Safe City Ch.121.2

Chapter 121.2: A New Home

After five days of a citywide holiday and four days of work, Qian Wu now had the extra points he’d earned from those days of labor stored on his watch. As he stood at the back of the line waiting to get off the bus, he was carefully doing the math in his head, wondering whether he should buy himself a small piece of sea-monster meat for dinner tonight.

After the oracle announcing Blue Sea’s decision to evacuate Green Billow Star was issued, the mindset of a large number of Blue Sea residents quickly shifted from “mainly salvaging supplies” to “we’re leaving, so let’s make one last big haul.”

They began luring sea monsters into traps or actively chasing them down. Basically, whenever they spotted a sea monster’s tentacle on the way home, unless they genuinely had no chance of beating it, they would absolutely give it a try.

As a result, huge quantities of sea-monster meat that hadn’t been dried for preservation flooded into Blue Sea, where it was exchanged for points in the hands of the residents.

Some of the meat that could be properly processed and stored was placed in warehouses, while the rest appeared in various cafeterias.

The heavily discounted sea-monster meat let plenty of residents indulge themselves.

Even Qian Wu, who was usually extremely frugal, was now willing to buy some meat for himself.

A few years ago, how could he ever have imagined that he would have his own place to live, be able to take a bus as transportation, eat his fill every day, and even have enough left over to buy meat?

Thinking about it, Qian Wu felt positively delighted.

The line finally reached him. It was only when he arrived at the bus door that he realized why the line had been moving so slowly today.

The shuttle platform at his building had changed.

Previously, after getting off at the stop, the various access points to the buildings had been kept a certain distance away from the traffic lane for safety reasons, leaving an open gap in between. Anyone getting on or off the bus had to step across quite a large space on their own.

But now, there was a heavy gangplank between the shuttle platform and the bus door.

The front of the gangplank was blocked off by a barrier roughly as high as an adult’s thigh.

There was a turnstile on either side of the barrier.

After the screen on the turnstile scanned Qian Wu’s face, its red light finally turned green.

A line of small Blue Sea characters appeared on the screen.

Qian Wu had been working hard to learn the Blue Sea script, so he could easily understand it.

[Resident identity confirmed. Verification successful. Access granted—]

Even though Qian Wu knew it was merely a message displayed on the turnstile, he couldn’t help feeling a surge of joy.

‘Resident. It called me a resident.’

At the same time, he couldn’t help taking a closer look at the turnstile.

He had heard while working that a child of one of the Outer-City residents had once stepped into empty space while getting off the bus.

Fortunately, Blue Sea had shuttle platforms on every floor. So although the child had fallen from a considerable height, it was essentially the equivalent of falling from the eightieth floor to the seventy-ninth.

There had happened to be a Blue Sea resident getting ready to board the bus below. They had immediately reached out and caught the child, so the kid wasn’t hurt.

Looks like the main purpose of this gate was to prevent short-legged children from attempting to cross the gap on their own when no adult was watching them.

Qian Wu cheerfully stepped onto the gangplank. It was sturdy and stable, with the characteristically solid, substantial feel of Blue Sea construction.

Once he reached the buffer area of the shuttle platform, Qian Wu deliberately stopped and turned around to see how the bus could continue on its way with a gangplank blocking the door.

He had been the last passenger to get off, and all of Blue Sea’s pedestrian passageways were extremely wide, so he wasn’t worried about blocking anyone. Quite a few of the other passengers were curious about the same thing.

Together, Qian Wu and the other passengers watched as the gangplank slowly lifted itself.

Only after it rose did Qian Wu notice the obvious mechanical component at its connecting end. At the corresponding position on the bus, another docking interface had somehow appeared as well.

As the gangplank lifted, the bus smoothly pulled away.

Qian Wu was left staring in amazement.

It wasn’t as though he had never seen similar technology before.

He just hadn’t expected Blue Sea to install such a convenient device in a building where prisoners of war lived.

After all, under normal circumstances, having to step across a sizable gap to reach the platform wasn’t a big deal. It might be a little slippery when it rained, but even if someone really did accidentally fall, like that child had earlier, it was basically only the height of one floor. At worst, they’d get a painful bruise. It certainly wouldn’t be fatal.

And even if something really did happen, they were only prisoners of war. It wouldn’t have much impact anyway.

But Blue Sea had still installed gangplanks for them.

For a moment, Qian Wu couldn’t quite put into words what he was feeling. He followed the usual route toward his residence, passed through an airtight door—designed to protect against the harsh environments of the apocalypse—and officially entered the floor’s outer corridor.

After walking along the corridor, he started climbing the ladder upward.

He had heard that the residential buildings for official Blue Sea residents weren’t equipped with ladders.

They had chains instead.

Qian Wu genuinely admired the physical fitness of the Blue Sea people. Apparently, Blue Sea had once wanted to install ladders in the residential buildings, but the residents voted against it, saying that climbing down with ladders was slower than using chains.

When he’d first heard this bit of gossip, he couldn’t help picturing a long-limbed Blue Sea resident loosely gripping a chain and going whoosh! as they slid from one of the upper floors all the way down to the first floor.

—That alone was proof of just how good his life in Blue Sea had become.

He’d even developed an imagination.

Without that kind of physical prowess, Qian Wu could only obediently climb the ladder.

He soon reached his front door.

The moment he arrived, Qian Wu froze.

Had his home gotten bigger?

And just now, he’d been too focused on holding tightly to the ladder to notice. What was the deal with those extra steel cables and flat electrical cables beside it?

His neighbor was installing a door curtain nearby. Seeing Qian Wu frozen halfway up the ladder, they laughed and said,

“Don’t stare. It’s not your imagination. The room really did get bigger. It’s twelve square meters now.”

“And there’s an elevator, too. It’ll be much more convenient to go downstairs to use the bathroom from now on. See? There’s even a button right here.”

Qian Wu returned to his residence in disbelief.

Sure enough, the door curtain that had previously fit the doorway perfectly now seemed smaller.

No.

It wasn’t the curtain that had gotten smaller.

The “door” had gotten wider.

From where he stood, he could even see someone across from him riding the elevator up and down.

It was an open-style elevator, with railings on both sides. The railings appeared to be detachable, making it convenient for residents to transport large items.

It wasn’t particularly small, but it was obvious that, since the residential buildings housed multiple people, it had been designed with noise reduction and soundproofing in mind as much as possible.

But honestly, even if it had made some noise, the people living here wouldn’t have minded.

It was an elevator!

An elevator in the apocalypse.

It meant that from now on, whenever people needed to travel between floors, they would no longer have to climb up and down manually.

For a brief moment, it was as though they had escaped the apocalyptic world and returned to the peaceful society that had existed before the apocalypse.

Qian Wu’s eyes reddened.

An elevator.

A larger room…

While waiting in the open area, he had never imagined that the expansion would bring changes like these.

Blackstone Safe City had expanded before, too.

But those expansions had never had anything to do with Qian Wu.

The areas that were expanded were mostly factories or places where the powerful and wealthy lived.

But when Blue Sea expanded, it expanded the prisoners’ rooms as well.

He turned around and looked at his little home, which had grown from eight square meters to twelve.

Originally, there had been nothing here except a bed.

But now, as Qian Wu looked at the enlarged room, he couldn’t help imagining all the possibilities. He could buy a small table and put it inside.

He had credit points now, so he could apply to visit Blue Sea’s secondhand market.

Blue Sea held secondhand markets at regular intervals. Three days before each market opened, he would receive a notification on his watch.

The last time his application had been approved, he had gone to the secondhand market and bought a very cheap thermos.

That thermos had now become a treasured possession that Qian Wu carried with him everywhere.

People in the apocalypse were terrified of getting sick, because if they did, there was a very good chance they wouldn’t receive treatment.

Although Blue Sea’s temple was willing to treat them, Qian Wu still instinctively took care of his health. If he could drink warm water, he’d drink warm water, doing everything he could to keep himself healthy.

Previously, he had to keep his thermos on the floor. Once he had a small table, he could put it on top of the table instead. And after buying the table, he would even have a little space left over. He could buy some discarded lumber and see if he could put together a cabinet himself.

As Qian Wu thought about it, he couldn’t help measuring the walls.

And then he saw it.

The Blue Sea Information Terminal.

It was embedded in the wall. Qian Wu’s gaze had been focused on the floor this whole time, so he hadn’t noticed it until now.

He walked over.

As a sacred hymn began to play, the terminal lit up.

Identity verified.

Information confirmed.

Then came the words:

[Welcome home.]

Qian Wu didn’t actually hear the words at all. His eyes were glued to the terminal’s screen.

The terminal interface available to prisoners of war was different from that available to residents.

For example, confidential information would only appear on the terminals of Inner-City residents.

The information displayed to prisoners of war consisted only of the most basic details, and there wasn’t even a search function.

But to Qian Wu, this alone was an enormous shock.

He stared fixedly at a line of tiny text near the bottom.

[Current Blue Sea status: Operating normally]

It meant that if the Safe City encountered an emergency, he would be able to receive the relevant information as well.

And every morning when he woke up, all he had to do was look at those words to know that he was in a safe place.

It meant knowing that the Safe City he had come to regard as his home was safe, that it was willing to regard him as one of its residents, and that it was willing to tell him:

This home is doing well.

Qian Wu’s tears finally began to fall.

He cried, yet at the same time couldn’t help laughing. Covering his mouth, he looked utterly disheveled, but his whole body felt strangely light.

Through his tear-blurred vision, he couldn’t help looking toward the little picture of the Blue Sea Creator God that he had carefully stuck to the wall.

…

“3,196…”

“4,013…”

“7,732…”

Cheng Qisheng was counting.

Counting the number of new believers.

Ever since the expansion of Blue Sea Safe City had been completed and the residents returned to their homes, the number of new believers had suddenly skyrocketed.

It was a genuine explosion.

Most of the new believers came from the prisoner-of-war area. The majority had become believers after seeing the elevators or the Blue Sea Information Terminals.

A small number, however, had been moved by some seemingly insignificant detail.

Take Mo Yuxuan, for example, who could unleash 161 pillars of lightning.

After she became a believer, Cheng Qisheng could sense what had touched her.

It was those words:

“Welcome home.”

Yes.

It was really that simple.

During her time in Blue Sea, she had seen the friendliness of its people, the power the government had delegated to its citizens, the development of Blue Sea’s technology, and its enormous population.

None of those things had moved Mo Yuxuan.

But a simple “Welcome home” had been like the final straw, pushing her into becoming one of Cheng Qisheng’s believers.

Beautiful!

Cheng Qisheng was absolutely delighted. As she felt the number of believers rapidly climbing, she once again inspected Blue Sea from top to bottom.

Only after confirming that everything was in order and all the residents had returned inside their buildings did she send a message to Duxi.

[Blue Sea Safe City: Duxi, I’m leaving. Just wanted to let you know~]

Duxi replied instantly.

[Did you collect the seawater from Green Billow Star?]

Cheng Qisheng answered honestly, “I did. Otherwise, how would I bring the ships back to the city?”

[Duxi: Haha, I knew you would.]

[Remember how I said I wanted to give you a gift before?]

Cheng Qisheng had already guessed that he would have something important to tell her.

She just hadn’t expected the message that popped up to be this important.

[I know an expert who can remove the toxicity of the Sea of Souls from seawater. I want to send him to your Safe City.]

[But there’s one condition. You have to sign a contract promising to accept one thousand newborn babies from the Duxi civilization and raise them safely to adulthood.]

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