Chapter 13.2: Blue Sea Housing
Aether, who was currently coordinating with the city planning chief team on where to build the industrial district, swam over.
“My City Lord, this column-type residential district was designed and constructed by the Blue Sea government. After I joined, I ran calculations and concluded that this structure is highly feasible and did not require modification.”
“First, it achieves extreme savings in materials and land usage. You only need to build a cylindrical high-rise structure and then carve appropriate sections into it to create compartments.”
“Second, it does not cause residents to feel suffocated. Although each compartment is small, everyone has their own independent space and private entrance. The openness of the view makes it easier for residents to accept compact living spaces.”
“Third, the threat of zombies outside still gives residents a sense of urgency. In the face of an apocalyptic crisis, people desire to live among their own kind, yet also want personal space. At the same time, low-rise housing cannot provide the sense of security offered by a Safe City.”
“Now that they live at higher elevations, residents feel a sense of safety—even if zombies infiltrate the city, they would not be able to climb that high. In addition, each compartment has its own window facing the outside world, improving ventilation and allowing residents to better observe external conditions.”
“Therefore, Aether believes the Blue Sea government’s construction concept is completely correct.”
Cheng Qisheng was convinced.
Indeed—it was the most material-efficient and space-efficient design, and also one of the most acceptable to Blue Sea citizens.
If individual rooms were divided into smaller compartments inside a shared space, and residents had to pass through other people’s areas just to leave, Blue Sea people—who clearly had a strong sense of personal territory—would definitely not accept it.
This cave-like structure might look like everyone was surviving in a wilderness city, but the residents were willing to live in it.
So for now, this would do.
With so much land now freed up, once more materials from this world were acquired, they could start building more conventional housing.
Cheng Qisheng continued watching.
In the past, when she observed her believers, she always thought things like: “Don’t do anything reckless,” “How are you even trying this,” or “Oh no, so many people died again.”
But now, since the disease had eased and the future had become hopeful, she found herself watching with a more relaxed, almost leisurely curiosity.
And honestly—it was kind of interesting.
——
Song Xi was carrying a backpack and had already grabbed an iron chain:
“Come on. Remember the number of this area—56. Don’t go the wrong way, or you’ll have to switch channels again. It’s pretty troublesome.”
So you Blue Sea people call this chain a “channel”?!
Wang Moning walked over in a dazed state. Song Xi placed her hand on the chain, then put gloves on her, looked around, found a safety rope, and clipped it onto her.
“Normally we don’t use this thing—it gets in the way. But you’re not very strong, and I’m afraid you might not be able to hold on, so we’ll still attach it.”
Then she patted Wang Moning on the back.
“Let’s go!”
Wang Moning: “……”
Go? How are they supposed to go? Like the others, walking directly on the wall?
“Hey! Move aside, sister!”
A voice came from above. Wang Moning looked up and saw several Blue Sea people holding onto the chain and looking down from above, about three meters off the ground.
She quickly let go of the chain—but they didn’t climb down it at all. Instead, once she moved aside, they simply jumped down lightly.
Three meters! They just jumped down!
The group clearly found it normal. After landing naturally, they patted Wang Moning on the shoulder with smiles.
“You must be the new alien, right? You’re too skinny. Eat more and gain some weight in the future. May our god bless you.”
After greeting her, they left while smiling, treating her the same way they would treat any other Blue Sea person.
Wang Moning stared blankly at their backs.
“Do they all know me?”
Song Xi: “Yeah. Everyone already knows that an alien believer of our god is joining the Blue Sea.”
Wang Moning: “But how do they know it’s me?”
She had only just arrived!
Song Xi glanced at her relatively thin arms compared to her own.
Wang Moning lowered her head and looked at her own arms. Over the past half month following the exploration team, she had gained some muscle from climbing up and down, but compared to the Blue Sea people, it was still almost negligible.
Among the Blue Sea people—who were all tall, heavily built, and possessed considerable physical strength—she definitely stood out.
Wang Moning still felt a bit overwhelmed:
“Isn’t everyone being a bit too nice to me? I thought I was different from everyone else, and it would take some time to integrate into the group.”
Song Xi laughed:
“How are you different?”
“If our God has acknowledged you, then you’re the same as us. You’re also a child of God—our sister, our family.”
Wang Moning froze.
Is it… really that simple?
She… she had just integrated like that?!
From the sidelines, Cheng Qisheng clearly felt that Wang Moning’s faith “line” had become noticeably thicker.
Was she moved by the words “sister” and “family”?
Sipping her warm milk tea, she thought to herself that this child was still too naive.
In Blue Sea, as long as you are a child of God, you are indeed family.
But family still argues—and fights.
In Blue Sea history, there had been plenty of cases where “family” had beaten each other senseless.
Still, thinking carefully… Song Xi wasn’t wrong either. Blue Sea people enjoyed high-intensity challenges and looked down on b*llying the weak.
With Wang Moning’s height and build—around 1.65 meters—she would be considered “weak” among Blue Sea people, grouped together with the elderly, the sick, and the disabled.
So she probably wouldn’t run into that kind of situation anyway.
Cheng Qisheng decided to spare a bit of attention for Wang Moning.
Despite being so weak, she could still keenly sense that someone was observing her, which made Cheng Qisheng naturally think of what other city lords had called “extraordinary citizens.”
Could she be one?
Whatever. She’d just watch for now.
She wasn’t short on time anyway.
—Song Xi had no idea that the great Creator God was observing them from the sidelines.
She looked at Wang Moning, who was still standing motionless, then glanced upward.
“Is it too high for you? Are you afraid to go up?”
These past few days, Wang Moning had followed them everywhere and had climbed up and down plenty of times. She had almost forgotten that the locals weren’t actually very good at climbing buildings.
Song Xi shifted her backpack to the front.
“Come on, I’ll carry you. Eat more—may the divine bless you. If you do, you’ll have the strength to climb buildings in the future.”
Wang Moning shook her head and grabbed the chain.
“No, I’ll do it myself.”
She thought of when she had first been rescued—she had learned that there were only a few dozen survivors left in total, including her, and none of them were her parents.
Then she thought of returning to her hometown, when Song Xi had agreed to her request and taken her back to her old house… where she saw her grandparents, turned into zombies.
At that moment, the world truly seemed to collapse into gray.
Then Wang Moning thought of Arthur’s smile at the inquiry office, of those unfamiliar Blue Sea people who had greeted her warmly just moments ago, and of what Song Xi had said—that she was now a child of God, under the warm gaze of the divine.
They had told her: may God bless you.
She clearly realized that she had truly been accepted.
The god had accepted her. The Blue Sea had accepted her.
Perhaps… she would have a home again.
With red eyes, Wang Moning gripped the chain and, copying the others, used her core strength to push off the wall and climb upward.
She was still slower than the Blue Sea people, but Song Xi patiently followed behind, guiding her:
“Don’t use too much arm strength—push off the wall with your legs.”
Someone was coming down from above. Seeing this, they naturally grabbed the rope to move aside, and as they passed, one of them casually offered advice:
“Plant your foot firmly.”
“Don’t stick to the wall—you won’t be able to move if you do.”
Wang Moning’s arms were sore and aching, and her legs were slightly trembling. But the half-month of training with the team had given her no small amount of stamina.
Though she looked a bit disheveled, she still managed to climb to the 81st floor, the 56th opening from the left.
As soon as she entered, she slumped to the ground.
Song Xi jumped in lightly behind her, then set down the backpack that belonged to Wang Moning.
“I was thinking we could go shopping together later, but looking at you like this, you should rest first. I’ll buy everything and bring it back—you can just transfer the points to me.”
Wang Moning leaned against the wall and didn’t try to push herself.
“Thank you, Captain. I really couldn’t have done it without you.”
She struggled to stand and looked around. The cave-like room was surprisingly spacious—at least about ten square meters.
And the ceiling was much higher than her previous home, probably designed for Blue Sea people whose average height was over 1.8 meters.
Inside the cave was a wooden bed and a small window.
Standing on tiptoe, Wang Moning peeked out and could see the dense crowds moving below, and in the distance, construction teams actively demolishing buildings.
There were also roads painted in various colors stretching out like ribbons of a rainbow when viewed from above—stunning and almost overwhelming.
Vehicles moved in straight, unbroken lines along these roads.
To her surprise, none of them ever turned. Every road was a one-way straight path, leading directly from start to destination.
Even the tiny figures of pedestrians below all moved in straight lines—no one turned back, no one veered off course.
The roads didn’t intersect. Each small dot of a person moved steadily along its own path, ensuring that this city never became congested.
In the distance, the tall buildings—just like the one they were staying in—towered into the sky, each one like a massive pillar standing across the city.
It was easy to imagine that inside them, just like here, were countless residents going up and down using chains.
Wang Moning heard the roar of aircraft. She turned her head with effort and saw several fighter jets lifting off, heading into the distance.
“…So shocking.”
She let out a breath.
This place was different from the high-tech city she had once imagined. It felt rough, even a bit crude in some ways.
But in a world filled with disasters, the existence of such a city alone was already a miracle.
Perhaps it was precisely this wild, untamed way of living that allowed its people to remain so composed in the face of large-scale catastrophe.
“Let me rest a bit. Today I still have to go up and down twice more!”
Wang Moning steeled herself.
“If I’m going to live here in the future, and I can’t even go home normally, then what kind of life is that supposed to be!”
She might not be able to match the Blue Sea people’s natural physical strength, but she could train—at least enough to live normally.
Song Xi blinked.
“Not necessarily though. If climbing up and down is too tiring for you, you could just rent a more expensive elevator-type apartment.”
“Like those buildings we saw on the way here. Blue Sea has those too, but the rent is pretty high~”
Wang Moning: “?”
“I thought all the houses here were like this… with chains and climbing up and down.”
Song Xi looked even more surprised than she did.
“Why would you think that? We’re also a modern civilization.”
“It’s just that resources are scarce, so everyone is poor right now and can only afford low-rent housing. Otherwise, why do you think I went out as a crystal hunter? I’m trying to earn points to buy a better place to live.”
Wang Moning said: “…I thought you just liked this kind of architectural design.”
She had even mentally prepared herself for a future of swinging around on chains together with Blue Sea people.
Song Xi waved her hand.
“Not really. It’s just acceptable. I used to have a 300-square-meter house—that was what I really liked! Unfortunately, it was destroyed along with our planet.”
Wang Moning wasn’t surprised by the mention of planetary destruction. The Blue Sea people had never hidden it from her.
She already knew—their homeworld had been destroyed. It was the great Creator God who opened a divine sanctuary and led the Blue Sea people to escape, bringing them to her world.
Song Xi continued with a bright tone, clearly daydreaming:
“I’ve already planned it out. Once I save up a bit more points, I’ll first put a down payment on a 30-square-meter apartment. Then I’ll keep saving, and once I’ve saved enough, I’ll sell the small place and upgrade to a bigger one. Sooner or later, I’ll definitely own another 300-square-meter house!”
“Come on, let me show you photos of my old home. It was really beautiful—I decorated it with a lot of care.”
“And this one—my classmate sent it to me. It’s a newly built apartment building. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s only 30 square meters. It has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen—everything. Fully furnished too.”
Wang Moning looked at it and found it genuinely quite nice. She felt a bit tempted:
“Then… does Blue Sea have any restrictions on buying property? Like, do newcomers have to wait five years or something before they can buy?”
Song Xi replied: “No. As long as you have points, you can buy it. But it’s expensive. Don’t think our rent is only 100 points a month—those apartment buildings? I heard the down payment alone is 50,000!”
Wang Moning: “……”
“That is expensive. You guys even have down payments?”
“Yes. It’s a relatively new policy. There wasn’t one before—you used to just buy outright if you had enough money. But honestly, if it were full payment only, who could afford it?”
“Don’t be fooled by the high price—it becomes your personal property once you buy it, and it has running water and electricity. Running water and electricity! It’s been so long since I last took a hot shower at home!”
Song Xi excitedly explained her plan to Wang Moning:
“This time, if I make a big profit, I want to rest at home for two months. During those two months, I’ll go to the Vanguard Exploration Team’s field division in the mornings, and work at construction sites in the afternoons. That way I can earn points and also contribute to city development. Once I level up the city construction rating to level three, I’ll only need to pay 30% for the down payment!”
Wang Moning: “…You call that ‘rest’?”
Song Xi: “Yeah. Going out with the Vanguard Team isn’t very dangerous, and there’s food and drink provided. Building on construction sites is even easier—you just use physical strength, and you don’t even have to deal with zombies. What else would you call it but rest?”
Wang Moning: “……”
For some reason, she suddenly smelled something familiar—something like capitalism.
She had thought that people like the Blue Sea residents, with their straightforward personalities, wouldn’t have things like this.
But the key was: even in this apocalyptic world, even if she could see that these policies were clearly designed to motivate people to work hard, earn points, and build the city, Wang Moning still felt unable to resist it.
At the very least, in this collapsed, apocalyptic environment, there was still a place where working really earned you points—and points could actually be exchanged for food.
Her expression gradually became firm.
“I’ll do it too!”
“In the name of our God—save money! Buy a house!!”
Cheng Qisheng witnessed everything.
She finished the last of her milk tea and remained deeply anonymous.
Yes—the down payment loan policy… was her idea.
Previously, when she had been buying her own house, she had cursed “capitalists” as much as she wanted. Now, she found this policy incredibly useful.
But Cheng Qisheng still had her own principles—no shared floor area calculations. What you see is what you get.
After finishing her drink, she slowly stood up and walked toward an extra door that had appeared.
This was a new door that had emerged after the core of Cosmic Lord Safe City had been swallowed. Beyond it lay a vast planting area.
Cheng Qisheng opened the door and looked at the endlessly spacious trees and vegetation inside, letting out a breath.
The existence of this planting area confirmed her hypothesis.
As long as she continued expanding the safe city, her home would keep generating rooms with ever-increasing space.
So, in a sense, did that mean that as long as the safe city kept expanding…
She could even build a new world inside her own home?
