Safe City Ch.59

Chapter 59: Phone or Bowl

This was the first time Cheng Qisheng had encountered a situation like this.

Every Dazzling Star survivor who entered Blue Sea Safe City, after taking in their surroundings, quickly became one of her believers.

In fact, the clergy hadn’t even had the chance to preach yet.

The fastest convert became her believer the very first second after understanding the concept of the Blue Sea Creator God.

As for Kailina, who took the longest, it was only because she had fallen into a fever-induced sleep. Once she woke up and understood what was going on, she, too, swiftly became a believer.

Cheng Qisheng was genuinely delighted.

Although this was only the second world Blue Sea Safe City had visited, it had traveled throughout many regions in the previous world. Never before had the local population converted so quickly.

If every local could truly be converted with a 100% success rate, wouldn’t that mean Blue Sea could gain as many loyal new believers as there were surviving Dazzling Star people?

In the past, Cheng Qisheng would have investigated the matter herself immediately.

Once a Dazzling Star person became her believer, she could vaguely perceive their thoughts and knowledge, making it much easier to examine the situation.

But this time, she had something more pressing to deal with.

Instead, she issued a divine oracle to the Pope, ordering him to investigate on her behalf.

Important as the believers were, Cheng Qisheng’s real focus was on the Universal Translation Meme.

The translator Kailina had seen had nothing to do with the translation meme. It was merely a simple emergency translation program hastily developed by the AI and Blue Sea, which was why its translations sounded somewhat stiff and unnatural.

The Universal Translation Meme was still enshrined in the temple, placed before the statue of the Creator God.

A small unexpected complication had arisen.

When it had first been obtained from the item card, it came inside an ordinary wooden box. After it was brought back to the temple, the Pope carefully opened the box, only to discover that it contained no physical object. Instead, inside floated a glowing white orb—a hazy, luminous phantom.

Cheng Qisheng’s original plan had been to apply this meme to the AI.

Theoretically, once the AI was imprinted with the Translation Meme, it would be able to comprehend the linguistic rules of every world it encountered.

After that, Aether could simply feed each newly discovered language into the electronic translators. That way, the entire Blue Sea civilization would never have to worry about language barriers again.

This had always been Blue Sea’s approach.

Whenever they arrived in a new world, they would collect samples of the local language, have Aether analyze and organize them, and then incorporate them into the translation software.

The only downside was that the process was slower.

Take this world, for example. Blue Sea had arrived several months earlier in a region with no native inhabitants, so Aether hadn’t even had the opportunity to hear the local language.

Moreover, Dazzling Star’s transportation network had collapsed, and with its advanced technology gone, isolated communities had passed their languages down through generations, causing them to diverge wildly.

The natives taken in by Puya Safe City and those Tian Buke and his team had brought back originally lived only about as far apart as two neighboring cities.

Yet they somehow ended up speaking two completely different language systems.

According to the original plan, once Cheng Qisheng obtained the Universal Translation Meme, she should have immediately integrated it into the AI to solve the language problem as quickly as possible.

But after seeing the meme, she came up with a different idea.

What if… I let my own mental power “eat” the meme instead?

It wasn’t because of any careful strategic consideration.

It was simply because Cheng Qisheng realized that she had developed an appetite for the little glowing thing.

How should she describe it?

It just… looked delicious.

It didn’t even have a physical form. It was more like a spiritual entity, a glowing white wisp filled with beautiful flickers of light. By every measure, it looked nothing like food.

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, it seemed absolutely mouthwatering.

If she had to compare it to something edible, it would be like a tiny dessert—one happily waving a little cake hula skirt, swaying its blueberry decorations, while the ice cream tucked inside its sponge layers cheerfully shouted:

“Eat me! Eat me!”

“How could anyone possibly resist that?”

Obviously, this appetite wasn’t normal.

Cheng Qisheng checked the Safe City Store’s description page for the Translation Meme from top to bottom. Nowhere did it mention that a city lord would suddenly want to eat it upon seeing it.

Which meant the problem probably wasn’t the meme.

It was her.

Should she eat it… or not?

By the time Kailina woke up, Cheng Qisheng was still weighing the decision.

To be honest, suppressing the overwhelming craving was no easy task.

It wasn’t exactly hunger.

It was simply an incredibly intense urge to eat.

If she had to compare it to something, it was like someone who had been dieting for an entire month, strictly cutting back on carbs. Then, one sleepless night, just as the cravings became unbearable, an enormous bowl of steaming, fragrant comfort food loaded with carbohydrates suddenly appeared right in front of them.

Naturally, every single cell in their body would be screaming:

“I want to eat it!!”

But Cheng Qisheng held herself back.

She had always possessed remarkable self-control.

After spending hundreds of billions of years watching over Dark Star, that self-discipline had only become stronger.

The main reason she refused to eat it was that she had no idea why she craved the meme in the first place.

Wanting to eat a beam of light with no physical form…

No matter how you looked at it, that wasn’t normal.

—Although, spending hundreds of billions of years taking care of an entire planet hadn’t exactly been normal either.

Still, back then, at least her body had retained the needs of an ordinary human being.

Since the marketplace offered no answers, Cheng Qisheng decided to ask other city lords.

This time, however, even Wen Huahua—the ever-resourceful information broker known as “Coriander”—came up empty-handed.

[Boss, all of us are below Tier 5. None of us can afford a meme. I asked around, and a lot of people don’t even know what a Translation Meme is.]

Wen Huahua had actually been quite excited while investigating.

The only information he’d managed to uncover was that a resident of Blue Sea had been lucky enough to draw a Translation Meme from an item card.

[This thing is that expensive! And one of your residents actually pulled it straight from an item card!]

He was both envious and delighted.

After all, the stronger his boss became, the more he, as her subordinate, stood to benefit.

Wen Huahua even decided that once he obtained a gold item card, he’d have the luckiest resident in his own Safe City open it.

Who knew?

Maybe they’d pull a Translation Meme too.

[Boss, if you want to learn more about Translation Memes, you’ll probably have to wait until you reach Tier 5. By then you’ll meet a lot more high-tier city lords. Some of them have been running their Safe Cities for over a century, so they’ll definitely know much more than we do.]

[As expected of my boss! Your luck is incredible! Even something this valuable ended up in your hands! You’re amazing, Boss!]

After thanking Coriander for gathering information on her behalf, Cheng Qisheng sent him thirty white item cards as a token of appreciation.

Blue Sea Safe City: [Thanks for your hard work. Have you found any other information about Skywing Dragon locations?]

Coriander Safe City: [One Safe City is very interested, but they don’t trust the terms of our alliance agreement. They want us to sign their contract instead.]

Coriander Safe City: [Honestly, Boss, I think it’s a trap. I had my lawyers review the agreement they sent over. It’s nowhere near as clear as ours. My legal team found two loopholes right away. Either this guy’s an idiot… or he’s up to something.]

Blue Sea Safe City: [What tier is he?]

Coriander Safe City: [Tier 2. I can’t really judge his combat strength, but I’d advise against agreeing.]

Cheng Qisheng asked: [Why? Did you discover something?]

No one understood her strength better than Coriander.

Back when she herself had been Tier 2, she had been capable of killing a Tier 3 opponent. There was no way Coriander would consider an ordinary Tier 2 city lord a genuine threat to her.

He had investigated the matter thoroughly.

[I think he’s relocated his Safe City once before. And I’m pretty sure the reason for that first relocation was that he was being harassed by Skywing Dragons and had no choice but to move.]

[Back then, before and after he relocated, he approached a lot of city lords trying to form alliances in exchange for coordinates. The alliance agreement he offered at the time was much more detailed than the one he sent me now. Every city lord I’m familiar with turned him down. As for the ones I don’t know well, I couldn’t really keep digging.]

[But after that, he stopped complaining about flying snow beasts in the group chat, and his profile never turned gray, so I think he successfully found another city lord, formed an alliance, and relocated his Safe City next to theirs.]

[The thing is, he deliberately hid that information from me. I suspect he’s already allied with that other city lord and is just waiting to lure you over, Boss. Once you arrive, it’ll be two against one.]

Cheng Qisheng immediately understood.

[And the other city lord is most likely Tier 3 or above.]

[Exactly, Boss. That’s my guess too. Even two Tier 2 city lords together probably wouldn’t dare ambush a Tier-3 Safe City. Give me a few days—I’ll try to find out who that allied city lord is.]

That was where their conversation ended, and Coriander went back to gathering intelligence.

If he could identify the Tier 3—or higher—Safe City allied with that city lord, he could estimate their overall strength based on their chat history and whatever information other city lords had shared about them.

If they turned out to be overwhelmingly powerful, then naturally they’d drop the matter.

But if they weren’t as strong as Boss Blue Sea…

Heh.

Although Coriander hadn’t managed to uncover any information about the meme, talking with him helped Cheng Qisheng make up her mind.

Upgrading a Safe City from Tier 3 to Tier 4 required 300,000 crystals.

Advancing from Tier 4 to Tier 5 required even more.

Who knew when Blue Sea Safe City would actually reach Tier 4 or 5?

What if Blue Sea encountered some major danger before then?

Like right now.

Wasn’t another Safe City already setting its sights on Blue Sea?

In the apocalypse, when it came to priceless treasures like memes, no matter what choice you made, the safest course was usually to use them as soon as possible.

To keep it from becoming someone else’s prize in a future Safe City war.

Cheng Qisheng stopped hesitating.

“Send for Tian Buke.”

…

Tian Buke was escorted to the temple.

The past two days had been almost too good for him.

After returning to the Safe City, he had learned not only that he had awakened as an ability user, but that his ability belonged to the exceptionally rare Luck category.

On top of that, because he had made a major contribution by drawing the Universal Translation Meme, he had been rewarded with a house and a large amount of points.

Now he even held an official position created specifically for him:

Minister of the Department of Luck.

Although it was only a nominal appointment, it still came with a salary.

Praise be to our God!

Tian Buke firmly believed that all this incredible fortune was the blessing of his divine creator.

And now, as the head of the Department of Luck, he was officially reporting for duty.

Beneath the statue of the Great Creator God, a softly glowing white light hovered in the center.

To its left sat a mobile phone.

To its right, a bowl.

The Pope personally led Tian Buke over.

“Our God’s oracle commands that you choose one of these two options.”

“Follow your intuition.”

Leaning back on the sofa, Cheng Qisheng watched Tian Buke’s decision intently.

Yes.

This was the choice she had made.

She would let this lucky man decide for her.

The phone represented letting Aether assimilate the meme.

The bowl represented letting her devour it.

Tian Buke looked bewildered, but he immediately pointed at the white bowl.

There was no profound reason.

He was simply hungry.

Cheng Qisheng noticed that Tian Buke’s faith chain never lit up, meaning his Luck ability hadn’t been activated by this choice.

Even so, she had no intention of repeating the test.

Once a move had been made, there was no taking it back.

To her, if fate refused to choose between the two options, then it meant either one was acceptable.

Tian Buke was just asking the Pope,

“Your Holiness, is that all?”

when, all of a sudden, the glowing white orb hovering between them vanished without a trace.

Neither Tian Buke nor the Pope showed the slightest surprise.

Instead, they simply bowed respectfully toward the statue.

The Great Creator God was omnipotent.

Making a ball of light disappear was hardly worth remarking on.

After all, the entire Blue Sea civilization—and even the temple itself—had been brought to another world by their God.

—

The Great Creator God was digesting the meme.

Delicious.

It was so delicious!

The moment Cheng Qisheng devoured it, she understood how the meme truly worked.

What she had consumed was not the countless languages spoken by innumerable civilizations.

What she had eaten was a tiny rule.

That rule was simply:

“To understand the language of all intelligent beings.”

It transcended civilizations, dimensions, time, and space, existing solely as a fundamental law.

She felt as though her mind had genuinely enjoyed an enormous feast.

At the same time, her control over Blue Sea’s believers grew even stronger.

The mass blessing she had envisioned before…

She could now perform it effortlessly.

Cheng Qisheng opened her eyes.

She had completely digested that tiny rule governing language.

She didn’t need to study it.

She instinctively knew how to wield it.

Extending her mental power over the entirety of Blue Sea, Cheng Qisheng enveloped every resident.

No matter what they were doing, each of them suddenly felt a wave of warmth wash over them.

It was a blessing from their God.

At that very moment, every believer received the divine blessing.

“Praise be to our God!!”

The faithful looked up at the sky with reverence.

That included the newly converted Dazzling Star locals.

It was the first time they had ever received a divine blessing.

The warmth was so comforting that these people, who had lived their entire lives amid endless winter, couldn’t help but burst into tears once more.

But as they cried, they suddenly realized something.

They could understand Blue Sea’s language—

a language that, only moments ago, had been completely incomprehensible.

At the same time, the residents of Blue Sea discovered that they could suddenly understand the Dazzling Starian language as well.

Smiling, Cheng Qisheng gazed upon her believers, clearly sensing the gratitude, excitement, and joy overflowing from their hearts.

Tian Buke really did have his Luck stat maxed out.

Eating the meme had been the right choice.

Because after consuming it, Cheng Qisheng didn’t just gain the ability to understand every language herself—she had acquired the rule itself, which meant she could bestow a smaller version of that rule upon her believers.

That was far more convenient than relying on the AI to translate everything.

Give him a raise!

Increase his bonus!

Absolutely increase both!!

Feeling her greatly expanded mental power after devouring the rule, Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hah~ hah~ hah~”

Cheng Qisheng: “…”

The laughter stopped.

Slowly, she raised a hand.

“Tes~t~”

Cheng Qisheng: “…”

Right.

She had forgotten.

Her Mortal Body Syndrome meant that the stronger her mental power became, the less her physical body could withstand it.

Now that her mind had grown stronger, her body had regressed to the level of health she’d had back when she was Tier 2.

No…

It was actually just a little worse than it had been at Tier 2.

Still, it was much better than at Tier 1.

Now, if she spoke too quickly, her words would merely come out slower. In everyday life, she was only slightly sluggish.

Cheng Qisheng said,

“It’s… fine. Overall, this… is a good thing… isn’t it, Aether?”

Completely unaware of what had happened, Aether replied without missing a beat,

“Yes, City Lord!”

After all, the City Lord was always right!

Then Aether demonstrated a brand-new trick it had learned from watching television.

It did a somersault.

Unfortunately, since it had no physical body, it kept rolling…

…straight under the table.

Cheng Qisheng poked it.

“Don’t… make me laugh.”

“Hah~ hah~ hah~ hah~ hah~”

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