Safe City Ch.129.1

Chapter 129.1: Fat Rat

“City Lord, they’re here, they’re here!”

Aether swam over, sounding a little expectant.

“Lord of Broken River is here!”

“The drones have already transmitted the footage back!”

Cheng Qisheng stood in front of the microwave, letting Aether settle onto her shoulder as she spoke slowly.

“Give me a moment. Perfect timing—I can watch while I eat.”

—Ding!

The microwave beeped right on cue.

Cheng Qisheng took a plate of oil-braised prawns out of the microwave.

Recently, she had fallen in love with cooking with the microwave. It was quick and convenient: just sprinkle the seasonings according to the instructions, set the timer, and you were done. There was no need to stand over a stove and watch the pot, making it especially suitable for someone slow and clumsy in the kitchen.

Other appliances that had also made it onto the “Creator God’s Favorite Cooking Appliances” list included the rice cooker, air fryer, and automatic timer steamer.

Actually, the most convenient option of all should have been takeout.

But it had been raining continuously across Blue Star for quite some time, causing another decline in crop yields. The price of takeout had skyrocketed along with vegetables and fruit. Poultry, livestock, and aquaculture businesses couldn’t afford feed anymore, so meat prices could only follow them on their mad upward sprint, while a large number of restaurants had been forced to close.

Ninety percent of the restaurants still hanging on to the takeout platforms were now selling pre-prepared meals or what was essentially zombie meat. Even so, the prices were still outrageously high.

Cheng Qisheng didn’t mind paying a high price, but ever since awakening her Transcendent abilities, her sense of taste had become unusually sensitive. She could tell with a single bite whether the ingredients were fresh.

So her lifestyle—which had previously consisted of ordering takeout most of the time and occasionally cooking when she was in the mood—had gradually transformed into cooking with all kinds of convenient appliances.

And she wasn’t the only one. Roughly eighty percent of Blue Star’s “takeout crowd” had been forced to switch to cooking for themselves under the circumstances.

Fortunately, staple foods were still subsidized by the government. Although the cost of living was considerably higher than before, people at least weren’t at risk of going hungry.

It was just that the carefree days when young people could casually eat out every now and then, spending most of their salaries on extravagant food and drink, were now a thing of the past.

For ordinary people to return to their previous standard of dining, they’d now need to spend at least several thousand yuan a month.

For example, this plate of oil-braised prawns Cheng Qisheng had just prepared wasn’t particularly large, but if she bought the same amount outside, it would easily cost several hundred yuan.

Fortunately, these prawns had been raised by her herself in the artificial lake inside her [Room], so she didn’t have to feel bad about eating them.

Cheng Qisheng carried the plate of oil-braised prawns back to the dining table. The phone sitting on the table kept lighting up with new messages, most of them from the residents’ group chat.

These days, the messages that appeared most frequently in the neighborhood residents’ group were group-buying deals and orders being tallied.

For example, someone might discover that a certain place had a large quantity of vegetables or several dozen chickens available. But since the location was a long way away, once the group-buying organizer received the news, they would count up how many people wanted to buy some in the group chat, rent a vehicle, and go “snatch up the goods.”

During the process of “snatching up the goods,” the organizer would even record a video and send it back to the group. The content was usually something like:

“Family, look how many people there are here! If we’d come any later, we wouldn’t have gotten anything!”

Or:

“Look at these! The leaves are a little wilted, and there are some rotten ones too. They won’t let us pick through them. They said it’s extremely difficult to grow vegetables right now, so we can only buy them as they are.”

Cheng Qisheng occasionally joined these group purchases for vegetables and meat as well, maintaining the “amount an ordinary human needs to buy each month.”

When she brought vegetables home, anything that still had roots was planted in the cultivation area. When buying meat, she tried to purchase live animals whenever possible, then let them roam freely in the cultivation area or around the artificial lake.

Although she now had to cook for herself every day, she didn’t find it particularly troublesome.

Compared with everyone else on Blue Star, Cheng Qisheng’s life—having fresh vegetables and fresh meat to eat every day—was already better than that of 99% of the population.

She felt fortunate.

Not only did she have two major safety nets of her own—the cultivation area and the artificial lake—but she also knew far more of the truth than everyone else.

The group-buying organizer was currently @-mentioning her, one of their regular customers, asking whether she wanted to join this afternoon’s group purchase.

Cheng Qisheng replied:

[Yes, same as usual. Thanks!]

If nothing unexpected happened, she would also be the only person on all of Blue Star who might have the ability—and the opportunity—to prevent Blue Star from entering its Extinction Phase.

But until then, she would only be even more cautious about keeping her identity hidden.

Cheng Qisheng put down her phone. Her mental power spread out like an airtight net, enveloping it completely.

There probably wasn’t anyone trying to “listen in” on her, but as the saying went, they might choose not to listen, but she couldn’t afford not to guard against it.

Before she had figured out this little trick, whenever she needed to discuss anything related to the Safe City with Aether, she would put her phone inside a thermos packed full of cotton, then shut the thermos away inside her bedroom.

Now it was much more convenient.

Mental power really was useful!

“All right. Project the footage sent back by the drone.”

Aether immediately projected the footage, clearly eager to do so.

After advancing to Tier 6, it had become noticeably livelier than before. According to Aether itself, its “perceptive ability had increased significantly.”

Put in simpler terms, it had gained one more of the seven emotions and six desires.

Previously, the only thing capable of stimulating its perceptive abilities was watching absurdly melodramatic, ridiculously long soap operas.

But now, seeing the results of Blue Sea’s carefully laid plans was enough to make Aether feel anticipation, curiosity, and satisfaction as well.

Of course, Aether still watched soap operas.

In fact, it loved them even more now.

Cheng Qisheng took Aether’s little changes in stride. The secrets of the Safe City that she carried on her shoulders, combined with the experience of watching over Dark Star for tens of billions of years, meant that she could never again have an intimate relationship with anyone else.

It couldn’t exactly be called loneliness, either. After all, she got to watch the Old Eighths every day.

But having such an all-purpose little assistant by her side—one that would never betray her, was absolutely loyal to her, happily watched melodramatic soap operas every day, and had only just gained a little more intelligence yet was already delighted by everything—was actually pretty nice.

Cheng Qisheng watched the footage projected by Aether as she ate. Aether obediently floated beside her, occasionally providing the City Lord with commentary on what was happening.

“He has already discovered our drone, but he hasn’t shown any signs of aggression. In fact, he even proactively performed Moon Silk customs, such as taking off his hat, toward the drone. According to our calculations, the Broken River Plan has now reached a success probability of nearly 90%.”

Cheng Qisheng looked at the long procession on the screen.

Of course, the Lord of Broken River couldn’t possibly travel with just a handful of people. He himself was seated inside a large vehicle whose exterior had been designed to look as elaborate and beautiful as possible.

At his side rode three hundred elite guards, each mounted on a long-horned mutant beast called a Roroma.

Behind them were another two thousand ordinary guards and a thousand servants.

This wasn’t because the Lord of Broken River was particularly concerned with putting on a grand display.

Traveling long distances across the wasteland came with an extremely high risk of death.

No matter how well the powerful people here lived, Moon Silk was ultimately already in the midst of an apocalyptic era.

If the Lord of Broken River went out without bringing enough guards and weapons, his skull would probably be rubbing against the teeth of a mutant beast before he had even traveled a kilometer, producing a frantic symphony.

Aether floated in front of the projection and isolated a particular scene, enlarging it beside the main image.

“According to analysis by Blue Sea’s Analysis Department, the wooden boxes being carefully carried by hundreds of people, as well as the large objects loaded onto the vehicles, are very likely gifts intended for [Ota Company].”

“The Broken River Plan’s success probability has increased to 95.8%.”

The good news immediately gave Cheng Qisheng an even bigger appetite, and she took a large bite of food.

The so-called Broken River Plan was essentially a “flexing plan.”

Since the greatest dark force on Moon Silk—the [Companies]—was impossible to defeat…

What if Blue Sea also appeared in the guise of a [Company]?

So what if they were a dark force?

So what if they held a special status?

That status was pretty nice.

Now it belonged to Blue Sea.

Naturally, accomplishing all this wouldn’t be easy.

Cheng Qisheng didn’t believe that the other Safe Cities hadn’t also thought of disguising themselves as a [Company] to gain an advantage at the start and obtain an extremely lofty position.

Why hadn’t they done this before?

Because they weren’t strong enough.

The ordinary weapons technology of Moon Silk could crush the civilizations of most Safe Cities.

For example, there was a handheld gun capable of melting straight through walls. Blue Sea currently couldn’t manufacture anything like it, yet on Moon Silk, a single town might have one or two of them.

So if Blue Sea wanted to disguise itself as a [Company], it had to choose its starting point very carefully.

After the battle with Sanluo Safe City, Blue Sea’s actual territory had expanded to 130,000 square kilometers.

As for the Sanluo people, who belonged to a civilization with the attitude of “Only my civilization deserves to survive; none of the others do,” Blue Sea had no interest in taking them in either. Since Blue Sea had no shortage of Outer-City residents, things proceeded as usual: all of them were handed over to Coriander.

(He was probably planning to exchange the prisoners with other Safe Cities in order to increase his population.)

Blue Sea then began operating on two fronts: cleaning up the aftermath of the battle while simultaneously sending large numbers of advance teams out to gather more information about Moon Silk.

At this point, Coriander deserved some praise.

No one knew how he managed it, but no matter which world he went to, he could somehow pinpoint the most remote, least populated, most completely forgotten region and settle there.

Since Blue Sea Safe City had moved next to Coriander Safe City, it conveniently saved them the trouble of searching for a place to hide.

The main base remained safely tucked away in this area while large numbers of Blue Sea residents went out to explore.

The entire exploration operation lasted for more than five months.

It was worth mentioning that in Blue Sea’s official documents, this operation was called:

“Operation Find the Softest Persimmon.”

—The objective was obvious at a glance.

Moon Silk was now vast and sparsely populated, with mutant beasts roaming everywhere. In some regions, the radiation hadn’t even completely dissipated yet. Since traveling long distances was so difficult, information traveled extremely slowly outside the territories controlled by major powers.

What Blue Sea needed to do was find a remote region, pick out some soft target that was weaker than them and had little knowledge of the outside world, and then bluff them into submission.

Then, before word of them could spread, they could rapidly expand their own strength by taking control of the local forces and resources in the area.

And there it was!

The Lord of Broken River was their lucky find.

The Broken River Wasteland was remote and barren, with residual radiation still present in many areas, and it was one of the regions farthest from the “central areas.”

The water sources had dried up, making farming impossible, while mutant beasts were abundant. There were mines, sure, but what region of Moon Silk didn’t have mines?

On top of that, the Lord of Broken River had no “backing.” Every generation of the Lord of Broken River had been a New Human, and their knowledge of the [Companies] came solely from hearsay. They had never actually interacted with one themselves.

Throughout those five months, countless Blue Sea residents quietly gathered information across the wasteland.

As for Cheng Qisheng, she had been continuously receiving information from her believers through multiple channels and relaying it back to Blue Sea’s Analysis Department. She watched as Blue Sea’s understanding of Moon Silk grew deeper and deeper, along with its knowledge of the Companies.

To be honest, this job was quite exhausting, both for her and for her believers.

Every piece of information had to be collected. For more than five months, Cheng Qisheng’s mouth had barely stopped moving as she continuously relayed all sorts of information her numerous believers had heard, after which Aether would compile and forward it all to Blue Sea’s Analysis Department.

Meanwhile, the Old Eighths who had gone out to gather information were living a life that was somehow even worse than that of primitive humans.

The apocalyptic environment on Moon Silk was far more difficult than those of the previous apocalypse worlds.

If the combat strength of the zombies on Velvet Star was 1, the snow beasts of Dazzling Star had a combat strength of 2, and the sea monsters of Green Billow Star had a combat strength of 3…

Then the mutant beasts on Moon Silk had combat strengths ranging from 5 to 10.

There were also native Mutants with combat strengths between 4 and 7, as well as native merchant caravans equipped with guards and boasting combat strengths of 5 to 7—some of whom would occasionally decide to change careers and become bandits.

There were also ordinary hunters whose own combat strength might be less than 3, but who could see their combat strength soar to 4–6 once equipped with Moon Silk’s native weapons.

And then there were the Night Beast Tides.

They didn’t actively initiate attacks, but during the Endless Night, they forced people to remain completely still.

There was also the land itself—so desperately barren that finding anything to eat was almost impossible.

The reason the wasteland was called a wasteland was precisely because its soil had suffered contamination, making it extremely difficult to grow crops.

And the plants that grew in the wild…

Either they couldn’t be eaten by humans, or they could eat humans.

If the believers hadn’t loaded themselves down with a huge supply of nutrient solution whenever they went out, Cheng Qisheng even suspected that someone really might have starved to death out in the wasteland.

The good news, perhaps, was that after watching the Old Eighths spend more than five months working themselves to the bone—exposed to the elements like primitive humans and occasionally getting injured—the great Blue Sea Creator God felt that they had suffered enough.

But the Old Eighths were actually quite happy.

—Because the harsh environment and powerful enemies had successfully increased their combat strength through repeated battles.

Nothing could make the Old Eighths happier than that.

Except receiving the gaze of the great Creator God, of course.

Great Blue Sea Creator God: Well… somehow, I’m not surprised.

But it had to be said that although the Old Eighths didn’t consider going hungry, sleeping in abandoned houses in the wilderness, or being chased around by mutant beasts to be suffering…

Watching scene after scene of this made Cheng Qisheng even more determined to maintain their [Company] identity.

Being willing to endure hardship and being forced to endure hardship indefinitely were two completely different things.

Of course, she believed that with the Blue Sea residents’ drive and strength, they could gradually climb their way up in Moon Silk, step by step.

But there was no need for that.

Blue Sea Safe City had come this far, reaching Tier 6, accumulating more and more resources and growing increasingly confident in its own strength. They could even venture directly into the greater universe.

They hadn’t done all that just to make their residents suffer.

If they were going to disguise themselves, they might as well make the disguise as thorough as possible.

In short, through the efforts of countless people throughout the entire Blue Sea civilization, it had taken only a little over five months to select Broken River and carefully prepare the “script.”

Over those five months, the believers who ventured outside gathered information, the Analysis Department analyzed and summarized it, and the experts used all the information they had obtained to begin writing the “script.”

There were also large numbers of Blue Sea residents working diligently to modify the exterior of Blue Sea Safe City’s walls and gates, as well as the surfaces of its internal buildings, making them look as much as possible like the architectural style of Moon Silk from 150 years ago.

The landing site and landing time had both been carefully calculated.

The drones, whose exteriors had been specially modified, patrolled the area, while large numbers of winged Blue Sea residents conducted patrols as well. The giant screens newly installed throughout the city played various old images of Moon Silk, all carefully selected to imitate the style of the [Companies] as closely as possible.

If they landed at that particular time, the people of nearby Deer River Town would be able to see them. The town’s administrators should then report the news that very day.

However, in the barren Broken River Wasteland, news was still delivered in the traditional way—with people riding mutant beasts to carry messages. So by the time the news arrived, it should already be the afternoon of the following day.

The people who received the news would then send flying Mutants or have someone travel by airship to verify it after the Endless Night had passed.

By that point, Blue Sea would already have used a Holy Bullet to eliminate the giant mutant python lurking around Deer River Town.

Thus, the message received by the Lord of Broken River would happen to read:

“A [Company] has appeared in the Broken River Wasteland. On the second day after emerging from a shelter, it effortlessly eliminated a giant mutant python.”

Haha.

In reality, it hadn’t been effortless at all.

That mutant giant python had cost Blue Sea five Holy Bullets.

But to outsiders, [Ota Company] naturally had to make it look like they had dealt with it effortlessly.

At this point, Blue Sea was essentially in a situation where other people had a whole arsenal of Tier-4, 5, 6, and 7 weapons, while the weapons in Blue Sea’s hands were only Tier 1, 2, and 3.

Although the vast majority of Blue Sea’s weapons were only Tier 1–3, they did possess a small number of Holy Bullets that were above Tier 10.

And now, Cheng Qisheng watched as the Lord of Broken River and his entourage gradually approached Blue Sea Safe City.

The great Blue Sea Creator God provided a passionate commentary:

“Right now, we’re in a horse race.”

“They’re using a lower-grade horse. We’re using a superior horse.”

“They’re using a middle-grade horse. We’re still using a superior horse.”

The ordinary weapons on Moon Silk were far more powerful than Blue Sea’s ordinary weapons.

No matter.

Blue Sea had Holy Bullets.

The large-scale thermal weapons on Moon Silk were also far more powerful than Blue Sea’s heavy weapons.

No matter.

Blue Sea had Holy Bullets.

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