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YUNNAN RICE FIELDS

North of the Jade Domain lie the vast rice field terraces of Yunnan that feed much of southeast Asia and beyond. Emerald paddies cascade down hillsides in hypnotic patterns, their glistening surfaces reflecting the toxic sky in shimmering mirages. These fertile lands are controlled by powerful local warlords who maintain private armies to guard their territories against both the Neo-Cong and Jade Domain encroachment. Clone workers wade knee-deep through warm water from dawn until dusk, their bodies permanently bent from endless hours tending young rice shoots. Despite the pastoral appearance, death lurks in these fields - mud kraken hide beneath the muddy waters, their tentacles snaking out to ensnare unwary workers and drag them below the surface to be devoured, leaving only ripples and occasional bubbles of escaping air as evidence of their gruesome fate. The most productive fields employ primitive but effective automation, with ancient pre-Collapse agricultural drones patched together with salvaged parts hovering above the paddies, dispensing fertilizers and pesticides with mechanical precision. Twice yearly, representatives from the Jade Domain cities arrive to collect their tribute in grain, a transaction that often involves tense negotiations and veiled threats or open violence. For all their importance to regional stability, the rice workers themselves are considered disposable, with new clones constantly shipped in to replace those who succumb to kraken attacks, exhaustion, or the occasional Neo-Cong "liberation" raid that transforms farm workers into unwilling soldiers for the endless war in Hell.