Fat Girl No. 25 wailed: "Are they even letting people live anymore? This food tastes terrible, and they still expect us to trade for it!"
Wind No. 3: "Well, I still have plenty of pepper and soy sauce to trade for rice. Clothes and bedding, though, can only be exchanged for mushrooms."
Wang Cuihua sent a voice message: "Who'd want to trade for such disgusting food? They're just doing this on purpose to make more people turn to looting."
Wang Qiqi No. 13: "@Everyone, oh, I almost forgot! They're also accepting kitchen knives, cleavers, and all kinds of metal clubs. One of those can be traded for a piece of meat or a steamed bun. If you have spare knives at home, go swap them! Supplies are limited, so go early or you'll miss out. No one's cooking anymore anyway, so just trade them."
Wang Cuihua replied: "Who dares trade away knives when it's so chaotic outside? We need them for self-defense. But we can look for more elsewhere. Oh, right, those who died in our community… we could search their houses and trade their knives for food, right?"
Wang Qiqi No. 13: "Yeah, sure. I've got all the keys. Let's search tomorrow and see if we find anything useful."
Jing Shu narrowed her eyes. In her previous life, she hadn't quite understood, but this time she got it. The government was doing this deliberately.
You don't want free food, you cause trouble, and you're picky? Fine, let's change tactics.
There's no such thing as getting something for nothing. If you want to eat, you have to pay a price.
Thinking it over now, Jing Shu had to admire the brilliance of this plan. In just one simple move, they separated those willing to obediently eat the free food from those who preferred looting, creating a stark divide in the data.
Those unwilling to trade anything would continue to rob, while those willing to trade wouldn't be the ones out looting.
It was 2023, the era of big data, where privacy was virtually nonexistent.
Take a person's movements, for example: the exact date and time they collected food, where their phone's GPS said they went next, how long they stayed there. Add in chat monitoring, wealth assessments, and spending habits, and you had a complete profile.
To put it bluntly, they even knew exactly where and how many times a week someone was sneaking off to a hotel with a lover.
In Wu City, the police were already solving murders and other crimes with these methods. By reviewing who'd been in certain areas at certain times, cross-referencing satellite photos, and catching faces on surveillance cameras, they could pinpoint suspects.
Soon, every time someone scanned their ID card, it would update their personal risk score. The higher the score, the more dangerous they were considered, likely having committed robbery, murder, or other crimes.
This was why Jing Shu had warned Wang Dazhao to avoid cameras and ID scans at all costs. Anyone frequently present at murder or robbery scenes would be flagged as "high-risk."
Some thought they were safe by leaving their phones behind. But big data also evaluated their recent food collections, past spending levels, and purchase history. If you used to be broke, had no supplies stocked up, and only showed up for free food but skipped every trade-based food collection, where had you been during that time?
Such people would earn the highest danger scores, labeled as "high-probability criminals." If surveillance footage or phone records later placed them in suspicious areas—places that just so happened to have been robbed—their names would go straight into the database.
That was the terrifying power of big data. Almost no one could slip through its net.
Many criminals couldn't believe how their movements were so thoroughly exposed, despite having no witnesses or police nearby.
The system's goal was to push looters into acting again, then use data to track them. If someone picked up free food before but disappeared from the records afterward, they'd be placed under heavy watch.
And sure enough, the truly skilled always left traces, no matter how clever they thought they were.
The next day, when Jing Shu's family went to Ai Jia Supermarket again to collect water, they saw the place had changed dramatically for the third time. A new section had been added to the square: an area to recycle unused household goods, divided into three sections—seasonings, metal knives, and daily necessities.
The crowd buzzed with excitement as people lined up to trade. The knife recycling section was fenced off separately with metal barriers.
The biggest draw was trading knives, metal clubs, and other weapons. In exchange, people got a piece of cooked meat or a steamed bun on the spot. This tempted countless people, some already racking their brains for what else they could bring in.
A few even considered stealing from knife shops or searching factories for iron rods to swap.
Seasonings were weighed in large barrels, scanned with ID cards, and added to people's profiles like a credit system.
The longest lines were for trading sheets and clothes. Most households had little seasoning left, but plenty of fabrics and clothes.
"Jing Shu, what are they doing?" Grandma Jing asked curiously.
"Grandma, they're collecting unused items. Like, you give them your spices. Since no one has food, seasonings are useless now. In return, they scan your ID, and it's like adding credit. Then you can use your ID to get white rice."
"So high-tech!"
Jing Shu had to admit, the knife trade was a ruthless stroke of genius. It wouldn't seem like much right away, but give it three months: anyone who still had a knife they hadn't traded would stand out as either wealthy or powerful. Even hardened robbers, once they'd had their fill of white rice and found themselves unable to steal, would eventually hand over their knives.
Grain was meant for the people anyway. The government wasn't losing anything. But by encouraging people to trade in unused knives, they'd pulled the tiger's teeth, stripping robbers of weapons and reducing violent crimes.