Chapter 22.1: Water Well and Meat
Cheng Qisheng chose to ask her external brain.
President Qin Zhi.
As expected, Qin Zhi already had a plan in mind. She automatically interpreted it as the great deity asking Her devout believer what She should bestow upon Her followers.
“O great God, your believers bathe in your holy light and no longer face the risk of suffocation. We are already endlessly grateful and deeply content.”
“If you are willing to bless Blue Sea once more, I, Qin Zhi, on behalf of the people of Blue Sea, humbly request more water sources… or perhaps more expansive land.”
Water sources?
That was indeed a problem.
When the Safe City left, it couldn’t take any underground infrastructure with it. Even if the government drilled wells now, they still wouldn’t be able to bring them along when leaving this world.
Blue Sea did have water reserves, but the Safe City was only so large. Even though the government tried its best to build water towers for storage, it still couldn’t store enough water for more than half a year of use.
It had been fine in Qinlian City before—the military had directly taken over the water supply plant and managed to replenish their water supply.
But now they were in Mianyan City, and the water supply plant had already been destroyed by a Tier 3 zombie. Most of the other water sources were likely contaminated as well.
Blue Sea could only spend resources to purify water while simultaneously releasing stored water from water towers for residents to use.
As for land, that went without saying.
Blue Sea’s population was too large. If not for the expansion area sent by Cosmic, things would be even more cramped now.
Based on these two hints, Cheng Qisheng searched through the shop—and then she found it.
In the shop, anything related to civilian livelihood had only one descriptor when it came to price: expensive!
For example, grain was priced outrageously high, something only city lords who truly couldn’t find food would ever buy.
A Tier 1 air tower cost 10,000 nuclei crystals and could support up to 500 million people, which seemed quite cost-effective.
But compared to weapons, it was absurdly expensive.
Ordinary Tier 3 weapons or protective equipment were priced at around 5,000 nuclei crystals.
A Tier-3 pulse armor cannon could blast open a Tier-3 Safe City. It could fire three times, and yet it only cost 8,000 nucleus crystals.
By contrast, a Tier-1 water extraction well cost 15,000 nucleus crystals, and it could only supply 150 million people.
Not to mention expanding agricultural zones.
A Tier-1 cultivation area only provided 500,000 mu of land, yet it cost 300,000 nucleus crystals. It was so expensive that Cheng Qisheng’s eyes hurt just looking at it.
“Aether, do you know why civilian goods are sold so expensively?”
Aether replied, “City Lord, this is the value of life.”
“Nurturing life will always be more expensive than destroying it.”
Cheng Qisheng blinked slightly in surprise.
“You can say something like that?”
She hadn’t forgotten that Aether had previously suggested simply abandoning large groups of civilians.
Back then, it hadn’t seemed like Aether placed much value on life at all.
Aether floated in front of her, its jellyfish-like body flickering gently with a soft, glowing light.
“That was said by the previous city lord. Aether merely remembered it.”
“So the previous city lord must have gone through a lot,” Cheng Qisheng said.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come to such profound conclusions.
“What about you?” she asked. “If it’s your own thoughts, why do you think that is?”
Aether paused.
“My own thoughts? Does the City Lord want Aether to calculate it for you?”
“No, not a calculation. I want your thoughts—like when you know you want to live. Something like that.”
This time, Aether remained silent for even longer.
As an AI, in theory, it only performed calculations and had no thoughts.
But in reality, it did have something resembling thoughts of its own.
They were usually very simple: “don’t want to be destroyed” and “want to survive.”
Aether had never realized it could think about anything beyond that.
It froze for a long time without speaking, as if genuinely thinking.
Cheng Qisheng simply let it slowly think for itself and went back to doing her own work.
A newborn infant still needed time for its brain to develop.
Let alone a sentient AI.
Cheng Qisheng was currently farming—her new hobby lately.
Being a farmer.
But her version of farming was far more comfortable than anyone else’s. Not only did she do very little actual labor, she could also drag extension cords from home and set up two electric fans blowing at her.
When she got tired, she could just open the door and step into an air-conditioned room. When she was thirsty, she could walk straight into the living room, open the fridge, and grab a cold Coke.
Only after having her own plot of land did she realize that farming could actually be quite enjoyable.
Every day, she could watch the vegetables grow better and taller from tiny sprouts, and feel a sense of harvest and satisfaction.
When the Safe City expanded its rooms, the cultivation area had been moved into Cheng Qisheng’s real-world home—but no living creatures had been brought over.
So she bought a standard beehive and twenty thousand earthworms to help with pollination and soil aeration.
Since there were no signs of pests in the cultivation area for now, she hadn’t bought any small beneficial insects like ladybugs yet.
But now, watching the bees gradually integrate and buzz around working, she felt the space becoming more and more alive. Maybe she could even get some butterflies.
Although butterflies were quite fragile—would they even be sold?
Or maybe she should wait for a sunny day and catch them herself with a net?
Cheng Qisheng opened her phone and searched.
Well, even though butterflies weren’t sold directly, butterfly pupae were available—you could incubate them yourself, which was very convenient.
She clicked on a picture of butterfly pupae and suddenly remembered how, back in school, there used to be people selling silkworms at the school gate. They said silkworms could not only produce silk, but also hatch into beautiful butterflies.
For a while, silkworms became a craze at school, and teachers were forced to repeatedly issue warnings forbidding students from keeping them on campus.
Cheng Qisheng hadn’t grown them back then. At the time, she was only focused on her exam results—whether she should participate in competitions, why she got a certain question wrong, and how to avoid making the same mistake again.
Her parents had passed away early. When she was passed around between relatives as a young child, she had already realized one thing:
The more outstanding she was, the better her future life would be.
Her relatives were all ordinary families. Having an extra person in the household was an additional burden, and that naturally came with pressure.
They might not be very willing to take in an average, unremarkable child—but they wouldn’t mind raising a visibly promising top student.
When she could do household chores, maintain excellent grades, and even tutor the relatives’ children, only then was the foster child named Cheng Qisheng truly accepted.
It was both a form of care and a kind of investment.
And as it turned out, her relatives hadn’t made a bad investment.
Cheng Qisheng consistently achieved excellent results. After entering university, she hadn’t even graduated before she already had the ability to earn money.
During holidays, she sent gifts to the elders who had raised her. On their birthdays, she sent red envelopes. She also helped her peers and cousins find jobs.
At the same time, she worked hard to earn money herself, buying the small house she had always dreamed of since childhood—a place that was entirely her own—and even planning to upgrade to a bigger home in the future.
If it weren’t for the sudden terminal illness, her life trajectory would most likely have been:
Get into a big tech company with a high salary, accumulate enough experience and savings, resign to start her own business, and keep climbing higher and higher until she reached the top, only then allowing herself a brief rest.
—She would have become the kind of “life winner” defined by society.
Instead, from the moment she was diagnosed with ALS, her life ran completely off the rails.
Terminal patient—Creator God—Safe City Lord.
And now, she had started growing vegetables on her own.
In fact, from childhood to adulthood, Cheng Qisheng had never regretted any of her choices. Even after developing ALS, she still believed that insisting on being the best person she could be from a young age had been the right decision.
But looking at the image of the butterfly pupae, she suddenly remembered something.
In elementary school, her deskmate was a freckled girl with short hair. One day, she excitedly bought silkworms, hoping to raise them until they became butterflies.
Every day after school, her deskmate would go out to pick mulberry leaves for the silkworms, imagining how beautiful the butterflies would eventually be.
In the end, the silkworms did indeed form cocoons and become pupae—but what emerged was not a beautiful butterfly, but a plump, clumsy moth.
Cheng Qisheng had thought the girl would be disappointed. Instead, she only felt a brief moment of disappointment before becoming happy again.
“As long as they’re healthy, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter if they’re not pretty.”
Although later, after the moths mated, laid eggs, and soon died, her deskmate still cried for a while.
For some reason, though, Cheng Qisheng had always remembered that sentence: as long as they’re healthy, it’s fine.
Now that she was older, she admitted she had been a little envious back then.
It was as if even at that young age, she already understood that her deskmate could say “as long as they’re healthy” because her parents treated her that way too.
Health was enough. There was no need to work so hard in school, no need to carry so much pressure. She could keep silkworms as pets, and when she couldn’t find mulberry leaves, her parents would go buy them for her.
It wasn’t that Cheng Qisheng wasn’t interested in silkworms. She had been a child too—how could she not have been interested?
She simply knew that she was living under someone else’s roof, staying in her cousin’s room, and it wasn’t appropriate to bring silkworms back.
Even the few yuan needed to buy them, she couldn’t afford.
So she pretended to be indifferent, acting as if she wasn’t interested at all.
Even now, Cheng Qisheng still believed she had made the right choice back then. After all, she truly hadn’t had the conditions for it.
But now, standing in this vast cultivation zone, she suddenly realized:
She actually had wanted to raise silkworms back then.
And now, she could raise anything she wanted.
Not the kind separated by an entire planet—but right at home. Right in front of her. Something she could step out and see anytime she wanted, without worrying about affecting anyone else.
Because this place belonged to her.
Only to her.
Cheng Qisheng sighed slightly with regret.
“What a pity, Aether. It would’ve been better if you could feel pain.”
Aether, who had been deep in thought, replied in confusion, “Aether is an AI. AI does not experience pain.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s a pity.”
That single word—pity—made Aether’s already rapidly processing mind accelerate even further.
Why did the City Lord want it to think? And why would she feel it was a pity that it lacked a lifeform’s ability to feel pain… Was she treating it as a living being? Wait—was it currently thinking?
Cheng Qisheng picked an apple, took a bite, and nodded in satisfaction.
If Aether could feel pain, she could just pinch it once. Hearing it cry out would confirm that this wonderful life wasn’t just a dream.
As for why she didn’t pinch herself?
Cheng Qisheng had always been very kind to herself.
After finishing the apple, she felt in a very good mood. She slowly tapped on her phone, humming a tune as she ordered butterfly pupae.
Since life had already veered off like a runaway horse into a completely different direction, there was no point in trying to struggle upward anymore. She might as well enjoy it.
Enjoy a slowly healing life, a large house, fresh fruits and vegetables, and a future full of hope.
After placing the order for the pupae, Cheng Qisheng continued browsing the shop, trying to assemble the cheapest and most suitable civilian supply package.
The jellyfish floated over beside her.
“City Lord, Aether has figured out why civilian products in the shop are so expensive.”
Cheng Qisheng looked at it.
“Why?”
“The principle of the water extraction well is to use a micro space-time channel to extract and synthesize usable water molecules from across the universe. It does not rely on the environment where the Safe City is located.”
Aether swayed its jellyfish-like body. When Cheng Qisheng opened her palm toward it, it naturally settled onto it, tilting its head up as it continued explaining.
“In other words, even if the City Lord’s Safe City were placed on a planet without any water sources, the well would still continuously produce water.”
“The air tower works on the same principle. As for the cultivation zone, it is similar to a large-scale weather control device. It has a unified control center and can regulate all weather conditions within the farming area. Moreover, the purchased cultivation land does not occupy Safe City land space.”
Cheng Qisheng understood.
“So these civilian products—although they look simple—actually use more advanced technology than weapons?”
Aether mimicked her, nodding its jellyfish head.
“Yes, City Lord. Weapons need to be recharged after several uses, but the civilian products you are referring to have a minimum service life of fifty years.”
“Furthermore, they can operate normally in any environment. That is why their prices are not actually considered expensive.”
Cheng Qisheng thought about it. It made sense.
Take the water extraction well, for example. Even though it cost 15,000 nucleus crystals per unit, it could support 150 million people for fifty years with stable output and built-in purification.
That meant each person would only be paying less than one ten-millionth of a nucleus crystal per day.
Expensive? Yes—but once-and-for-all.
Cheng Qisheng’s gaze toward the water well immediately turned full of longing.
Worth it. So worth it.
She wanted it. She really wanted it.
Aether’s explanation about extracting water molecules from the universe had also sparked her imagination.
“If there’s a water extraction well that pulls water molecules from the universe… does the shop also have machines that can directly generate food?”
The shop’s products were simply too numerous. She had already flipped through three hundred thousand pages, and could find all kinds of bizarre facilities.
Xiang Cai had once said that, according to another city lord he knew, someone had actually flipped through 30 billion pages without reaching the end.
—No one knew which city lord was that impressive, but they must have been ridiculously strong to scroll that much.
Cheng Qisheng admired that city lord. When she had free time, she liked to browse page by page herself, but when she actually needed to buy something, she usually just called the AI brain to locate the product page.
Just like now.
“Yes, City Lord.”
Aether floated forward and helped her jump directly to the relevant page.
“A flour production line tailored to the food preferences of your civilization can produce one million tons of steamed buns per month for only 1,000 nucleus crystals, enough to feed 300 million people.”
It still remembered that Cheng Qisheng was curious about principles, so it took the initiative to explain:
“The food production line works through molecular reorganization technology, rearranging various elements to create buns that are identical in taste and nutritional value to ordinary ones.”
“After upgrading, it can produce buns, dumplings, noodles, and other foods.”
One thousand nucleus crystals per month to feed three billion people didn’t sound unacceptable—it was even uplifting.
But that was only the monthly cost. What about the cost of the production line itself?
Cheng Qisheng counted the zeros for a while. “One million nucleus crystals.”
Alright. The excitement she had just built up died instantly.
Cheng Qisheng quickly said, “Let’s go back and look at the water well instead.”
With the current earning speed of Blue Sea citizens, she could at least still afford one water extraction well.
She looked at the dimensional water well, then at her remaining nucleus crystals, and finally gritted her teeth and clicked purchase.
Upgrading from Tier 2 to Tier 3 required 30,000 nucleus crystals.
In theory, if she kept that 15,000 nucleus crystals and saved a bit more, the Safe City could reach Tier 3 in less than a week.
Tier 3 upgrade = she herself becoming a Tier 3 transcendent = her illness would ease further.
But after careful consideration, Cheng Qisheng still decided to prioritize the water well first.
Of course she wanted to cure herself quickly, but the situation in Mianyan City was unclear. A Tier 3 upgrade would only expand territory and improve basic city-wall defenses—it wouldn’t help much against Tier 3 zombies or rescue the virologist.
She also had to consider the possibility that “if they lose the fight, they would need to evacuate with their believers.”
It needed to be stable.
If she wanted to reach Tier 3, she would still need to save up more nucleus crystals. But if she didn’t upgrade now, she could immediately get a water well.
As long as Blue Sea still existed, reaching the next tier was only a matter of time.
And regardless of whether they relocated to another coordinate in this world or left early altogether, Blue Sea would always need a well that guaranteed a stable water supply.
Even if, in theory, it only served 150 million people—that was under normal conditions.
In a true extreme water shortage, if used carefully, this well could at least ensure that no one in the Safe City would die of thirst.
At this moment, Cheng Qisheng suddenly found herself understanding her elementary school deskmate a little more.
She tapped “Old Eighth” in the Safe City interface.
“Health is enough. As long as everyone is healthy, and we can all survive together.”
—A not-so-large-looking water well appeared on the selected plot of land.
Aether spoke up: “New facility detected. Does the City Lord wish to connect it to the Safe City water supply system?”
Cheng Qisheng felt pleasantly surprised. It was that convenient? It could just be connected directly?
She had originally thought she would need manpower to manually draw water every day. This was much easier.
“Connect it.”
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