Chapter Eighty-Eight: Resource War

At eight in the evening, the two of them finished dinner early and returned to the dormitory to lie down.

In bed, Zhang Mingyang was watching a television program, while Peng Dongli continued reading the book.

He turned to a new page and finally finished the fourth chapter. Rubbing his eyes, Peng Dongli closed the book and thought back over what he had just read. In his view, the title of the book should never have been Resource Game; it ought to have been Resource War.

The book had ten chapters in all. Aside from the first chapter, which discussed the positive and negative sides of resources, that is, their use and their harm, the next three chapters were all about how to use resources for war, deception, strategy, and distribution, along with other predatory methods of conflict. It did not merely speak of the resources of Earth, but also of the resources of the future cosmos. The whole book was steeped in an aggressive mentality, as though written by a man possessed by war.

Peng Dongli could not understand it. The opening pages had clearly analyzed human resources and the resources of the Earth in a rather thoughtful and concrete way. Why had it, after only a few pages, turned into a kind of Art of War for resources? What on earth had this author gone through to change his mind so abruptly?

When he turned to the first page, the name Liu Mingqian came into view. He asked Zhang Mingyang, “Junior brother, is the author of Resource Game this Liu Mingqian?”

“Huh?”

Zhang Mingyang was watching a variety show and had not heard him clearly. “What did you say, senior brother?”

Peng Dongli raised his voice and repeated himself. “I asked whether the author of Resource Game is named Liu Mingqian.”

Zhang Mingyang shook his head. “No, senior brother. This Liu Mingqian is the owner of the book. Even he doesn’t know who the author is.”

“Doesn’t know?”

That was strange indeed. What sort of writer leaves a book unsigned?

Peng Dongli kept scrolling the wheel until he reached the last page, but there was no signature there either.

“Junior brother, do you have the cover of this book?”

“Yes.”

Zhang Mingyang closed the variety show, opened his email, and found the book’s cover. “I’ll send it to you, senior brother.”

After a quick search, he found Peng Dongli’s name and tapped the cover, sending it over at once.

“I’ve sent it to you, senior brother.”

“Good.”

A message alert sounded at the same time as the word good. Seeing the email his junior brother had sent, Peng Dongli opened it. The cover of the entire book was nothing but a solid black background with four white words in the center: Resource Game.

“Damn, this author is way too minimalist. He just made that into a cover?”

Hearing his senior brother complain, Zhang Mingyang felt the same way. “Senior brother, I’m with you. The first time I saw this book, I thought it was a pirated copy. The paper wasn’t fine, the workmanship wasn’t careful, and as for this cover, I didn’t even want to comment on it.”

Peng Dongli went back to the first page and looked at the name Liu Mingqian, then asked, “Junior brother, do you know this Liu Mingqian?”

Zhang Mingyang nodded. “Of course I do. Old Liu is my neighbor back home. He was a retired university teacher. When I was a child I loved going to his house to play, and he was always telling me all sorts of things I couldn’t understand. Thinking about it now, I still haven’t finished reading the pile of books in his study.”

Hearing this, Peng Dongli had not expected him to be such an educated man. He asked again, “Junior brother, what university did your Old Liu graduate from? And at which university did he teach?”

Zhang Mingyang thought for a moment. “I think Old Liu studied abroad, at a university overseas. As for where he taught, it was physics at the university of science and technology in our city.”

After hearing Liu Mingqian’s résumé, Peng Dongli warned Zhang Mingyang not to continue associating with him. That man had something wrong with his brain.

“Why?” Zhang Mingyang was very puzzled. “Although Old Liu has what people call intermittent mental illness, he has never done anything outrageous or harmful. Why can’t I keep in touch with him?”

Peng Dongli explained, “I’m not opposing your contact with him because he has a mental illness. It’s because his way of thinking is problematic. This Resource Game is full of violence and schemes. Even if he didn’t write the book, the fact that he owns it already shows that your Old Liu shares the author’s views. Otherwise he wouldn’t have kept it all this time, let alone mailed it to you.”

Hearing his senior brother’s explanation, Zhang Mingyang felt something was off. How could a person’s way of thinking be linked to a single book? And besides, there was no telling whether Old Liu had simply found the book somewhere. To judge a person by one book alone still seemed far too hasty.

Seeing that Zhang Mingyang did not understand, Peng Dongli continued, “Junior brother, don’t think I’m exaggerating. There are many examples of a single book influencing a person’s life. I’ll give you a simple one.”

“Have you ever heard of a book called My Struggle?”

Zhang Mingyang shook his head. He had never heard of it.

Peng Dongli explained, “My Struggle was an autobiography written by the leader of Germany during the Second World War. In its draft form, it was titled Four Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.”

“The book was filled with nationalist fervor and hatred toward other ideologies and other races. It claimed that the living people of his nation were the chosen ‘master race’ of heaven, and proclaimed that ‘the new empire must once again march along the ancient road of the warriors, seize land for the nation with the German sword and win daily bread for the German people,’ in order to seize new ‘living space.’”

“That book shaped every young German before and during the Second World War. It was influential not only because it was written by the head of state, but because it was the most concentrated expression of Nazi theory. And it was precisely that book that brought about the deaths and suffering of hundreds of millions of people around the world.”

“In my opinion, Resource Game and My Struggle are the same kind of thing. One incites racism, the other openly advocates solving resource problems by force. Neither book is anything good.”

Watching Peng Dongli grow a little angry, Zhang Mingyang opened his own book and began reading again. Because he had been short on time lately, he had only reached the second chapter.

“Senior brother, it doesn’t explicitly say anything about using force, does it?”

Peng Dongli told him to turn to chapter four, page ninety-eight. There it wrote:

“Human history is, in essence, driven by struggles over resources. Competition for resources has always been the most direct motive behind almost all wars in human history.”

“In today’s world, resources are a nation’s core competitiveness. All political, economic, military, diplomatic, and other activities between countries, and within a country itself, are in fact carried out around the struggle for, possession of, use of, and management of resources.”

“If a Third World War were to break out in the future, no matter how many casualties either side suffered, whichever side first occupied the other’s vital resources would gain the advantage. War is fought over resources.”

“Likewise, humanity’s exploration of the cosmos is also a search for resources, for resources capable of killing the other side in a single blow.”