Safe City Ch.141.2

Chapter 141.2: Sea Monster in the Desert

“Grow, grow, grow, grow…”

Jin Yin clutched her painfully empty stomach and proceeded to “cast a spell” on the crops she had planted inside the shelter.

In a patch of dry, barren soil stretching a full ten meters, only one or two seedlings had managed to sprout. Their leaves were yellow, their entire bodies wilted, and they looked as though they might ascend to heaven at any moment, joining all the other seeds that hadn’t even germinated.

“Grow, grow, grow, grow!”

Jin Yin rubbed the tops of the seedlings with her hands, hoping that somehow this would help the two little sprouts grow a little bigger.

Don’t misunderstand. Jin Yin obviously didn’t have any supernatural powers. The reason she was verbally “casting spells” was simply because she had neither fertilizer to nourish the plants nor water with which to irrigate the soil.

Other than praying that these two little seedlings would pull themselves together and grow on their own, Jin Yin had no other options.

Once her “spell” was complete, she sighed, leaned back, and sat down on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling of the shelter.

After waking up thirty years earlier than scheduled and discovering that the core data inside the shelter’s main door had been deliberately damaged, Jin Yin immediately knew she was screwed.

There was no need to doubt it. It had absolutely been done by the [Company] she had previously worked for.

Because she had refused to sell the usage rights to her own brain, the [Company] she worked for would rather destroy her than allow her the opportunity to work for another [Company].

Jin Yin suspected that she wasn’t the only one. The other researchers who had refused the [Company] back then had probably suffered the same fate.

She didn’t dare take any chances. Who knew whether the [Company] had another trick up its sleeve?

After all, as everyone knew, although researchers might be physically weak themselves, if their talents were properly exploited, they could create enormous value—and equally enormous destructive power.

Since the [Company] had already sabotaged her shelter and forced her to wake up ahead of schedule, the two sides had already become enemies. There was a certain chance that the [Company] would send people to finish her off.

She was only a researcher working on longevity, but what if she turned out to be useful?

The [Company] certainly wasn’t known for being trustworthy.

So Jin Yin immediately gathered whatever supplies she could take with her. She then risked traveling across this land filled with storms and dust, eventually hiding herself away in her backup underground shelter.

Fortunately, even though 150 years had passed, this small shelter was still intact.

It was smaller, more concealed, and safer.

Jin Yin cautiously managed to survive there.

The good news: no one had come looking for her.

The bad news: there wasn’t a single other person here.

During the time she had spent surviving in this place, Jin Yin hadn’t encountered a single living human. All she had seen were various strange and bizarre mutated creatures.

The reason she had managed to stay alive wasn’t because she possessed any formidable combat abilities. It was because, apart from the one time she had moved shelters, she hadn’t dared leave the shelter’s vicinity at all. She had survived entirely by eating her stored provisions.

After all, Jin Yin was a researcher!

Under Moon Silk Star’s education system, she had barely engaged in any outdoor activities since elementary school. Every day, she immersed herself in a sea of knowledge, studying herself to death.

Once she started working, she had to begin at the lowest position. If she performed even slightly below expectations, she could be fired or have her salary docked.

She had no choice but to undergo deep-brain neural ganglion implantation surgery alongside her colleagues. This allowed her to function energetically on just one hour of sleep a day, which was how she managed to survive that period.

Someone who practically lived in the laboratory every day without budging was never going to have impressive physical strength!

Her friend Colleen, on the other hand, was an energy researcher and sometimes had to travel for work. She was frequently robbed while out on assignments, so her physical fitness was considerably better than Jin Yin’s, and she was also much more proficient with weapons.

Thinking of Colleen, Jin Yin couldn’t help worrying about her situation.

She figured that if the [Company] had been willing to target a harmless researcher like herself who studied longevity, Colleen probably hadn’t escaped either.

Colleen was different from her. She had a whole family to look after, including children. Jin Yin had no idea whether they could survive in such a harsh environment.

But more than that, what Jin Yin feared was that another major war might have broken out while she was asleep, resulting in everyone else in the world dying except for her.

Otherwise, how could there possibly be not a single person here?!

Surely she couldn’t have been so unlucky as to have chosen a place where absolutely no one would ever come, right?

On the first day after waking up, Jin Yin had been terrified that the [Company] would send people to finish her off.

During the first week, when she still hadn’t seen any pursuit team from the [Company], Jin Yin had been relieved.

But now, at this very moment, lonely and starving, she had even begun to think that “seeing the [Company] send people to finish her off” wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

The unknown was always frightening.

She really couldn’t help wondering if she was the only living person left on the entire Moon Silk Star.

If the [Company] really could send someone, then at least she could hide inside this small underground shelter and watch them from a distance. That way, she could reassure herself that Moon Silk civilization hadn’t been completely wiped out.

Jin Yin rubbed her stomach.

She wanted to find something to eat, but she was physically useless.

She wanted to use the knowledge she’d spent years learning to improve her living conditions, but she only knew how to extend human lifespans. Everything else had long since been forgotten amid the high-intensity work she did day after day.

Commit s**cide? She was afraid of dying.

Don’t commit s**cide? She was afraid of dying an even more painful death.

Jin Yin stared at the little seedling for a while before simply lying down on the floor, staring at the ceiling and letting out a long sigh.

So hungry.

Why were all those mutant beasts so powerful and so fast? Couldn’t one of them just inexplicably crash into the shelter’s entrance and die?

The more Jin Yin thought about it, the more she craved meat.

“God, if you can hear me, please grant me some meat!”

—BOOM!!

The ground in front of her suddenly collapsed, and then the head of a sea monster poked straight up.

The sea monster’s body was a full fifteen meters wide. There was no way it could squeeze into this tiny shelter, so it could only struggle to expose a section of its fleshy head.

The top of its head pressed against the shelter’s ceiling. Its four-pupiled compound eye, a full meter wide, was half aboveground and half still buried beneath the earth, staring fixedly at Jin Yin.

Jin Yin stared at the strange, enormous monster head, its entire body looking so incredibly fleshy…

“…”

The way it looked at her was filled with enthusiasm, as though she were some priceless treasure.

Jin Yin: ‘With that much enthusiasm, it definitely wants to eat me.’

No!

Did the heavens really have to be this responsive at a time like this?

She had wished for “a little” meat!!

Not a gigantic monster capable of completely filling her small shelter!

Jin Yin had terrible physical stamina, but fortunately, she had a pretty good mentality.

After breaking down for exactly one second, she immediately turned around, sprinted for the door, threw it open, and ran outside.

Because the space was too cramped for him to open his mouth, Zhu Feifan couldn’t let Ma Yuetian out to explain the situation.

“…Mmph.”

He silently shoved his head a little farther back into the soil.

The good news: They had found the mission target everyone else had failed to locate at the target shelter.

The bad news: The mission target had run away the moment she saw him.

Ma Yuetian couldn’t see what was happening outside, but from the dejected tone of Zhu Feifan’s voice, she could more or less guess.

She comforted him:

“It’s all right. Pray to Our God. Our God will guide the others to her. We were the ones who found her, so we won’t lose the points we’re supposed to receive.”

At the mention of points, Zhu Feifan perked right back up. He took Ma Yuetian with him and returned underground.

He was also worried about frightening the expert, so he decided to obediently wait on the surface for now, and let the expert reunite with the main force.

—Meanwhile, Jin Yin was running for her life.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God!!!’

No wonder she hadn’t seen a single living person all this time after waking up. So there were monsters like this on Moon Silk Star now!

Had everyone else been eaten by this monster?!

‘Aaaaaahhhhh!!’

“Heavens above! Please, please, I’m begging you!”

Jin Yin struggled forward through the dust-laden wind, covering her nose and mouth with her old clothes as she frantically prayed:

“Don’t do this to me! Please don’t let me get eaten by a monster!”

Rather than a prayer, it was more like Jin Yin was trying to psych herself up.

As she ran, she kept muttering nonstop—partly complaining, and partly soothing her violently pounding heart.

“I studied for thirty years and worked for fifty. I’ve always worked diligently and never slacked off. It wasn’t so I could get eaten by a monster!”

“If I really have to die, I’d rather be hunted down by the [Company].”

“At least if they’re hunting me, it’s because I’m valuable, not because I’m delicious!”

“Damn it! That sea monster looked at me like it couldn’t wait to swallow me whole!”

“Do I want the flesh on my body to be all soft and squishy?! Do I want to look like some expensive little dessert?! I spend all day busy with work—I don’t even have time to exercise! I don’t want to be this tasty either!”

She rambled on as she instinctively made her way back toward the shelter where she had awakened. After all, Jin Yin had nowhere else to hide.

The extreme night on Moon Silk Star was simply too harsh to allow humans to survive outside.

But as she muttered to herself, struggling through the wind with each step sinking deep into the dust, she suddenly seemed to hear something besides the howling wind—a faint, rumbling roar of aircraft engines.

Jin Yin raised her head and strained to look upward.

It seemed she really could see a gigantic aircraft appearing and disappearing through the darkness overhead.

Wait.

It wasn’t just an aircraft.

Amid the howling wind, countless dark silhouettes slowly emerged from the hazy, dust-filled road ahead.

The shadows rapidly approached her.

She saw them.

A large number of vehicles emerged from the dust. Wild-looking motorcycles, each equipped with all kinds of weapons, tore through the surrounding haze and quickly surrounded her, leaving her at the center.

“Clomp, clomp, clomp—”

“Clomp, clomp, clomp—”

The orderly footsteps grew closer and closer, loud enough to cut through even the howling wind.

Ahead of her, soldiers wearing black masks that completely concealed their faces and carrying weapons marched forward with machine-like precision, entering Jin Yin’s field of vision.

Beside them were strange humans with wings stretching three meters across, slowly descending from the sky.

A very tall winged man effortlessly glided through the wind and landed in front of her.

He asked, “You’re Jin Yin, right?”

Jin Yin: “…”

She had awakened less than half a month ago, and these people had appeared near her shelter already knowing her name. Other than the [Company], there was no way they could have any other identity.

So many people. So many weapons. They even had a combat aircraft.

Had the [Company] really sent all of them to hunt her down?

Jin Yin: ‘…Hahaha. I’m screwed.’

She had long heard that the [Company] always went after its targets relentlessly, but nobody had said they would go this far and be this thorough.

Her research was about extending lifespans, not weapons development. Was all this really necessary?

And why was it that whenever she made a good wish, it never came true, but whenever she made a bad one, it came true immediately? If she prayed to the heavens now and asked them to revoke her earlier wish about preferring to be hunted down by the Company, would that still work?

Jin Yin looked left and right, especially at the weapons carried by the soldiers and their sturdy physiques that looked capable of taking on ten people at once. Then she lowered her head and looked at her own soft, limp arms.

Hahaha. She really wasn’t getting away.

What a f*cking life, hahahaahahaha!

The Blue Sea officer assigned to make contact with her slightly folded in his black wings.

Looking at Jin Yin laughing hysterically, he really wanted to give her a huge smile in return.

But then he remembered the [Company] persona they were supposed to maintain, so that huge smile turned into a somewhat arrogant smile instead.

As he smiled, he thought to himself:

—The files only said that Jin Yin was a chatterbox. I didn’t expect her to be such a cheerful and enthusiastic person in real life.

The two of them smiled at each other for several seconds.

The Blue Sea officer, still in disguise, realized that there was no way he was going to outlast Jin Yin’s smile.

So he simply took the initiative and said,

“Your friend, Colleen, asked us to come and pick you up.”

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