ATIGIBTC Chapter 111.2

The Terminal, within the Three Cities, has all permissions fully opened. You can access the internet, you can chat, and you can even order takeout. As for e-commerce… well, that counts as a type of takeout, right? Min Zhizhou dug this word out from the back of his mind.

“It’s delivery services.” He Fang lifted his head and said, “I want to develop a delivery service.”

Min Zhizhou was stunned for a moment, thought about it, then said, “Your idea might be very good, but it’s extremely difficult to pull off. Not to mention developing a delivery service, that’s basically providing resources for the entire world.”

“But if there were delivery services, then the number of combat cities would decrease, right?” He Fang said. “After all, if you have money, you can buy things.”

“But you’d still need money first.” In Min Zhizhou’s view, it was just a good idea, but far too risky. It would directly change the state of the entire world. With the Nightmare Beast seeds still not completely dealt with for now, developing a fast and convenient resource distribution would do more harm than good for Hope City. “Doing this would be pushing Hope City straight into opposition with the leadership of every mobile city.”

Hope City’s goods were all very cheap, which would directly throw prices into chaos. Min Zhizhou was a hundred percent against it.

He Fang let out a sigh. “I know it’s very hard to do, so for now it’s just an idea.”

Min Zhizhou froze for a second. On the young City Lord’s face, he saw for the first time an expression that could be called mature.

He had grown.

No… actually, maybe he had always been this meticulous and attentive.

But as he looked at the young City Lord’s side profile, he realized that he really did only have ideas for the future, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know they couldn’t be carried out yet. His current state was very strange. It didn’t look like he was worrying about the future.

But right now, the three cities are all developing very well. Because the main city’s massive supply had almost directly driven the construction of Angel City and Hope City, the two cities were being built up rapidly. Min Zhizhou could understand. This kind of excessive speed in construction came from people who had already drifted and struggled in a hopeless world for too long. It was their resistance. They desperately hoped for a city they could live in, so they were giving it their all.

So everything was fine. He didn’t understand why the young City Lord would look so lost.

He Fang was walking when, all of a sudden, a hand reached out and touched his head. He Fang stopped in his tracks and looked up at Min Zhizhou in confusion: “?”

“No fever, huh?” The puzzled Min Zhizhou couldn’t find any reason for the City Lord’s oddness.

He Fang looked at Min Zhizhou and suddenly felt that this was just like when he used to care for Wei Qixuan.

That child Wei Qixuan, because he trusted him so much, would tell him everything.

But everything He Fang ever said about the unreasonable aspects of the game would be altered by the game, leaving him no way to do anything about it.

“I don’t want you to stay with me. Go back.” He Fang turned his head and walked off immediately. He didn’t plan to let an NPC worry about him.

Min Zhizhou, standing there, was completely dumbfounded.

This… what was this about?

He instinctively wanted to catch up, but someone next to him grabbed his arm. That person said coldly, “Didn’t you hear the Creator say to go back?”

“At a time like this, obviously I can’t just go back.” Min Zhizhou found it strange how these people listened to the City Lord so absolutely.

“Since the City Lord said it, you have to listen.” That person forcefully dragged him back.

Min Zhizhou’s feelings were tangled and strange. He looked at the other person, and suddenly noticed that the expression on the man’s face was really bad, even carrying a strong hostility. But this hostility wasn’t directed at him. It was more like a foul mood with nowhere to vent, so he could only stand there raging helplessly.

At that moment, Min Zhizhou suddenly realized something. He looked around and found that everyone walking on the streets throughout the whole city had strange expressions, too. They looked especially repressed.

Everyone had noticed the City Lord’s unusual state, and everyone had been affected by him!

With this strange thought, Min Zhizhou suddenly shivered all over. Once again, he sensed the unimaginable degree of He Fang’s influence over the entire city.

He Fang didn’t dare to speed up the game world’s progress, because he was afraid he might miss some detail. So basically, at all times, he kept the statistics panel open, watching the constantly refreshing event statistics. He would even roughly glance through those gray, unimportant events.

When he slept at night, he would wake up after two or three hours, squinting his eyes to check whether there were any abnormal events in the event statistics.

During the day, he would constantly scroll through videos. Now, one after another, there were also some videos about “Ruins Without Restart” being uploaded. However, none of them had any news about city annihilation, nor were there any streamers specializing in this.

While He Fang kept the game running with the event statistics open, he made a video and uploaded it online. The video’s content was about a prediction that in “Ruins Without Restart”, once a city’s population reached two hundred thousand, there would be a disaster. This wasn’t an entertainment video. He Fang wanted to see if he could bait some gaming experts to come give him some peace of mind.

He Fang anxiously kept refreshing the event statistics by his side, while also refreshing the comments. During this time, he’d always been worried, not feeling mentally well. In the game, a month had already passed, and so far, things were still relatively smooth. He Fang felt his argument might be wrong, but it might also be true.

Instantly, all sorts of comments appeared in his comment section in seconds.

“The City Lord’s city is developing well and steadily, too. I think the City Lord doesn’t need to worry. It’s not that easy for a city to get wiped out.”

“The City Lord’s city is the most vibrant one I’ve ever seen among all the cities. Usually, even with an area this large, the total population wouldn’t be that much, but for the same area, the City Lord’s population is larger than other cities. It’s definitely because the city’s basic infrastructure has always been very well done.”

“You could check the residents’ happiness, too. Isn’t that also a pretty good statistic? I think you don’t need to worry. Many other City Lords can hold on past two hundred thousand, and there have even been big cities with tens of millions of people. There’s no way something would go wrong at just two hundred thousand.”

He Fang felt that although these comments looked like they were comforting him, in reality, they didn’t have much actual substance. What He Fang needed was a more precise situation where no detail would be overlooked by him.

He Fang had never had the habit of replying to comments, but seeing so many comments trying to comfort him still made him feel a lot more at ease.

At this moment, all of a sudden, among them, He Fang spotted a comment that didn’t look very eye-catching.

“I’ve seen that before many cities get wiped out, there are always signs. I remember there was one city that got wiped out because of a total power failure. That was a technology city. Without electricity, nothing could run, including planting crops. The first sign was that in many places, power would mysteriously cut out for a bit, but come back quickly. At the time, the City Lord didn’t pay much attention, then there were small-scale blackouts, then large-area blackouts, until finally the entire power supply system collapsed. It all started small and grew.”

He Fang looked at this comment and carefully thought over the event statistics he had been watching all this time.

It seemed like there hadn’t been any abnormalities.

Then this person left another new comment, writing in a reply: “Also, before a city gets wiped out, there are usually many NPCs who show signs, too. For example, an NPC suddenly disappears and the house becomes an empty room, but there’s no moving-out info. And you know how NPCs usually mutter pointless things while they work, right? If you pay more attention to what the NPCs mumble to themselves, you can find clues hidden in there, too.”

When He Fang saw this comment, he suddenly sat up straight. The NPCs’ mumbling!

This was a very common situation in the game, because not all NPCs had the function to talk. For example, those farmers He Fang had seen in the fields who barely talked and didn’t even look at him. Although, thanks to the algorithm of “Ruins Without Restart”, in Hope City and Angel City, you basically couldn’t see farmers like that anymore. But in the Main City, there still were.

When you clicked on these NPCs who couldn’t talk or waited near them, some text would appear. If you clicked repeatedly, there might be two or three lines of text that switched back and forth. Or some NPCs would scratch their heads and mutter some nonsense.

Which meant there was a good chance he could detect the city’s abnormalities through these subtle pieces of information!

He Fang refreshed it many times, but still felt that this one comment was the most reliable. In the end, after thinking it over, he decided to get into the sensory simulation pod and enter the game.

He Fang felt that randomly paying attention to any NPC would be too haphazard. Besides, the identities of the ordinary NPCs wandering around the city were usually just regular citizens and employees of ordinary private companies. After thinking carefully, He Fang still decided to actively go check on the NPCs he was familiar with to see if there were any changes.

So He Fang secretly snuck into the government hall to find Guo Miaofeng.

Guo Miaofeng’s identity as the Director of the Bureau of Land and Resources, combined with his long-standing trait of paying close attention to weather, terrain, plants, animals, and so on, meant that Guo Miaofeng would be the first to notice any natural disasters.

He Fang didn’t dare get close, because getting close would trigger the storyline. He Fang quietly hid near the door to Guo Miaofeng’s office, then secretly took out the pinhole camera he had just bought from a shop and placed it at the door. This way, he could see what Guo Miaofeng was doing.

Inside Guo Miaofeng’s cramped office, there were now two extra desks for his assistants, who were both sitting at their workstations, working earnestly.

Meanwhile, Guo Miaofeng was pacing inside that already extremely limited office space, then suddenly said, “The weather has been good lately.”

Then an assistant very sincerely said to Guo Miaofeng, “In the blazing summer, the weather is scorching, but in a while, there will be light rain. After the light rain, it will clear up again. There’s been nothing unusual about the weather during this period.”

He Fang stared wide-eyed as he watched. He saw that Guo Miaofeng’s expression was extremely stiff, completely different from when he was there. He looked just like a block of wood. He Fang blinked. It seemed that when he wasn’t around, the NPCs really did have no emotions at all.

Then, after Guo Miaofeng circled the office along the same path again, he suddenly said, “The situation in the mountains has been good lately.”

And the other assistant said, “The soil is firm, the water flow is normal, the heat has not caused any increase in glacial melt, fisheries are normal, and everything is normal in all aspects.”

Then, He Fang saw Guo Miaofeng start pacing in circles again.

After that, it was just Guo Miaofeng pacing in a circle and then saying a phrase, and then the assistant would explain a line. The repetition rate was extremely high, with basically no new phrases. Only then did He Fang quietly run over to retrieve his pinhole camera. It looked like, at the very least, the possibility of a natural disaster could be ruled out.

However, what He Fang didn’t know was that after he left, the few people in the Bureau of Land and Resources instantly relaxed. Was there any fixed route? Where was there any fixed expression or fixed movement? A few of them looked at each other and smiled. Guo Miaofeng even felt especially embarrassed by his exaggerated acting.

Guo Miaofeng’s original setting was that of a roaming NPC, never staying in one place. To fit the NPC’s characteristics, he paced in circles in the office, looking utterly foolish.

“Though I don’t know why the Creator would think we’re about to face city destruction, I can guarantee that won’t happen,” one assistant said to Guo Miaofeng. All of them wanted to do everything they could to protect the Creator’s city. “Will doing this dispel the Creator’s doubts?”

“I don’t know.” Guo Miaofeng wasn’t very bright. He scratched his head awkwardly.

At this moment, the assistant’s mind was already flying off somewhere. He didn’t even know if their faces, shown to the camera, looked good or not. Whether they had caught the Creator’s attention, whether the words they said would satisfy the Creator, whether the tone they deliberately used would make the Creator feel it sounded pleasant.

Finally getting such a chance to show their faces in front of the Creator, they really were thrilled.

However, alongside that thrill, a trace of helplessness showed on their faces, too. They were truly grateful that the Creator would sacrifice sleep and food for their place of residence, but they also genuinely felt sorry seeing the Creator not sleeping or eating well, with a face that kept growing more haggard.

At this moment, the assistant opened his phone and suddenly saw that the entire network had exploded.

Because their Creator was actually putting all his attention on those NPCs. He would never have looked at them closely before!

He Fang had never noticed this before, but now, he suddenly realized that the streets were incredibly noisy.

Not only was it noisy, but every single person was a finely dressed, handsome man or beautiful woman, walking with elegant steps and a graceful posture. Their laughter and conversation were all a feast for the eyes. He Fang vaguely felt that the streets didn’t usually look like this, but then again, maybe they did.

“The weather has been great lately, and the fruits are especially delicious…”

“The company’s been developing steadily these days. Looks like the overall trend is good. City Lord’s connections with other cities have been handled wonderfully…”

“I really think the city lord’s greening work here is just beautiful. Truly a perfect place for a stroll…”

Everywhere He Fang looked, he saw these residents actually all mumbling to themselves one by one. Standing in the city center, the only feeling He Fang had was vitality and prosperity.

All the NPCs seemed to have no worries at all; everything was smooth and in order. Where was there even the slightest sign of anything unusual?

As He Fang was walking, up ahead was a child holding hands with a woman. That child was very obediently holding his mother’s hand, but his head was anything but obedient. It kept turning this way and that, as if he wanted to look around and also look back.

Suddenly, because he was looking back, the child didn’t notice a stone blocking the path up ahead and tripped right over it, though the woman instinctively lifted him.

He Fang froze.

And quite a few people around also froze for a moment.

He Fang sensed that something felt vaguely off. He immediately looked around, only to find that everyone was still walking properly, not a hint of anything strange.

And that beautiful young mother, right in front of He Fang, lowered her head to look at her child: “Why did you fall down?”

At this moment, the little child said loudly: “It wasn’t because of an earthquake!”

He Fang: “?”

“Yes, that’s right, very clever. No earthquake. Then what was it because of?” The mother guided him again.

The child puffed out his chest: “It wasn’t because of bad luck!”

He Fang: “?”

“Yes, that’s right, very clever. Not bad luck. Then what was it because of?” The mother guided him yet again.

The child said loudly, “It wasn’t because someone else hurt me! It was I who fell because I was looking all around. If I hadn’t been looking all around, I definitely wouldn’t have fallen. It was all my fault!”

That mother smiled so lovingly: “Right, this was just an ordinary fall. And you didn’t even fall, because Mommy picked you up!”

The child answered crisply: “Yes! Mommy!”

He Fang, watching from behind, had an expression that was simply hard to describe.

Although the “Ruins Without Restart” algorithm couldn’t be precise down to every single NPC, surely it couldn’t be this messed up either?

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