Chapter 181.1: “I know that you know…”
Cheng Qisheng watched Old Tagu recite the formula from memory, once again feeling the sheer power of [Luck].
What kind of remote backwater was the Broken River Wasteland supposed to be? It was practically a gold mine of talent!
First, they had dug up Colleen and brought back Jin Yin. And now, even an ordinary old man from an ordinary little town could recite the formula for Green Grass Juice.
What was Green Grass Juice?
It was the one and only substance that could allow people to avoid being hunted down by night beasts during the Eternal Night.
Everyone on Moon Silk Star who wanted to stay alive would buy it. The main reason the [Companies] could act with such impunity was because they held the lifeline of every person on Moon Silk Star in their hands.
If the [Companies] stopped selling Green Grass Juice, it wouldn’t take long. After just a few Eternal Nights, the population of Moon Silk Star would be reduced by at least eighty percent.
Even Blue Sea, which had been disguised as [Ota] all this time, obtained its supply of Green Grass Juice by purchasing it in batches through various channels from different merchant caravans.
The Blue Sea government had always been extremely cautious about this. The entire distribution process was handled by Inner City residents, and they even used roads reserved exclusively for Blue Sea personnel, all to prevent the information from leaking.
The Three Great Companies had probably assumed that [Ota] could manufacture the formula itself. Otherwise, after [Ota]’s powerful emergence, they could never have behaved as though [Ota] had no weaknesses at all.
If the Three Great Companies knew that [Ota] still needed to purchase Green Grass Juice, it would lead to one of two possibilities.
First, they might conclude that [Ota] was genuine but had somehow lost the formula. In that case, the most likely outcome would be for the Three Great Companies to stop selling Green Grass Juice to the outside world and simply wait for [Ota] to die off.
Second, they might discover that [Ota] was a fake and begin cooperating with it without any reservations in order to deal with [Ota].
And Cheng Qisheng’s response to either possibility was exactly the same:
Run!
Yes, that old trick again.
If they were discovered, she’d take the Safe City and its residents and run for it.
Anyway, they’d already made more than enough from Moon Silk Star. Even if they ran, it wouldn’t exactly be a loss. They’d simply be leaving some profits on the table.
Of course, when Cheng Qisheng ran, the names of the Three Great Companies that she had written down in her notebook would remain there, waiting for the day Blue Sea became powerful enough to put them to use.
But now, this town resident named Tagu had helped Blue Sea eliminate the weakness it had been so carefully hiding all this time.
Old Tagu was brought back to the White Tower.
He would take the initiative to tell [Ota]—which should have possessed the technology to manufacture Green Grass Juice—that he knew the formula.
That proved one thing: Tagu believed that [Ota] was not a company.
Once he did that, there was no way Blue Sea could allow Tagu to remain in the town.
At least for as long as Blue Sea still needed the [Ota] identity as a cover, Tagu would have to stay inside the Safe City.
The Blue Sea Institute of Science and Technology began manufacturing Green Grass Juice according to his formula to verify whether it was genuine, while treating him to good food and comfortable accommodations.
After revealing the formula for Green Grass Juice, the old man’s attitude remained remarkably calm. He cooperated throughout the entire process, carrying the same somewhat fearless attitude Jin Yin had displayed when she first arrived in Blue Sea:
“Being alive is great. Dying is fine too.”
It had to be said that just as every city on Earth had its own distinctive character, every world in the vast universe likewise had its own unique style.
Take Moon Silk Star, for example. Its particular style was that all of its researchers worked their asses off, while simultaneously carrying a faint air of death about them.
—The information on Old Tagu quickly appeared before Cheng Qisheng.
As far as Deer River Town was concerned, Old Tagu had only lived there for a little over a decade. He had an eccentric personality and never interacted with the other people in town.
There were even rumors about him, with some people claiming that he ate children.
But those were probably just stories made up by the children themselves.
The adults knew the rumor was false, but none of them had ever taken the initiative to clear Old Tagu’s name. They didn’t want their children getting close to the strange old man either. Having a rumor like that around saved them quite a bit of trouble.
The only person who had ever been close to Old Tagu was a child named Rui En.
While the residents of Blue Sea gathered information on Old Tagu and Cheng Qisheng, along with the various departments of Blue Sea, reviewed the files, the first batch of Green Grass Juice manufactured according to his formula was presented before them.
After the Eternal Night, the batch proved that the formula was genuine by successfully masking the senses of the night beasts.
Inside the Institute of Science and Technology, a cleric looked across the table at Old Tagu.
He had spent more than a decade in Deer River Town without revealing that he knew the formula for Green Grass Juice. Yet now, he had voluntarily told the Blue Sea, which was disguised as a company.
If it had been any other Moon Silk resident, Blue Sea might not have found this particularly surprising. After all, they had genuinely obtained better lives thanks to [Ota].
But apart from accepting the special food benefits provided for the elderly once, Old Tagu had barely come into contact with any of the changes [Ota] had brought to the Broken River Wasteland.
So what had made him change his mind and voluntarily reveal the formula for Green Grass Juice?
The cleric carefully chose her words.
“Tagu, what do you want?”
Old Tagu remained calm. He looked at the cleric sitting before him, his eyes showing little emotion. Instead of answering, he asked:
“You’ve verified the formula, haven’t you?”
The cleric nodded. “Yes. We verified it. The formula is genuine.”
Old Tagu said, “I know you’re not a [Company].”
The cleric replied, “I know you know we’re not a [Company], and you should also know that I know you know that we aren’t a [Company].”
She rattled off the entire sentence without stumbling, then felt rather pleased with herself and silently gave herself a pat on the back.
Old Tagu, who had maintained his composure all this time, was left momentarily stunned by this sudden exchange that sounded like a tongue twister.
The air of detachment he had deliberately cultivated was shattered, and somehow, the atmosphere suddenly became much more relaxed.
Old Tagu was silent for several seconds before abandoning the idea of probing each other through their conversation and getting straight to the point.
“I don’t want anything.”
His gaze fixed directly on the cleric.
“No matter what your purpose is in disguising yourselves as a [Company], I can tell that, at the very least, you care about your fellow people. You’re trying to save as many people as possible. Any faction that’s doing that will get the formula for Green Grass Juice from me.”
“Not just from me. There are others who will do the same.”
The cleric’s expression shifted slightly.
Cheng Qisheng, who had also been watching the conversation, likewise diverted more of her mental power toward Old Tagu, pulling her attention away from the melodramatic TV drama playing out before her.
“Others? You mean there are more people who know the formula for Green Grass Juice?”
“Yes.”
Old Tagu let out a deep sigh, a trace of sorrow slowly surfacing in his eyes.
“The formula for Green Grass Juice was supposed to be made public in the first place.”
He leaned back in his chair. At this moment, he no longer seemed like a frail old man nearing the end of his life. Instead, he seemed almost like a child again, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.
“You’ve done a lot. You’re trying to save more people. But you probably won’t believe this when I tell you: what can actually save Moon Silk is a city.”
The cleric sitting opposite him froze.
This scene felt strangely familiar.
The last time she’d watched the interrogation of the prophet Gong Cheng, hadn’t he said more or less the same thing?
Cheng Qisheng was equally astonished.
Seriously? Moon Silk really was one giant stage. If you had the ability, you just had to show up!
How many more surprises was this planet going to throw at her?
Under the effects of the cognitive lock:
The [Companies] knew about the existence of Safe Cities through historical records, but were unable to recognize them.
The prophet Gong Cheng had seen Safe Cities through his own prophetic abilities, but was unable to comprehend the concept behind them.
And now, even an ordinary old man from a small town could reveal information about Safe Cities.
Old Tagu didn’t notice anything amiss. He simply assumed that the cleric’s surprised expression came from her being astonished that he had claimed a single city could save an entire planet.
Then he took a deep breath and dropped another bombshell.
“The night beasts were created by my mother and her colleagues.”
The cleric: “？？？”
The various departments of Blue Sea watching the surveillance footage: “？？？”
Cheng Qisheng: “…Wow. I mean, wow.”
Aether looked up at the City Lord and followed her lead.
“Wow~”
Old Tagu slowly began recounting what he knew.
First was something the residents of Blue Sea already knew: Moon Silk Star had once suffered an apocalyptic disaster, and numerous Safe Cities had descended, helping the planet survive that particular apocalypse.
But the governments and the major [Companies] on the planet had already realized that the apocalypse would eventually return.
Even if they survived it once, twice, three, four, five, six, seven, or eight times, disaster would continue to follow one after another until the entire planet—and the entire Moon Silk civilization—was destroyed.
“So, a plan was born.”
Old Tagu gazed at the pure white ceiling, gradually becoming lost in his memories.
“Create an apocalypse ourselves, so that the Safe Cities belonging to Moon Silk could descend ahead of time. Or attract Safe Cities from other civilizations, so that the people of Moon Silk could escape Moon Silk Star while they still had time to prepare.”
Wait.
Cheng Qisheng lowered the cup she had been drinking from.
This version sounded rather different from the [Company]’s version.
According to Old Tagu’s account, after Moon Silk Star survived its first apocalyptic crisis, the governments of various countries, the [Companies] powerful enough to shake entire nations, and all the scientists working on forbidden research gathered together and agreed to this plan.
But their plan was to save all the people of Moon Silk.
The night beasts were powerful and difficult to deal with, yet they had the weakness of Green Grass Juice for a reason.
Their bodies contained the collective wisdom of the brightest minds from every field on an entire planet.
Even the so-called Eternal Night had been created by the people of Moon Silk themselves.
Cheng Qisheng leaned back on the sofa, with Aether sitting in her arms. One human and one AI listened intently as yet another truth about Moon Silk Star was revealed.
“Seven hundred years ago, the scientists of that generation placed a giant rotating orbital star curtain between the star and the planet. It could plunge Moon Silk Star into a state of Eternal Night.”
“Five hundred years ago, the scientists of that generation developed the night beasts. They made them powerful and highly reproductive, while also making them afraid of light. That way, the night beasts would only emerge at night, greatly reducing casualties.”
“Three hundred years ago, the scientists of my mother’s generation believed that making the night beasts merely afraid of light wasn’t reliable enough. People needed to be able to protect themselves in the darkness. So they re-engineered the night beasts’ genes and inserted an artificially synthesized genetic module. When a designated scent appeared, it would activate the receptors and temporarily shut down their sense of smell.”
That answered one of Cheng Qisheng’s lingering questions.
She had, after all, governed eight civilizations before, so she knew very well that for intelligent life, oppression and persecution would only lead to extinction.
If the status of scientific researchers on Moon Silk Star had always been as warped and distorted as it was now, this planet could never have developed such formidable technological capabilities.
Now she knew why.
Scientific researchers on Moon Silk Star had once held extremely high status, roughly equivalent to the Temple of Blue Sea.
That was why they had developed the habit of classifying positions and levels of authority according to color.
It was much like the Temple of Blue Sea, where clerics of different ranks wore sacred robes of different colors.
The researchers worked closely with the leaders of various factions, and both sides placed their trust in one another. During that period, united by a common goal, Moon Silk Star’s technological development advanced at an astonishing pace, ushering in an era of explosive technological growth.
A huge number of powerful weapons were developed during that period. That was why some weapons could melt anything, some could freeze their targets, and some could even destroy the planetary mantle.
Those weapons had all been developed so that once the people of Moon Silk entered the safe-city system, they would be able to deal with the apocalyptic scenarios of various worlds.
As for Moon Silk Star, their home planet, the leaders of the first generation had never intended to destroy it.
Old Tagu stared blankly at the pure white ceiling.
“That was their plan. The only thing that would appear during Moon Silk Star’s apocalypse would be the night beasts.”
In the beginning, the apocalyptic plan on Moon Silk Star had indeed been created to help the entire civilization.
But a thousand years was enough to change a great many things.
The original generation of leaders who had proposed the plan gradually passed away. Their descendants, or successors they had personally chosen, took over and continued carrying out the plan.
These successors had never actually witnessed the apocalyptic disaster of the past. Nor had they personally experienced how powerful the various Safe Cities were, or the brutality of the rules governing the safe-city system.
They ignored the risks their predecessors had clearly marked out and focused solely on one thing:
“As long as the Safe City doesn’t perish, the City Lord cannot die.”
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