Su Fei sucked at his teeth, troubled. "A-Zhe, it's not that I don't want to help you with this, but anti-inflammatory medicine, I genuinely can't get my hands on any. Forget outside the walls, even inside the city it's hard to come by right now. The Pei conglomerate and the Jing conglomerate are at war, and all kinds of supplies are running scarce. Whatever resources exist during wartime, they go to the military first, no question."
"The Jing conglomerate? Are they inside the city too?" Ning Zhe found the name unfamiliar. Stronghold 87, where they scraped out a living, belonged to the Pei conglomerate, or so he'd heard. The administrative officials inside the stronghold were all appointed by the conglomerate, though what exactly this "conglomerate" even was as an organization, he couldn't quite say.
"Across the northern Federation, there are four great conglomerates in total. There's a popular saying among common folk: after the Xiahou comes Jing and Pei, with the Lü family of the northern desert close behind. The 'Jing' in that saying refers to the Jing conglomerate, second in overall power. As for the Lü family up in the northern desert, they haven't quite reached conglomerate status yet, but they've already built several strongholds of their own out there, a force that can't be ignored." Noticing Ning Zhe's interest, Su Fei explained further.
"You're telling me the Pei family doesn't just hold Stronghold 87? There's more?" Hearing this, Ning Zhe felt a flicker of genuine shock. He'd never once heard anyone speak of the conglomerates before. To refugees, a conglomerate was some distant, untouchable, almost mythical presence, its true nature hidden from view. He'd always assumed the Pei family held supreme power over Stronghold 87 alone, and never imagined it was merely one holding among many.
Su Fei shook his head with a smile. "How could it possibly be just one? These conglomerates are entities on a scale you can't even imagine. The Federation itself is governed by a council formed of these very conglomerates. Take the Jing family, for instance, they control at least twenty strongholds, maybe more. Even the Pei family probably holds more than fifteen. And these conglomerates keep building new strongholds constantly, all in pursuit of more land and more resources. The war between Jing and Pei, from what I understand, broke out because both sides set their sights on the same mineral-rich mountain range at the same time."
"What about Black Horse Company? Do you know anything about them?" Hearing this, Ning Zhe pressed further. He'd been investigated by mercenaries once before, after stealing the chip from Black Horse Company, and though he'd managed to talk his way out of it, he still carried a nagging sense that the matter wasn't quite finished.
"Black Horse?" At the name, a strange look flickered across Su Fei's eyes for just an instant before settling back to normal. "That's a company with real power throughout the north. They control multi-stage water pump technology left over from the old world, along with groundwater purification technology. As far as I know, most of the strongholds up north run on Black Horse Company's water supply systems. They're the biggest water dealers around. In the north, whoever controls the water sources controls everything, and Black Horse holds the water towers of countless cities. They charge everyone who drinks a drop."
"By your account, Black Horse controls the drinking water of so many cities at once. Doesn't that mean they hold the conglomerates' lifeline in their hands?" Living in the poverty of the refugee zone, Ning Zhe understood the value of water better than almost anyone, and grasped Black Horse Company's true power at once.
"Black Horse does hold a monopoly on the technology, but they're not quite as powerful as you're imagining, because the conglomerates aren't fools. Anything you can think of, they've already thought of first, and they'd never hand their own weakness over to Black Horse Company. They use Black Horse's equipment simply because it's more advanced, but even without Black Horse, they could still filter groundwater through cruder methods, just far more troublesome ones." Su Fei paused. "Black Horse has the technology, but technology alone isn't enough, since building water purification and pumping systems requires enormous resources, and that's something they don't have. In the north, nearly all resources sit in the conglomerates' hands, the Pei family monopolizes iron and coal, the Jing family monopolizes oil and natural gas, and so on. Even the recently rising Lü family only grew because they found land suitable for farming, and grew powerful once they had grain to trade. The conglomerates would never tolerate anyone else cutting into their share of the pie otherwise. So while Black Horse Company offers the conglomerates a convenience, the conglomerates are, in their own way, keeping the company suppressed too."
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"If the conglomerates hold that much power, why not simply absorb Black Horse Company outright, or replace them entirely?" Ning Zhe asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The nuclear detonations from the catastrophe covered an enormous range, and the electromagnetic pulse and radioactive clouds that followed left nearly every piece of electronic equipment on Earth dead and useless. Most of what remained rusted away over time, which shifted the entire direction of technological progress from that point on. Black Horse Company controls the manufacturing process for photolithography machines, and all the equipment they produce requires chips to drive it and run its upgrade programs, and the manufacturing process for those chips is nearly impossible to replicate elsewhere... Plenty of companies across the Federation actually hold technology that surpasses what the conglomerates have, but because the council keeps them suppressed, they never get the manpower, resources, or capital to grow into anything resembling a real conglomerate." Su Fei gave a concise summary. "The conglomerates keep each other in check, and they also work together, quietly, to keep new powers from ever entering their circle."
"So this mutual monopolizing keeps the conglomerates locked in a kind of delicate balance, but each one still wants to patch up its own weaknesses, to avoid being at anyone else's mercy. This war you're talking about, in the end, it all comes down to interests." Ning Zhe summed up Su Fei's point in a single sentence.
"Exactly. The people running these conglomerates stand far above us refugees, and they see much farther too. What they're after isn't mere survival, it's how to live in the greatest comfort possible." Su Fei looked at Ning Zhe intently. "At the very least, someone from a conglomerate would never have to run themselves ragged chasing down a few pills of antibiotics. They command resources on a scale beyond counting, they can decide the life or death of countless people, make others throw away their lives working for them, toy with other people's entire existence like pieces on a board. That kind of thrill, it's something we could never begin to imagine or understand."
Su Fei's depth of knowledge left Ning Zhe stunned once again. His understanding of the world beyond Stronghold 87 far surpassed anyone else Ning Zhe had ever known. Still, for all his knowledge, Su Fei was no better off than Ning Zhe when it came to actually finding medicine, since he had no way of getting his hands on any either.
By the time Ning Zhe made it back to Zhao Yi's house, the chubby young man had already woken up, and Zhao Yi had turned some of their coarse-grain buns into porridge, feeding it to him spoonful by spoonful.
"Brother, did you get the medicine?" Seeing Ning Zhe return, Lin Xun leaned in and asked quietly.
"No luck. Word is all the supplies inside the stronghold have already been bought up by the conglomerates. Su Fei told us to mix up some light saltwater to clean the fat guy's wound, said it should help kill off some of the bacteria at least." Ning Zhe explained in a low voice.
"I just heard from Zhao Yi too, apparently a botched upgrade to the city's water supply system has left water running short lately, and the district's enforcement squad's already started cracking down hard on anyone reselling drinking water. Prices are probably about to go up again." Hearing this, Lin Xun let out a sigh of his own. Unlike the refugees who worked the factories and could count on their daily ration, the two of them had to buy everything themselves, food, clothing, everything, and the drought these past few months had already left the hunting grounds around them nearly empty of game.
For the two of them, this winter seemed to be growing harder and harder to survive by the day.
"That's not even the biggest problem right now." Ning Zhe glanced at the chubby young man, made sure he wasn't paying attention, then continued. "Last night, after I chased those men out, I saw who was leading the attack against us. It was Li Bin."
"Damn it! How the hell is it him?!" Lin Xun couldn't help but curse, then, catching a look from Ning Zhe, lowered his voice. "He's fallen in with the Black Banner now?"
"Even better, then. I was already planning to hunt him down myself. Since he's come knocking on our door on his own, that saves us a whole lot of trouble." A flicker of murderous intent passed behind Ning Zhe's lowered eyes.
"There's only two of us right now. Taking on the Black Banner's going to be tough. Xiao Qi's got a whole crew of desperate men backing him up. If he decides to protect Li Bin, this is going to get messy." Lin Xun laid out his concerns, though he raised no objection at all to the idea of revenge itself. "Should the two of us go check out the Black Banner's territory?"
"We can't rush this. We have to be careful. We're far from the only enemies Xiao Qi's made in this settlement, and he's got plenty of brothels under his control, his movements aren't predictable either. If we strike without thinking it through, the risk is too high. Staying alive isn't the goal here, revenge is." Ning Zhe glanced sideways at the chubby young man. "Dongbao's already dead. Let's keep this whole thing about Li Bin from the fat guy for now."