Safe City Ch.134

Chapter 134: Domain

Although the children were a little too energetic, from every perspective, the Blue Sea Safe City had indeed fulfilled its promise.

Expert Xicao carefully observed the children’s daily lives.

To his surprise, even in the apocalypse, the lives of the young children in Blue Sea had not been affected in the slightest.

Including the children from the Duxi Civilization, they seemed to be living together as though they were in an era of peace. Every day, all they had to do was eat, drink, and play.

Blue Sea Safe City had even retained the technology for producing infant formula. Looking at the chubby but by no means overweight children, who obediently hugged their bottles at mealtime and gulped down their milk, streams of data flashed through Expert Xicao’s systems, registering something akin to the human emotion of “relief.”

He also had no need to worry that these children, having enjoyed such a good childhood, would be unable to adapt to life in the apocalypse when they grew up.

Just look at them crawling all over the place and swinging around on all kinds of toys.

Expert Xicao could already imagine how strong and healthy these children’s bodies would become after growing up amid such “play.”

As a mechanical being, unless Expert Xicao deliberately made an expression, his face remained calm at all times. It was therefore difficult for others to tell what he was “thinking” from his outward appearance.

But his actions made it clear just how satisfied he was with the way the children of his mother civilization were living in Blue Sea.

—Expert Xicao quickly threw himself into the work of separating the toxicity from the seawater.

“The toxicity brought about by subspace can not only be separated out, but the substance obtained from the separation can also be used as a weapon.”

Cheng Qisheng was watching the video broadcast. On the screen, Expert Xicao was speaking animatedly to the Blue Sea experts.

What an unexpected bonus!

Duxi had never mentioned that the separated toxicity could be put to a second use.

She guessed this was probably another one of the little tricks of the Duxi Civilization.

Cheng Qisheng figured that Duxi was probably using a deliberate strategy.

First, they would only tell the civilizations entrusted with the children that they could do A. Then, once the experts of that civilization had determined that their children were being treated well, they would throw out B.

And perhaps, once the children grew into adults, Expert Xicao would even come up with C.

In any case, if it were Cheng Qisheng, she would probably do the same thing.

If something was mentioned from the very beginning, the Safe City lords would easily take it for granted. But if it had never been mentioned before, and an expert suddenly said halfway through, “Oh, I can also do XXX,” the city lords would definitely feel as though they had gotten an unexpected bargain.

Cheng Qisheng had to admit that, even though she understood the reasoning behind it perfectly well, she genuinely did feel like she had gotten a bargain.

Especially since Expert Xicao was being extremely proactive. After confirming the children’s condition and determining that Blue Sea was treating them well enough, he barely gave himself any time to rest. Every day, he busied himself separating the seawater from the subspace toxicity, only taking time in the morning and evening to visit the children.

When asked about it, he answered very naturally:

“I am currently a mechanical being, so I do not require sleep or rest.”

But the Blue Sea staff assigned to him still made him rest for at least two hours every day.

Although Expert Xicao was no longer technically a carbon-based lifeform, he had at least been a human once. Working twenty-four hours a day, all year round, without any break was bound to drive him crazy eventually.

—As for the research departments currently operating in Blue Sea, this world was simply far too suitable for scientific research. Many of Blue Sea Safe City’s experts had become almost fanatical with excitement.

This was especially true of some of the experts who had joined Blue Sea halfway through.

Some experts might simply have personalities like that, while others came from civilizations with an inherently wild approach to scientific research.

Just a few days ago, one expert had directly used himself as a test subject while researching a certain type of fungus, only to be rushed to the temple in the middle of the night for emergency treatment.

The absurd part was that this expert was an Outer-City resident, and he had never managed to become a believer in the Blue Sea Creator God.

After consuming some of the fungi from Moon Silk Star, he began hallucinating. While being carried to the temple for treatment, he saw the statue of Cheng Qisheng move.

And just like that, this Outer-City expert, who had never been able to place his faith in the Blue Sea Creator God, successfully became a believer.

Cheng Qisheng: “……”

Fortunately, the news was kept under wraps. Otherwise, quite a few Outer-City residents would probably have gone all out trying to eat those poisonous mushrooms.

Yeah, definitely not something you should eat.

The expert did indeed become a believer, but his body was also severely damaged in the process. If Blue Sea hadn’t already had medical pods and a large-scale medical facility, he probably would have gone straight from becoming a believer to returning his soul to their god.

Come to think of it, quite a few Outer-City experts had recently become so engrossed in their research that they inexplicably ended up becoming believers in Cheng Qisheng.

Ruo Buyan, who had once developed the flight wings, could certainly relate.

She felt that for researchers, seeing a scientific environment like Blue Sea’s—where once a research project was approved, the city would pour its full support into it—it would actually be abnormal not to be moved.

Quite a few ordinary Outer-City residents had also increased the number of believers.

Because in this world of Moon Silk Star, Blue Sea was currently disguised as the [Company]. To ensure that nothing went wrong and their disguise wasn’t exposed, only Inner-City residents were currently authorized to go outside.

As for all Outer-City residents, regardless of their combat strength or how much they had contributed in the past, they could only handle logistical work within Blue Sea Safe City.

In fact, many Outer-City residents rarely left the Safe City anyway for various reasons, and their primary jobs were already logistical.

But choosing not to go outside yourself was one thing. Being ordered not to go outside when an emergency occurred was another.

At its core, this was an issue of trust.

Blue Sea could place absolute trust in its fellow believers among the Inner-City residents, but it couldn’t entrust that same level of trust to the Outer-City residents.

From Blue Sea’s perspective, there was nothing wrong with doing this. To put it without exaggeration, Blue Sea’s successful disguise as the [Company] was the result of billions of people spending nearly half a year and expending enormous amounts of manpower and resources to achieve it.

If Outer-City residents were allowed to go outside, then without a loyalty imprint, no matter how well a particular resident had behaved while in Blue Sea, there was no way to guarantee that they would 100% refrain from exposing Blue Sea.

Once Blue Sea’s existence was exposed, everything they had done before would be for nothing.

From the perspective of the Outer-City residents, many of them had also come to realize something very clearly: under normal circumstances, things were fine, but at a critical moment, as long as they hadn’t become believers, they would never receive complete trust.

This time, they were merely being forbidden from leaving the city. But if Blue Sea ever faced a life-or-death crisis and the government had to choose between residents, who would they choose—the Inner-City residents or the Outer-City residents?

Wouldn’t the answer be obvious?

As a result, under the pressure of these thoughts, large numbers of Outer-City residents were spurred into becoming Inner-City residents. Those who had yet to become believers also began visiting the Outer-City temple much more frequently.

Lu Song was, of course, among them.

Lu Song was one of the most successful people among the non-believers.

Whenever he rented equipment, Qi Yi and Qi Er would vouch for him, and they usually acted together as well. On top of that, his combat strength was high enough and his contributions were substantial. In fact, aside from being unable to receive divine revelations, his daily life was more or less the same as that of an Inner-City resident.

But during this operation on Moon Silk Star, he was likewise “punished.”

He couldn’t leave the city. He couldn’t go outside like Qi Yi and Qi Er to sweep up mutated creatures and search for supplies. He could only remain inside the city like the other Outer-City residents.

At first, Lu Song was a little dejected, but he truly had once been a special forces soldier. He quickly adjusted his mindset.

When Qi Yi and Qi Er came back to see him, he even comforted himself, saying, “It’s actually good to stay home. At least I don’t have to keep worrying about being left outside.”

However, Cheng Qisheng could tell that deep down, he was still frustrated about it.

Through the perspectives of other believers, she could see Lu Song constantly heading to places like the gym and training grounds—anywhere he could improve his combat strength and burn off his excess energy.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he went to work at construction sites. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he spent the entire day at the gym. Even on Sundays, he would take a part-time job as an assistant teacher, specifically to keep a group of elementary school students with seemingly endless energy entertained.

Cheng Qisheng: Respect. Respect.

Although Lu Song had been “benched,” the sheer determination with which he was pushing himself to improve—even going so far as to work as an assistant teacher—made it obvious that once he was allowed to leave the city again, his combat strength would only increase rather than decrease.

By now, she barely even wondered why Lu Song still hadn’t become a believer despite working so hard.

Either Lu Song had trained his mental defenses when he was in the special forces, making it genuinely impossible for him to place his complete trust in a god,

or perhaps Lu Song possessed some kind of special extraordinary constitution.

In any case, everything that could be done had been done (and Lu Song was the one doing it). At this point, all they could do was leave it to fate.

After surveying the situation inside Blue Sea Safe City and confirming that all projects and personnel were operating normally, Cheng Qisheng shifted her attention back to Moon Silk Star.

At this moment, the agricultural experts dispatched by Blue Sea had been given a huge tract of land. They were preparing to study how to grow crops on this wasteland.

As mentioned before, Moon Silk Star was enormous. Before the apocalypse, its population had even been somewhat explosive. Now, however, it had reached the point where there was vast land and sparse population.

As a result, the Broken River Wasteland was absolutely enormous.

Blue Sea’s rough estimate put the total area of the Broken River Wasteland at around five million square kilometers.

And the territory Lord Broken River had allocated to Blue Sea covered roughly three million square kilometers.

What did three million square kilometers mean?

On Blue Star, that was already comparable to the territory of a major country.

Sure, it was remote. Sure, it was a wasteland.

But in the eyes of the agricultural experts, all they saw was vast expanses of land waiting to be developed!

A group of experts happily threw themselves into their work outside, giving it everything they had.

Meanwhile, inside the Safe City, a group of Outer-City residents were also giving it everything they had—trying their hardest to become believers.

Meanwhile, the locals of Moon Silk Star were also working harder than ever. Ordinary people happily gathered mutated creatures and delivered them to the various Blue Sea “stations,” while even the small factions became as obedient as could be after witnessing Blue Sea’s massive-scale sweep of the mutated creatures.

Cheng Qisheng finally felt at ease.

She now had some time to experiment with her new skill as well.

Cheng Qisheng sat inside her home, closed her eyes, and slowly used her mental power to envelop her house piece by piece.

Every detail, every section of wall, even a speck of dust on the floor was completely enveloped within her mental power.

It was a huge undertaking. Whenever she had found the time over the past few days, she had wrapped up another small section. Little by little, she had been working at it for more than half a month. After conducting numerous experiments, she had now become quite skilled at adjusting the strength of her mental power to just the right level.

Today, she was finally going to finish it in one go!

She withdrew the mental power covering the original doorknob, then condensed her mental power anew and wrapped the doorknob in a thicker layer.

Done!

She opened her eyes and wiped the slight sweat from her forehead.

Then she took out her phone and ordered takeout.

Cheng Qisheng had installed a security camera by her door, and at this moment, that camera was also enveloped in her mental power.

Half an hour later, she saw a delivery driver emerge from the elevator and head toward her apartment.

Then the delivery driver suddenly stopped.

Cheng Qisheng’s front door was clearly right in front of him, yet he seemed unable to see it. He simply looked around in confusion.

Cheng Qisheng called the delivery driver and told him to just leave the food by the elevator. Watching the delivery driver walk away through the security camera, she finally relaxed completely.

It worked!

The inspiration had come from the cognitive-lock artifact on Moon Silk Star.

The field completely enveloped by Cheng Qisheng’s carefully calibrated mental power had successfully blurred other people’s perception of it.

At this moment, her home still “existed,” but whenever someone tried to enter, they would temporarily forget that her home “existed.” After leaving, they wouldn’t feel that anything was wrong either.

This was the final test. Before this, she had already tried various surveillance cameras and other recording equipment, as well as paying people to come to her door for “repairs” or to “deliver takeout,” testing it one method at a time. Whether viewed through a camera or with the naked eye, no one could see her front door. Everyone simply perceived that there was nothing there but a wall.

In fact, even if someone used a tool to smash the “wall,” they would still be stopped by her mental power.

It was essentially as if Cheng Qisheng had successfully dragged her home into “another domain.”

—The inspiration had come from the subspace and those [Rooms] in her home.

The Safe City really was an incredible thing. Not only had it allowed Blue Sea to survive, but because it could appear in different civilizations, it had also broadened Cheng Qisheng’s horizons. The subspace she had seen on Green Billow Star and the cognitive lock she had encountered on Moon Silk Star—she had mashed the two ideas together, and that was how she had come up with what she had now.

In the past, how could she ever have imagined that mental power could be used like this?

—The old saying really was right: you live and learn.

There was always more to learn.

Cheng Qisheng looked at her little “nest” with satisfaction.

Ever since she learned that Blue Star had already entered its “Dormant Phase” of the apocalypse, she had always harbored a vague fear that something unexpected might happen and that her unusual nature might be exposed to the outside world.

But now that she had this “domain,” there was nothing left to worry about.

Strictly speaking, it was now just like the [Rooms] containing the cultivation area and artificial lake. It was no longer located on Blue Star, but rather within a domain that Cheng Qisheng had created with her mental power.

If this were a video game, its room attribute would probably be [Untargetable].

If she wanted, she could even stay home forever. After all, the cultivation area and artificial lake were already enough to make her self-sufficient.

Of course, this was her last resort in case she was exposed.

She hadn’t been exposed yet, so Cheng Qisheng could still happily enjoy the conveniences of modern life, like takeout and delivery services.

The only difference was—

From now on, as long as Cheng Qisheng, the owner of the place, didn’t want them to, no one would be able to [see] or enter her home.

<< _ >>