Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 435 - 433 The 1st Vote

Chapter 435: Chapter 433 The 1st Vote

Just like that, two months of frenetic campaigning swiftly passed. Under the vigorous propaganda by the "Anti-Sakura Alliance," the number of people paying attention to the issue grew and grew, igniting a wave of public opinion throughout East Sea City.

Everywhere discussions were held about whether the new drug "Sakura" should be banned before it became widely popular.

The "Anti-Sakura Alliance" had demonized the substance, offering a series of predictions—some papers speculated about the societal evolution following a Sakura proliferation, where humans would revert to their most primitive animal instincts, social morals would decay, ideals would be lost, and even the ideological consciousness of students in schools would be polluted.

"...The original cultural atmosphere of East Sea City will no longer exist!"

"We will utterly lose the spiritual heritage left by our ancestors! Completely lost!"

The list continued with a series of data points, first being that crime rates in Western Cities had seen a certain level of increase. Although the increase wasn’t huge, it was definitely there.

Second, the love registry system in some Western Cities had become a thing in name only, showing a deplorable decline in social morals.

People in the West were open-minded, but they too had a love registry system. Now that the system was wasted, it could only mean that true love was rapidly diminishing.

However, voices of opposition persisted, emphatically proclaiming "it’s a matter of personal freedom," and questioning the authenticity of the papers.

"...Why should we believe these papers are truthful? Many of their findings are purely conjecture! Just like when people are hungry, they need to eat, thirsty, they need to drink—you can’t simply blame it on addiction to eating or drinking!"

"Freedom? What a load of crap! It will only influence your thoughts!"

"How boring, even this is causing arguments... you guys must have too much time on your hands. If the love registry system didn’t exist, wouldn’t that be okay? Would girls become more open? That’d be great for shedding my virginity; wouldn’t that be very good..."

Amidst the noisy quarreling, the time to vote finally arrived...

On that day, there was light rain in the sky and the weather wasn’t great.

Zhang Yuan felt incredibly uneasy; the feeling was complex as if it were akin to a national general election.

Preparations were not sufficient, yet time waited for no one.

"...To be honest, this is just the first step. Even if the vote passes, it only establishes the law in this one city. There are still another 1,800 cities—We simply do not have enough influence to call on them to vote."

"Sakura will still spread."

Zhang Yuan learned that the old professors at Qingbei University were quite despondent about the situation.

Their city was huge, with a population of ten million. They needed to mobilize more than two million voters, which was almost an impossible task. Even if their side had plenty of capable people, it was still not feasible to accomplish.

"Do you think it will succeed?"

Wang Nana asked worriedly from the side. These past few months, she had seen Zhang Yuan run all over the place, troubled by this issue.

"I’ve asked some good sisters to vote for you. Hey, whether it’s banned or not, they couldn’t care less... They’re just doing me a favor."

"I’ve asked some friends too... It’s just entertainment after all. If it’s banned, then so be it." Ma Mingtao rolled his eyes. Since Zhang Yuan was genuinely worried about it, even though he didn’t quite understand, he was still willing to help out a bit.

The papers were easy to understand; Ma Mingtao had experienced for himself how alarmingly open the world was over in the West.

"Yes, they don’t care right now... Most people have this attitude. Some even take pleasure in the misfortune of others—they don’t understand."

Zhang Yuan pressed his fingerprint on the screen, followed by a click on the "Confirm Vote" button.

"As for whether it will work, I don’t know; we’ve done our best... Even if it doesn’t work out, there’s nothing we can do. Earth will still rotate, and humans will not go extinct."

He was pondering on how to leverage his "Golden Finger".

Zhang Yuan could act as a "Copyist" for a while, plagiarizing novels from other worlds, or maybe games, music, etc.

These special abilities could bring him significant prestige and make it easy to show off and live comfortably in this world.

Initially, Zhang Yuan thought this kind of copying was boring, but now, he had no choice but to use it—he needed to gain greater influence by any means necessary!

As for the "Extraordinary Test," he didn’t care anymore. If he was still worrying about this and that in this situation, what difference would it make to pass the test?

...

After two days and nights of waiting, the final results came in!

Suppressing his pounding heart, he took a deep breath as if facing the ultimate judgment.

"A total of 21.2% of the population participated in the city vote!"

Seeing this line, Zhang Yuan’s heart relaxed for a moment—the most difficult hurdle was over, and there shouldn’t be too much of a problem with the voting options.

Looking at the next line, indeed!

"According to the results of this vote, there were 113,453 votes in favor, 40,998 abstentions, and 50,988 votes against. ’Sakura’ will be listed as a Class B prohibited item, with specific components as follows..."

"First-time discovery of illegal use or trafficking of ’Sakura’ will result in a minimum of 10 days to a maximum of 15 days of administrative detention and educational criticism."

"Second-time discovery of illegal use or trafficking of ’Sakura’ will result in a prison sentence of no less than 3 months and no more than 6 months."

Class A prohibited items, unquestionably, include various drugs and items such as guns and ammunition. Being caught with these applies to criminal law, which a city vote couldn’t amend.

Class B prohibited items are more or less controlled knives, compound bows, and various hallucinogenic prescription drugs; being caught with these often resulted mainly in educational criticism.

To achieve this was quite commendable. As long as the robotic legions took action, they could immediately clean up all the Sakura in the city—this, Zhang Yuan still had faith in.

The outcome made all members of the "Anti-Sakura Alliance" breathe a sigh of relief, congratulating each other non-stop on the internet.

"Congratulations, all your hard work wasn’t in vain!" Wang Nana also offered her congratulations.

"Thank you, thank you for your help!"

However, Zhang Yuan profoundly knew that the true resistance had just begun. No matter how capable they were, they couldn’t stop the people of East Sea City from interacting with other cities, especially in terms of cultural exchange.

"Is there really such a thing as a pure land in the world?"

As for this, he didn’t even want to think too much about it. A pure land might exist, but there’s a greater chance that it could only be preserved for a brief period... maybe...

...