That evening, the camp wasn't exactly blazing with light, but at least the basic illuminationwas guaranteed. There was no central heating, but the roaring fire in the hearth provided a steady warmth to the enclosed room.
Not far away, the stacked firewood rose like a wall, enough fuel to last them a very long time.
And in Xiangzi's main sitting room, a meeting was now underway. Aside from Soyo and Chihaya Ai, every member of Xiangzi's team from before the major expansion was present.
For the moment, though, nobody spoke. They were all reading through the draft Xiangzi had written.
Seated at the head of the table, Takashiro Xiangzi handed out the freshly written proposal sheets one by one for everyone to pass around and read.
The room itself was not silent. The crackling pop of burning wood in the fire, mixed with the static-laced voices coming from the radio, filled the space.
They had once again managed to receive the official broadcasts from Shikoku, so they were holding the meeting while listening to the radio at the same time.
The two things did not interfere with each other.
Tonight's agenda was simple: proactive strategy for the camp's development, new plans for weapon allocation, new rules for supply distribution… and, of course, internal stability within the camp.
Originally, Xiangzi had intended to save the issue of internal stability for the end.
But because of what was being broadcast over the radio, she had moved that topic to the very front.
"We need to be careful about the power of propaganda," she said. "We'll discuss this new issue live, in five minutes. Everyone think it over carefully."
As the others bent their heads in thought, Xiangzi herself also started weighing the possible effects that the broadcasts could have on them.
Receiving news from the outside world was undoubtedly an enormous blessing for Takashiro Xiangzi.
The bad news, however, was that they were able to pick up the Holy Disciple Organization's radio transmissions too.
The good side of it was obvious enough: they were no longer people sealed away in some hidden peach-blossom utopia, ignorant of the world beyond. They now knew that the government's forces in Shikoku still existed and had not been overrun by the southbound tide of infected.
They also knew that the fighting between the government forces and the Holy Disciples had reached a stalemate—perhaps even that the government held a slight upper hand.
Though, admittedly, that had all the scent of optimistic wartime reporting.
And international aid was still arriving in a steady stream.
From the bottom of her heart, Xiangzi hoped the government forces would pull through.
Japan's government might be infuriatingly dysfunctional, but the Holy Disciples were even less human. Between two awful choices, she would still choose the lesser evil.
She had absolutely no desire to live in a world ruled by that crowd of things that were barely human anymore.
The Holy Disciples' propaganda about salvation, safety, restored order, supernatural power, transcending old humanity, and joining the ranks of a new humanity…
It sounded better than any song ever sung.
Who among the people here would actually believe it?
Who had turned their lives into this?
Who had made them leave home and wander in exile?
Who had reduced them to running from place to place just to survive?
Who had made life so fragile that a single accident could send them straight into death's arms?
The Holy Disciples. That detestable bunch.
The virus, the infected creatures in all their monstrous variety, and the members of the Holy Disciple Organization alike were all threats to their lives.
And it wasn't even as though Xiangzi and the others had only heard of them from afar.
They had already crossed paths with the Holy Disciples more than once.
Why had Xiangzi and Huaxiu been forced to leave home in the first place?
Why had Miranda's trio been driven to the brink of ruin?
If not for Xiangzi's intervention, who knew what would have happened?
But the real point came afterward.
The problem they truly had to guard against now was this:
The newly joined refugees were another matter entirely.
Yes, they too had suffered terribly, but in their minds, that suffering had not come directly from the Holy Disciple Organization. It had come from the former Self-Defense Force soldiers who had gone rogue and turned bandit.
And that meant their attitude toward the Holy Disciples was uncertain.
There might well be idiots among them who would swallow those shabby lies whole.
If even one person in camp turned out to be that kind of fool, then the hard-won stability they had built could be destroyed all over again.
After all, radios weren't the only things that could receive transmissions.
Phones could as well.
At present, they had not placed restrictions on the various smart devices the camp members owned, because those things had not seemed threatening in themselves. Why ban them?
Although a portion of the spoils had been turned over to Xiangzi and exchanged for points, plenty of miscellaneous items were still left in private hands.
Aside from controlled goods like firearms, ammunition, and medical emergency supplies, they had not been particularly strict about small personal items.
As for larger pieces of furniture, if someone could bring it back, and if it wasn't contaminated, then after registration it was allowed to remain private property.
At first, Xiangzi had managed the matter loosely. She had wanted people to have a little room to breathe, to ease the suffocating pressure of the apocalypse and the constant fear of death.
But now, because of the Holy Disciple broadcasts, they could no longer afford not to take precautions.
After giving the others enough time to think, Xiangzi judged that it was time for the discussion to begin.
She set down the steel pen she had been idly twirling and spoke first.
"All right, everyone. Time's about up. Any good ideas? If not, no need to panic. You can keep thinking. We've got the whole night."
Hearing this, everyone looked up at her.
Huaxiu had originally meant to clear her throat and offer her suggestion, but the moment she looked at Xiangzi, she turned red for no reason at all, and the words she had been about to say got stuck.
Before she could recover, the first move was stolen by the oldest person present—the only man in the room, Saito Koinekawa.
He rose, bowed to Xiangzi and the others, then sat back down and began to speak.
Among everyone here, he was the eldest by far. The experience and insight accumulated over more than half a lifetime was not something an ordinary person could match.
Japan had always had no shortage of cults, pseudo-religions, and superstitious nonsense. He had seen plenty of their followers before. He remembered the Tokyo subway attack well enough too.
In his eyes, the current Holy Disciple Organization was not fundamentally different from those earlier cults.
The only difference was that the Holy Disciples had somehow gotten their hands on far greater violence and far more dangerous tools.
"I think this issue is extremely serious," Saito said. "We need to fight properly on the propaganda front. If they can set up a radio station and try to reel people in, then we can fight back the same way."
Xiangzi listened closely. The logic was sound.
But Saito was not finished.
"High achievers and social elites, lost young people, older people bound by traditional ideas—those are all their target groups. Most of the people in our camp right now can be counted among the lost. And confusion means spiritual emptiness.
"The truth is, we can learn from the cults. Their methods are what matter, and we can copy the shape of them without the poison. Right now, with broadcasts this blatant, it's very possible that plenty of people in the fallen zones who can no longer bear the threat of the apocalypse will flee toward Holy Disciple territory.
"The profile of a cult recruit is actually very distinct. It doesn't fit the usual stereotype of 'poorly educated people.'
"Take that subway cult, for example. Its followers included a huge number of graduates from top universities like the University of Tokyo, along with doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Those people often bear massive pressure to succeed, or feel lost and dissatisfied with the social system around them, and so they become easy prey for promises of 'superpowers' or 'ultimate truth.'
"Then there are the emotionally vulnerable young. People who are lonely, confused, newly trying to adapt to independent life. They're especially easy to hook with promises of belonging.
"And for old people like me, cults are very good at exploiting traditional culture—ancestor worship, shame culture, all that. They threaten people by claiming that 'ancestral spirits' or 'family misfortune' are caused by insufficient donations, and then they target pensions and savings with frightening precision.
"In the current apocalypse, there are only more of these kinds of vulnerable people than before. And the chances of them being taken in are even higher.
"So yes—we can use the same methods too."
It was honestly hard to imagine an elderly man like Saito speaking so much in one breath without even pausing to pant. If it had been Xiangzi's old school principal instead, he would have stumbled through a single sentence for ages.
And Saito still had more to say.
He deliberately avoided dwelling too deeply on what he was about to mention—not because it would make him sad, but because the memory nearly made him laugh.
When he had heard that the former prime minister had finally met his end with a bullet through the chest, he had nearly danced with delight.
That so-called "Three Arrows" economic policy had been nothing but misery for ordinary hunters and farmers like Saito. His family had suffered from it more than a little.
Holding back a grin, his wrinkled face almost bunching into itself, he continued.
"Because of what happened to the former prime minister, the government finally tightened oversight somewhat. That made those cult organizations more subtle in how they recruit.
"They no longer reveal themselves openly. Instead, they approach people through things like 'spiritual development,' 'health lectures,' or 'surveys'—soft, low-threat contact at first. Then they work deeper and deeper until they gain control over people's minds.
"We can do that too. Only we'd be doing it from the side of decency and good sense, not to cheat people out of their money or their lives."
When he finished, Xiangzi responded thoughtfully.
"Yes. That could work. Something like psychological support. We could deliberately set aside time to pay attention to everyone's mental state… though in terms of time and labor, it'd be a big burden."
It would certainly not be easy.
At that point, Brent chimed in with a practical addition.
"Then why don't we use the radio ourselves?" she said. "We can run wired connections between the two main buildings, assign one person, and use the evenings for a sort of psychological broadcast—news, educational segments, stories, maybe even movies or dramas. Fill the emotional void instead of leaving it empty. As long as people feel secure and happy, why would they turn to a cult?"
Then Ye Ling, of all people, took it one step further.
"Have Xiangzi-jie do it! Cute and charismatic Xiangzi-jie can become an idol and save the lost souls of the camp!"
Xiangzi had not expected to be nominated as camp idol.
She immediately shook her head.
"Cut it out, Ye Ling. Have I been too lenient with you lately?"
Seeing Xiangzi glare at her, Ye Ling just spread her hands helplessly, half joking and half serious.
"If we don't give people something positive, are we really going to try to tightly control everyone's electronics forever? You can stop them for a while, maybe, but not for life. This would at least liven things up."
At this point, Ye Ling had no fear that Xiangzi would actually get angry with her. Ever since Xiangzi had spoken to her properly about certain matters, she had more or less returned to her old self.
If she kept making their relationship weird and formal, she really might get beaten flat one of these days.
So why bother?
"Since you've said that much," Xiangzi replied sweetly, "you sound like the perfect candidate. Big pink fox, fox ears, fox tail… you're much more suited to it than I am. All right, then. I'll handle the materials and the technical setup. You can rest easy."
Ye Ling suddenly felt a chill.
"...Fine. But I've got no experience as a radio host. The only psychology I know is whatever scraps came out of those university mental health lectures."
"That's enough."
Xiangzi waved the concern away.
"Tomorrow I'll get it all ready for you. Once people are free in the evenings, we'll officially launch it. Let everyone listen to the camp's fireside talks."
Ye Ling had no doubt Xiangzi would follow through. Xiangzi always did.
So she could only accept the job.
"I will obey the organization's arrangements."
"Good. The organization will fully support your work."
After settling that matter, Xiangzi turned to the others again.
"Huaxiu, Miranda, Doris—do any of you have suggestions?"
Huaxiu smiled.
"With Xiangzi-jie here as our anchor, I don't think this kind of thing will get very far."
The others more or less shared the same view.
Seeing no objections, Xiangzi tapped the table lightly.
"Then the first item is passed: the camp radio program."
The meeting was officially underway.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
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Uma Musume: From Beginner 130
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Checking In in Demon Slayer 75
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Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 35
The Uma Musume Who Became 30
I'm Definitely Not the King of 25
After Maxing Out Every Class 25
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