Chapter 91.1: Weaselfolk Civilization
A newborn baby had awakened a spatial ability?
No… that wasn’t right.
The father’s reaction made it seem as though he had known the child possessed a spatial ability even before the birth.
A possibility occurred to Cheng Qisheng.
“Aether, among the civilizations you’ve recorded, is there one whose people are born with spatial abilities?”
Aether quickly searched its database.
“Yes, City Lord. Aether has recorded an old legend. Long ago, there was a Safe City inhabited by a weaselfolk civilization. Every weaselfolk was born with an innate storage space. Even a newborn weaselfolk infant possessed a storage space about the size of an ordinary room.”
Cheng Qisheng didn’t need to guess how that civilization had ended.
A space stone with storage the size of an ordinary room sold for 20,000 crystals in the Safe City Marketplace.
But the weaselfolk were an entire race.
Even if there had been only ten thousand of them, that still amounted to the equivalent of 200 million crystals.
Sure enough, Aether continued,
“The weaselfolk civilization was attacked by an alliance of multiple Safe Cities and was ultimately defeated. The surviving weaselfolk were scattered among different Safe Cities, where they became living substitutes for space stones.”
If that had been the end of it, things wouldn’t have been so terrible. After all, every weaselfolk was effectively a spatial ability user, and most City Lords wouldn’t mistreat people who worked for them.
So, at first, the weaselfolk were treated fairly well.
That changed when one Safe City discovered that a weaselfolk’s spatial ability resided in its tail.
Cut off a weaselfolk’s tail, and it became the equivalent of a space stone.
From that day on, the weaselfolk’s status plummeted.
Their tails became commodities to be bought and sold, while tailless weaselfolk were forcibly paired for breeding. A single litter could produce four or five pups, and once those young weaselfolk grew up, they too would be forced to relive the tragedy of their parents’ generation.
According to the legend, the weaselfolk civilization consisted entirely of males, and they became pregnant with remarkable ease.
What had once been an advantage became a curse after they were reduced to living space stones.
Generation after generation, the weaselfolk were forced to breed. Perhaps it was a form of genetic self-preservation, but over time they gradually lost the ability to reproduce. In the end, the entire race vanished into the long river of the apocalypse—
Aether projected a holographic image of a weaselfolk before Cheng Qisheng.
The weaselfolk had ash-gray hair, light brown eyes, a long curled tail behind them, and a pair of fluffy yellow semicircular ears standing atop their heads.
They looked nothing like Tan Xiaoyu and the others.
Those two clearly bore the features of the merfolk civilization.
And yet… a newborn with what appeared to be a spatial ability, and an all-male race…
Both details matched.
Cheng Qisheng turned to Aether.
“Aether, do you have any ideas?”
Aether paused for several seconds, searching its database over and over again, but still found nothing relevant. It sounded deeply ashamed.
“My apologies, City Lord. Aether has no clues.”
Cheng Qisheng picked it up.
“Neither does your City Lord. So let’s wait and see together. Once the father wakes up, we’ll have our answer.”
Tan Xiaoyu clearly knew nothing, and according to the information the guards had gathered from the other prisoners, he had grown up in Blackstone Safe City since childhood. He might well know even less about his original civilization than Cheng Qisheng did.
Although Aether was still somewhat clumsy when it came to emotions, it understood the logic of intelligent life quite well.
“Will Zhuo Ying, the prisoner of war, be willing to tell us?”
Considering how deliberately he had concealed his pregnancy, Aether didn’t believe Zhuo Ying would reveal everything.
“Of course he won’t.”
Cheng Qisheng looked at the surveillance feed, where Zhuo Ying was still asleep, his brows faintly furrowed even in unconsciousness.
“That’s why we’ll need a few tricks.”
…
Zhuo Ying’s eyes flew open.
His abdomen felt strangely empty.
The baby had already been born.
His mind was still foggy when he suddenly sat bolt upright and instinctively reached beneath his legs.
His hands found nothing.
“Big Brother, don’t worry! It’s okay now. The baby’s perfectly healthy.”
Tan Xiaoyu, who had been keeping watch beside the hospital bed the entire time, hurried forward to reassure him. Beside him, a priest approached, carrying the baby.
“Don’t worry. Both father and child are safe.”
Only then did Zhuo Ying realize he was in what looked like a hospital. An IV drip was still connected to his hand.
He had no idea what medicine was flowing into him, but in every Safe City, medicine was among the most precious resources.
Something about this was deeply abnormal.
How could such valuable medicine possibly be used on a sl*ve?
There was only one possibility.
They’d found out!
They knew the secret!
Zhuo Ying struggled to keep himself from trembling as his mind raced for a way out.
Don’t panic. Stay calm.
He could say the child had simply been born as an ability user.
Yes. There had been cases of babies awakening extraordinary abilities immediately after birth. Maybe that excuse would be enough to fool them.
But then…
As a sl*ve who had just given birth and discovered that he had been carefully treated, what expression should he wear?
Surprise?
Fear?
Overwhelming gratitude?
Flattered disbelief?
While Zhuo Ying was still frantically thinking, the priest had already gently placed the baby into his arms.
The newborn was soft all over, even down to the tiny tail—so soft that the tenderness could be felt even through the swaddling cloth.
Zhuo Ying, whose thoughts had been racing a moment ago, froze.
The softness hit him so suddenly that his nose stung with tears before confusion overtook him.
If this Safe City had discovered the baby’s ability, why would they willingly return the child to him?
Even if they hadn’t uncovered that secret, if a sl*ve gave birth to an ability user, the baby should have been taken away.
…Had they really not discovered it?
But if they hadn’t discovered the baby’s ability, why was he lying in such a luxurious hospital, one that clearly cost a fortune to stay in?
Zhuo Ying decided to keep his mouth shut for now. He would wait for the other side to speak first, then respond accordingly.
The priest in the black-and-white robes spoke.
“Your baby just used his ability to store a piece of candy.”
Zhuo Ying: “…”
No problem.
He took a deep breath, deciding to stick with the story that his child had simply awakened an extraordinary ability at birth.
But the priest continued,
“We don’t know what newborns from the weaselfolk civilization can eat, so we haven’t fed the baby yet. You should have the appropriate food stored in your storage space, shouldn’t you?”
Zhuo Ying: “…”
The man holding the baby had gone completely rigid.
He looked like a cat with its fur standing on end—
Even though he didn’t actually have any fur.
From that reaction alone, the experts in the surveillance room who specialized in reading expressions had already concluded that he really did come from the weaselfolk civilization.
The priest calmly added,
“If you don’t have any, that’s fine. Just tell us what the baby needs to eat and drink. You can purchase it on credit with contribution points. Since your ability qualifies as a spatial ability, you’re eligible for the ability user credit limit.”
Zhuo Ying: “…”
He forced himself to stand firm and deny knowing anything about the weaselfolk civilization.
“You’ve got it wrong. We’re from the merfolk civilization, not some weaselfolk civilization. Spatial ability? What ability? What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
Beside him, Tan Xiaoyu hurriedly chimed in.
He hadn’t noticed the turmoil his older brother was experiencing at all. He simply assumed the priest had mistaken their race.
“That’s right, Reverend! We’re from the merfolk civilization. The baby’s got a fish tail!”
The priest maintained his smile.
“Please don’t worry. The laws of the Blue Sea Civilization require that marriage be entered into voluntarily. Even knowing your race’s innate gift, Blue Sea won’t do anything to you.”
The priest gently patted the baby’s swaddling blanket.
“However, you came to Blue Sea as prisoners of war. You still have prisoner debts to repay, so you’ll need to work them off.”
To the priest, none of this seemed like a big deal.
So what if men gave birth? So what if their children were born with racial gifts and innate storage spaces?
Those were good things.
And all good things were gifts from God.
Maintaining his gentle smile, and feeling quietly pleased that he had completed his assignment, the priest turned and left the room.
Cradling the baby, Zhuo Ying gently stroked the infant’s dark green, shoulder-length hair before glancing up at the surveillance camera. A storm of emotions flickered across his face.
Tan Xiaoyu looked at him in confusion.
“Big Brother, what did the Reverend mean?”
Zhuo Ying shook his head.
“Xiaoyu, don’t say anything for now. Let me think.”
…
“He’ll figure it out.”
Cheng Qisheng was shelling peanuts, planning to stir-fry a plate of roasted peanuts.
After the Safe City reached Tier Four, she had regained the ability to cook at a normal pace.
Aether squatted beside her. Wanting to help but unable to touch physical objects, it settled for scanning the pile for the plumpest peanuts and floating over to point them out to its City Lord.
One human and one AI chatted while they worked.
“He’s a smart man. He should understand that Blue Sea already knows about their civilization and their abilities. If Blue Sea truly wanted to exploit them, we’d still be able to achieve our goal even without treating them politely.”
Just as the weaselfolk civilization had never been given a choice.
Neither their racial gift nor their fertility had ever been entirely under their own control.
Zhuo Ying would understand.
Unless he intended to take Tan Xiaoyu and the baby, avoid every Safe City forever, and perish alongside the apocalypse…
Blue Sea Safe City—the city that already knew his secret yet was still willing to accept them—was by far the best choice he could make.
Aether was listening intently when it suddenly floated upright.
“Prisoner of war Zhuo Ying has pressed the call button in his hospital room.”
Cheng Qisheng continued shelling peanuts, but a thread of her psychic power drifted into the hospital room.
As expected, Zhuo Ying confessed.
Both he and Tan Xiaoyu were indeed descendants of the weaselfolk civilization.
A thousand years ago, the weaselfolk civilization had been hunted down. Generation after generation, the weaselfolk were reduced to sl*ves and breeding machines, with no hope for the future.
Back then, an ability user had emerged among the weaselfolk. His ability was Exchange.
This Tier 5 ability user devised an escape plan. Using the reproductive ability of the entire race as the price, he exchanged the race of a small group of weaselfolk who managed to escape.
That remnant of the race was transformed into merfolk.
Where they had once borne four or five children in a single litter, they now gave birth to only one child at a time, just like true merfolk. However, their racial gift remained. It had merely shifted from the weaselfolk’s long tails to the tails of their merfolk forms.
Grinding his teeth, Zhuo Ying slapped his thigh in frustration.
“Our ancestors never wanted this racial gift, but it’s stayed with us ever since. It’s like a curse!”
Even if one generation of weaselfolk never used the ability, children born to the next generation would still possess spatial powers.
What’s more, they had also inherited the traits of the merfolk civilization:
They could intermarry freely, regardless of race or sex.
No matter what race—or even what sex—their partner was, any child they had would inherit the spatial ability. Since infants couldn’t control the power, it was extremely easy for the secret to be exposed.
Fortunately, they eventually discovered that if a newborn’s long hair was cut immediately after birth, the spatial ability would temporarily disappear.
However, if these new weaselfolk immersed their entire bodies in water, following the habits of the merfolk, their fish tails would emerge, their hair would continue growing, and their spatial ability would return.
And so, generation after generation, the new weaselfolk concealed their identity.
They wandered from one Safe City to another, claiming to be descendants of the merfolk civilization.
After a child was born, they would cut the baby’s hair. Then, once the child was old enough to understand, they would take them into the water, allow their tail to emerge, and reveal the truth about their civilization.
Thanks to their spatial abilities, the new weaselfolk managed to live fairly well. After all, when scavenging for supplies, others had to carry bags upon bags of loot, while they could simply store everything in their personal space.
Zhuo Ying didn’t conceal any of this.
Now that he was already inside Blue Sea Safe City, with the bewildered Tan Xiaoyu beside him and a newborn baby in his arms, even if he refused to talk, Blue Sea could still verify the truth if it really wanted to.
He might as well be honest and tell them everything.
“When Xiaoyu’s father died, he was probably too young. Or maybe it was because he’d been underfed since childhood and was slow to react. Either way, he doesn’t remember what his father told him, and he has no idea he possesses a spatial ability.”
Fortunately, sl*ves rarely even had clean drinking water, much less the opportunity to immerse their entire bodies in water. As a result, Tan Xiaoyu had reached the age of fifteen without ever exposing his ability.
Before everything happened, Zhuo Ying had served as a guard in another Safe City. He was fairly capable, and with the help of his storage space, he had lived a decent life.
The freedom the new weaselfolk enjoyed today had been bought with the sacrifice of their entire race.
Because of that, they were willing to risk everything to ensure their people survived. Whenever the opportunity felt right, they would seize the chance to conceive and have children.
Following the plan passed down by his father, Zhuo Ying chose an appropriate age and had a one-night stand with a humanoid partner, successfully becoming pregnant. He had already stockpiled plenty of food and supplies in his storage space and even purchased a home where he intended to raise his child.
Then the Safe City he lived in was conquered by Blackstone Safe City.
“I realized I’d become a sl*ve. By then, I was already three months pregnant. I knew there was no future for me in Blackstone, so I decided to escape with Xiaoyu, assume new identities, and join another Safe City.”
Fortunately, after the new weaselfolk became pregnant, there were no visible signs from the outside. And when the baby was born, it was only about the size of a person’s palm.
Then came their first escape attempt from Blackstone—only for Blackstone to cede territory.
The second time, they tried to flee from Tian’ou, only for Tian’ou to be destroyed by Blue Sea.
In fact, when Tian’ou declared war on Blue Sea, Zhuo Ying had planned to use the chaos to escape with Tan Xiaoyu.
Instead, the Blue Sea residents suddenly took to the skies one after another. Before the two of them had even reached the city walls, Tian’ou had all but fallen.
Everywhere they looked, Blue Sea citizens filled the city in overwhelming numbers, vastly outnumbering Tian’ou’s own residents.
At that moment, Zhuo Ying had gone completely numb.
He could only grab Tan Xiaoyu’s hand and surrender on the spot.
Then, on only the second day after becoming Blue Sea prisoners of war, he went into labor.
…
When Cheng Qisheng heard Zhuo Ying say, “As long as we have children with any humanoid race, the children will inherit spatial abilities,” she stopped shelling peanuts altogether and stuffed a large handful into her mouth, trying to calm herself.
In other words…
As long as Zhuo Ying, Tan Xiaoyu, and the newborn continued living in Blue Sea, then every time they—or their descendants—married and had children…
Blue Sea would gain several more residents with spatial abilities.
That was practically equivalent to having spatial-type ability users!
True, they weren’t as overwhelmingly powerful as genuine spatial ability users, who could eventually perform feats like spatial teleportation.
But that didn’t matter.
Generation after generation, their numbers would keep growing.
SSR!
No…
SSSSSSSR!!!
Just moments ago, Cheng Qisheng had been worrying about how to deal with the newly acquired sl*ves.
Now she felt utterly refreshed.
Tian’ou really is a wonderful bunch!
First they gave me land.
Then crystals.
Then items.
And now they’ve handed me a treasure like this!
Thank you, Tian’ou!!
Without hesitation, Cheng Qisheng sent a divine decree to the priests listening to Zhuo Ying’s story.
“Find a way to convince them to join Blue Sea.”
…
The priests, who had just been debating whether Zhuo Ying’s family should be classified as weaselfolk, merfolk, or some sort of weasel-merfolk hybrid, immediately straightened in their seats the moment they received the divine message.
Blue Sea’s method of retaining talented people had always been simple and straightforward.
“Our God be praised. Blue Sea now understands your situation. Here’s how it works: both you and Tan Xiaoyu are prisoners of war, so you are required to assume prisoner-of-war debt.”
The prisoner-of-war debt was something new in Blue Sea.
It had been created specifically for this batch of prisoners.
Unlike residents who joined Blue Sea voluntarily, prisoners had participated in the war against Blue Sea. As a result, after being captured, they were assigned a war debt of 5,000 contribution points per person.
Once they paid it off, they would become eligible to become official residents.
Of course, not every prisoner qualified for a war debt. Blue Sea first screened them.
For example, Zhuo Ying and Tan Xiaoyu had both been sl*ves in Tian’ou Safe City. They hadn’t willingly attacked Blue Sea—they had been forced into the war and hadn’t caused significant damage to Blue Sea. Under those circumstances, they qualified for a war debt, which they could repay through work. Once the debt was cleared, they would become eligible for residency in the Outer City.
The priest continued, “However, because both you and Tan Xiaoyu possess storage spaces, you’re considered equivalent to ability users. That means you qualify for the Ability User Loan. You can use your abilities as collateral and borrow 5,000 contribution points each to immediately pay off your prisoner-of-war debt.”
“Oh, I should explain. Using your abilities as collateral means that if you can’t repay the loan, you’ll work for the government using those abilities. For example, your storage space measures ten by ten by… right…”
He did a quick calculation.
“Your total storage volume is 280 cubic meters, enough to hold roughly 1,200 barrels of bottled water, or about 7,800 fifty-jin sacks of rice.”
The priest pulled out a salary chart for spatial-type ability users and glanced at the figures.
“Let’s see…”
“So, each time you transport cargo for Blue Sea—and I mean transporting goods outside the city—you can repay 200 contribution points toward your debt. If the destination is particularly far from Blue Sea—for example, more than 10,000 square kilometers away—the repayment is higher: 400 contribution points per trip.”
Zhuo Ying’s breathing grew a little heavier.
Of course he knew how dangerous it was to transport cargo in the apocalypse.
But…
The government of a Safe City could simply have ordered him to do it without paying him anything, couldn’t they?
“You mean… if I transport goods for Blue Sea twenty-five times, I’ll be free?”
What kind of Safe City is this?
He was a prisoner.
Yet they were actually calculating wages for him.
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