Chapter 9: An Eye for Aesthetics
After taking some time to take in the spacious room, Cheng Qisheng began her experiment.
She was very experienced with experiments involving such unnatural phenomena.
Three years ago, when the Dark Star appeared, Cheng Qisheng had conducted similar tests.
First, she took out her phone to film. As expected, the screen only showed a small, dusty balcony.
She wasn’t surprised. Back when the Dark Star appeared, it had been the same—electronic devices couldn’t capture it, and others couldn’t see it with the naked eye either.
Cheng Qisheng placed her phone on a stand to record, walked inside, then walked back out, and finally reviewed the footage.
In the video, it was still that small balcony. But when Cheng Qisheng walked in, her figure simply disappeared.
It was as if she had entered some kind of alternate space.
She put away her phone, slowly knocked on various parts of the room, then opened the window.
The scenery outside was indeed the view of the City Lord’s mansion in Safe City. Wild flowers and trees that had been left untended for hundreds of millions of years grew freely and wildly. Although it wasn’t the kind of carefully maintained beautiful scenery, it was still quite pleasant to look at.
The kind of beauty like a wild mountain.
Cheng Qisheng could still faintly see a towering statue not far away.
—A statue of herself.
In the Blue Sea Civilization, no one had ever obtained access permission to the City Lord’s mansion in Safe City.
In the beginning, there simply was no city lord. Later, after Cheng Qisheng became the city lord, she wanted to open access permissions, only to discover that a first-tier city lord could not allow residents into the mansion.
She guessed this rule was meant to protect the city lord. At tier two it would be possible, but even then there would only be ten access slots, so Cheng Qisheng simply never enabled it.
From the primitive era of the Blue Sea Civilization onward, this inaccessible restricted zone had always been regarded as a divine place.
All core areas of the Divine Temple were also built around this so-called “land of the gods.”
Cheng Qisheng thought: could it be that the coordinates of this room are actually inside Safe City?
She stretched out her hand toward the window and encountered an invisible wall.
Cheng Qisheng then asked Aether to zoom in on the image of the City Lord’s mansion inside Safe City.
No. In Safe City, this house does not exist at all.
There were quite a lot of wild animals in the City Lord’s mansion.
From inside this room, Cheng Qisheng could see small wild animals passing by outside, as well as flying insects, but the animals could not see her.
She asked Aether to deploy a weather-control device capable of covering 500 mu of land above the City Lord’s mansion.
A violent storm soon arrived, and the small animals scattered to take cover.
Heavy rain and strong winds battered the trees, shaking them constantly—but even though Cheng Qisheng had the window open, not a single drop of rain or gust of wind drifted into the room.
This room was neither located in her coordinates nor in Safe City’s coordinates.
—It was a room only Cheng Qisheng could see and enter.
Was it because it was the City Lord’s bedroom?
Cheng Qisheng thought of what Aether had said before: the reason she suffered from mortal illness was because her spiritual power was far too high, far exceeding the limits her physical body could endure.
Did this room—one that did not exist in any coordinates and only existed before her eyes—also have something to do with spiritual power?
Unable to figure it out, Cheng Qisheng stopped thinking about it and forcefully pried up a section of the floor inside the room.
After taking it outside, she found that this time, it could indeed be captured in photos.
She didn’t understand anything about flooring materials, but she could still tell good things at a glance.
Just like someone who knows nothing about cars can still usually tell that a luxury car probably isn’t cheap just from its appearance.
This floor tile looked like a “luxury car”—its grain was smooth and flowing, its color warm and lustrous, with a beautiful golden sheen.
At a glance, it looked far more expensive than the wooden flooring in her own home.
Cheng Qisheng searched the flooring shop where she had bought materials during renovation, sent them the photo along with a small 8.8-yuan red packet, and asked whether they could identify what kind of wood it was and roughly how much it would cost.
The shop owner accepted the red packet and replied very quickly, sending a voice message:
“Looks like Burmese teak. This tree is clearly large in scale and of pretty good quality. For wood of this grade, it’s at least around 4,000 per square meter.”
Cheng Qisheng thanked the owner and turned back to look at the floor that filled the entire room.
Given that the room visually measured about 150 square meters,
and the flooring cost 4,000 per square meter,
she immediately did the math in her head: 600,000.
“Aether, how did the flooring in the City Lord’s room come about?”
Back at Tier 1, it seemed to be the same flooring.
Could it be automatically generated? Like a system auto-generating assets in a game?
Aether replied: “When the City Lord’s bedroom has not yet been customized by the City Lord, it is automatically furnished using the most suitable materials available within Safe City. After detecting that Safe City has advanced to Tier 2, your city lost one teak tree.”
Cheng Qisheng: What? There are teak trees in my city?
Well… there really were quite a lot of trees in Safe City. The City Lord’s mansion, left completely unmanaged, had the most of them—but she had never paid attention.
Even if she had noticed, she probably wouldn’t have been able to recognize what kinds of trees they were.
Cheng Qisheng began seriously considering whether she should pry up all the floorboards and sell them for money.
That’s 600,000!
Even second-hand flooring could probably still fetch at least 300,000, right?
After thinking it over, she decided to leave it for now.
After all, this wasn’t real Burmese teak—it was “otherworld teak.” Although both were wood, the chance of anyone noticing the difference was low, but what if someone did?
Of course, the most important reason was that her earning ability wasn’t weak. If she wanted to, she could take on an outsourcing job tonight and make a decent sum immediately.
If she ever really needed money, then she would sell it.
For now… she would just enjoy this 600,000-worth floor properly.
She stood barefoot on the slightly soft teak flooring, feeling extremely good.
“Aether, I remember the City Lord’s mansion expands with every increase in Safe City’s area, right? Does the City Lord’s bedroom expand as well?”
Aether replied: “Yes, City Lord. Your bedroom will continue to expand as the city ranks up.”
Every time Safe City advanced a tier, its total building area doubled—and the City Lord’s mansion followed the same rule.
The base bedroom of a Tier 1 City Lord was 150 square meters.
After she advanced to Tier 2, the bedroom area doubled to 300 square meters.
But the additional 150 square meters had directly “run off” into her world—into her home.
Wait a second.
If every upgrade caused the expanded space to become a new room in her house…
Then the Tier 3 City Lord’s bedroom would be 600 square meters.
By that logic, wouldn’t she eventually end up with a 300-square-meter room appearing in her home?
No shared property area, no property management fees, no electricity bills—completely private, accessible only to her.
And—
“Can the City Lord’s bedroom layout be redesigned at any time using nuclear crystals?”
After all, each civilization had different preferences for how a City Lord’s room should be arranged. It made sense that the room could be freely modified according to the City Lord’s will.
“Yes, City Lord. Would you like to begin remodeling your bedroom now? Aether will display the floor plan for you.”
Aether floated into the air and projected a floor plan, then froze for two seconds.
“Apologies, City Lord. Due to an unknown error, approximately 150 square meters of your bedroom floor plan is missing. Error in detection—error detection failed.”
Cheng Qisheng wasn’t surprised. She looked at the remaining 150 square meters of the basic Tier 1 bedroom shown on the map.
Just as she had guessed.
The original Tier 1 core room still existed.
But the expanded space from Tier 2 had already been transferred into her home.
Because the coordinates didn’t exist within Safe City, even Aether couldn’t project or detect the expanded area.
The bed, desk lamp, and other basic furniture that originally belonged in the Safe City bedroom had not followed her into this world either.
So, does only the room itself appear?
Why was the floor brought over as well?
Was it because the basic bedroom’s properties defaulted to having flooring, so when the rank increased, a tree was automatically “used up” to generate the floor?
Then what if she changed the Safe City’s basic bedroom attribute into a cultivation area?
When the expansion triggered again and that space arrived in her world, would she get an entirely new cultivation-zone room in her house?
Cheng Qisheng looked at the basic bedroom in the City Lord’s mansion and said:
“Aether, how many nuclear crystals would it cost to convert the bedroom into a cultivation area?”
“Aether has calculated: 500 nuclear crystals are required.”
A bit expensive—but acceptable.
“Alright. Do it.”
Once the 500 nuclear crystals were in place, the basic bedroom in Safe City immediately collapsed on the spot. In its place, a new structure rose up—a sunlit greenhouse, with already-turned soil inside.
The glasshouse was bright and transparent, making one immediately look forward to the next expansion of Safe City.
Cheng Qisheng checked the 150-square-meter room beneath her feet again.
Good. It was unaffected.
Now, all that was left was to wait for the next expansion of Safe City.
If every expansion meant she could gain a new room in her house, that would be incredible.
Didn’t that mean that as long as she kept upgrading, she could theoretically expand her home into tens of thousands of rooms?
—Thinking of expansion naturally brought “Cosmic” to mind.
Cheng Qisheng moved a table, chair, and computer into this newly arrived spacious room.
She planned to work while waiting for news from the Nuclear Crystal Hunters.
It sounded simple, but for Cheng Qisheng—whose body still moved rather sluggishly—it took her nearly half an hour just to move the furniture.
By the time she finished, faint beads of sweat had formed on her forehead.
It wasn’t that the furniture was heavy; rather, controlling a body that didn’t fully obey her was simply exhausting.
Every step she took, every time she exerted force with her fingers—what was effortless for a normal person felt to her like operating an old, poorly maintained machine.
But Cheng Qisheng didn’t complain. Even if everything was slow and tiring, she showed no impatience or frustration at all.
Aether, however, grew a little anxious watching her and wanted to help. But the body it used was only a virtual form—something the City Lord could touch, but ultimately just simulated sensation.
“City Lord, you could purchase a small household robot to handle all chores.”
Cheng Qisheng shook her head.
“No need. For now, we should save as many nuclear crystals as possible for the Air Tower.”
The 500 nuclear crystals had been earned from selling a mattress. If the price had been even slightly higher by a hundred, she wouldn’t have chosen to remodel the City Lord’s bedroom.
Verifying her hypothesis was important—but ensuring that the Blue Sea Civilization accumulated more resources was more critical.
A faint smile appeared on her lips.
“Besides, I don’t think doing these things is difficult.”
No matter how hard it was, it was still better than being unable to move at all—like a living corpse.
Now that her body could at least take care of itself again, and there was even hope of gradual recovery, and her home had gained such a large usable space—
Even if she spent three hours moving a table, she was still happy.
After finishing, she sat down and slowly raised her head to look at the bright, soft lighting that didn’t hurt her eyes.
“Alright. Time to work.”
What a hopeful day this was, wasn’t it?
—
Zombie World, Qianli City.
Song Xi and her team lay prone on a rooftop, using binoculars to scan the surroundings.
“Strange… the zombies in this area haven’t been cleared much, but why can’t we see a single survivor?”
Their goal was to determine whether a Safe City existed here, so they couldn’t just wander around randomly.
Among the team was also a local. The crystal hunters had originally planned to find a local resident so that Wang Moning could ask for clues related to Safe City.
In order not to alert the enemy, they had even already planned how to disguise themselves as locals.
But after searching for so long, they still hadn’t seen a single local person.
Song Xi disappointedly lowered her binoculars.
“Let’s go. Change location.”
She began swinging the grappling gun in her hand, preparing to fire the iron claw with its attached steel cable toward the opposite building.
Crystal hunters usually moved across rooftops, since there were fewer zombies there. As long as the rooftop doors were kept shut and they kept their movements quiet, they generally didn’t have to worry about being surrounded.
Just as they picked a firing position, the distant sound of an approaching vehicle echoed through the streets—followed by the crash of cars colliding.
Song Xi jolted. She and the other crystal hunters immediately crouched in a neat row on the rooftop and peeked down.
“Great! It’s people!”
“Praise the Divine! We finally found survivors!”
Their faces lit up with excitement.
If they still couldn’t find anyone, they would have to resort to the most primitive method—searching the entire area to see whether a Safe City existed at all.
However, the survivors in that vehicle were clearly unlucky. With so many zombies around, who would think of driving a four-wheeled vehicle? Motorcycles would have been much faster.
As expected, the vehicle was too conspicuous and quickly got surrounded. Zombies slammed against it, and it wouldn’t be long before the windows shattered and the people inside became prey.
The crystal hunters assessed the situation briefly, then turned to the only member who had once served as a tactical observer:
“So? Can we go in?”
“There are still a lot of zombies nearby. It’s quite dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
After thinking for a moment, the man replied, “In this terrain… about a 60% risk.”
“Oh! Then that means we can go!”
Wang Moning, standing nearby, vaguely understood what was being said and twitched her mouth.
—Almost at the same time, the crystal hunters fired their grappling hooks. The hooks landed on a building closest to the trapped vehicle.
They rolled their necks, checked their gear, and pulled down their masks.
Song Xi reminded Wang Moning:
“Ningning, stay here. Don’t run around.”
Wang Moning watched as Song Xi skillfully pulled down her tactical mask, then glanced at the darkening sky.
She had always thought the crystal hunters wore masks just to block harsh sunlight.
“Why do you still wear it at night?” she asked hesitantly in her still-awkward Blue Sea language.
Then she heard Song Xi reply: “Because this #￥#%￥…”
What?
That word wasn’t in her vocabulary.
Wang Moning automatically interpreted it as: “Because this helps prevent zombie blood from splattering on the face.”
After giving instructions to her team’s translator, Song Xi returned to the rest of the crystal hunters.
Another team leader asked her, “What were you talking about with the local?”
Song Xi replied, “Ningning asked why we still wear masks at night.”
“Do we even need to explain that? Isn’t it just because it looks cool? Military masks are stylish!”
Song Xi nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I told her too. Maybe locals just don’t have an eye for aesthetics. How pitiful.”
She tested the steel cable, confirming its strength, and checked her weapons.
“For the Divine! Let’s move!”
Inside the vehicle, someone glimpsed figures in the half-broken rearview mirror—on the distant rooftops behind them.
More than ten people in tactical gear, faces covered.
“Those!! Are those people?!”
“Are they the military? Special forces?!”
“Are they here to save us?!”
Some were filled with hope, while others despaired.
“Even if they want to save us, it’s too far. By the time they get here, the windshield will already be shattered by zombies…”
All exits were blocked by zombies. Unless those people could fly, there was no way in.
And then—
They saw it.
Those dozen figures, gripping ropes, leapt downward in unison.
“Woohoo!!”
With that shout—
They descended from the rooftops, swinging down toward the vehicle.
