Chapter 165.1: “I’ve received a divine revelation!”
The Great Blue Sea Creator God, who had only recently managed to climb out of poverty, had been shouting about getting rich for so many days.
And now, she was finally, truly getting rich.
Cheng Qisheng quickly calmed down.
Of course, it was impossible for every Safe City to spend 880,000 crystals to buy the information. These City Lords were all incredibly shrewd. Once a City Lord bought the news about the Great Annihilation from the Truth Stone, they would very likely choose to leave Moon Silk Star ahead of time, just to be safe.
And Cheng Qisheng dared to bet that there would be absolutely no shortage of City Lords thinking that way.
If they didn’t know about the Great Annihilation in the first place, that would be one thing. But now that they knew about it, and could be certain that it would descend upon Moon Silk Star, quite a few Safe Cities would definitely be scared off.
By then, once one batch of Safe Cities fled, the remaining ones would probably be able to figure out that something was wrong, even if they hadn’t gone to the Truth Stone to buy the information themselves.
Even if they only managed to guess a fraction of the truth, these City Lords, each more desperate to preserve their lives than the last, would definitely send another large batch of Safe Cities running.
Even so, according to the figures estimated by the Blue Sea experts, no fewer than 150 Safe Cities would purchase this piece of information.
There were plenty of Safe Cities that valued their lives too much to take risks, but there were also plenty that were willing to seek wealth through danger.
Moon Silk Star had such abundant resources that simply scooping up a few researchers would be enough to make an entire Safe City rich overnight. There would still be quite a few City Lords who couldn’t bear to leave.
Eight hundred and eighty thousand crystals was a figure that would make the City Lords of Tier 5 and 6 Safe Cities wince, but it was still an amount they could afford to pay.
Sure enough, not long after Hanming Safe City posted the news in the group chat, several Safe Cities began arriving one after another at the place where the Truth Stone was currently staying.
No wonder people said that Safe Cities above the Tier 5 were all incredibly wealthy. A thousand crystals for relocation was probably nothing more than pocket change to them.
In ordinary apocalypse worlds, Safe Cities that didn’t know one another would deliberately avoid appearing in the same area.
But perhaps because everyone on Moon Silk Star had a common enemy—the Companies—or perhaps because Tier 5 and 6 Safe Cities all possessed a certain degree of self-defense capability, these several Safe Cities kept a certain distance from one another, yet remained peaceful.
In fact, when residents left through the gates of their respective Safe Cities, all sides were remarkably polite.
Whenever one side was asking a question before the Truth Stone, the residents of the other Safe Cities would thoughtfully move aside and quietly wait in the back.
—They were probably afraid that if they didn’t, it would immediately turn into a Safe City war.
With the villains having the home-field advantage on a place like Moon Silk Star, relations between the Safe Cities had somehow become friendly and harmonious.
Sitting at home, Cheng Qisheng watched the scene unfolding around the Truth Stone. Car after car loaded with crystals was escorted over by the various Safe Cities’ armies and sent into the vortex of the Truth Stone.
The 880,000-crystal information fee was being stuffed into the Truth Stone one payment at a time.
The leaders of the troops responsible for escorting the crystals were basically all trusted confidants of their respective City Lords. Watching such enormous quantities of crystals being swallowed by the Truth Stone, quite a few of them wore visibly pained expressions.
So many crystals!
And just like that, they were gone!
What a coincidence. Cheng Qisheng was thinking pretty much the same thing.
So many crystals!
And just like that, they were hers!
As she watched the enormous quantities of crystals entering the vortex of the Truth Stone, she could almost hear a series of notification sounds ringing in her ears.
“880,000 crystals +1.”
“Another 880,000 crystals +1.”
“Yet another 880,000 crystals +1.”
Ah~
The notification sound of money rolling in really was the most beautiful sound in the world!
—The Truth Stone had already gone completely crazy with joy.
Right now, it was repeatedly playing the same scene for Cheng Qisheng in an endless loop, as a demonstration of its loyalty.
In the scene, a misty, humanoid creature was performing a shamanic dance in front of the Truth Stone. It moved about with all sorts of ethereal gestures while loudly chanting:
“Ah~ Divine Stone, oh Divine Stone~”
“Ah~ I am willing to offer you everything I have~”
“Ah~ I shall follow you for all eternity~”
This was a hymn once sung to the Truth Stone by the natives of some planet it had encountered in the past. Now, it was simply borrowing their flowers to offer to the Buddha—presenting it to its own master.
Cheng Qisheng: What an awful melody. There’s a certain beauty to having absolutely no sense of pitch.
The song itself was terrible, but she could genuinely feel the loyalty that the Truth Stone was trying to express.
Especially when the amount of crystals deposited into its account quickly surpassed six million, the Truth Stone had clearly entered a state of utter frenzy.
It wasn’t that it had never earned so many crystals before.
It was that it had never earned so many crystals this quickly.
And according to its master’s plan, even more crystals were coming later.
The Truth Stone changed the meme it was endlessly playing for her, too.
This time, it was simply a scene of a whole group of horse-headed humanoids kneeling on the ground and frantically kowtowing, their faces filled with fervent devotion.
“You saved our tribe! Even if you wanted our legs, our eyes, or our hearts, we would offer them to you without hesitation!”
The Truth Stone back then: What a strange sapient species. Why would I want your hearts? I want crystals!
The Truth Stone now: Master! If you want my heart—the little piece of red jade core—I would gladly offer it to you without hesitation!
Compared to the pure joy of the Truth Stone, which was completely immersed in the mindset of I love working, work loves me, don’t even think about making me stop, the City Lords were in considerably less pleasant moods.
Those who had purchased the information began searching for exactly what the Great Annihilation was and whether it might arrive ahead of schedule.
Those who hadn’t bought the information gathered large numbers of residents and experts from their Safe Cities and began brainstorming, trying to infer what exactly was happening from the behavior of the other City Lords.
There were also City Lords who had bought the “Question Template” and “Truth Stone Coordinates” from Hanming City Lord but were still hesitating over whether to descend there and ask their questions. They, too, were covertly probing the group chat, trying to fish for information about what was happening now.
Cheng Qisheng also followed the crowd and went to Hanming City Lord, spending a thousand crystals to purchase the notification information.
She certainly wasn’t going to make a mistake over something like this. No matter what, she would never let anyone find out that Blue Sea had a connection with the Truth Stone.
Right now, the City Lords might be feeling fortunate that the Truth Stone existed on Moon Silk Star. They could luckily spend crystals to learn the truth before the Great Annihilation arrived and avoid the calamity that threatened their lives.
But if these City Lords found out that this Truth Stone, worth tens of billions and currently raking in payment after payment of 880,000 crystals, belonged to Blue Sea Safe City…
—Then the whole situation of everyone joining forces to fight the Companies would probably turn into everyone joining forces to fight Blue Sea instead.
Anyway, for Cheng Qisheng, who had earned multiple batches of 880,000 crystals in a single day, tossing a thousand crystals out as bait was practically nothing.
As for whether Blue Sea Safe City, having purchased the information, had also gone to the Truth Stone to buy the news about the Great Annihilation—who could possibly know?
She not only bought it herself; she also had Coriander buy it.
Compared to the other Tier 5 and 6 City Lords, he could certainly be considered poor right now, but he wasn’t so poor that he couldn’t scrape together a thousand crystals.
After waiting for Coriander to purchase the information, Cheng Qisheng waited another two hours before sending him a private message.
[Blue Sea Safe City: I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. You don’t have enough crystals, so don’t bother trying your luck. Don’t let your residents wander too far. Stay for another two years or so. Regardless of how things progress, take your Safe City and evacuate then.]
Although she had spoken extremely vaguely, after several Safe Cities chose to evacuate the world immediately, Wen Huahua also vaguely guessed what was going on.
The information the City Lords had obtained from the Truth Stone was definitely related to Moon Silk Star.
Whatever it was, it was certainly something serious enough to scare some of the City Lords into leaving.
Actually, Coriander had already been wondering whether he should leave ahead of schedule as well.
Although he didn’t know what was happening, he knew that under the current circumstances, if some City Lords were choosing to flee, then leaving must be a way to avoid whatever danger was coming.
But now the boss was saying that he could stay for another two years.
If this information had been purchased from the Truth Stone, then the boss wouldn’t be able to pass it on to him.
If not, then the only possibility was that the boss had somehow figured out that major event and was able to reveal a little information to him.
[Coriander Safe City: Okay, Boss. I’ll start counting down from now. The moment the time is up, I’ll leave immediately.]
Even though he knew that whatever could scare Safe Cities into fleeing must involve an enormous risk, and that if the information had truly been deduced rather than directly obtained, there was no guarantee it would be one hundred percent accurate, Wen Huahua still agreed without the slightest hesitation.
He trusted that Blue Sea Boss wouldn’t say something like this unless she was confident.
Besides, Boss would definitely never hurt him.
Following Blue Sea Boss was definitely the right choice!
With that thought, Wen Huahua’s previously anxious mood instantly settled down, and he went back to training himself with renewed vigor.
Two years!
There were only two years left with Boss protecting him!
He had to make the most of his time, ruthlessly improve himself and Coriander Safe City over these two years, and strive to make it safely through the next world.
Wen Huahua, City Lord of Coriander Safe City, chose to enter a closed-door cultivation state of “Give me XX days. I won’t hang around in group chats, I won’t slack off, I’ll train like crazy and cut myself off from society. When I reappear, I’ll absolutely amaze everyone.”
