The Wallfacer: Everyone wants to break through my wall.

They left the human-inhabited space city, found an asteroid, and carved it out on their own to live in. They sealed the interior with steel plates and planted some plants to ensure oxygen circulation.

Using glass and mirrors to focus sunlight ensures lighting inside the dwelling and allows plants to photosynthesize.

These people do not reproduce, do not shop, do not socialize, do not use the internet, and have even left human groups. They are still alive, but they have become completely transparent in human society.

Since they do not require strenuous exercise, they require very little food and feed on chlorella by cultivating it.

Liquid water, on the other hand, uses a focusing lens to distill wastewater with sunlight, and then undergoes multiple filtration processes to achieve internal self-circulation.

They refused to interact with the human world materially anymore, and didn't care about anything. Even if they suddenly died in their simple meteorite dwellings one day, it wouldn't matter. What these people did every day was to maintain their most basic physiological needs, lie quietly and contemplate the world, or use their homemade telescopes to observe the stars in the universe, or do whatever they wanted.

A group of people who have already given up on everything, given up hope, and given up on pursuing anything.

Or rather, shouldn't we still be considered human?

Aside from retaining intelligence, these people are similar to beast-like humans, having completely broken away from human society.

The difference is that the beastification of humans is a forced action taken by the government to perpetuate the human race, while the actions of confining humans are all voluntary and they retain their intelligence.

Chapter 163 These people don't want to work hard but still want to succeed.

When Lin Feng first learned about it, he was very surprised and couldn't help but learn more about it.

The phenomenon of the "closed-off people" began about a year ago, shortly after the end of the Kuiper Belt campaign. They came from various space cities, and their numbers continued to increase, surging from isolated cases to five figures in just one year.

The more Lin Feng learned, the more he frowned.

This is an anti-civilizational tendency. You must understand that only when humanity comes together can it form a complete civilization and accomplish various industrial miracles.

Examples include giant ships, space cities, and space fleets.

Furthermore, as social beings, humans will experience speech difficulties or even become unable to speak if they do not socialize for a long time. Being unable to speak is an extremely painful torment, yet these people willingly endure this torment, no longer caring about their own lives or the continuation of their genes.

Upon seeing this information, Lin Feng couldn't help but feel puzzled. Why had these people become like this?

Why would these people be willing to give up the continuation of their own genes in order to break away from human society?

The continuation of genes is a traditional instinct of human beings, especially when humans face death, the biological impulse to continue their genes is strongest.

Laura offered an explanation to Lin Feng's question.

"The phenomenon of 'closed-off people' is a social phenomenon of self-loathing. The enormous pressure makes them refuse to shoulder social responsibility. They break away from fierce social competition, choose to become transparent, and consciously create a closed world for themselves, expanding their thinking to another dimension."

"Such social phenomena are not uncommon in human history. For example, the Greek philosopher Diogenes lived in a barrel. His only possessions were a barrel, a cloak, a stick, and a bread bag. He had no job and no home. To put it nicely, he was carefree. To put it bluntly, he was wasting his time and waiting to die."

"In modern times, this is also true for homeless people in all countries around the world."

"However, compared to that philosopher of ancient times and the vagrant of modern times, today's isolated people are more extreme. The knowledge they have acquired has given them an extreme basis, enabling them to achieve physical non-socialization, non-reproduction, and non-consumption, completely removing themselves from human society and becoming transparent."

As Lin Feng listened to Laura's words, his brows furrowed deeper and deeper, and he sensed a very bad sign in them.

If "closed people" refers to a group of people who have abandoned human society, then there must be some factors that led them to abandon human society.

The more crucial issue is that these people did it voluntarily, not forced to. Nobody held a gun to their heads and said, "If you don't close down, we'll kill you."

These people's act of abandoning society is a sign of utter disappointment and indifference towards it.

If the ETO still existed, some people might still choose to join it.

Lin Feng suddenly thought of the word 'pressure' that Laura had just mentioned.

"What kind of pressure were you referring to just now?" Lin Feng asked.

Laura replied, "All the pressures—social pressure, life pressure, competitive pressure, the pressure of having children, and so on—this is a group of people who have been crushed by pressure and have completely given up. They fall down and never get up again, and they no longer hold any hope, placing all their hopes in nothingness."

"How many such isolated individuals have we produced here?"

Lin Feng couldn't help but ask again, and Laura's answer surprised him.

“Not a single one,” Laura said seriously.

"Huh? Not a single one?"

Lin Feng was somewhat taken aback. He had even prepared himself mentally for the fact that more than half of the people in the sealed-off area came from the space city belonging to the Taylor system.

After all, space cities are under military jurisdiction. This system of directly assigning tasks and eliminating those who fail to meet annual performance targets creates pressure, which is understandable.

As a result, Laura's answer surprised Lin Feng. According to Laura's answer, it meant that the people in the sealed-off area all came from other space cities outside of the Taylor system.

This further illustrates that the social structures of other space cities outside the Taylor system have undergone significant changes, and are no longer the kind of social structures Lin Feng remembered.

"Yes."

Laura nodded firmly, then added, "However, our explanation has not been widely accepted. Other scholars have other explanations for the social phenomenon of 'closed people'."

"Oh? What are the other explanations?"

Lin Feng became interested.

Laura paused, thought for a moment, and then answered, "...The root of the closed-off phenomenon is the inevitable laziness caused by the huge contrast between the unrealistic desires in an individual's heart and reality."

Lin Feng paused for a moment, then picked at his ear and said, "Lola, could you please translate this again? Don't make it so convoluted; it's really hard to listen to."

“These people don’t want to work hard but still want to succeed. They can’t accept this reality, so they choose laziness,” Laura translated bluntly.

The words sounded so familiar that Lin Feng could guess who wrote them even with his toes.

"You haven't succeeded simply because you're lazy," "Others have succeeded because they worked harder than you," "You can't make money because you don't try hard enough"...

Lin Feng had heard similar remarks so many times that he was practically sick of them, both in his past and present lives.

Who are we working hard for?

For myself?

Don't be ridiculous. Most of the extra value gained from hard work will be divided up, and the worker will only get a tiny bit. The worker's efforts are nothing more than a futile waste of youth.

Based on the situation of the 'closed people', Lin Feng was convinced that other space cities outside of the Taylor system had serious problems with their internal social structures.

To confirm his thoughts, Lin Feng turned to Laura.

"I want to visit other space cities outside the Taylor system."

"Which one would you like to go to?" Laura asked.

Lin Feng said, "I'll go to whichever one is closest to where I am now, and get everything arranged as soon as possible."

"Okay, I'll go and inform them right away."

Laura nodded in agreement, and her graceful figure disappeared from the 3D projection.

……

The New Ireland Community, a space city anchored near the asteroid belt, receives a diplomatic message from the Taylor system.

After a brief discussion, Lin Feng's itinerary to the New Ireland Community was arranged.

The top leadership of the New Ireland Community held an emergency high-level meeting an hour after the current diplomatic session concluded.

“Maple Taylor is coming to our New Ireland Community. What are your thoughts?” the Speaker of the meeting said.

"What are such important people doing here?"

One of the senior executives asked, puzzled, "Compared to a behemoth like the Taylor Group, they are nothing but insignificant ants. How can an elephant suddenly visit an anthill?"

If this place had strategic significance, that would be fine, but the problem is that it has no strategic significance at all.

"Regardless, the visit of such an important figure will inevitably cause a series of political repercussions, and we should prepare accordingly as soon as possible," the speaker said.

Another senior executive nodded in agreement, saying, "If we time it right, we might be able to make a fortune from this."

"Then, I think a welcoming ceremony is appropriate..."

Chapter 164 Win-win means winning twice

News of Lin Feng's visit to the New Ireland Community spread quickly.

This instantly attracted the attention of many human forces in the space politics circle and the Earth politics circle.

In this day and age, the asteroid belt between Saturn and Jupiter in the solar system, besides serving as a habitat for enclosed humans, is also similar to the 38th parallel between South Korea and North Korea.

The fact that Lin Feng, a powerful figure representing the Taylor faction, suddenly crossed the 38th parallel to visit the New Ireland Community, even if Lin Feng himself did not have any particularly special political intentions, inevitably aroused suspicion from other human forces.

Next, the New Ireland Community vigorously promoted their friendship with the Taylor System, misleading many human forces in the space political circle and the earth political circle into believing that the Taylor System intended to incorporate the New Ireland Community.

After all, the Taylor system has a history of this kind of thing, and many space cities have become part of the Taylor system in this way.

Therefore, in order to prevent the New Ireland Community from siding with the Taylors, human forces in the space political sphere and the Earth political sphere have been trying to win over the New Ireland Community, which means—paying them money.

In exchange for a political promise that the new Irish Community would never join the Taylorist regime.

Of course, it's not just carrots and sticks; the Space Force, after communicating with the New Ireland Community, will conduct military exercises near its space city.

In an era where virtual games can simulate conventional space warfare exercises, the Space Force's actions are tantamount to blatantly placing a knife to the throat of the New Ireland Community.

However, the New Ireland Community doesn't care about these things. They never intended to join the Taylor Group in the first place, and the Space Force fleet that came to exercise could actually force the Taylor Group to restrain itself.

This is called a win-win situation; they win twice.

It can not only earn money from other human forces, but also make the Taylor faction restrain itself so as not to lose its dominance, and use the united strength of other human forces to confront the Taylor faction directly.

……

A fleet from the Taylor system did not cross the asteroid belt, but instead stopped at the edge of the asteroid belt on the Jupiter side and entered an anchored state.

Lin Feng's spaceship, along with a small number of non-aggressive spaceships, broke away from the Taylor fleet, forming a small fleet that crossed the asteroid belt and arrived at the space city of the New Ireland Community.

“Mr. Taylor, the New Ireland Community welcomes you.”

"Please follow me, the car is over here."

As soon as Lin Feng stepped off the spaceship, he saw the greeters who had been waiting for them.

The soldiers lined up in a row, creating a wide road on the spaceport. On both sides of the road were crowds of people pushed aside by the soldiers, holding up something that looked like a camera and taking pictures of Lin Feng.

Lin Feng and his entourage boarded the host's car and left Xinggang amidst the farewells of a group of reporters.

On the bus, Lin Feng looked around at the New Ireland Community and said, "I've seen many designs for space cities, but this is my first time visiting the space city of your New Ireland Community, and it feels so unfamiliar to me."

The receptionist replied with a smile, "Over the past thirty years, the space city has undergone numerous renovations and upgrades, and the technology has been constantly advancing. It's normal for you to feel unfamiliar with it."

What is that building?

Lin Feng saw a very large building. This building was different from other buildings. Its exterior was a single piece without even windows, making it easy to see that it was different from other buildings.