ATIGIBTC Chapter 112.2

He Fang suddenly turned around and burst out laughing. “So I was overthinking it! Ah, why am I worrying so much? I worked so steadily and cautiously, exactly to prevent disasters. Ah, being praised by everyone like this, I’m so happy!”

Zhu Yan’s usually cold and aloof demeanor showed a rare change. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, then he slowly said, “Yes, City Lord, you did very well. Better than anyone else could have done.”

Zhu Yan saw their Creator, the Creator who had always worried about everything, showing such a rare trace of pride. He looked so happy, as if he had gathered up all the praise in the world just for himself.

“Thank you, Zhu Yan.” He Fang suddenly stood up. “I’m going to ask around somewhere else, too.”

Zhu Yan watched He Fang turn and run off, looking so cheerful, so completely different from how they usually saw him.

He just…

Believed it like that?

Just like that?

Just because they said everything was fine, to the Creator that really meant everything was fine?

Was it really that easy?

Their Creator trusted them… this much?

Zhu Yan, who had always been so suspicious of everything, for the first time, began to doubt his judgment.

“Pfft—hahahahahahahahahaha!” Suddenly, a bright, hearty laugh came from behind him. Zhu Yan turned around to see Yuan Zhiran standing by the window, already laughing uncontrollably. Bathed in sunlight, Yuan Zhiran’s face shone with unrestrained delight, as if mocking their ignorance and helplessness. He was laughing so hard his whole body was trembling.

For the first time, this was truly the first time in his life, Zhu Yan’s face flushed red from being laughed at by someone else.

He truly never imagined, no matter what, that when it came to dealing with the Creator, it would be enough to use such a simple way of guiding him.

Yuan Zhiran leaned against the windowsill, his eyes full of a relaxed smile. Look, their Creator was really just this pure, and their Creator trusted them this much.

They ought to feel happy to have such a Creator.

Zhu Yan’s face was slightly red. Only now did he realize that he had overcomplicated everything in his mind, to the point where he’d even done the very thing he hated and was most unwilling to do.

And in reality, all they needed to do was praise their Creator a little, then tell him, “See? There won’t be any problems.” That alone was enough.

“If the Creator is like this, then once he runs into someone who truly means to deceive him, he’ll definitely…” Zhu Yan couldn’t help but start to worry.

“He won’t.” Yuan Zhiran’s laughter faded a little, and at last there was a gentleness on his face. “Back then, we couldn’t protect him. But now, wherever and whenever, we’re using everything we have to protect our Creator.”

Zhu Yan understood Yuan Zhiran’s words very clearly. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly and fully, calming the strange feeling in his heart bit by bit.

He walked back to the cabinet that held the test tubes, standing there with a complicated expression as he looked inside.

“You’d better destroy all of these things.” Yuan Zhiran stayed leaning on the windowsill, as if he had no intention of coming back inside. “If the Creator finds out what these are, he’ll be angry.”

Zhu Yan didn’t say anything.

Yuan Zhiran turned around and left. Since there was nothing else to do, there was no need for him to stay here sharing a room with Zhu Yan, with whom he didn’t get along. He had to hurry back to the Armed Forces Department.

He Fang never expected that his NPCs would keep saying how great his city was.

It was such a scene of harmony and joy!

After all, according to the algorithm of “Ruins Without Restart”, if something truly major happened, his NPCs would definitely react and come report it to him. The information circulating online was basically all about the single-player version of “Ruins Without Restart”, and shouldn’t have any inevitable connection with the online version of “Ruins Without Restart” being launched. Rather than believing these meaningless speculations, He Fang felt that the ones he should trust most were his own NPCs.

After looking around and finding things out, He Fang felt even more that his worries were unnecessary. If he didn’t trust what he had created, then who else would?

He Fang suddenly felt at ease. And once he was at ease, sleepiness came over him at once. So he simply logged off, then went to the video he’d posted before and pinned a comment, writing about his thoughts and insights on this matter. Then, he just went straight to sleep.

At that moment, when everyone in the main city saw this pinned message, they were all deeply moved one by one.

“Trust the judgment of your NPCs”, “Integrate yourself into this world”, “Be careful, but also be bold”. These words were practically like a love letter from their Creator to everyone in the main city!

Some people even got a bit carried away, secretly printing it out, carefully framing it, and putting it somewhere in their rooms where it wouldn’t be discovered. And in the time while He Fang was sleeping, the entire residents’ happiness level was lifted by yet another notch!

——

When He Fang logged back in again, he suddenly saw that the happiness level of the main city’s residents had risen even higher. It once again proved that his suspicion had been nothing but a misunderstanding. He Fang also felt that judging “Ruins Without Restart” by its mere two hundred thousand population was far too narrow-minded of the official side. After all, since the developers had created such a powerful intelligent generation system, forcibly adding a city-destroying factor would just be superfluous. Anyone capable of making such a good game surely wouldn’t overlook something like that.

Right now, the main city is very stable, and Hope City and Angel City are developing well. The two combat cities stationed far from his city were also in a very stable state, proving that the entire Hope City situation was secure and worry-free.

The search teams He Fang had sent out and the mercenaries spreading information about Hope City were all steadily laying the groundwork for Hope City in other mobile cities.

What Hope City was like right now, of course, was under probing from all sides. But because of the war with Ao City and the current peace treaty with Ao City, Hope City, for the time being, couldn’t be so easily coveted.

Generally speaking, once it was confirmed to be fully stable, He Fang would start considering expansion. But in reality, Hope City and Angel City had already expanded several times.

The population of Angel City was relatively fixed. Hope City, however, had absorbed Arrival City and gathered back all the people who had once left Hope City, so in fact, Hope City’s space was not quite enough anymore. To keep supply and demand balanced, they needed at least to open up enough farmland and farms, make full use of nearby water sources and mines, and even the “Land of Hope” had already begun to be used as part of Hope City.

Moreover, because many people from the main city had moved to Angel City and Hope City, along with the constant trickle of small groups and lone wanderers, and even many mercenaries who wanted to settle down, the combined population of these two cities was already close to two million, enough to count as a large city.

Although it couldn’t be called a super-large city, its development was extremely rapid, and its scale was huge. Since in the post-apocalyptic world, there was no longer any concept of land ownership. The two cities developed much faster than the main city. What’s more, Hope City had even started to show signs of an internal drive to compete and thrive, while Angel City, thanks to its population boom, rising resident wealth, and a flourishing entertainment industry, was developing even faster.

At times like this, He Fang’s private treasury was already very well filled.

He Fang wanted to expand further, but he didn’t plan to expand the main city; instead, he was starting to plan for the wild lands.

Since he intended to expand, he would once again need more people. With funding steadily increasing, He Fang felt he could start considering his original plans.

For example, building an airport.

But that was very difficult, because between mobile cities, there were peace treaties. Under those treaties, using aircraft without permission was forbidden. This was a rule that had to be followed in the post-apocalyptic world, partly to prevent Nightmare Beasts from entering the cities from the air. Most animals capable of flight couldn’t survive long once parasitized by Nightmare Beast seeds. But artificial machines were another matter entirely.

If he wanted to open up ground routes, for example, tracks, that would also be very difficult, because the movement of mobile cities was completely irregular. If a massive mobile city were to destroy the tracks or block their path, it would be a loss outweighing any gain for him.

Because of the research institute’s work on aircraft, in some other cities, flying vehicles had already replaced ground vehicles. After all, cars would shake and bump over the uneven ground, but small aircraft could avoid this very well.

Using small aircraft, it would be possible to handle transport and other needs. But no matter how close to the ground they flew, there were still countless factors to consider, and their speed was far from matching that of proper airplanes.

Still, if he just temporarily used a bus terminal to replace an airport, that actually wouldn’t be completely impossible. After all, there were the energy blocks Zhu Yan had been developing. But there was another issue: how to get other mobile cities to recognize and accept his bus terminal.

He Fang felt that his whole plan simply couldn’t be realized. There was no opening for it.

It wasn’t as if he could do what he did before: directly attack a city and then absorb it in.

Feeling completely at a loss, He Fang opened up the system map. To be honest, there was one thing he’d been feeling annoyed about for a long time.

This place bothered He Fang to no end.

And that was: far away from them, there was an orange mission!

This orange mission had never disappeared!

When He Fang was worrying about whether the main city would suffer a disaster, that’s when it appeared. At the time, he hadn’t been in the mood to deal with it. But now that he was sure everything was fine, it was practically driving him crazy.

But this mission was just too far away. It was in the opposite direction from Ao City’s sphere of control.

He Fang’s main city was right in the center of the entire map, while Hope City, Angel City, and the Ao City he’d developed were all to the west. But this mission was to the north, northeast! There was no He Fang presence in that direction at all, and he’d have to pass through quite a few other mobile cities on the way.

Calculating the straight-line distance using a small aircraft, at full single-thread speed, it would take about half a month, which sounded pretty manageable. But no one knew what this orange mission entailed. If he went all the way there, would he end up needing to stay in touch with the main city again? Or what if, in the end, the other side wanted to merge into Hope City? Then, at the speed of a mobile city, that would probably take at least three months!

On top of that, for some reason, there were many other cities clustered close to this one. If he went directly, it would be impossible to avoid contact with other mobile cities.

So many details. If only there were an airport, if only there were an airport!

Staring at the system map, He Fang felt like he was going bald from the stress. How could any player turn down an orange mission? Impossible! No player would ever refuse an orange mission, much less He Fang, who even did all the normal missions!

Lying helplessly on his desk, He Fang racked his brain for any way to reach the orange mission directly.

But then, hearing He Fang’s muttering, Zhu Yan, who had been buried in his energy block research all this time, barely lifting his head, suddenly said, “Then why not try using a locator?”

He Fang jolted upright at once, sitting up straight, eyes wide as he stared at Zhu Yan.

Zhu Yan stiffened under that look. He gave up on the experiment completely. Beside their Creator, he couldn’t focus on anything at all. Part of his mind was always uncontrollably pulled toward their Creator.

“With your tech, you can easily locate any city and contact them, right?” He Fang asked.

“Yes.” Zhu Yan had always scoffed at this world’s so-called network positioning defenses.

He Fang suddenly felt that whenever there was a problem, just go straight to the NPCs.

“Then help me get in touch.” He Fang sent a copy of his system map to Zhu Yan. Even if it couldn’t monitor things in real time, just knowing the rough location was enough.

“Alright.” Zhu Yan glanced at it and guessed that there must be something important in that direction.

An orange mission. According to “Ruins Without Restart” mission classification, an orange mission was an influence mission, just like Shen Houyun’s purple mission back then. It would definitely bring about some major changes.

Even if it was the lowest level and just adding population, that purple mission had brought him nearly 350,000 people. So an orange mission would surely start at a million at least. Who could resist that?

He Fang followed behind Zhu Yan like a little tail.

“Aren’t we going out?” He Fang asked in confusion when he saw that Zhu Yan wasn’t heading out with him but instead went into another room.

“No need. To make it easier to control the locators, I’ve transferred all the control permissions for Hope City’s and Angel City’s locators over here. We can operate them right here,” Zhu Yan said as he led He Fang into a small room.

The locators for Angel City and Hope City were spherical devices, but here, He Fang felt like he’d stepped into a spaceship control room straight out of a sci-fi movie. He Fang was increasingly convinced that Zhu Yan must’ve watched way too many movies.

Not that it was a bad thing. People needed to have a little hobby.

“Now that we’re better funded, I think maybe we should expand the research institute, too,” He Fang said. This research institute was still the old one from the beginning. Ever since “Ruins Without Restart” launched, what used to be just for show had been put to full use by He Fang. The research facilities here were starting to look a bit underwhelming.

Zhu Yan thought for a moment and said, “I think we should. Not only should we build upward, but we should also add underground levels.”

He Fang nodded blankly.

“Although Ao City didn’t have anything particularly special, it did have a lot of interesting instruments. I need every research site to have one of each,” Zhu Yan added.

He Fang nodded obediently.

“I do need to research mechas, but mechas fall under the jurisdiction of the weapons development facility, so ideally, the weapons development facility should be expanded, too.”

He Fang nodded in surprise.

“I’m planning to study intelligent robots, so I’ll need a rather spacious lab. I’ll need a separate one just for that… I think the staff dormitories could double as research spaces, too, I… I…”

He Fang listened, dumbfounded.

After quite a while, seeing that Zhu Yan still seemed to be mentally listing what else had to be improved, He Fang finally stammered, “Uh… um, Zhu Yan, how about this; You write down all your requirements, then discuss them with the other colleagues at the research institute, then submit them to the institute. Once you have a design plan, I’ll… um, I’ll set aside a plot of land just for building a new research institute.”

“That works. This place is too small,” Zhu Yan nodded, agreeing that it was feasible. After all, this was just a tiny facility set up in the middle of the city center.

He Fang hadn’t expected Zhu Yan’s demands for the research institute to be so extensive. It was something he had completely overlooked. He remembered to expand the armed forces department, but forgot all about expanding the research institute. From Zhu Yan’s attitude, it was obvious he’d been holding this in for a long time, waiting for He Fang to bring it up.

Originally, this research institute in He Fang’s little town was just a nominal facility anyway. After all, any real development and research wouldn’t have been done right in the middle of a small town’s city center. This place just kept people with iron rice bowls around to idle away their days. At least… at least before “Ruins Without Restart” went online, hadn’t these NPCs like Zhu Yan also just been idling away their days?

Thankfully, he hadn’t let them go to waste.

“S-sorry about that… I’ve overlooked this all along. If you have any requests, just say them. I’ll make sure you get what you need,” He Fang said. He truly believed that any world needed invention and research, and Zhu Yan covered both fronts. Plus, what he made was genuinely meaningful. He Fang would never be stingy when it came to funding research and design.

“There’s no need to apologize.” Zhu Yan’s fingers curled slightly. He wanted to take off his gloves and gently touch their creator’s soft hair, but this wasn’t appropriate, so he held himself back. “At the very least, we have your attention, City Lord. That’s already important enough for us.”

“Mm.” He Fang thought to himself that Zhu Yan’s requests would probably cost quite a lot. His little private treasury likely wouldn’t be enough, so he’d have to contact Lu Hu to tap into the national treasury.

Zhu Yan moved quickly. In just five minutes, he simply opened the locators for both sides. The locator had both positioning and voice transmission functions, but no video, so He Fang couldn’t see anything.

But He Fang knew that the moment Zhu Yan connected it, he stared eagerly at the big orange mission icon that appeared on the screen. In that instant, He Fang jolted upright.

So it was possible to just sit at home and accept a mission directly!

He Fang suddenly remembered how it had felt when that purple mission had once come rushing toward him. That shock.

“You can speak now, City Lord,” Zhu Yan said.

“Only our two cities can hear this?”

“Yes.” Zhu Yan nodded and stepped aside.

He Fang cleared his throat, then spoke in a clear voice: “Greetings, everyone. I am He Fang, the City Lord of Hope City. May I ask if anyone is willing to speak with me?”

He Fang figured that since they could communicate, surely they could take on the mission, too. What kind of NPCs were they on the other side?

Suddenly, He Fang heard a flurry of commotion from the other end. Then someone spoke up anxiously: “The City Lord of Hope City? Is it the Hope City that, according to legend, is backed by the Mirage?”

He Fang smacked his lips. He had no idea why these people called his main city Mirage, but he knew it was a thing.

“Yes, that’s me,” He Fang replied.

“Y-you… How can you prove that you’re really the City Lord of Hope City?” The voice on the other end was trembling, the words spilling out quickly and with an almost frantic delight. The eagerness from the other side felt so intense that even He Fang found it a bit over the top.

He Fang felt a little awkward. How… how was he supposed to prove that? He didn’t have anything special that could serve as proof.

“Do you know about Hope City’s god?” He Fang asked.

“Yes, yes, the legendary god, the Divine Lord,” the other side answered nervously.

He Fang’s fingers brushed the Divine Lord pendant he always wore around his neck. He opened the input command page: “Our god, the Divine Lord, will descend upon your city and bring forth a miracle.”

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