LOL: Summoner of Goddess Jana

Chapter 122 Investigation of Zaun (please subscribe~)

Ever since her elder brother Li Wei inexplicably became Janna's Chosen, Lina's life has undergone earth-shaking changes.

Less than two months ago, she was an international student with dreams of Piltover who thought of her hometown of Zaun as hell.

She studied hard so that she could find an ideal job in Piltover after graduation and stay here forever.

And now, Lena still thinks Zaun is hell.

But she willingly returned to the city she had tried so hard to escape.

Because her ideal is no longer to escape, but to change the whole world.

"Let's go, the next one."

The trench area is sunk deep into the ground.It's dimly lit here.But the light in the dark is the brightest.

Lina looked up at the light leaking from the cracks in the ground, summoned up her tired spirit, led the members of their Zaun social investigation team, and knocked on the door of the next house.

"Hello, is there anyone?"

Dong dong dong, there was a sound of footsteps, and the door opened.

A middle-aged couple appeared behind the door. The man was holding a modified shotgun, and the woman was holding an alchemy potion grenade.

This way of welcoming guests with soldiers first and courtesy later is actually not uncommon in Zaan.

Looking at the weapons on the waists of these leaders, both of them looked extremely vigilant.

They didn't relax a little until they saw Lina's young and clean girl's face: "Who are you?"

"We are social investigators of the Association of Leaders, and we are here to interview everyone and investigate."

As Lina spoke, she took out the small gift she had prepared in advance from her bosom.

She knew that for the people of Zaun who were generally impulsive and fiery, and who were naturally wary of unfamiliar faces, a small daily gift worth 1 silver round would be the best helper to start the conversation.

Must be a small gift of 1 silver wheel.

If the value is too high, others will covet it unnecessarily; if the value is too low, the people of Za'an will look down on it.

And if it's not a small gift, but direct money, so that people find out that she has so many silver wheels hidden in her pocket, then it will cause a big trouble that is destined to bleed.

These are the experiences Lena and her companions have summed up step by step through work practice in the past few weeks.

"Sir, madam, this is a little thought we have prepared."

Lina took out a gift with ease, a pack of first-aid bandages that are very useful to the people of Zaun, and prepared to use this to start a conversation with this family.

But the middle-aged couple looked at each other, and they didn't rush to get the gift like others, but asked quite enthusiastically:

"Are you the leader, the Leader Association who wrote the "Summary of Janna's Thought"?"

"Yes." Lena and the others couldn't help being overjoyed: "Have you read our brochure?"

"I've seen it." The male owner of this house nodded, and then suddenly asked: "Then what is Janna's thought 'living soul'?"

"Connect theory with practice, analyze specific problems in detail." Lina blurted out.

"Hahaha." The host put down his weapon and welcomed him warmly: "It seems that you are really the leaders."

"Come in, come in—"

Lena didn't need to bother, the couple seemed to be believers in Janna's thinking.

They warmly welcomed Lina and the others into the house.

Lina walked into this small single-family building with a large space, and she secretly noticed that the interior decoration and furnishings of this family were far more tasteful than the few residents in the gutter area she visited before.

Of course, it's also more expensive.

Don't say anything else.Just the two Walkmans on the table, as well as Seraphine's full set of music tapes, are beyond the reach of ordinary Zaunites.

"Master, what do you do?" Lina couldn't help asking.

"Alchemists." The host said, "My wife and I are both alchemists."

Alchemists in Zaan do not refer to ordinary workers in chemical factories, but senior engineers who are proficient in alchemy technology.

"I see." They are cultural people, high-tech talents, no wonder their family conditions are obviously better than their neighbors.

But with such good family conditions, why do they still live in the poorest and most run-down area in Zaan, where the poorest people gather together?

"Haven't you considered moving to Black Lane, or the above-ground border market area?"

"No, we like it here. It's quieter here." The couple's answer was a little perfunctory, as if they didn't want to talk about it.

Lina is not reluctant.She never asks about topics that the interviewee is unwilling to elaborate on.

She just tried to open the conversation and started investigating the couple.

The content of the survey is also very simple. It is to ask these local residents about the distribution of gang forces in the gutter area, the employment situation of residents, income expenditure, types of commodities, and prices of daily necessities.
The content of the question is complicated, but not sensitive.

The couple liked the leader very much, and they both were willing to patiently answer Lena's questions.

After talking freely, Lina and her companions have already recorded several densely packed pages in their notebooks.

"Miss Lina, can I have a look at your notebook?" The host seemed very curious about the content of their investigation.

"Yes." Lena handed over her notebook generously.

And the host took it over and took a closer look:
I saw that the detailed records in this notebook are all similar to the questions that Lina asked in the conversation just now, and they are all trivial data and information.

Zuan's gang power, business conditions, transportation and logistics, import and export trade, and the details of all walks of life are almost all-encompassing.

As far as the import and export of goods alone is concerned, Lena and the others listed all the information on the import and export of goods of Zaun and Noxus, Zaun and Piltover, the two major trading partners.

Imports from Noxus include: tea, milk, furs, hides, bristles, bones, bakelite, vegetable oils, fats, flour, rice, starch, corn, soybeans, sugar, salt
Imports from Piltover include: dyes, fabrics, filaments, inks, cigarettes, books, lamps, refrigerators, stereos, typewriters, passenger locomotives, steam robots, special steels, mining equipment, industrial machines, mithril circuit boards
Exports to Noxus and Piltover include: ready-made clothing, ores, coal, paper, firearms, ammunition, wires, steel, mechanical parts, chemical raw materials, alchemy agents.
"What's the use of investigating these?"

Lina remembered it so detailed that the host was a little dizzy:
"I thought that what the leader should pursue...is a more ambitious goal."

After reading that pamphlet, people will always have the lofty ambition to change the world.

But when the leaders really do things, they are so "grindly", so "trivial".

No one in Zaan has ever done such a detailed investigation before.So the people of Zaun couldn't understand what the leader was doing.

"We're doing social surveys."

"Only by discovering problems can we solve them. And social survey itself is a process of discovering problems."

"Everyone knows that Zaun is bad, but when asked what is wrong, they can't tell."

"So when they succeed in their struggle, all they can solve is the problems they can see—it's nothing more than defeating one or two glaring alchemy barons, so that everyone can breathe a sigh of relief."

"And what Zaun needs right now is not 'breathe a sigh of relief.' What it needs is a complete overhaul where every specific problem is addressed!"

Lina explained it this way, but the host still couldn't understand.

"Give me an example?" He looked at the dizzying investigation notebook and asked, "What problems do you see in Zaun from these intelligence and data?"

"This." Lina thought for a while.

Then as soon as she opened her mouth, she subverted the male host's cognition: "Everyone thinks that Zaan is the factory of the world, but after our investigation, this is actually wrong—"

"We are not yet worthy of the title 'world's factory'."

"For example, you should have seen in the investigation notes before that Zaun's textile and clothing industries are very developed, and the export of ready-made clothing to Piltover and Noxus is a major item every year."

"But the question is, we have produced so many garments, where do the raw materials come from?"

"Supplied by Noxus. Wool, wool, hemp, filament, staple, all from the colonial plantations of Noxus."

"And these raw materials came to Shuangcheng, but the first stop was not Zaan."

"Midstream raw materials with slightly technical content such as dyes, wool, filaments, fabrics, and non-woven fabrics are all produced by Piltover."

"The only thing Zaun provides is cheap labor, using midstream materials imported from Piltover to manufacture garments at the bottom of the industrial chain."

"This is true for raw materials, not to mention the more lucrative links such as clothing sales, design, and brand packaging."

"If a piece of clothing is sold, if 10 silver wheel out of 1 is left in the hands of the people of Zaun, that's considered pretty good."

Lena talks a lot.

The male host was thoughtful: "You mean, the problem with Zaun is that the overall technology is backward, and the industry is big but not strong?"

"This is still a small problem." Lena sighed: "The big problem is that our raw material import channels and industrial product export channels are all firmly controlled by Piltover and Noxus."

"Our raw materials and machinery are imported from them; the products produced can only be sold to them."

"Once something happened in Zaun...like independence, it angered Piltover and Noxus."

Zaun has never been able to become better by being independent.After a little research, we know that there are still many problems to be faced after independence.

If not handled well, being independent may even be worse than not being independent, than when Piltover was a semi-colony:
"They only need to impose a trade blockade on us, and within a month, all the factories in Zaun will close down. The more than 200 million people in Zaun will face a terrible wave of unemployment in a short period of time."

Even, in comparison, this is a small problem.

"The really big problem is"

"Zu'an, no food is produced."

(End of this chapter)